As we have seen, the first two chapters of the Scriptures give us the blueprint of God’s plan, and the last two chapters of the Scriptures show us a picture of the consummation of God’s plan. If you cut off the first two chapters with the blueprint and the last two chapters with the picture and read from the third chapter of Genesis to the twentieth chapter of Revelation, you will realize that the greater part of the Scripture starts with the serpent (Gen. 3:1) and ends with the ancient serpent (Rev. 20:2). This shows us that after the blueprint of the divine plan had been revealed, the serpent came in right away to damage, to poison, the vessel created by God for Himself.
God’s central thought is to put Himself into all His creation as the vessel with man as the center and all the other things as an environment, an attachment, to this vessel. But before God put Himself into this vessel, Satan, the enemy of God, came in as the serpent to damage, to poison, the vessel. He knew that man is the center of the vessel of the old creation, so he came in to inject his poison into the center of this vessel. If you look at the Scriptures with this point of view, you will understand why the serpent came in such a way. In order to inject something into a physical body, you always choose a soft place. A soft place is so easy to inject something into. The enemy, the serpent, is very subtle. He knows quite well which part of the old creation is the softest; it is the females. The sisters are too soft. Because they are so soft, they are good for the enemy to come in and inject something. Many times I told people that if you are going to contact the sisters, do not reason with them or argue with them. Just drop two tears; you will convince them because they are so soft. The enemy did the same in principle. He came in to inject himself through the soft part, the weak part, of humanity, and he succeeded.
From that time on Satan has been mixed with humanity. In the human nature there is something of the serpent. In the human nature there is something satanic, something that is Satan himself. When the Lord was on this earth, He scolded people by calling them “offspring of vipers” (Matt. 3:7; 12:34) and “brood of vipers” (23:33), that is, children of the serpent. Furthermore, He told the Jews that they were of their father the devil (John 8:44). In other words, they were the children of the devil because the life, the nature, the substance, of the serpent has been injected into the human nature. We must realize what the fall of man means. It does not only mean that man did something wrong against the law of God; that is too objective. The fall of man is also very subjective in that something of Satan has been mixed with man.
Do you know what the difference is between the body and the flesh? The body was made by God as a pure vessel to contain the soul, while the flesh is the body mixed with the nature of Satan, becoming something very sinful. If you read Romans 7, you will realize that sin dwells in the members of the body (vv. 17, 20, 23). In Romans 6, 7, and 8 sin, singular in number, denotes the life and nature of Satan. In fact, in these three chapters, sin is a person, the embodiment of Satan, and is living and acting. It can reign as king (6:12); it can rule over you, control you, and lord it over you (v. 14); and it can become your master and make you a slave (v. 20). Sin, which is the life and nature of the devil, is in the body. Therefore the body was changed in nature because something of Satan was injected into it, causing it to be mixed with Satan. If you read the Scriptures carefully, you will see that from Genesis 3 all the things on the negative side came from the injection of the serpent, from Satan.
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