The Divine Promises Reconsidered (Part 5 of 4)

Representation of The Serpent in the Garden of Eden

This constitutes the sixth article in our series "The Divine Promises Reconsidered". All too often, the consideration of these Promises is neglected once their "first principle aspect has been understood. Brother Wright has capably revealed some of their rich treasures of wisdom.

Before proceeding further, it becomes expedient to resume our recognition of the fact that ,as a specific party in the fore­told conflict, the serpent was representative of

A Particular Class

that section of humanity which is moti­vated by the thinking of “the carnal mind”. This emphasis is made necessary by the fact that, for a century or more, we have been prone to regard the body of the Son of God, in its sacrificial uplifting, as the antitypical Serpent. This has meant a cross­ing of the lines of identification, with a resultant warped conception of the gospel proclaimed in Eden, and, indeed, of the subject of Atonement itself.

The words addressed by Yahweh Elohim to the subtle beast make it perfectly clear that the ‘enmity’ was to prevail between that “particular class” which he (the serpent) typified and the other class identified with “the Seed of the Woman”. As Dr. Thomas well observed (“Eureka”, vol. III, p. 57) ; “Collectively, the saints or brethren of Christ constitute his woman or spouse ; they are, therefore, styled the Seed of the Woman. This arrangement distributes mankind into two unequal and opposite classes — the Serpent-World and the Woman-Seed ; the former being based upon a lie ; the latter, upon “the Truth”.

In the Edenic proclamation of the Gospel, the Serpent and the Woman’s Seed are antithetically presented. They are, there­fore, not to be confused. The promise was not that the Serpent would bruise himself, nor was it a forecast of serpentine suicide. Dr. Thomas makes the distinction clear in the context of the passage just quoted : “Mankind in whom the truth is not, being the Seed of the Serpent, the flesh of sin is their natural parent. This is “their father, the Devil, whose lusts they do.”

Then let us get the fact firmly established in our minds that the Serpent in Gen. 3. 15 did not represent the Son of God, neither, conversely did “Jesus Christ and him crucified” represent the Serpent. One makes the assertion in full view of what Jesus himself said to Nicodemus regarding the serpent uplifted in the wilderness (John 3. 14). This was a serpent of inert brass, which special peculiarity we shall consider, God willing, at a later stage.

Confusion and error are likely to result when men aspire to be wise beyond what is written. The facts are simple and lucid enough, when we listen to the voice of God Himself. But the grounds for Paul’s misgivings, expressed to his brethren in Corinth, appear not altogether to have vanished : “I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” (2 Cor. 1 1. 3).

Thanks to an all-wise and ever-merciful Father for that implanted ‘enmity’ (an enmity against the serpent-mind), the earth was not to be peopled exclusively with Cains and Jezebels.

The Resistance Movement

initiated by Abel, the federal head and representative of the multitudinous Seed of the Woman, would be brought to its triumphant conclusion by the promised individual Seed himself, whose blood “speaketh better things” (Heb. 12. 24). Although “the weapons of his warfare”- unlike those of the opposing Serpent—were “not carnal”, they were nevertheless “mighty through God” (2 Cor. 10. 4). He “resisted unto blood, striving against sin” (Heb. 12. 4)—and overcame. Yet his blood calls not for vengeance, but rather for mercy and forgiveness—the expressions of divine love and goodness towards all who seek to unite themselves with his saving Name.

The “prepared” and “acceptable” body of sacrifice (Heb. 10. 5 ; Rom. 12. 1) was the incarnation, not of sin, but of righteous­ness. His “betrayers and murderers” (Acts 7. 52)—not himself—provided the counter­part of the Serpent. Bro. Thomas has well written : “Incarnated sin, and incarnated obedience, are the bases of the two hostile kingdoms ; of God, and of the adversary” (‘Elpis Israel”, p. 95).

We feel that readers should have the benefit of the sound reasoning found in Dr. Thomas exposition of “the Great Dragon” -“the Old Serpent” of Rev. 12. 9—as being pertinent to the matter now under notice :

“The only antagonism experienced by sin was established in Judea. There, as we have seen, the first battle was fought, and the first victory won over sin, by the Son of Mary. These were the two combatants—SIN, working in the children of disobedience ; and “THE TRUTH”, in the person of Jesus. Sin bruised him in the heel ; but God healed him of his wound, and so prepared him for the future contest, when he should bruise sin in the head. Now, sin could only have crucified him by the hands of power ; for as this world is a concrete, and not an indigested concourse of abstractions, SIN, which in the abstract “is a transgression of law”, MUST BE INCORPORATE TO BE COMPETENT TO ACT.” (“E.I.” p. 101).

Obviously, “the Son of Mary” was NOT the embodiment of Sin. The corporeal manifestation of Sin was per medium of those “Jews and Gentiles” who “joined their power, against the Son of God to fight, to mock his name, his life devour.”

Hence the author of “Elpis Israel” cogently continues : “Sin corporeaIized attacked Jesus through the Roman power instigated by the chief priests of Israel. At this crisis, sin was brought to a head, and ready to sting its victim to death. The event was now to happen, which the Lord God predicted, saying to the Serpent, “THOU shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3. 15). No one would be simple enough to suppose that the literal Serpent was to do this ‘in propria persona’. He was, however, to do it, in the sense of his being the instrumental cause of sin ; which, through those that should afterwards obey it, should inflict a violent death upon the son of the woman. Hence, the Roman power, which put Jesus to death (for the Jews had no power to do it) REPRESENTED THE SERPENT in the transaction.” (p. 101).

Surely none will dispute any of the steps in the doctor’s exegesis here. Jesus of Nazareth and “the Roman power” could not both “represent the Serpent in the transaction’s. To contend otherwise would be to make mockery of the terms in which the Edenic promise was couched. Yet for a hundred years we have allowed a doctrine which is clearly “off the beam” of Truth to wreck the beauty and grandeur of brother­hood. Our reference is to the false and mischievous teaching, still extant, that the son of Mary, in his immolation on Calvary, was Himself the representative of the Ser­pent power of sin.

The following solemn declaration actually occurs in our literature : “When Jesus hung upon the Cross, it was then that the devil was destroyed ; that is, that the devil hung there, dead.” To say the least, it is not only an outrage, but an insult to the intelligence of enlightened minds to ask them to regard Christ and the devil as equivalents. Such clumsy asseverations have triggered the needless charge (by those without) that “Christadelphians teach that when Jesus was impaled on the cross, that was the devil crucified”. This erroneous and pernicious notion has not only given the stranger cause for cavil, but within the household itself has left a desolate trail of wreckage and ruin extending over many sad and dreary years.

The unfortunate error, and its disastrous consequences, could — and would — have been avoided by a closer and more attentive study of the divine promise, and of its pro­gressive and still continuing implementation, as unfolded in both sacred and secular history.

The above observations are made only in the interests of Truth, and with the earnest desire to assist in the promotion of its triumph.

‘The Old Serpent’

The Serpent has now held sway for six milleniums of time. Yet, thanks be unto Yahweh, he has been challenged and signally defeated, though not as yet finally destroy­ed. Nevertheless, the defeat itself—exhibited in the personal victory of Jesus Anointed—is the earnest of a destruction as certain and complete as the passing of tonight’s darkness.

When the Serpent bruised the heel of the Woman’s son and sealed his sepulchre, in the vain hope that it had for ever disposed of him, it was already four thousand years old. So that when “he that liveth and was dead” (Rev. 1. 18) vouchsafed to his faith­ful servant in Patmos that dramatic, though dreadful yet magnificent, prophetic panorama of the continuing struggle between “Babylon” and “Zion”—including the rewarding and stirring vision of Great Babylon’s final and complete annihilation—he could aptly designate the adversary of Yahweh’s people as “the old Serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world” (Apoc. 12. 9).

Its infamous record of lawlessness and depravity, devastation and misery, of suf­fering and death, is traceable back through the mists of time, through the history of the kingdoms of men, to Nimrod, the founder of human political power (Gen. 10. 9, 10) and grandson of Ham, who himself had been saved from that awful destruction which befell “the world of the ungodly” of his day. It reaches of course, even further. From its brief victory at Golgotha, the dark history of the “old” Serpent extends in both directions—backwards to Eden and forward to the coming day of its final destruction at the hands of Christ and his brethren. Writing of the period when “the Roman power”—the Serpent in action—”put Jesus to death”, Dr. Thomas remarks : “As Sin had been working in the children of disobedience for 4,000 years ; and mani­festing itself in the Ninevite, Assyrian, Chaldean, Persian, and Macedonian empires, whose power was at length absorbed into the Roman, the last came to be symbolised as “the old Serpent”. When the woman’s seed rose from among the dead, and ‘led captivity captive’, the war upon the Old Serpent began in good earnest.” (“EA.” p. 1 02 ).

In his masterly exposition of this very subject—”The Old Serpent”—Dr. Thomas in “Eureka” Vol. iii (p. 48 onwards) traces the course of its history from Eden, through the kingdoms of men, to Calvary, and then beyond to its eventual extermination. We earnestly commend this to the study of our readers. We supply a few brief excerpts which may prompt further attention.

“The apocalypse prefigures the conflict between ‘the Seed of the Woman’ and the Serpent, for the sovereignty of the world—Gen. 3. 15.” . . . “Human power enthroned upon the seven mount­ains, and exercising authority over the whole habitable—imperial human power—is apocalyptic­ally styled ‘the Old Serpent’—the Serpent which was in the beginning.” . . . “If the Pago-Roman Dragon Power be the Old Serpent, did that power exist in the days of the serpent that tempted Eve ? To this question the answer is, it did unquestionably exist. The testimony before us bears witness to the fact”. (i.e. Rev. 12. 9). “It is there styled ‘archaios’, which signifies, not only old,ancient ; but primeval, from the beginning, original. The Roman Dragon was the original serpent power. This is not to be disputed.”

“The reader will bear in mind that we are treating of a power styled ‘the old Serpent’, not of the reptile styled ‘nahkash’, which Moses says ‘was more sagacious than any beast of the field, which Yahweh Elohim had made.’ The animal was not the power, but only the type of it.”

“In after times, far distant from the beginning, the serpent-world acquired an immense develop­ment. From two persons it had increased to myriads of millions ; and without specifying the outlying savages of the dominion, is treated of in Scripture as ‘the kingdom of Egypt ;’ which, in the days of Moses, had attained great political proportions—a kingdom of kingdoms. It was ‘the dragon, the old serpent’, of his day—the great enemy and bruiser of the woman’ seed, who sought their extirpation from the earth. This was the political relation of things then. The ‘Woman’s Seed’ was identified with Israel ; the ‘Serpent’s Seed’, with all that had enmity against, or oppressed, them ; while the ‘Head of the Serpent’, styled in the sentence upon the serpent ‘thy head’, is that chief government of the Gentiles, or nations, which directs, controls, or influences the policy of the world for the time being.” (“Eureka”, vol.p. 59).

From Sodom and Egypt “the crooked Serpent”—variously alluded to at various stages of its history as “Leviathan”, “Dragon”, “Devil” and “Satan”–crept to Jerusalem in A.D. 33, where it accomplished its vilest work, and still continues its tortuous and sanguinary course.