The Serpent and the Lamb

The Serpent and the Lamb

Adam and Eve in the garden listened to the lies of Satan and instead of trusting that God loved them, and that his commandments were for their own good, they decided God was holding out on them and did not want them to be happy. They could be as wise as God and decide for themselves what is good vs what is evil. As a result, sin entered the world and with it pain, sorrow, suffering and death.

God however was not caught off guard, but from the beginning God had a plan to redeem us all. Genesis 3:15 God says to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed, he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Fast forward to the book of Exodus when God led his people out of slavery in Egypt. The tenth plague God told Pharoah that unless He let his people go, God would take the life of every 1^st born son in Egypt. He provided however a way for his people to be saved from death. They were to paint the door frame to there home with the blood of a lamb, and if they did, the blood would be a sign to God to grant mercy and Passover that house and not bring death.

I heard a clip about D.A. Carson speaking on Passover. He said imagine there were 2 Fathers talking together before the 1^st Passover.

The first man says to the other man, what do you think of what Moses said about painting the door to our homes with the blood of a lamb so the angel of death will not take the life of our first-born son? The 2^nd man said, I think it all sounds strange and crazy, and do not understand it. I have doubts if an angel of death is going to come. However, I have only a single child, my son, and I want to ensure if this is true, He will not die, so I am going to do it, even though I am not sure this event will really happen. He asked the first man, what do you think? The first man said I stand on the promises of God, If God said it, it must be true, I have 0 doubt the angel of death will come tonight, and we need to do this.

So then, D.A. Carson asked, which of these 2 homes did the Angel of Death Passover? The answer of course is the Angel passed over both houses, as it is not about the size of your faith, but about the object of your faith. God is faithful to honor his promises even when our faith is small. I personally find that very comforting.

In a later passage in Numbers 21 vs 5 to 9, After God has delivered his people out of slavery in Egypt, and provided food and water and met their needs, still the people began to grumble to accuse Moses and God of leading them away to die and they would have been better off to remain slaves in Egypt. In answer to this brewing rebellion, God sent into their midst poisonous snakes he allowed to bite them. The tone of the people towards Moses changed from arrogance to humility and they begged Moses to intervene with God to save them. God then instructed Moses to craft the image of a snake and place it on a wooden pole. Anyone that looked upon the image of the snake raised up on the pole would be saved. This is such an odd passage in the old testament, that I am sure it was confusing as to the symbolism God was communicating here other than trust in God was vital to salvation. We, however, have the rest of the picture revealed in the New Testament.

If there is a verse in the bible that most people have heard of regardless if Christian, Atheist, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. I would think that verse would be:

 John 3:16. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

That verse is written on many shirts seen at football games, etc. What people are not familiar with, even most Christians, are the 2 verses that come before it.

John 3:14 refers back to when Moses lifted up the image of the snake, and verse 15 then tells us that Jesus was likewise lifted up on a wooden cross and then verse 16 says if We look to Jesus on the cross and believe we needed what Jesus did to save us from our slavery to sin, then we will be saved. These 2 symbols taken together show us that the serpents poison is undone by the blood Jesus shed on the cross for us.

Did you know that of all the animals out there, sheep are the best animals to use to create anti-venom to neutralize the poison of a snake bite? In the past they used horses since horses were larger and could produce a larger amount of antibodies to use, but they found humans had allergic reactions when a horse’s blood was used. We do not have those same allergic reactions when the blood of lambs is used.

Now, unlike the 30 second You Tube clip had led me to believe, a lamb’s blood is not naturally an antidote to a snake’s poison. Instead, to develop anti-venoms a lamb is injected over, and over, and over again with the poison of a snake, and as a result they build up antibodies that counteract the poison, and these antibodies are extracted from the blood to make antivenom.

In the same way, Jesus’s blood was not naturally a cure for the serpent in the gardens poison we have all been infected with and the resulting slavery to sin and death we each face. Instead, we read the Lamb of God had to be struck repeatedly and suffer for Jesus’ blood to have the power to save us.

Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. 4 Surely he took our pain and bore our suffering yet we considered him punished by God, stricken and afflicted 5 but he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brough us peace was on him and by is stripes we are healed.

The serpent did indeed strike at Jesus heal: when Jesus was mocked, spat on, the beard ripped off his face, when he was punched in his face, when we was whipped and pottery shards tore the flesh off his back, and then when he was hung up naked to shame Him, but with each poisonous strike of the serpent, the power of the lambs blood to counteract the poison of the serpent and to free us from our slavery to sin and death grew stronger and stronger until the final event when Jesus rose back from the dead and crushed the head of the serpent once and for all. 

No longer can our accuser Satan have power over us, as thanks to Jesus, if we simply look to the cross at what Jesus did, and trust in Jesus’ righteousness rather than our own, then we become adopted, forgiven children of our Heavenly Father, loved beyond measure by our God who always planned to do whatever He could to save us. The blood of the lamb is indeed far more powerful than the poison of the serpent. 

May you each appreciate the love God has so well demonstrated to you, and in turn no matter what life brings your way, may you find the great blessing of relationship with Jesus who loves you like no other, and in whose blood and righteousness holds the only true hope this world has ever seen to save us all.