Who is the serpent of Genesis 3?

Table of Contents

• Suggestions on who the serpent is
• What the bible says:
• POPULAR VIEW:
• CONFLICTS
• WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS:
• SUGGESTED EXPANATION 1
• SUGGESTED EXPLANATION II

Who or what is the serpent in Genesis 3? Is it an ordinary animal or a supernatural being?

Suggestions on who the serpent is

• The serpent is literally the Satan and the devil of the bible
• The said author of evil and chief of the demons deceived Eve through the serpent
• The book of Revelation narrates the pre-historic / Pre-Edenic fall of Satan

What the bible says:

1. The Greek word ‘Ophis’ for serpent used in Rev 20:2 is also used in 2Cor. 11:3 and therefore must be identified with the serpent of Genesis.

• The event of the apocalypse, whichever way we look at it is a revelation of “things which must shortly come to pass” from the time of writing of the book (Rev 1:1) and not some pre-historic event.
• The same book of Revelation dealt primarily with the evil system of Daniel’s fourth beast/Empire. It is symbolically (and not literally) associated with the serpent of Genesis.
• The serpent itself was a natural, mortal and literal animal as accurately described in the Bible (Gen 3:1). It bore the 100% of the consequence of its action, a proof that no supernatural being possessed it.
• Since the great deception in Eden, the serpent (the author of lies), has been figuratively used as the representation of the sinful flesh in all it manifestation or the devil see Gen 3:15; John 8:44; Ps 140:2,3; 2Cor 11:3; Rev 12:9; 20:2

1. Genesis 6 – “the sons of God took wives among the daughters of men”

POPULAR VIEW:

A lot of religious denominations teach that

• the sons of God of Gen 6 are divine immortal angels
• This angels lusted after the beautiful daughters of men and slept with them
• The untranslated Hebrew word ‘Nephilim’ in the R.V or ‘Giants’ in English are the half man-half spirit offsprings, of this union (Gen 6:4)
• After the deluge, the immortal souls of these Giants went about causing diseases and tempting people as demons or messengers of Satan.
• Plus several other superstitious beliefs

CONFLICTS

• If the sinful angels led by Satan as taught by the mainstream Christianity had already fallen down from heaven before the creation of man, shall we take the events of Gen. 6 as another fall, the second fall or a pre-Edenic fall?
• If Jude 1:6 really supports this Christendom myth, how could those angels that were said to be “reserved in everlasting chain under darkness unto Judgment of the great day”, still roam about freely as demons causing sicknesses and all known form of evil?
• How could the Almighty God, who dwells in an un-approachable light and “of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on iniquity” (Hab. 1:13), dwell with divine ‘sinful’ beings who could be easily seduced by the beauty of mortal women?
• Why did it grieve God for creating man and God never repented of creating his angels? Why did all men bear the punishment except Noah and his family if it was largely the angels’ fault? Why?!

WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS:

1. We know much about the divine angels, at least from the

Beginning. The messiah’s words alone in Matt. 22:29, 30 disproves any foreign idea about the angels. “Ye err!” says Christ, “not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection, they neither marry, nor are giving to marriage but are as the angels of God in heaven.”

Another conflict that I never wanted to mention earlier on is that if the immortal believers after the resurrection will be like the angels, and the Christendom teaches that the angels can be sinful, then it means that many immortal saints will still be sinning in the kingdom and that Christ’s work of destroying sin has not been effective at all. We know how false this myth is for in the kingdom, the saints shall be sinless.

• All through the Bible, there in only 2 kinds of nature, they are the

Immortal/spiritual/divine/sinless/angelic and the mortal/carnal/fleshy/sinful/human nature. We only sin because we belong to the later class. The former cannot sin “The first man in the earth, earthy: the second man is Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as in the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” 1Cor 15:47, 48

SUGGESTED EXPANATION 1

1. The Hebrew word for God; Elohim (#430) is also translated Judges. Judges, referring to Human rulers especially when there is no central king. For example in Exod. 22:8 “if the thing be not found, then the master of the house shall be brought unto the Judges (Elohim), to see whether he have put his hand unto his neighbour’s goods.”  So with that rendition, we can make the text of Genesis 6:2 read:

“And the sons of (the) Judges saw the daughters of men that they were fair…”

If these Elohim or mighty ones be human judges, then they and their sons must have a high reputation of being God fearing and strong. Therefore their union with the daughters of men yielded seeds that were ‘mighty men which were of old, men of renown’ and of course giants like the Anakims. 

If these be true, then the sons of the judges who were heirs and supposed to maintain the righteous standard of their ancestors married the daughters of men and in effect later became corrupt rulers. Thus the whole world was filled with evil hearts.

SUGGESTED EXPLANATION II

1. The former explanation you have seen is new, but the one about to be set forth here have answered the question satisfactorily for many centuries. The ‘son of God’ are the godly line of Seth for after his birth, ‘men began to call upon the name of Yahweh’ Gen 4:26
2. The progenitors of the ‘daughters of men’ then must have been the remaining class of people on earth then: the vagabond sons of Cain. Genesis 4 and Genesis 8 have the genealogy of these 2 lines.
3. There is nothing superstitious about Gen. 6 for the righteous line or Sons of God must have intermarried the daughters of men making themselves as idolatrous as Solomon was when he married foreign wives.
4. These children were noted for being huge and tall or giants. There is nothing strange about it, after all giants were common ‘in the earth in those days’ as the text states. Also the Hebrew word for giant used here: ‘Nephilim’ also used for ordinary men who were giants in Num 13:31-33, John 15:14. Nephilims were not demons as the Christendom’s teaching suggests.