The Messiah and His Miracles (Continued)

AUTHENTICATING MIRACLES IN THE SYNOPTICS



PROLOGUE TO THE FIRST ATTESTING SIGN – THE SERPENT IN SUBJECTION

As Pharaoh had Israel in bondage in Egypt, so the Devil held Israel captive in the land of promise. To liberate Israel, Moses had to overcome Pharaoh, the servant of Satan, but in the greater conflict between light and darkness, good and evil, Jesus had to overthrow Satan himself. Therefore, before the public ministry of the Messiah could take place Jesus had to face the evil one in the wilderness. The Bible says He was ‘led’ there to face the Lord of evil. Matthew and Luke give us the most details of the conflict.

In both accounts, the first temptation is the challenge to turn stone into bread. Jesus countered with a quote from the T’nach: “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Luke 4:4; Matt. 4:4)The passage from which the quote was taken is in Deuteronomy, chapter 8. “And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.” Observe the highlighted words. “The Lord … led you … to test you. … He allowed you to hunger, … that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD”. The Messiah, recalling the events of the 40-year wilderness experience of Israel, and comparing them to His 40-day wilderness experience, concluded that in a similar manner the Spirit of God had led him there to test Him. It was God Himself that permitted, nay required Him to be hungry. To yield to the insinuation that He would benefit by stepping outside the revealed will of God would alienate Him from His Father. As the last Adam He would have failed in a similar manner to the first Adam. What Satan did not include in his calculations was the fact that performing the will of God is both physically and spiritually nourishing. Jesus Himself speaks of it at another time when He was again hungry and thirsty, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work” (John 4:34). Since His condition was in the will of God, to seek to alleviate His hunger would put personal comfort above the purposes of God, and equate to disobedience of the command of God. Jesus understood that His experience was not simply the enmity of the Adversary but also a test from God, as to whether He would keep His Father’s commandments, do His Father’s will. The quote from the Torah was enough to close that avenue of temptation.

In the Garden of Eden, the pre-incarnate Christ cast down the serpent, symbolically demonstrating His power over Satan, the ‘cast down’ one. In preparation for the exodus from Egypt, Moses, commissioned by God as Deliverer, re-enacted this same scene and the serpent was again ‘cast down’, re-affirming the continuing power and authority of God over Satan. The ministry of the ‘seed of the woman’ must demonstrate this same power and authority, and climax in the prophesied ‘bruising’ of the serpent’s head. However, the enemy of the Messiah is the Devil, who operates on the principle of ‘deception with a view to destruction’. It was his ‘modus operandi’ in the Garden.

Jesus referred to this element of deception when He said to the Jews, “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do … When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44). We are warned of the “wiles of the devil” (Eph. 6:11). His followers are “deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:13,14).

However, it is deception with a view to destruction. Not only is he the father of lies but also a “murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). He is the Adversary, “a roaring lion” who goes about “seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet.5:8).

It is this deceiver, in the ‘one to one’, ‘face to face’ confrontation with the incarnate God, who attempts to cloud the issue and misdirect the Messiah into taking the position of the one ‘cast down’. Satan took Jesus up a very high mountain, showed Him all the splendour of the kingdoms of the world, and said, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me” (Matt.4:8,9) It was inevitable that Satan would couch this temptation in terms that reflected the cause of his own downfall - personal ambition running counter to the will of God. Here, in the wilderness he tries to recover all lost ground with one throw of the dice. What he had failed to do when he was the mighty, covering cherub, he tried to accomplish when the God that defeated him there was clothed in flesh. Jesus, weak with hunger, with limited resources, refused the offer and put His finger on the crux of the matter: “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve” (Matt.4:10). Jesus rejected the offer of kingdoms, power and glory; and later reminded His followers that, “the kingdom, and the power and the glory” eternally belong to the Father (Matt.6:13).

In the third of the temptations, Satan took Jesus to the top of the tower on the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount, where he challenged Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw (cast) Yourself down. For it is written: He shall give His angels charge over you, and, In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone” (Matt.4:6; Luke 4:9-11). This less than subtle effort was another attempt to get Jesus, Son of God, to occupy the position of the one ‘cast down’. Israel’s Messiah, who must have been meditating on the trials and difficulties of Moses, His Messianic predecessor, responded to the Devil with another quote from Deuteronomy: “You shall not tempt the Lord your God” (Matt.4:7, etc). The full quote is, “You shall not tempt the LORD your God as you tempted Him in Massah.” Massah is the Hebrew word for ‘tempted’, as recorded in Exodus: “so he called the name of the place Massah … because of the contention of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the LORD, saying, Is the LORD among us or not?” (Exod.17:7) Jesus, recalling this episode from the history of the wandering nation, used the quote from the speech of Moses to repulse the temptation, and affirm that God was with Him - a powerful riposte to the conditional challenge, “if You are the Son of God”. James encapsulated the essence of the narrative recorded here when he wrote, “… submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7)

After Satan had left Him, and angels had ministered to Him, He “returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region” (Luke 4:14).

THE FIRST ATTESTING SIGN – THE SERPENT IN SUBJECTION

Luke, who testified that he put his gospel in chronological order, used an event in which Jesus laid out His claim to be Messiah, to introduce the healing of a man with the spirit of an unclean devil. After the conflict with Satan in the wilderness, during which the Devil unsuccessfully tried to make Jesus the ‘cast down’ One, the carpenter’s Son presented Himself to His home congregation as Messiah. When the congregation questioned His authority to make such a claim Jesus sensed their unbelief and responded, “no prophet is accepted in his own country” (Luke 4:24). He followed this statement with two examples of prophets ministering to Gentiles while Israel was in unbelief. Those people who had been fellow citizens of His in Nazareth were filled with a demonic fury and “rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and … led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him down over the cliff” (Luke 4:29). Having failed to manipulate the Messiah into being the ‘cast down’ one, here Satan inspired those that had been His neighbours, His customers, His friends, to enact it. It was another attempt to kill Him before His time and by a method that would reverse the prophecy of God. To bruise Satan’s head, Jesus would have to be the ‘lifted up’ One. The people of Nazareth tried to make Him the ‘cast down’ One. Jesus “passing through the midst of them … went His way” (Luke 4:30). A similar incident took place later in His ministry where He coined the more famous phrase that has now become a proverb: “A prophet is not without honour except in his own country”. To that incident, the writer added the post-script: “He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief” (Matt.13.58).

Rejected in Nazareth, the Messiah travelled to Capernaum, where in the synagogue, a man with the spirit of an unclean devil was troubled at the presence of the One who is stronger that Satan. Jesus commanded the demon, “be quiet and come out of him” (Luke 4:35). With a last defiant flourish, it “cast down” the poor, possessed individual and then left him. This demonstration of Messianic control over Satan amazed everyone in the synagogue who talked of His authority and power.

Lightfoot points out that the phrasing of Scripture at this place is quite significant. The man had “a spirit of an unclean devil”. The Jews made a difference between an unclean spirit and an evil spirit; ‘evil spirit’ being the general term for the demon while ‘unclean spirit’ was the description of a demon that found its element among the tombs and other places that were most unclean. The Gemmara speaks of the necromancer who visits burial places to be better inspired of an unclean spirit. Similarly, they understood those with the spirit of python, or the prophesying spirit to be of the same kind. Here then is the significance of the Messiah’s first recorded exorcism, that it demonstrated the power of the Messiah over Satan, especially Satan seen as the Serpent (the spirit of python), and Satan as an unclean Spirit, who had the power of death and produced in humans the fear of death.

It is clear that the grip of Satan on the population would have to be broken before Israel could be free to accept (or reject) Jesus as their Messiah. The ministry of exorcism, conducted by the Messiah and His disciples, was essential to accomplish this. By the end of this particular day many of those possessed by demons had been healed, their devilish tormentors confessing as they were dismissed: “You are the Messiah, the Son of God” (Luke 4:41). Here is an indicator that demons were compelled to acknowledge the deity of Jesus as well as His Messianic office. These victories over demons were consequent upon the successful stand taken by Jesus in the wilderness, from which He had returned “in the power of the Spirit”.

The gospels also mention individual exorcisms, such as the Gadarene demoniac; and Mary, who had been possessed by seven devils. The one in Luke 4 we have already noted, and then there will be the very important case in Matthew 12 when the Sanhedrists charged Jesus of being a servant to Beelzebub.

Jesus delegated this power over Satan’s domain to His disciples when He sent them out to the towns and villages of Israel: “Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you” (Luke 10:19). They exercised this power in the name of the Messiah. Matthew described the power delegated to the twelve apostles: “And as you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give” (Matt.10:7). The early Church continued this ministry.

Next time: The second attesting miracle

The Messiah and His Miracles (Continued)

We are currently considering those authenicating miracles that a Messianic claimant was required to perform to verify any demand that he be considered Israel's Messiah. The attesting signs were first provided by God to Moses to convince the elders of Israel that he was their deliverer.

THE THIRD PRIMARY ATTESTING SIGN – WATER INTO BLOOD

The first two signs should have been sufficient, (that is mastery over  both the serpent and leprosy), but in the event that the elders asked for another, God provided one more. He said, “then it will be, if they do not believe you, nor heed the message of the first sign, that they may believe the message of the latter sign. And it shall be, if they do not believe even these two signs, or listen to your voice, that you shall take water from the river and pour it on the dry land. The water which you take from the river will become blood on the dry land” (Exod.4:8,9).

Since “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Lev.17:11, NASB), spilt blood means a life taken. The first Biblical reference to blood on the ground is the record of a violent, premature death. The spilt blood of Abel had a voice that called for justice against his murderer: – “And (the LORD) said, What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground” (Gen.4:10). In the last book of the Bible the example is repeated, where the blood of the martyrs call for justice .When Moses poured out water from the Nile, it too became blood on the ground and because of the slaughter of the innocents, when young male Israelite babies were murdered in its waters, its voice also cried to God for justice against Pharaoh. If the elders of Israel will not call for a Deliverer to deal with the Egyptian ruler, then the blood of the innocents will! This truth would not escape Moses since he had himself been abandoned to the Nile.

Furthermore, if the blood were the blood of a sacrifice, then that would be evidence that an animal had died a substitutionary death. This, in fact, is the context of the Leviticus quotation, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood”, for the text continues, “and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement” (Lev.17:11) 

Overcoming death in the book of Genesis

The book of Genesis is the narrative of how death reigned because sin reigned. But in amongst the record of the decease of countless individuals, there are other events that indicate how both physical and spiritual death would, in due course, be conquered. They point to overcoming death by:

(a) substitution – the ram in place of Isaac;

(b) translation – Enoch leaving earth for heaven without dying;

(c) preservation – Noah and his family preserved in the ark when everyone else died;

(d) resurrection – Abraham believed that God would raise his son, Isaac, from the dead.

Since the third sign is blood on the ground, we turn our attention to the truth of substitution, for it alone involves the shedding of blood. This is in harmony with the narrative in Genesis, for the truth of ‘substitution’ has precedence, first by implication when animal skins were supplied to ‘cover’ the shame of Adam and Eve; and then more clearly in the sacrifice of lambs by Abel, and then most clearly in the substitution of a ram for Isaac.

Then in Exodus, the substitutionary death of a sacrifice became the cornerstone of the Mosaic economy. Examples include the substitutionary death of what later came to be known as the ‘Passover lamb’. Each family was required to kill a perfect lamb, and then ritually paint its blood on the lintel and two side posts of the doorway to their home. This would protect the first-born of the family from the stroke of God. The ‘covering’ of the first-born by spilt blood was such a momentous event that it was to be remembered and celebrated annually until the substitutionary Lamb of God, Jesus Messiah, died for the sins of the world. Moreover, His sacrificial, substitutionary death which replaced the sacrifice of the Passover lamb, is itself commemorated in the ordinance of the Church in the sharing of bread and wine in a symbolic feast.

Out of the exodus of Israel from Egypt arose a whole raft of new laws that related to the moral and spiritual state of the nation. These included many more substitutionary offerings. These offerings indicated that Moses had some means of dealing with sin that allowed Israelite offenders to be cleansed from defilement and restored to fellowship with God. Under the Levitical code, the last two of the five sacrificial offerings, the trespass offering and the sin offering, were to make propitiation and expiation for sin. While they are the last named in the short catalogue of five offerings to the Lord, they were usually offered first. The sacrifice of the trespass offering appeased YHWH for sins committed. The sacrifice of the sin offering obtained forgiveness for the sinner. The first dealt with the sinful actions of the Israelite, the second dealt with his sinful condition. These offerings were, of course, only a temporary answer to sin. Animal blood could never remove sin only cover it. It is the blood of Jesus/Messiah, God’s Son, which alone atones for sin and restores the sinner.

And let us not fail to notice that the third attesting sign used water. Under Torah regulations, the primary cleansing agent is blood. Ritual purity needed blood rather than water, for “according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission” (Heb.9:22). But sometimes water was the cleansing agent. The rules of ablution, incorporating the constant bathing of the priests and the washing of vessels, were particularly strict. The national place of worship, the Tabernacle, had two pieces of furniture in the outer court, a laver and an altar. In the ritual that took place in the Tabernacle, the laver provided the cleansing agent water, and the sacrificial altar provided the cleansing agent, blood.

There were times when the ritual needed both blood and water. For example, the leper needed both to be clean: “He who is to be cleansed shall wash his clothes, shave off all his hair, and wash himself in water, that he may be clean. After that he shall come into the camp, and shall stay outside his tent seven days,” (Lev.14:8) and “the priest shall take some of the blood of the trespass offering, and the priest shall put it on the tip of the right ear of him who is to be cleansed, on the thumb of his right hand, and on the big toe of his right foot.” (v.14) Also, the ritual for the cleansing of a house used the two agents, blood and water. “And he shall cleanse the house with the blood of the bird and the running water and the living bird, with the cedar wood, the hyssop, and the scarlet” (v.52). 

THE SIGNS AS FORENSIC EVIDENCE

The language used of the attesting signs is the language used of witnesses. The KJV uses the word “voice” - “the voice of the first sign” and “the voice of the latter sign”. Under the Mosaic Law, two witnesses were enough for a matter to be established (Deut.19:15). The first of the two witnesses was Moses (“if they will not believe … your voice”). The witness of Moses was his testimony. He had been present at the miracle of the burning bush, he had heard the voice of God, he had received the attesting signs, and YHWH had commissioned him (Exod.3:1 ff). The second voice was the witness of the first of the miraculous acts that God had given Moses to perform before the elders of Israel, that is, the casting down of the rod to change it into a serpent.

Three witnesses would be stronger (Deut.19:15), namely, (i) the testimony of Moses, (ii) the sign of the serpent rod (the first attesting sign), and (iii) the sign of leprosy inflicted and cured (the second attesting sign). If they refused the testimony of the three witnesses, then God instructed Moses to take water from the Nile and turn it into blood on the ground. This sign later became the first plague. Moreover, when he changed the water of the river (itself widely used as a cleansing agent) into blood, (the primary ritual cleansing agent), he foreshadowed an act of the Lord Jesus. John chapter 2 describes how the Messiah changed the water, used for the Jewish rites of purification, into wine that would be used by the Messiah to symbolise His spilt blood, which was shed as the cleansing agent for sin.

So Moses had four ‘voices’ to testify that he was God’s chosen Deliverer. Two or three witnesses would have been enough but YHWH provided four - four is the number of completeness – there was no doubt!

Summary of the four voices (witnesses).

1. The personal eyewitness testimony of Moses.

2. The first attesting sign - the serpent rod miracle – symbolising the serpent in subjection (i.e. victory over Satan)

3. The second attesting sign – leprosy inflicted and cured –symbolising sin imputed and cleansed.

4. The third attesting sign – water becoming blood on the ground - representing violent, premature, death, which will be the cost paid for victory over Satan (first attesting sign) and the cleansing from sin (second attesting sign).

THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE AUTHENTICATING SIGNS

Moses performed the signs for the elders and convinced them of God’s intentions. The attesting signs had accomplished their purpose, and Israel’s leaders accepted Moses as God’s choice to be Guide, Deliverer and Mediator for Israel. Other miracles followed in the wake of the primary, authenticating, signs, such as the plagues upon the Egyptians (from blood throughout Egypt to the death of the firstborn), and blessings on Israel (the living water from the rock, and bread from heaven). But these were subsequent to, and consequent of, the major attesting signs.

Having isolated the principle attesting signs of Messiahship, we can now return to our enquiry. What evidence did Jesus offer to support His claim that He was, in fact, the Messiah, prophesied by Moses and timetabled by Gabriel through Daniel?

1. Did He have a personal eyewitness testimony similar to Moses?

2. Did He have the serpent in subjection? That is, did He have power over Satan?

3. Did He have mastery over leprosy? That is, did He have the answer to sin?

4. Would there be blood on the ground? That is, would He pay the price?

In respect of 1, on many occasions Jesus testified to His personal relationship with God, using the phrase ‘my Father’ frequently, – but the focus of our enquiry is the physical evidence of the signs (Nos. 2,3 & 4).

More next time

The Messiah and His Miracles 2

We continue to examine those miraculous actions that a Messianic claimant had to provide to support his assumption of the office of Israel's Messiah

THE SECOND PRIMARY ATTESTING SIGN - MASTERY OVER LEPROSY

Because of Satanic activity, our first parents had disobeyed the clear command of God and incurred the consequence that God said would follow, “…in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die”(Gen.2:17). They did not immediately fall to ground but were subject to a ‘living death’, a process of dying; the Hebrew could be translated, “dying you will die”. Leprosy, also called ‘the living death’, was considered a visual of the stroke of God in the Garden. The Hebrew for leprosy, ‘tsara’ath’, is related to the Arabic word that signifies ‘to strike down or scourge’. Tsara’ath (leprosy) is considered the scourge of God. This truth is re-emphasised in the T’nach where God judged individuals who rebelled against His will and struck them with leprosy. When Miriam rebelled, “... the anger of the LORD was aroused …and … suddenly, Miriam became leprous, as white as snow” (Numb.12:9-10). Uzziah contracted leprosy when he discarded the priestly protocol contained in the Mosaic law: “leprosy broke out on his forehead … because the LORD had struck him” (2 Chron.26:19-20 (KJV)).

Two words that are strongly connected with leprosy are ‘naga’ (touch, reach, strike); and its derivative ‘nega’ (stroke, plague, disease). In Leviticus chapter 13, there are instructions for the diagnosis of leprosy, and in chapter 14 instructions for the performing of the rituals required in the case of recovered lepers. In these two chapters ‘nega’, translated ‘plague’ in the KJV and sometimes ‘plague’ and sometimes ‘sore’ in the NKJV, is used some eighty times. Again, the connection is - the plague (nega) of leprosy is the visual of the stroke of God. In Isaiah 53, both these words occur, but there the plague is sin, and because of that plague, God’s Messiah must suffer God’s stroke. Of the Suffering Servant it says, “He was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due” (Isa.53:8 (NASB)). And again, “Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted” (Isa.53:4). One commentary suggests that “in every other passage in which it does not occur in the special sense of leprosy, (it) points back to the generic idea of a plague divinely sent”. So strong was the connection of leprosy to sin, and because these words, which were frequently used in the special case of leprosy, were used of the Suffering Servant, some ancients implied that the Messiah became leprous. This, of course, has no scriptural warrant. Nevertheless, it identifies the strong connection of sin to leprosy and is further evidence that leprosy was accepted as the visual manifestation of the stroke of God against sin.

According to the Pentateuch, it was the duty of the priests “to distinguish between holy and unholy and between clean and unclean” (Lev.10:10-11). Since leprosy was emblematic of sin (that is, the outward and visible sign of inner spiritual corruption), the leper was ‘unclean’ as well as ill, ‘unclean’ here being associated with ‘unholy’. If he recovered, the priest would declare him ‘clean’. Being unclean/unholy, separated the leper from the Tabernacle, from the Temple, from God, and from God’s people. The Rabbis traced disease to moral causes: “no death without sin, and no pain without transgression”, so they took a mainly moral view of the disease and only secondarily a sanitary view. Because leprosy represented sin, the priest could not pronounce a recovered leper clean until atonement had been made for his soul. The ceremony included, on the first day, two clean birds, one sacrificed and one set free; and on the eighth day a trespass offering, a sin offering, a meat offering and a burnt offering.

The instructions in the Law demanded that the leper be separated from ordinary social contact, with the further requirement that he had to warn any that came near, that to touch him would render them unclean, defiled, and unholy.

Here then is the sense of the second attesting sign for God’s Deliverer – he must have mastery over leprosy, symbolising that he has the answer to sin. He must be able to cleanse the defiled and return the sinner to fellowship both with God and with the people of God. Accordingly, God said to Moses, “Now put your hand in your bosom. And he put his hand in his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, like snow. And He said, Put your hand in your bosom again. So he put his hand in his bosom again, and drew it out of his bosom, and behold, it was restored like his other flesh. Then it will be, if they do not believe you, nor heed the message of the first sign, that they may believe the message of the latter sign” (Exod.4:6-8).

It should not be overlooked that the sign involving leprosy was both positive and negative. The personal action of Moses inflicted leprosy and healed it. This suggests not only the possibility of forgiveness for sin but also punishment for sin. The examples of Miriam, Uzziah and Gehazi are pertinent here. God, through Moses, incorporated the principle suggested by this sign into the legal framework imposed on the Jewish nation. The Law was the agent to awaken the knowledge of sin. Before the Law, sin was not imputed to the sinner, but it was the introduction of the Law that made him culpable. So, if on the one hand animal sacrifices could obtain forgiveness for sin, on the other hand, failure to comply with the Law carried with it severe penalties, even capital punishment. For example, “… you are to observe the sabbath, for it is holy to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people” (Exod.31:14).

More next time

The Messiah and His Miracles

The Attesting Signs of Moses

The First Primary Attesting Sign (Miracle) - The Serpent in Subjection

Because of his activity in Eden, the serpent was ‘cursed’ and punished. Since it had exalted itself above its allotted estate, God threw it to the ground, commanding, “on your belly you shall go” (Gen.3:14), imposing the mark of deepest degradation. However, when God spoke to the reptile, and pronounced a curse upon it, He was not addressing the irrational beast so much as the spiritual Tempter. The punishment that fell upon the serpent was merely a symbol of the punishment of the unseen agent of evil. The prophecy of Genesis 3.15, supported by later clarifying Scriptures, makes it clear that the casting down of the serpent was in fact a judgement on Satan: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel”. Keil and Delitzsch in their commentary suggest the construction of the Hebrew clarifies who is in view in the prophecy. In examining Genesis 3.15, they observe that in the first clause, the seed of the serpent is opposed to the seed of the woman, but in the second clause, the seed of the woman gains victory over the serpent itself. “It, (the seed of the woman), will crush your head, and you (not your seed) will crush its heel. Thus the seed of the serpent is hidden behind the unity of the serpent, or rather of the foe who, through the serpent, has done such injury to man. This foe is Satan, who incessantly opposes the seed of the woman and bruises its heel, but is eventually to be trodden under its feet”. The death of the Messiah is in view here.

To equate the Edenic serpent with Satan is Scriptural. The book of Revelation describes the Prince of fallen angels as, “the great dragon” and, “that old serpent”, and gives his names, “the Devil, and Satan” (Rev.12:9; 20:2). The casting down of the serpent in the Garden, representing the casting down of Satan, followed an earlier event that the Messiah had witnessed: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18). Ezekiel described it more fully: “I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God; and I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendour; I cast you to the ground” (Ezek.28:16,17). Here, God judged pride and undisciplined personal ambition. The language of this prophecy, while naming the king of Tyre, rises beyond any earthly ruler to describe events surrounding the fall of Satan. There are further defeats for Satan yet to come and he will be thrown down again (to the earth), and again (into the bottomless pit), and again (into the lake of fire).

The first attesting sign given to Moses was for a symbolic re-enactment of the casting down of Satan, to demonstrate the power and authority of God over the Devil, a power and authority delegated to His chosen servant. “So the LORD said to him, What is that in your hand? He said, A rod. And He said, Cast it on the ground. So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. Then the LORD said to Moses, Reach out your hand and take it by the tail (and he reached out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand), that they may believe that the LORD God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” (Exod.4:2-5)

Not only did Moses enact this for the elders of Israel, but also re-enacted it before Pharaoh. The Pharaohs of Egypt wore an image of the serpent on their diadem, as the symbol of royal and divine power. The Pharaoh, before whom Moses and Aaron appeared, was Satan’s instrument to hold God’s people in slavery. The grip of Satan had to be broken if the nation of Israel was to be freed. The first act of Israel’s Deliverer was a challenge to Satan. Aaron cast down Moses’ rod, symbol of the defeat of Satan, and it became a serpent. The court sorcerers imitated the miracle with their rods, which also became serpents. However, Moses with the delegated power of God at his disposal, had control, not only over his serpent but also over the serpents of the court magicians. This meant he had power over the Egyptian sorcerers too. Pharaoh’s attempt to discredit the sign failed. Moses’ power over the serpents and the court magicians further implied power over Pharaoh, Satan’s tool, and beyond that, power over Satan.