A creature that carries meaning
The Serpent
No creature in Scripture is more double-edged than the serpent. It is the deceiver in Eden and the tempter of the wilderness, yet it is also lifted on a pole as a strange sign of healing that Jesus applies to Himself.
“And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.”Numbers 21:9
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:”John 3:14
The creature in Scripture
The creature in Scripture. The serpent enters the Bible in Genesis as "more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made" (Genesis 3:1), speaking to the woman and drawing her into distrust of God. From that point the snake is bound up with the curse and with enmity: "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed" (Genesis 3:15). Serpents were also real dangers of the desert. When Israel murmurs, God sends "fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died" (Numbers 21:6). Moses is told to make "a serpent of brass" and set it on a pole, and "if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived" (Numbers 21:9). Later this bronze serpent, called Nehushtan, becomes an idol and Hezekiah destroys it (2 Kings 18:4). Snakes appear as tokens of God's power in Moses' rod that becomes a serpent (Exodus 4:3), and Jesus promises the seventy that they shall "tread on serpents" (Luke 10:19). The serpent is thus at once a literal venomous animal and, from Eden onward, the Bible's chief picture of the enemy.
What it comes to mean
What it comes to mean. The serpent must be held in two hands, because Scripture uses it in two nearly opposite ways and does not blend them. Most often it means deception, temptation, and the evil that opposes God. Revelation names it plainly: "that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan" (Revelation 12:9). This is meaning the text states outright. Yet the bronze serpent in Numbers turns the image around: the very likeness of the thing that was killing the people becomes, by God's command, the appointed means of their rescue. Nothing in the metal healed; the healing came through God's word and the people's obedient look. Jesus himself blesses a limited, positive use of the serpent's traits when He says, "be ye therefore wise as serpents" (Matthew 10:16), commending shrewd carefulness, not cunning malice. So the serpent means the enemy that poisons and deceives, and also, in one carefully framed case, the God-given sign in which the wound and the cure meet.
How it points to Christ
How it points to Christ. Jesus reaches back to the bronze serpent to explain His own death: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:14-15). As bitten Israelites lived by looking at the lifted serpent, so the perishing look to the lifted-up Christ and live. Paul presses the paradox further: God "made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin" (2 Corinthians 5:21). On the cross Christ takes the very likeness of the curse upon Himself so that those under its poison may be healed by looking to Him. Christ also fulfills the first promise of enmity, for the seed of the woman crushes the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15), and by His death He destroys "him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14). The creature that brought the venom of sin into the world is answered by the Savior who bears its likeness and breaks its power.
Questions people ask
Why did Jesus compare Himself to the bronze serpent?
In John 3:14 Jesus says He must be "lifted up" as Moses lifted the serpent in the wilderness (Numbers 21:9). Just as dying Israelites looked at the raised bronze serpent and lived, those who look in faith to the crucified Christ receive eternal life.
Is the serpent always evil in the Bible?
Usually it pictures the enemy and deception, and Revelation 12:9 identifies the serpent with Satan. But the bronze serpent of Numbers 21 is a God-given sign of healing, and Jesus even says to be "wise as serpents" (Matthew 10:16). The meaning depends on the passage.
What happened to the bronze serpent later?
Over time Israel began to worship it as an idol they called Nehushtan, so King Hezekiah broke it in pieces (2 Kings 18:4). The object meant to point beyond itself had wrongly become an object of worship.