Page 83 - Foundations

It only shows the power of tradition, which has, from the infancy of each one of us, put before our
eyes and written on our minds the picture of a "snake" and an "apple": the former based on a wrong
interpretation, and the latter being a pure invention, about which there is not one word said in Holy
Scripture.

Never was Satan's wisdom so craftily used as when he secured universal acceptance of this
traditional belief: for it has succeeded in fixing the attention of mankind on the letter and the means,
thus blinding the eyes to the solemn fact that the Fall of man had to do solely with the Word of God,
and is centered in the sin of believing Satan's lie instead of Jehovah's truth...

This is his object in perpetuating the traditions of the "snake" and the "apple," because it ministers
to the acceptance of his lie, the hiding of God's truth, the support of tradition, the jeers of the infidel,
the opposition of the critics, and the stumbling of the weak in faith.
[End Excerpt]

Bullinger argues well for the serpent being only a figure of speech, yet I am not persuaded by his
words. I find no trouble in allowing for Satan, the shining cherub, to use the serpent as an instrument
of his cunning schemes, while agreeing that the serpent itself is a symbol of much greater things.
Yahweh has often used actual, literal created beings and objects as symbols of something greater than
themselves. As a person who has spent many years considering the parables of Scripture and of
creation, I do not find any disharmony in understanding the serpent to have been an actual beast under
Satan’s influence. In fact, it accords very well with Yahweh’s first commandment to the man and
woman to “subdue the beasts and rule over them,” a commandment that has both a literal and a
spiritual application.

As far as Bullinger’s claim that believing the serpent to be a beast opens up the Biblical account to
“the jeers of the infidel, the opposition of the critics, and the stumbling of the weak in faith,” I would
counter that Christians should never permit scoffers to influence that which they accept as the truths
of God, no matter how fantastic these truths appear. Is a talking serpent any more incredible to the
carnal mind than the plagues of Egypt, the worldwide flood of Noah, the sun tarrying an entire day
in the sky at Joshua’s plea, or reversing its course in answer to King Hezekiah’s passionate prayer,
the prophet Jonah spending three days in the belly of a great fish, a virgin giving birth, or the dead
rising to life again? Would not the same infidels and critics protest that Balaam’s donkey could not
have spoken with him? That the Bible declares many things to be true that are supernatural in nature,
or contrary to the normal experience of man and creation, is part of its inherent character. The apostle
Paul declared:

I Corinthians 2:14
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and
he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

I would share somewhat in defense of the serpent being an actual beast. We do not know what the
capability of animals were before the fall of man. Without question the powers of every created thing
on earth was diminished in the fall of man. The apostle Paul speaks of the effects of man’s original
sin in the following words.