Last week we looked at Yahweh's divine council; his assemblage of celestial beings created to serve him and worship him. We learned that they are active in the world, that God granted them power and privilege and responsibility. We know that they were created before the creation of the universe, for they witnessed the fashioning of the cosmos and were tickled to the teeth by it. (Job 38.4-7). Though the text doesn't tell us one way or another, they may have been participants in creation, in essence advising God along the way. What might this have looked like? Perhaps Yahweh and the elohim had some exchanges like this:
The elohim on spiders: "What if you took a bug and gave it eight legs?" A bit excessive but it has promise. "Give it eight eyes!" Not sure what you're going on about with the number 8, but this is looking pretty cool. "Now what if you gave it a butt rope?"
Or making kittens. Elohim: "Those baby kittens are really fluffy and adorable. Now what if - and just hear me out - you put razor blades on their feet!"
Or bees: "Put a needle on its butt." Okay, defenses are good. "Now what if we made its vomit super delicious?"
Or praying mantis: "Make an insect that does karate." Got it! "Now make it bite her husbands head off." Okay, dude, we need to have a talk.
Or parrots: "what if we made a tye-dye chicken that screams actual words at you?"
On chimps: "why don't we take this gorilla and make it a lot smaller and really smart?" Sure, I can do that. What sound do you want it to make? "Let's just have it scream. All. The. Time."
All these jokes aside, we know from scripture that God seeks input and advise from his council, though he is ultimately the one who does the creating. It's very possible that the Elohim had a non-creative role in creating the cosmos; there's no reason for us to suppose that the council had no role until after creation. As God is creating His world, they are celebrating it and loving it - and then God throws a curve ball. "Let's create man in our image." It isn't a question. He isn't seeking advice. He's telling them what's about to go down; this was what creation was shooting for all along. This wasn't just another of God's ideas for the cosmos; it was His ultimate plan from before the moment He said "Let there be light." It seems that the Elohim were kept in the dark about this; they, up to that point, had been God's prized creations. Now God was doing something new, creating an image bearing creature with one foot in the spiritual world and one foot in the physical world, and his angelic, spiritual beings were being subordinated to this new creation: as they served Yahweh, they would also serve man.
C.S. Lewis, the premiere Christian apologist of the 20th century, captures this startling reality in The Problem of Pain: "For long centuries, God perfected the animal form which was to become the vehicle of humanity and the image of Himself. he gave it hands whose thumb could be applied to each of the fingers, and jaws and teeth and throat capable of articulation, and a brain sufficiently complex to execute all of the material motions whereby rational thought is incarnated. The creature may have existed in this state for ages before it became man: it may even have been clever enough to make things which a modern archaeologist would accept as proof of its humanity. But it was only an animal because all its physical and psychical processes were directed to purely material and natural ends. Then, in the fullness of time, God caused to descend upon this organism, both on its psychology and physiology, a new kind of consciousness which could say “I” and “me,” which could look upon itself as an object, which knew God, which could make judgments of truth, beauty and goodness, and which was so far above time that it could perceive time flowing past…." In his A Grief Observed, he writes that God's 'grand enterprise was "to make an organism which is also a spirit; to make that terrible oxymoron, a spiritual animal. To take a poor primate, a beast with nerve-endings all over it, a creature with a stomach that wants to be filled, a breeding animal that wants its mate, and say, Now get on with it. Become a god. ”
We can imagine the shock of the Elohim at this turn of events. They didn't know this was where Yahweh's creation was heading. We also know that at least one these Elohim was so bothered and enraged by this event that his pride got the best of him, and he turned against his Creator and launched an attack against Yahweh's new image-bearing creatures. In the New Testament he is known as "Satan," but in the Old Testament he is known as "the serpent." His rebellion in the Garden of Eden is the first of three "divine rebellions" in Genesis that we'll examine.
But first, we must answer the question: "Who is Satan?" The Hebrew term satan occurs twenty-seven times in the Old Testament - but Genesis 3 is not one of these times. When we interpret the serpent of Gen 3 as Satan, we are reading into the text - but nowhere in the Old Testament is the serpent identified as Satan. The reason Satan is understood as the 'snake' in Genesis 3 is because of developments during the intertestamental period; but prior to that, the 'nemesis' of Genesis 3 went by different names. Who, then, is Satan in the Old Testament? Interestingly, it could be anyone, because the Hebrew term satan isn't a proper name but a title referring to a job function. In Hebrew satan means something like "challenger, adversary, prosecutor." It speaks of an official legal function within a ruling body—in this case, Yahweh’s council. When Yahweh asks the satan where he has been in Job 1.7, we learn that his job involves investigating what is happening on earth (Job 1:7). He is, so to speak, Yahweh’s eyes and ears on the ground, reporting what he has seen and heard. The satan in Job 1–2 is not a villain. He’s doing the job God assigned to him. The Bible tells us that God has many 'books' on record about people and their activities; these are hard-copy records. God doesn't need them, of course, because He is all-knowing; the idea is that He has them in His court as evidence either for or against His creatures for when judgment comes. Certain divine beings are assigned the task of keeping the records so that, on the Day of Judgment, the books can be opened and not refuted. The satan, in the Book of Job, is one of these beings tasked with collecting information for the books. He's often portrayed in a negative light; sometimes he deserves it (such as in Job) and sometimes he doesn't (such as in Zechariah).
The Presumptuous Satan of Job. The activities of the Satan in Job 1 are courtly duties assigned to him. But in this text, he gets presumptuous. He snarkily remarks that Job is so good because God has blessed him; there's no way that Job could obey God and live an obedient life because he loves God! Yahweh takes issue with this; he knows Job's heart, and he aims to both (a) vindicate Job - to prove his mettle - and (b) stop the mouth of the presumptuous Satan who thinks he knows it all. That's what the challenge in Job is all about. God allows the presumptuous Satan to turn Job's world upside down to prove that Job's obedience to God isn't because of blessings but because his heart seeks Yahweh. Ultimately the contest isn't between Job and the Satan but between God and the Satan.
The Misunderstood Worker of Zechariah 3. Zechariah has a vision of Joshua standing before the Angel of Yahweh - who is likely pre-incarnate Jesus, but we'll touch on that another week - and the Satan is with him. The Angel of Yahweh tells the Satan to back up off Joshua. The Satan isn't doing anything wrong; he's simply there doing his job, rightly accusing the high priest because of his sins. So why is he rebuked? He isn't rebuked because he's doing something wrong; he's rebuked because the Angel of Yahweh is cleansing Joshua of his sin. Because God has cleansed Joshua - and this isn't a symbolic cleansing; it's a real cleansing - the Satan has no charge to bring against him. The Satan needs to hoof it, because there's nothing for him to do here.
The Angel of Yahweh as a Satan in Numbers 22. In Numbers 22, the false prophet Balaam is traveling with his donkey, intent on heaping curses on the Israelites. En route to his destination, the Angel of Yahweh interferes with his travels. The point here is that in the text, the Angel of Yahweh is called a satan because he is an adversary and challenger to Balaam. Our English translations are picky when they translate the Hebrew word because they don't want it to seem that the Angel of Yahweh is the devil of the New Testament. The Angel of Yahweh has become a satan because of the role he plays in challenging the false prophets and the false prophets donkey. This makes sense because to be a satan is to be undertaking a challenging, adversarial role. Remember that it isn't until the New Testament that "Satan" becomes the name of a malevolent spiritual entity.
In the New Testament, the devil and Satan are synonymous! How do we make sense of this? The answer lies in the 400 years between the last book of the Old Testament - Malachi - and the coming of Jesus. In that time, the Jewish people started speaking of the devil as Satan. Thus the serpent in Genesis 3 becomes, at least linguistically, the Satan in the New Testament. The idea of the job function is lost to the idea of a personal, conscious, powerful rebel against God who is opposed to the Creator and God's image-bearing creatures. The Satan who tempts Jesus in the wilderness, who works to get Jesus' mission shut down by killing him, is the same who was present in Genesis 3. So harking back to the Old Testament, what do we know about this spiritual entity? This is where it gets really interesting!
God created Adam and Eve and put them in the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden is portrayed as God's "home base." It is where He holds council with his Elohim - the lower case g gods - and where Adam and Eve live. Adam and Eve are given the momentous task - of which some spiritual beings are jealous - of extending the Garden throughout the rest of the planet. Adam and Eve aren't to spend all their days in the Garden; their task is to spread the Garden outwards by cultivating the land, and they are to reproduce and multiply to fill the earth so that it can be maintained in Eden-like fashion. In Genesis 3 we read of the Fall of Man. The chapter opens with the statement that "the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that God had made." Thus we seem to be told that the serpent is, well, a snake. No wonder most humans have such a revulsion to serpents! Perhaps it is an echo of our Fall in the Garden! Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. That isn't what Genesis is saying.
A question arises: "Why isn't Eve frightened? Why does she seem at ease talking with a talking snake?" The truth is that an ancient reader would not have expected Eve to be frightened. Given the context—she was in Eden, the realm of Yahweh and his elohim council—it would have been clear that she was conversing with a divine being. It's likely that she has conversed with this being numerous times; this is nothing unusual. But, unbeknownst to her, something had gone awry. This being was a turncoat. He has thrown in the towel with serving Yahweh and wanted to do his own thing. He wanted to hurt Yahweh, wanted to throw his plans into disarray, so he turns his attention on God's most prized creation: mankind. If he can spoil mankind, he can throw God's plans for the cosmos off the rails. He's striking at Yahweh by striking at God's children. In Genesis 3.5 the serpent (Hebrew nachash or nochash, depending on the vowels you place in the Hebrew consonants) says to Eve: “For God ( elohim ) knows that on the day you both eat from [the tree of the knowledge of good and evil], then your eyes will be opened and you both shall be like gods ( elohim ), knowing good and evil.” The serpent tempts Eve to become "like the gods," in reference to the lower case g gods of Yahweh's divine council. The temptation isn't the acquisition of knowledge; no, the acquisition of knowledge is the path to becoming like God's Elohim! Eve finds this idea very tempting.
Before we continue with the narrative of Genesis 3, let's examine two other Old Testament passages that echo Genesis 3 and give us 'background information' on what's going on. The first is Ezekiel 28.11-19. In this passage, the prophet Ezekiel is giving a prophecy against the wicked King of Tyre. In the prophecy he compares his status and his coming judgment with another entity that exalted himself and then 'crashed and burned.' This other entity was the rebellious elohim in the Garden of Eden. Ezekiel 28 is both a judgment on the King of Tyre and a lesson about the clever serpent. Ezekiel 28.12-19 reads:
“You were the signet of perfection,[a]
full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden, the garden of God;
every precious stone was your covering,
sardius, topaz, and diamond,
beryl, onyx, and jasper,
sapphire,[b] emerald, and carbuncle;
and crafted in gold were your settings
and your engravings.[c]
On the day that you were created
they were prepared.
You were an anointed guardian cherub.
I placed you;[d] you were on the holy mountain of God;
in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.
You were blameless in your ways
from the day you were created,
till unrighteousness was found in you.
In the abundance of your trade
you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned;
so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,
and I destroyed you,[e] O guardian cherub,
from the midst of the stones of fire.
Your heart was proud because of your beauty;
you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.
I cast you to the ground;
I exposed you before kings,
to feast their eyes on you.
By the multitude of your iniquities,
in the unrighteousness of your trade
you profaned your sanctuaries;
so I brought fire out from your midst;
it consumed you,
and I turned you to ashes on the earth
in the sight of all who saw you.
All who know you among the peoples
are appalled at you;
you have come to a dreadful end
and shall be no more forever.”
In this passage we learn several things about the antagonist of Genesis 3. He was beautiful and wise in Eden; he sinned and was 'cast down' as a 'profane thing' from the 'mountain of Yahweh' (a phrase depicting God's heavenly residence and divine council); his sin is linked to pride because of his beauty; he was thrown 'to the earth'; he became a horror and would be destroyed; and (most interesting) he is identified as a member of the cherubim, an anointed 'guardian cherub.' Cherubs were designed by God as guardian creatures, but they have a lot of other roles. The cherubim are the mentioned 'angelic creature' in the Old Testament. They are tasked with guarding the entrance to Eden; they support and guard Yahweh's throne; and they guard the Ark of the Covenant. They are the 'top dogs' of the angelic realm. They are depicted in both Ezekiel and Revelation. A cherub is depicted as having two pairs of wings and four faces: that of a lion (representative of all wild animals), an ox (domestic animals), a human (humanity), and an eagle (birds). Their legs were straight, the soles of their feet like the hooves of a bull, and they gleamed like polished brass. So, no, they're not like the "cherub babies" in grandma's china cabinet. An interesting side-note is that only two types of angelic beings - the cherubim and seraphim - are recorded as having wings. All other angels don't have wings, and the vast majority of angels look like men without wings. The seraphim are the angelic beings tasked with singing God's praises around the throne whilst the cherubim guard and support the throne.
Our second biblical text to examine is Isaiah 14.3-21 (particularly vv. 12-15). In Isaiah 14, the prophet Isaiah takes up a "mashal" against the King of Babylon. This is usually interpreted as a "taunt," but it is better translated as a "comparative parable." As we read the mashal, the question is, "To whom is the King of Babylon being compared?" The beginning of the parable sounds as unfavorable to the king of Babylon as Ezekiel’s description of the prince of Tyre is to that ruler. The king of Babylon is called an “oppressor” (v. 4) who ruthlessly persecuted the nations (vv. 5–6). The world will finally be at rest when the oppressor is “laid low” (v. 7–8). Verses 12-15 capture the one to whom the King of Babylon is being compared. Verses 12-15 are particularly interesting:
“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low!
You said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;[c]
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’
But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the far reaches of the pit.
The figure to whom the king of Babylon is being compared is a divine being fallen 'from heaven' (v. 12). This is a being who was cast out of God's heavenly residence and from the divine council. He is called the “morning star, son of dawn.” The language takes us back to Job 38:7, where the sons of God (the lower case gods who are members of God's divine council) were called “morning stars.” But the Hebrew terms in Isaiah 14:12 are different than those in Job 38:7. “Morning star, son of dawn” is an English rendering of the Hebrew helel ben-shachar , which literally means “shining one, son of the dawn.” "Morning stars” were the visible bright stars seen on the horizon as the sun rose. Astronomers (ancient and modern) knew another celestial object that behaved the same way—an object so bright it could still be seen as the sun rose. That object was Venus, and so Venus, though a planet, became known to the ancients as the “bright morning star.” This being is compared to Venus; he is in a class above all the other "morning stars". This is why this entity has been called "Lucifer." The name Lucifer means 'light-bringer,' and it corresponds to the Greek word for 'dawn-bringer,' a name used for the planet Venus. Isaiah portrays this particular divine being as hopelessly enamored of his own brilliance. So great was his arrogance that he declared himself above all the “stars of God," the other members of the divine council. That this “shining one” sought superiority over the other members of the divine council is indicated by the phrase “raise … my throne” and his desire to “sit” on “the mountain of assembly.” That this “mountain of assembly” speaks of the divine council is clear from its location in “Zaphon” (“the north”; tsaphon ) and the clouds. The “seat” language is familiar from Ezekiel 28:2 (the “seat of the gods”). Isaiah 14 reads like an attempted coup in the divine council. Helel ben-shachar wanted his seat in the divine assembly on the divine mountain to be above all others. He wanted to be “like the Most High." But there can be only one of those. As punishment for his rebellion, he was consigned to living in the realm of the dead.
So from Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14, we learn that this angelic being was a winged cherub - one of the highest classes - who was filled with pride, turned against Yahweh, and sought to take Yahweh's throne. He didn't stand a chance, and he was punished by being cast down to earth and destined to live in the realm of the dead. His unmatchable beauty - at least among the elohim - was replaced with abject horror and the despising of humanity - this was perhaps the worst punishment for a creature obsessed and proud of his beauty and allure. Now let's go back to Genesis 3. When the serpent appears, he is in the beginning stage of his rebellion. We know this because he is still in Eden, the home of God's residence and the divine council, and he has yet to be "cast down." He tempts Eve to become "like the gods"; he isn't interested in Eve's promotion to godlike status as much as he wants to undercut and derail God's plan for his physical cosmos. This is the first act of sabotage against his creator.
But we come back to the biggest question of all: was he or was he not a snake?! The Bible says the serpent was the craftiest of animals that God had made. Calling this entity a 'wild animal' is a derogatory remark, comparing him to beasts because he became like the beasts when he rebelled against God. The Hebrew word for "serpent" is composed of the Hebrew letters n-ch-sh. When those letters are a noun, it is translated nachash, "serpent." But when they are a verb, they are translated "nochash," which means diviner. In the ancient Near East, divination refers to communication with the supernatural world. A diviner foretold omens or gave oracles (or information). This is exactly what we see in Genesis 3; Eve is receiving information not from a snake but from a diviner! The text can easily read "diviner" rather than "serpent." But what if we are determined to interpret it as serpent? The serpent (nachash) was an image commonly used in reference to a divine throne guardian (and we've seen in Ezekiel 28 that the 'serpent' was a cherubim, a throne guardian). Given the context of Eden, that helps identify the villain as a divine being. The divine adversary dispenses divine information, using it to goad Eve. He gives her an oracle (or, an omen!): "You won’t really die. God knows when you eat you will be like one of the elohim." So was the 'serpent' in Genesis 3 really a snake? It's unlikely; the point is that the entity was a throne guardian turned Diviner.
Plowing through the story, we see that Eve succumbed to temptation. Adam did, too, when goaded by his wife. (Because he is her head, he is held responsible for their actions; that is why all sinners are said to be sinners "according to Adam"). When they did this, they became aware of their nakedness and experienced shame for the first time - shame is indicative of deep wrongness; shame is a gift from God in that our conscience condemns us; the appropriate response to shame is to go to God for cleansing and healing, but the gut reaction is to hide from God - and that's precisely what Adam and Eve do. God confronts them, they begrudgingly tell him what happened, and he curses them for their actions. Adam - and all men - was cursed with having to fight the ground to make a living. Rather than having unfettered dominion over nature, men now have to war against nature to have dominion over it. Eve - and all women - was cursed with increased pain in childbearing (which tells us that pain is not a result of the Fall; childbearing would be painful for Eve even if she hadn't rebelled, but now it's a lot more painful because she did). Both men and women suffered the curse of strained marriages. God's design is for women to be submissive to their husbands and men to lovingly lead their wives. Because of sin, wives will resist submission and seek to be their husband's boss; and men will seek to tyrannize their wives rather than lead them well. Both men and women are also cursed with suffering death. Mankind isn't inherently immortal; Adam and Eve, in the Garden, had access to the Tree of Life, which granted them immortality. They were cast out of the Garden, and the entrance was barred to them. They couldn't access the Tree of Life, and therefore they would die like the animals.
Regarding death coming to mankind, there are three items of note. First, death was a part of God's good creation. Death isn't inherently evil; it is a natural, God-ordained function of ecosystems. It is only unnatural for mankind to suffer death; thus death, for us, is an enemy to be conquered. Though death in the animal world may make us squeamish, God designed it this way and delights in it. Second, despite the Platonic idea that human beings are naturally immortal, the Bible doesn't teach this. Immortality is a gift that God will give His people. Those who don't belong to God are not by nature immortal. Romans 2.6-7 tells us that immortality is something to be sought, and 2 Timothy 1.10 tells us that immortality is something not to be earned but something given to Christ's people. Third, the curse of death is also for the benefit of man and the world. God knew that from now on, human beings were depraved and infected with sin. As people get older, sin only entrenches itself deeper into their hearts. This sin manifests itself in evil actions. The idea is that for those whose hearts are bent on wickedness, immortality would result in superbly wicked actions and increased suffering far beyond that of which they would be capable of in 'infancy.' In this way, death is a blessing not only to man - for sin warps us and dehumanizes us so that we become monsters - but also a blessing to the earth, for man without limit and with evil inclinations could only hurt and harm to ever greater degrees.
The Diviner who goaded Adam and Eve into rebellion is actually the first to be cursed in Genesis 3, as he is the instigator of the calamity. The curse on the Diviner is two-fold and is followed up with a prophecy. The Diviner would be cursed more than any other animal, he would go about on his belly and eat dirt for the rest of his days. By his rebellion, he became like an animal and even worse than an animal. As such, he would be treated even lower than the animals. He was cursed to "go about on his belly." Those who see this as a literal snake believe that snakes originally had legs and that these were removed; we see something like this in the fossil record, so it appears to make sense. But the fossil record simply shows how Yahweh changed biological snakes over time. Remember that the Diviner wasn't a snake as we understand snakes but a guardian cherub; as such, he had wings; this part of the curse is likely God ripping off the cherubim's wings; by forcing him to "eat dirt," he is basically consigning him to a lowly, earthly existence outside God's residence and the divine council. The Diviner wanted to be the Most High; now he is the Most Low! (Note that snakes don't eat dirt; so if we are interpreting this is a literal curse that resulted in modern snakes, we have a problem!). So the first part of the curse is the Diviner losing his coveted status, losing his beautiful wings, and being ousted from his place in God's heavenly family. The second part of the curse is that there will be hostility between the Diviner's 'seed' and the woman's seed' - but the rest of the biblical story doesn't consist of humans battling snake people. That’s no surprise, since the enemy of humanity wasn’t a mere snake. The Bible does, however, describe an ongoing conflict between followers of Yahweh and human and divine beings who follow the spiritual path of the Diviner. All who oppose God’s kingdom plan are the seed of the Serpent. Jesus told the Pharisees, “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father” (John 8:44), and called them “serpents” and “offspring of vipers” (Matt 23:33). In 1 John 3 the apostle John expressed the notion of spiritual seed—good or evil—manifesting itself in the human heart. In 1 John 3.8-12 John describes people whose lives are characterized by wickedness as “children of the devil,” a contrast to the spiritual “children of God.” This is a spiritual lineage, since the children of God have “God’s seed” abiding in them, a reference to the Holy Spirit. The Bible thus portrays all people as being either "children of the devil" or "children of God." There's no in between, and these two classes of people are in opposition.
The two curses heaped upon the Diviner are followed by a messianic prophecy (a prophecy about Jesus). The offspring of both the Diviner and Eve are plural; but a singular offspring of Eve will come about. The Diviner will strike this offspring on the heel, but the offspring will strike the Diviner on the head. What in the world is this? We learn in the New Testament that the Diviner - called Satan in the NT, as we've discussed - tried to kill Jesus and snuff out God's redemptive plan. Yes, God was orchestrating things behind the scenes, but He used Satan's motivations and manipulations to bring about His will. Satan didn't know what God was up to, and be thought he could prevent redemption by killing the Messiah. In Colossians 3.15, we learn that while the evil "rulers and authorities" hoped to triumph over Messiah by nailing him to the cross, in reality the cross was the Messiah triumphing over them! In this way, the Diviner snapped at the Messiah's heel but ended up getting clobbered on the head instead.
Because Adam and Eve rebelled, too, all humankind is born "fallen from the glory of God." All humankind is born in bondage to sin and death, children of the devil, in need of forgiveness of sin and deliverance from the bondage of sin. The good news is that God sent a deliverer, Jesus, to rescue us from our predicament. He gave himself for us, paying the debt for our rebellion and breaking Satan's hold over us, so that we who are in Christ - who repent of our sins, trust in him, and are baptized into him - are forgiven of the guilt of our sins, reconciled with God, and freed from the power of sin. We are promised that death is not the end - we will be resurrected when God fully and finally heals the cosmos of sin and evil.
The Diviner's rebellion in the Garden was the first of three "divine rebellions" in the beginning of Genesis, each of which has rippling repercussions. Next week we will look at the second rebellion, when rebels Elohim had sex with human women and created a race of hybrid giants.
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