Bible Questions and Answers

In Genesis 3 how can the serpent talk to Eve and tempt her?

The serpent in Genesis was one of the creatures that God had made. We are told that it was the smartest animal. Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.

The serpent was not evil because everything that God made was very good. Genesis 1:31. We are told that the serpent as originally created was given the ability to speak and could converse with Eve. Being ‘very good’ the serpent had no malicious intent towards Eve.

The serpent knew that Adam and Eve had been instructed not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and if they did, they would die. The serpent reasoned that the fruit of the tree was not poisonous, nothing in the garden was, thus Eve would not die as a result of eating the fruit. As an animal, it had no moral faculty and did not understand that she would die as a judicial punishment from God for disobedience. The serpent with it’s animal reasoning unwittingly concoct a lie.

Eve was deceived by the serpent’s lie. She ate the fruit and offered some to Adam. Adam was not deceived by the serpent’s lie. He had to choose between going with his wife or obeying God. He chose to go with his wife knowing that they would ‘surely die’.

By its deception of Eve through animal reasoning, the serpent became symbolic of all of Adam’s descendants who would act in opposition to God. Thus, Jesus describes the scribes and pharisees as ‘serpents’ in Matthew 23:33 "Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? ("hell" = Gehenna - the future punishment of the wicked described elsewhere as the second death). 

These were collectively the ‘serpent’ who would ‘bruise’ the heel of the seed of the woman (Christ) as prophesied in Genesis 3:15.

The Pagan Roman government in opposition to Christianity is described in Revelation 12:9 as the ‘great dragon’. ‘Dragon’ is the translation of the Greek δράκων drakon which in the Greek is a kind of serpent.

The emperor Constantine legalised Christianity 313 AD and the emperor Theodosius outlawed paganism in the Roman Government in 392 AD. The serpent represents the opposition to God which comes from within men and women. Mark 7:21-23

Jesus destroyed the serpent, which is the devil and Satan, within himself in that he did not sin. He was however put to death by the ‘serpent’ - the Jewish and Roman authorities which proved temporary (described in the prophecy as bruised heel) for God raised him on the third day. Ultimately Jesus will destroy all the ‘seed of the serpent’ i.e. bruise the head of the serpent, to establish the eternal kingdom of God upon the earth.

I hope you find this helpful.

God bless,
Glenn