THE FIERY FLYING BRAZEN SERPENT

THE FLYING FIERY SERPENT OF LIFE

KEY VERSES: 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)

  Many theologians see the brazen serpent as symbolic of Jesus on the cross. Strike that image from your mind! I contend that it represents three events: (1) The Serpent dead in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, (2) Judas Iscariot dead in his hanging tree, and finally (3) Satan’s demise! Satan had entered into the docile Serpent, making him a Beast – a four-footed animal of a lower form than men.
  The Serpent’s punishment because of his cunning was threefold: (1) cursed, (2) made a creeping thing (Gen 3:14), and (3) will die when its head is crushed by the heel of the Messiah (Gen 3:15).

Scripture is all about the death of the “serpent” – Satan – whose head that the heel of Jesus would crush to save mankind!
  Scripture is not so much about Jesus’s death because Jesus was only “asleep” for three days, as Jesus’s Holy Ghost delivered all the sins of mankind to the Devil himself in Hell (Ephes 4:7-10). Jesus spoke of death as sleep (Mat 9:24) which Paul confirmed (1 Cor 15:18).
  Jesus did not die, as he thought of death. He died as the world thinks of it! Likewise, Satan’s death is not fully understood. It was Satan who was defeated on the cross, and Judas Iscariot, hanging on his tree (Mat 27:5). Not by coincidence, Paul referred to the Holy Cross as Jesus hanged on his “tree” (Acts 5:30).
  Jesus’s death by crucifixion was the victory celebration of Satan hanging on his tree in the form of Judas who Satan had entered in; just as he had entered into the Serpent (Luke 22:3). There is only one other being that Satan animated to do his will. That is the Beast – the Antichrist. (Rev 11:7).
  Just as Jesus merely slept, Satan’s death on his tree was merely his flesh dying in the body of Judas. His spirit will die in the end! (Rev 20:10). Just as God has three substances – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in that passage Lucifer’s Unholy Trinity is identified: The father of sinners – the Devil, the Beast, and the False Prophet.
  That brazen serpent on his pole represented a dead Serpent in his tree, Judas hanging from his tree, and all the Unholy Trinity burning in the fiery lake!
  Jesus said, “Marvel not; ye must be born again” (John 3:7), then clarified that with the example of the lifeless serpent on the pole (key verses).  Trusting the Lord for salvation is not seeing a lifeless Jesus on his “tree” but the Satan Judas on his hanging tree!
  What kind of serpent poisoned and killed the unbelieving Jews? Scripture identifies that dead snake as “a fiery serpent:”

And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. 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.  (Num 21:8-9)

   

  People have envisioned the fiery serpent as a gliding snake as in Egypt, a Pterosaur, a flying squirrel, or a seraph, from the Hebrew nomenclature. I accept the latter. “Seraph” means, “"the burning one"/"serpent" (Wikipedia; “seraph”). The word for “serpent” is seraph in the Hebrew five times, including the phrase “fiery flying serpent.” Rather than a snake on the pole, it was a seraph because scripture identifies it as such.
  Lucifer” means “light-bringing” (ibid; “Lucifer”), and thusly fits “fiery seraph” quite well.  Now examine what Isaiah saw:

Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent. (Isaiah 14:29)

  In the phrase, “serpent’s root” the Hebrew word is “nachash” – the same word used for the cunning Serpent in Genesis 3:1. The seraph “serpent” was from the “root” of the old Serpent. It seems that the brazen “fiery flying serpent” was Lucifer’s embodiment as a seraph whose lifeless image on the pole, or tree, caused the Hebrews to trust God for salvation. Seraphs had four wings and four faces and “wheels” to fly (Ezek 1:10).
   That description identifies the four “beasts” from the Book of Revelation.

It can be concluded that the brazen serpent on the pole did represent all aspects of Satan as dead. They came to believe what John saw in his Revelation. When Christians look on Jesus’s “pole,” they should see the Serpent dead on the Wisdom Tree, Judas dead hanging from his tree, and the three of the four beasts of the apocalypse dead in the fiery pit.
  Who is the fourth “beasts? “Certainly not a beast! Theologians believe that the four “beasts” represent (1) the face of Jesus, (2) the face of fallen Lucifer, (3) the new world government, and (4) Lucifer in human form, or the Antichrist (WUAS Internet Bible Studies). It would seem from Revelation that that the four “beasts” represent Jesus defeating the Unholy Trinity as identified previously!
  It is clear that the brazen serpent represents Jesus alive but the Devil dead in all his substances. To be born again, is understanding that Satan will die a fiery death, as it appeared with the brightness of sun shining on the brass serpent, and that Jesus’s death signified a dead Serpent!
  Graven images of God was forbidden by the Second Prescription (Exod 20:4), and the First Prescription that there must be no other gods in God’s face (Exod 20:3).
  Well, one of the faces of the seraph surely represented God. But an image of God must not be made. The other three faces symbolized the Unholy Trinity. As such, God had the brazen serpent that Moses had made broken into pieces:

He removed the high places, and brake the images, and cut down the groves, and brake in pieces the brasen serpent that Moses had made: for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it: and he called it Nehushtan. (2 Kings 18:4)

  The Hebrews made an idol out of the brazen serpent on the pole.  Rather than seeing the face of God, they saw the “faces” of the Unholy Trinity. Who is “the face of God?” Jesus – the Angel of God with whom Jacob wrestled and by grace won the match (Gen 3:10).
  For some, the seraph on his pole, had covered the face of Jesus with one wing while still exposing the Unholy Trinity with his other tree wings not covering their faces. Satan showed his three faces unexposed, and the Hebrews came to worship the Creature rather than the Creator – Jesus!
  There is one other passage wherein the “fiery flying serpent” is mentioned. Perhaps the reader, as myself, will study that passage for further insight:

The burden of the beasts of the south: into the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the young and old lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people that shall not profit them. (Isaiah 30:6)

  In summary, how can the old creatures (us) be born again? We must not see Jesus dead, but alive because he has risen. We must see the Serpent entirely, in all his aspects, in the fiery pit, and understand that Jesus’s “death” signified that, and that in the end, the flying seraph (serpent) will be cast into the fiery lake; thus, the “fiery flying serpent” that Isaiah saw!