The cardinal rule in understanding Scripture, and especially those verses which may be something of a puzzle, is to interpret Scripture by Scripture, that is, to see what other verses have to say on the same subject.
So what is there in the rest of the Bible that may help us to identify this serpent?
What Jesus said
On one occasion Jesus said to some Pharisees who were trying to kill him,
‘You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.’ (John 8:44).
To what event, involving lying and murder, from the beginning, could Jesus have been referring?
The temptation of Eve certainly qualifies as being in the beginning, as it is the first recorded event involving Eve after her creation. The serpent lied to Eve when he said, ‘You shall not surely die,’ and as this is the first lie recorded in Scripture, the title ‘father of it ’ [‘it’ = lies or lying] would seem to be a very apt description of the person doing the lying on this occasion.
Eighteenth century Bible commentator Matthew Henry comments on the passage,
‘He [Satan] is the great promoter of falsehood of every kind. He is a liar, all his temptations are carried on by his calling evil good, and good evil, and promising freedom in sin.’1
Finally, the serpent’s efforts resulted in the penalty of death falling not only on Adam and Eve, but on the whole human race. Jesus’ term of ‘murderer’ therefore certainly applies to whoever tempted Eve.
The work of the serpent is thus the enactment of everything that Jesus ascribed to ‘the devil ’ in John 8:44. Furthermore, there is no other event in recorded history that better fulfils this description of the devil than does the account of the temptation by the serpent in Genesis 3.
A further tie-up between the serpent of Genesis 3 and Satan, or the devil, is given in Revelation 12:9 and 20:2:
‘And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world’
The word ‘Satan" means ‘adversary’—primarily to God, secondarily to men; the term ‘devil’ signifies ‘slanderer’ of God to men, and of men to God.’2
The serpent identified
Was the serpent then Satan? Although the Bible tells us that ‘Satan himself is transformed into an angel of Light’, or ‘masquerades as an angel of light’ (2 Corinthians 11:14), there are difficulties in assuming that something like this happened in the Garden of Eden. Theologian Henry C. Thiessen comments:
‘… the serpent is neither a figurative description of Satan, nor is it Satan in the form of a serpent. The real serpent was the agent in Satan’s hand. This is evident from the description of the reptile in Genesis 3:1 and the curse pronounced upon it in 3:14 [… upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy Life ].’3
The Bible tells us that, just before Judas left the Upper Room to go and betray Jesus, ‘Satan entered into him’ (John 13:26–27). Likewise demons can, under certain conditions, indwell either human bodies or animal bodies—for example, the time when Jesus cast out a legion of devils from a man, and they then entered a herd of pigs which ran down a steep place into the sea (Mark 5:1–13). It is therefore proper for us to conclude that Satan appropriated and used the body of a specific serpent on this occasion to carry out his subtle purpose of tempting Eve to sin.
It is also clear that the use of euphemisms about the serpent, such as calling him ‘the personification of evil’, or labelling the whole incident ‘myth’ or ‘theological poetry’, will not do. The Bible presents this episode as a personal encounter between Eve and Satan, as real as that between Christ and Satan in the wilderness.
The identification of the serpent as the one whose body Satan used raises further questions, such as does Satan speak audibly?
When Satan tempted Jesus, he did so with words. Jesus replied and their conversation is recorded for us in both Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels (Matthew 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13), although we are not told anything about the way Satan appeared on this occasion.
In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress , the description of Christian’s conversation and fight with Apollyon is no surprise to many Christians, who have had similar spiritual experiences. It is said that Martin Luther found conflict with the devil so real that on one occasion Luther threw an inkwell at him.
Concerning the temptation of Eve, Christian writer and expositor J. Oswald Sanders writes:
‘It has been suggested that just as the speaking of Balaam’s ass was a divine miracle, so the speaking of the serpent was a diabolic miracle.
On one occasion Jesus said to some Pharisees who were trying to kill him,
‘You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.’ (John 8:44).
To what event, involving lying and murder, from the beginning, could Jesus have been referring?
The temptation of Eve certainly qualifies as being in the beginning, as it is the first recorded event involving Eve after her creation. The serpent lied to Eve when he said, ‘You shall not surely die,’ and as this is the first lie recorded in Scripture, the title ‘father of it ’ [‘it’ = lies or lying] would seem to be a very apt description of the person doing the lying on this occasion.
Eighteenth century Bible commentator Matthew Henry comments on the passage,
‘He [Satan] is the great promoter of falsehood of every kind. He is a liar, all his temptations are carried on by his calling evil good, and good evil, and promising freedom in sin.’1
Finally, the serpent’s efforts resulted in the penalty of death falling not only on Adam and Eve, but on the whole human race. Jesus’ term of ‘murderer’ therefore certainly applies to whoever tempted Eve.
The work of the serpent is thus the enactment of everything that Jesus ascribed to ‘the devil ’ in John 8:44. Furthermore, there is no other event in recorded history that better fulfils this description of the devil than does the account of the temptation by the serpent in Genesis 3.
A further tie-up between the serpent of Genesis 3 and Satan, or the devil, is given in Revelation 12:9 and 20:2:
‘And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world’
The word ‘Satan" means ‘adversary’—primarily to God, secondarily to men; the term ‘devil’ signifies ‘slanderer’ of God to men, and of men to God.’2
The serpent identified
Was the serpent then Satan? Although the Bible tells us that ‘Satan himself is transformed into an angel of Light’, or ‘masquerades as an angel of light’ (2 Corinthians 11:14), there are difficulties in assuming that something like this happened in the Garden of Eden. Theologian Henry C. Thiessen comments:
‘… the serpent is neither a figurative description of Satan, nor is it Satan in the form of a serpent. The real serpent was the agent in Satan’s hand. This is evident from the description of the reptile in Genesis 3:1 and the curse pronounced upon it in 3:14 [… upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy Life ].’3
The Bible tells us that, just before Judas left the Upper Room to go and betray Jesus, ‘Satan entered into him’ (John 13:26–27). Likewise demons can, under certain conditions, indwell either human bodies or animal bodies—for example, the time when Jesus cast out a legion of devils from a man, and they then entered a herd of pigs which ran down a steep place into the sea (Mark 5:1–13). It is therefore proper for us to conclude that Satan appropriated and used the body of a specific serpent on this occasion to carry out his subtle purpose of tempting Eve to sin.
It is also clear that the use of euphemisms about the serpent, such as calling him ‘the personification of evil’, or labelling the whole incident ‘myth’ or ‘theological poetry’, will not do. The Bible presents this episode as a personal encounter between Eve and Satan, as real as that between Christ and Satan in the wilderness.
The identification of the serpent as the one whose body Satan used raises further questions, such as does Satan speak audibly?
When Satan tempted Jesus, he did so with words. Jesus replied and their conversation is recorded for us in both Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels (Matthew 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13), although we are not told anything about the way Satan appeared on this occasion.
In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress , the description of Christian’s conversation and fight with Apollyon is no surprise to many Christians, who have had similar spiritual experiences. It is said that Martin Luther found conflict with the devil so real that on one occasion Luther threw an inkwell at him.
Concerning the temptation of Eve, Christian writer and expositor J. Oswald Sanders writes:
‘It has been suggested that just as the speaking of Balaam’s ass was a divine miracle, so the speaking of the serpent was a diabolic miracle.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.