In Genesis ch.3 we first read of a serpent, one of God's creatures, being used by God to test Adam and Eve. It had been given intelligence and the power to speak, persuading Adam and Eve to disobey God, and so bringing death on Adam and all his descendants (see 2 Corinthians 11:3).

In Exodus ch.7 the staff that Moses carried miraculously become a serpent to demonstrate the power of God to Pharoah.

In Numbers ch.21 we read of a time when Israel disobeyed God, and He sent a plague of serpents (in this case perhaps scorpions) among them. The plague was stopped and the Israelites were saved from death by looking up to a serpent of brass which Moses made and set on a pole before them. This miraculous cure would also have required an admission of their sin and repentance as they looked upon the serpent. The serpent on the pole was symbolic of the putting to death of their own human failings and weaknesses and their new determination to rely only on God.

Jesus compares his own crucifixion to being "lifted up as the serpent in the wilderness"-a putting to death of human sinfulness by the representative death of one man, a perfect human being, so that all mankind could be saved from death, just as Israel were saved: "Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." (John 3:14).

The serpent became the symbol of human sinfulness, and as such it is linked with the devil (accuser) and satan (adversary) in Revelation 12:9 and 20:2. Jesus addresses the leaders of the Jews as "a brood of vipers" (Matthew 23:33) an expression that reminds us that God promised Eve that in due time her offspring would crush the head of the serpent's seed (in Genesis 3:15), a promise that has been fulfilled in Christ.