Was Satan the serpent in Genesis chapter 3?

It is to be noticed that, when the enemy assails our first parents, he is left in mysterious obscurity. Yet no believer, no serious mind, can doubt, that under the form of a serpent, Satan was at work to deceive and destroy, whatever the misused ingenuity of unbelief may reason to confuse the unwary and credulous. To the first book of the O. T. the last book of the N. T. answers here as elsewhere with singular force, and identifies him from first to last as "the old serpent, that is called Devil (slanderer) and Satan" (the adversary), Rev. 12:9, Rev. 20:2. Nor are we left to this symbolic prophecy alone; for the apostle Paul, in 2 Cor. 11:3, had given no uncertain sound about this evil one long before. If the serpent lured man into his lie against God, grace revealed the woman's Seed, bruised indeed yet bruising the head of the enemy, the Deliverer not only of all that believe but of all creation also (Rom. 8). The Second man will surely triumph.

A. Surely Revelation 12:9, Revelation 20:1, with 2 Corinthians 11:3, are ample to decide this question. Satan availed himself of that subtle animal, not yet reduced to its humiliating condition.

First, then, as to the instrument in the temptation, Scripture leaves us in no possible doubt that the one who used in this case the actual serpent was the one whom we too familiarly recognize as the leader in a previous irremediable fall — the fall of the angels. Thus he is called "a liar from the beginning," and "a murderer" "that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan."

The use of the serpent here is noteworthy in another way from that in which it is generally taken. No doubt in the fact that it was "more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made" lay the secret of his selection of it. But why appear under such a form at all? For myself, I cannot but connect it with the fact that Adam had before named every creature, and found no helpmeet for him among them all. If evil, then, would approach, it was not permitted to do so save only under the form of one of these essentially inferior creatures, refused already as having help for man. It was a divine limit to the temptation itself. Man listening to the voice of a creature over whom he was to have dominion, and in whom there was recognized to be no help for him, was in fact man resigning his place of supremacy to the beast itself. In all this, not merely the coming of the enemy, but the mercy of God also, may be surely seen.

Scripture leaves not the slightest doubt as to who the tempter was, although here again there is a vail which only the New Testament fully removes. Revelation (Rev. 12:9; Rev. 20:2) is explicit: "The ancient serpent" is "the devil and Satan." That he was not permitted to come in his own angelic form was clearly a lessening of the temptation, and still more his coming in bestial form. Adam had looked over all the beast-creation, and found no help for him in any. How great was his sin, and what renunciation of his higher place, then, in listening to a beast!

The curse upon the serpent had (and has) plainly its expression outwardly, while, as plainly, this only symbolizes the deeper reality. How this and similar things which the Word of God abundantly declares should open our eyes to this language of nature, and enable us to read upon its face the truths of revelation! See the affirmation of this curse in Isaiah (Isa. 65:25), "Dust shall be the serpent's meat."

The serpent is introduced to us without any explanation as to the power working in and through him. From verse 1 we gather that he was amongst the beasts of the field that God had made, and that he was "more subtil," — of a higher order of intelligence — than any other, so that when energized by a higher power, speech was a possibility. The whole serpent tribe, as we know it today, is in a state of great degradation, as verse 14 of our chapter would lead us to expect. As originally created it stood at the head of the animal world, which had been made subject to Adam.

As far as our chapter is concerned, then, it is just the serpent, the visible agent of the mischief, that is mentioned. So also, in 2 Corinthians 11:3 we read, "the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty." It is not until we reach the last book of the Bible that we get the clearest identification of the serpent with the unseen actor working through it. There twice over in almost identical words do we get, "that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan" (Rev. 12:9; 20:2). He is the originator and instigator of that fearful thing, sin, which has invaded this fair creation. Let us mark how he did it.

His first move was to throw doubt on the Word of God. Very little as yet had been revealed, but on one point God had spoken clearly and decisively. The serpent questioned that revelation, distorting what God had said while he questioned it, so as to make his insinuation of doubt more plausible. Moreover he addressed himself, not to the man who was primarily responsible, but to the woman. Of the two links in the human chain she was the weaker, and the adversary struck just there.

When this earth was ready for man's creation and residence, sin was already in God's universe. Here was Satan's chance to oppose God. He approached our first parents under the guise of a serpent. We have Scripture warrant for identifying the serpent in the narrative as Satan. We read:

"And the great Dragon was cast out, that old Serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole earth" (Rev. 12:9). "And he laid hold on the Dragon, that old Serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years" (Rev. 20:2). "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. 11:3).

The tempter, this serpent that was "more subtil than any beast of the field," was the devil. This is directly told us. Rev. 12:9; Rev. 20:2. And the scene around us to this hour tells of his victory. "The present evil world," whether in its moral condition or in its circumstances, we get in Genesis 3. And we might have expected this; for the world as it now is has derived itself out of the apostasy of Adam; its character and condition are formed by that great act of rebellion.

66 The devil came hiding himself in that serpent, using it as an instrument of mischief.

Another actor is now introduced, the adversary of God. His person and his history are not revealed here. The last book of the Bible speaks of him as "the great dragon, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan" (Rev. 12:9). Our Lord called him "the murderer from the beginning and "the father of lies." He used a creature of the field to deceive the woman and to ruin the restored creation by the introduction of sin; the word "serpent" is in the Hebrew "nachash," which means "a shining one." It is evident that this creature was not then a reptile like the serpent of today. The curse put the serpent into the dust. This creature Satan possessed and perhaps made still more beautiful so as to be of great attraction to the woman. He transformed himself in this subtle way, "The serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety" (2 Cor. 11:3), "And no marvel; for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light" (2 Cor. 11:14). Of this marvellous being having access to the garden of Eden we read in Ezekiel 28:13.

Gen. 3 shows how man fell through the woman by the wiles of a mysterious foe who availed himself of the serpent as medium, and so acquired to the end the title of "the old serpent, who is the Devil and Satan" (Rev. 20:2). The design here required the same divine designation as in the chapter before, the form of which is all the more apparent from the omission of Jehovah by the serpent and by the woman parleying with the tempter (1-5). But the solemn sentence of death was not passed on the head of the race, now knowing good and evil, without a previous curse on the serpent, wherein was intimated the blessed assurance of the woman's Seed, bruised in heel, to bruise the enemy's head. Coats of skins were given to the guilty pair, who knew themselves not the less naked for their fig-leaf aprons. The divine covering for sinners had its source in death; it was grace, but in righteousness.