"And the woman said to the serpent, 'From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, "You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die."'
"And the serpent said to the woman, 'You surely shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'" (Earth’s first deception: Genesis 3:1-5).
Jesus repeats the term in Matthew 12:34, saying, "You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart."
Satan chooses the form of a serpent. Cousins John and Jesus refers to the arrogant and hypocritical Jewish leaders as a brood of vipers. An easier term to understand would be sons of snakes.
I’ll be the first to admit a healthy respect for snakes. Although I’m fascinated with their sleek movements and fascinating habits, I try to keep my distance when encountering one in the wild.
I remember one such encounter when I was in middle school. Barefooted, I rounded the corner to our concrete back patio and almost stepped on a snake about three feet long. Going inside the house, I put on some shoes and got a rake from the garage. My objective was to move the snake out to the pasture. I knew the snake was not poisonous, but I had never seen one quite like it. Its turned-up nose had an unusual shape.
When I approached the snake with my rake, it:
- Shook its tail and made a rattling noise with its mouth
- Impersonated a sidewinder
- Flattened out and danced like a cobra
- Vomited
- Played dead
I finally succeeded in moving the snake to the pasture, not falling for any of its deceptive poses. My mother and I looked up the species and discovered it was a hog-nosed snake. Interestingly, the animal encyclopedia listed all the deceptions I had witnessed.
My encounter with the snake had a happy ending. The snake lived and I learned.
One difference between the hog-nosed snake and the brood of vipers was that the hog-nosed snake was non-poisonous. A viper can paralyze. A viper can blind a person. A viper can kill. The consequences of a misfortunate encounter with a viper are debilitating and deadly. Beware the false teachers and liars of the world!
In Matthew 23:33, Jesus repeats the phrase again, describing to the scribes and Pharisees the consequences of their deception. He says, "You serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of hell?"
It’s obvious that there are not only dire consequences to ones against whom a deception is being made; there are also horrific consequences for the ones who tell lies. Revelation 21:8 is a commonly quoted verse that explains that lying is just as much a sin as murder or homosexuality.
To quote John’s writing in that verse: "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death."
We often want to put sins in descending categories of severity, but God needs for us to understand this: that sin is sin, and all sin is serious and punishable by eternal existence in Hell.
Our salvation is that we do not have to receive such a dire fate. We Christians choose not to lie and not to go to Hell. We Christians choose life in Heaven. The martyrs in John’s revelation are described in Revelation 14:5 as having "no lie found in their mouth; they are blameless." Won’t it be amazing to be described with those same words?