The serpent and the Bride: how we as Satan’s Increase are Becoming Christ’s Increase

In John 3 we see the serpent and the bride; though we were bitten by the serpent and are serpentine in nature, Christ came and was lifted up as our Substitute, bore God’s judgment for us, and we can believe in Him to become part of His increase, His bride.

Wow, what a marvelous plan and what an wonderful destiny we have! And it all hinges on our realising and seeing that we are sinners, sinful, serpentine in nature, and repenting to receive the divine life.

The children of Israel were bitten by fiery serpents in Num. 21, and they had to look at the bronze serpent lifted up on the pole to live; we were bitten by Satan and have his sinful nature in us, and we need to look at (believe into) Jesus and live.

God created us in His image and according to His likeness so that we may receive His life and become one with Him, even to be His bride, His wife.

However, before God’s life could come into us, Satan “jumped in” and deceived us, injecting his evil and poisonous nature into us. Now all men are born in sin – all men are born “serpentine” in nature, and there’s no need for parents to teach the children how to sin – they do it spontaneously and automatically.

When the Lord’s light shines on us and we realise that we are sinful, we repent by having a turn from anything of the past to Him, and we have a change of mind and of purpose.

To repent is to have a change of mind issuing in regret, and to have a turn of purpose, turning from all things to God Himself.

We repent not only initially when we believed into the Lord but every day we need to repent.

There are so many things that distract us from the enjoyment and experience of Christ, and day by day we need to repent and turn to the Lord so that we may receive and enjoy the divine, eternal life of God.

The Lord arranges our environment and circumstances for us to receive His salvation and enjoy Him as life, and on our side we need to cooperate with Him by allowing Him to shine on us and repenting when He exposes particular things in us.

It is such a blessing for us to know that Christ came in the likeness of the flesh of sin so that He may die on the cross as our Substitute, our Replacement, for us to look to Him by believing into Him to receive eternal life.

And this receiving is not once for all – we constantly receive and enjoy the eternal life as we repent under the Lord’s shining and take Christ as the reality of the sin offering, the real bronze serpent. This will constitute us as the bride of Christ.

Christ as the Real Sin Offering Bore God’s Judgment for us so that we may Believe and have Eternal Life

Most believers know John 3:16 and love this verse very much, for it conveys the love of God toward us; but John 3:16 is the issue of verses 14-15, which speak of Moses lifting up the serpent in the wilderness.

John 3:16 is the issue of verses 14 and 15; that is, the receiving of the divine, eternal life is the issue of the uplifting of Christ on the cross as the bronze serpent, the real sin offering.

Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so that all those who were bitten by the fiery serpents would look and live, so the Lord Jesus was lifted up as our Substitute to bear God’s judgment for us so that we may look at Him (that is, believe into Him) and have eternal life.

Even such a gentleman as Nicodemus, a teacher of the law with a high standard of morality who sought after teachings to improve himself before God, even such a one had to realise that he was serpentine in nature, and he needed to believe into Jesus as the reality of the bronze serpent.

When we realise that we are serpentine in nature and believe into the Lord Jesus as the bronze serpent lifted up as our Substitute, we have eternal life; this is to be regenerated, to receive the divine life of God.

In the sight of God, the Lord Jesus was lifted up as our Substitute to bear God’s judgment for us so that we may look at Him and receive and enjoy eternal life; this is the real manifestation of God’s love to the world.

Christ dying on the cross as the bronze serpent is Him dying as the real sin offering.

In Lev. 10:17 we see the sin offering; the priest partook of the sin offering to bear the iniquity of the people. This signifies that we partake of Christ as the believers’ sin offering in the sense of participating in Christ’s life, the life that bears others’ sins, as our life supply, so that we may also be able to bear the problems of God’s people.

The rich enjoyment of Christ as our sin offering in the church life enables us to minister Christ to the believers as the life that deals with sin so that they may deal with their sins and thus restore their broken fellowship with God.

By believing into Christ we receive His life, and this life is a sin-dealing life; the life that was released from Christ after being lifted up is a sin-dealing life.

This life deals with sin in our being, and when we minister life to others, this life is a sin-dealing life for them to deal with their sin.

We need to enjoy the Lord as life more, and when we meet others or visit the new ones or backsliding ones, we simply need to minister Christ to them, for this Christ as life will deal with sin in them. He is the real sin offering, and His life is a sin-dealing life.

Thank You God for loving the world so much that You gave Your only Begotten Son, so that whoever believes into Him would not perish but would have eternal life. We were born in Adam, serpentine in nature, but we can look to Jesus by believing into Him as the reality of the bronze serpent, and we can receive eternal life, the life of God! What kind of love is this! Thank You Lord for being the sin offering for us and for giving us Your sin-dealing life. Keep us coming to You, enjoying You, experiencing You, and even ministering You as the sin-dealing life to others.

The Serpent and the Bride: how we as Satan’s Increase are Becoming Christ’s Increase

When Satan as the serpent bit us, he imparted the poison of his nature into us to make us his increase; through the fall, the entire human race has become the increase of Satan.

However, John 3 reveals that, even though we are serpentine in nature who need to believe into the Lord Jesus as the reality of the bronze serpent, through regeneration we become the increase of Christ, His bride.

John 3 reveals that regeneration is not only to bring the divine life into us, the believers in Christ, but also to make us the corporate bride for Christ’s increase (John 3:29-30).

Just as Adam was increased in Eve, his bride and wife, so Christ is increased in the church, His bride and wife (Gen. 2:21-22).

By Christ being lifted up on the cross as the bronze serpent, Satan’s increase has become Christ’s increase, His bride; we who were once the increase of Satan have become the increase of Christ.

So the Bible speaks not only of a wonderful divine romance between God and man, but also of the serpent and the bride; the Bible shows us how we as Satan’s increase are becoming Christ’s increase to be His bride.

The unlimited Christ must have a universal increase, and He’s in the process of gaining this increase today.

He gives the Spirit without measure (John 3:34) to produce and build up the church as the increase of Christ.

Every one of the millions of people who believes in the Lord Jesus has received the immeasurable Spirit to be part of the universal increase of the unlimited Christ. Hallelujah!

Even though Satan injected his sinful nature into us, by believing into Christ we are regenerated, and we become the increase of Christ!

The unlimited Christ gives the immeasurable Spirit in order to produce a universal increase of Himself, which is the church as the Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem. All regenerated persons are the components of the bride, who will be married to the Lord Jesus as the Bridegroom.

Regeneration means not only that we receive the divine life in our spirit but also that our serpentine being is annulled and that we receive the divine life in order to become a new being and be part of the bride of Christ! Hallelujah!

Here we see the serpent and the bride – by regeneration we who were serpents in nature are becoming the bride of Christ to be His increase! Amen!

Regeneration is for producing the bride of Christ, for through regeneration serpentine beings become sons of God to be part of the increase of Christ in humanity.

The intention of John 3 is to show that the unlimited Christ must have a universal increase and that He is in the process of gaining this increase today; the immeasurable Spirit produces a universal increase for the unlimited Christ (John 3:29-36). Amen!

We may even say that, considered as a whole, the Bible unveils the matter of the serpent and the bride. Wow!

In the Bible we see the divine romance, but we also see the serpent and the bride – the serpent wants to frustrate our romance with the Lord and stop us from telling Him how much we love Him, but through regeneration we become part of the bride of Christ, and now we are becoming in reality the bride of Christ! Hallelujah!

Thank You Lord Jesus for dying for us to regenerate us with Your divine life and make us part of the bride of Christ! Hallelujah, we who are serpentine in nature can be regenerated and have our serpentine being annulled so that we may become part of the increase of Christ, the church! Amen, Lord, You must increase, and we must decrease; increase in us for the bride of Christ, and make us part of Your increase on earth. We want to receive and enjoy the immeasurable Spirit so that the unlimited Christ may gain a universal increase for Himself!

This article can also be read in the Romanian language / Citiți acest articol în limba română vizitând următorul link, Șarpele și mireasa: să vedem cum noi, ca și creștere a Satan, devenim creșterea lui Cristos.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1982, vol. 2, ”The Fulfillment of the Tabernacle and the Offerings in the Writings of John,” ch. 9, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Numbers (2), week 6, Christ as Typified by the Bronze Serpent.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Man was driven out of Eden for he was serpentine, / Now a vessel not of glory but of corruption. / Man a flesh became; he is not the same, a man of shame / A vessel dead within. / For this cause, Lord, You came from heaven, and You became a slave. / The Creator, the God of glory, became a man to save. / As the Bridegroom and a Husband for Your wife, Your bride, / Your love flowed from Your side. (Song on, In eternity, in the beginning)
  # Thou art the grain divine that died / The many grains to bear, / Which, blent and formed, Thy Body are. / And all Thy nature share. / We are the increase of Thyself, / And Thou our content art; / Through us Thou livest and dost move / And manifested art. (Hymns #116)
  # My old man has been crucified with Him, / With all its foul corruption deep within; / And buried too its nature serpentine, / Completely finished—this great fact is mine, / I hold it fast. / So, Lord, I give my heart to Thee today, / That it may be Thy home in every way, / A place for Thee to come and settle down, / And all Thy grand recovery work to crown / In one new man. (Hymns #1179)