Serpent's Seed

William Branham and His Message
Serpent's Seed

We read in the Bible that not long after God rested, Adam and Eve disobeyed the Lord and ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Most people believe that it was an apple that Adam and Eve ate, though the Bible is silent on what type of fruit it actually was. However, Wm. Branham was quite clear in what he felt the forbidden fruit was. He taught that the fruit of that tree was sexual intercourse with the serpent. He said that the Fall in the Garden of Eden was a result of an act of adultery between Eve and the serpent, which Satan had incarnated (actually it wouldn't have been adultery, but bestiality--that is, having sex with animals [see Exodus 22:19; Leviticus 18:23; 20:16]). Wm. Branham believed that the serpent, in its original state, closely resembled a human being. Satan, while in the serpent’s body, seduced Eve and as a result of this act, Cain was born. But if eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil really meant having sex with the serpent, then the following passages do not make much sense:

Genesis 2:8,9
Genesis 2:15-17
Genesis 3:1-13

For example, when the serpent asked Eve, "hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden," it does not make sense for Eve to answer, "We may eat from the trees in the garden, but we are not to have sex with you."

While in the process of instructing Adam and Eve of the plants and trees they may eat from, why does God suddenly begin to tell them not to have sexual relations with the serpent? Why was Adam included in the command to abstain from intercourse with the serpent?
What does, "in the midst of the garden," (Genesis 2:9), refer to? Wm. Branham once implied that it referred to the serpent’s genitals.¹ The problem with that is that the Tree of Life was also in the midst of the garden and Wm. Branham said that that tree was Christ.

In the Bible, the description of the Tree of Knowledge is identical to the descriptions of all of the other trees, (Genesis 2:9 and 3:6). Why, then, should we interpret the Tree of Knowledge as being metaphorical?
The Bible says that Eve gave the forbidden fruit to Adam, her husband, to eat from, (Genesis 3:6). If the fruit that Eve gave Adam was not literally fruit, what was it? There are at least two Message interpretations:

It was an adulterous affair with the serpent, as mentioned above. But if this is so, how did Eve give it to Adam to eat? Wm. Branham said that Adam’s part in the Fall was in taking Eve back after she had lain with the serpent. He said that even though it was not written, God’s eternal Law said that "if a woman leaves her husband and goes with another man she is an adulteress and is no longer married and the husband is not to take her back."² However, such a law is nowhere to be found in Scripture. Wm. Branham is apparently referring to Deuteronomy 24:1-4, which allows a man to divorce his wife for uncleanness. The man is instructed to refrain from taking her back only if he divorces her and she remarries somebody else. But Adam did not divorce Eve, so there could have been no sin in taking her back even if the Mosaic Law was in effect.
Furthermore, when the Pharisees once asked Jesus if it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife, Jesus asked them, "What did Moses say?" They answered that Moses allowed divorce. Jesus then said, "Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so" (see Matthew 19:4-8).
In this one simple statement, Jesus just contradicted Wm. Branham's assertion that some sort of biblical law on divorce was in effect in the Garden of Eden and that Adam's part in the Fall was in violating such a law.
Besides all this, according to the Bible, Adam didn't even know Eve until after the Fall (Genesis 4:1), so how could he have brought sin and death on all mankind by an act that he did after God already punished him (Genesis 3:17-19)? Finally, the Bible places the entire blame for the Fall on Adam because he ate from the forbidden tree (see Genesis 3:11; Romans 5:12), not because he took Eve back after she sinned.
Wm. Branham once said that Eve was the Tree of Knowledge³. Therefore, Adam sinned by laying with her. But if this was so, why would God have forbidden Adam from doing this before Eve was even formed, (Genesis 2:17)?

No, Adam did not sin by laying with Eve as if he was forbidden to do so. He sinned by disobeying God in eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Note how Adam’s punishment fits the transgression of eating a literal fruit in Genesis 3:17-19:

...because thou... hast eaten;
in sorrow shalt thou eat;
thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread...

The Message says that as a result of Eve’s transgression with the serpent, she became pregnant with Cain. In order to reconcile the teaching that Cain was born of the serpent with Genesis 4:1, the Message says that Eve was already pregnant with Cain before Adam knew her. Wm. Branham taught that she conceived Abel while still pregnant with Cain. In order to believe this, we would have to conclude that the Bible is deliberately deceptive in saying that, "Adam knew Eve, his wife; and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, ‘I have gotten a man from the Lord..’" When Genesis 4:1 says that Adam knew Eve and she conceived and bore Cain, the wording is such that a reasonable person reading this passage would conclude that Eve’s conception was a result of her relationship with Adam. She conceived after lying with Adam and bore Cain. We see the same wording in Genesis 4:17 when Cain’s wife conceived and bore his son. When Eve said, "I have gotten a man from the Lord," one would naturally conclude that Eve gave birth to Adam’s son, not Satan’s. There is nothing in the text to suggest that Adam was not Cain’s father.

Wm. Branham also gives some New Testament proof that Cain’s father was the serpent. For example, he teaches that I John 3:12 says that Cain was the son of the serpent, which was possessed by Satan. He also said that that when Jesus told the Pharisees that they were of their father the devil (John 8:44) He was saying that they were literally of the lineage of the serpent (Wm. Branham overlooked the fact that in this same passage, Jesus already acknowledged that they were of Abraham's seed, not serpent's seed [John 8:37]. ). Of course, these verses do not mean that Cain or the wicked are literally the offspring of the serpent. Matthew 23:15 sheds some light on the true meaning of these verses when it says that the scribes and Pharisees were able to make a proselyte "twofold the more the child of hell" then themselves.

Another NT example that Wm. Branham gives to prove that Cain’s father was the serpent and not Adam was that Adam’s lineage and birthright did not pass through Cain, who was the firstborn. It went through Seth instead. Wm. Branham said that this could only mean that Cain was not really Adam’s son. But this is not so. Similar examples of the firstborn losing the birthright to the younger brother are found in the stories of Isaac/Ishmael and Jacob/Esau. And as Genesis shows, God cursed Cain from the earth. It only follows that Adam’s lineage should go through Seth instead of Cain.

Followers of the Message often suggest that Cain's sinful and evil nature proves that his father was not human, but animal. However, since animals are neither moral nor evil, this suggestion is absurd. The Bible says that sin came into the world through Adam (Romans 5:12-14). Cain did not sin because of any animal instinct. By his own free will, Cain chose to obey this sinful nature rather than God (Genesis 4:6,7; Romans 1:20-32).

Finally, we look at the curse of the serpent. We know that Cain and Abel and Seth were born of the same woman. Why then does the Bible make a distinction between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman when all of mankind came from the woman? Why, if God was cursing the literal lineage of the serpent, does Genesis 3:15 not read, "I will put enmity between thee and Adam, and between thy seed and his seed?" It is because this is a prophetic verse that points to the salvation of mankind through Jesus Christ. The enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman is personified by the enmity we see between those who are slaves to Satan’s influence and Jesus Christ. See Galatians 3:16. Followers of Wm. Branham’s Message have asked, "But where did Cain get such a horrible, animal-like nature if he was not born of the serpent?" The answer can be found in Romans 5:12-14 and Romans 1:20-32.

Notes

¹Now, the devil come down and got into the serpent, and he found Eve in the garden of Eden naked. And he talked about the fruit in the midst, the "midst" means "middle" and so forth. You understand in a mixed congregation. And he said, "Now, it's pleasant. It's good to the eye."
Serpent’s Seed, September 28, 1958 (tape #58-0928E)

²Now the Word teaches us that if a woman leaves her husband and goes with another man she is an adultress and is no longer married and the husband is not to take her back. That Word was true in Eden as it was true when Moses wrote it in the law. The Word can't change. Adam took her back. He knew exactly what he was doing, but he did it any way. She was a part of him, and he was willing to take her responsibility upon himself. He would not let her go. So Eve conceived by him. He knew she would. He knew exactly what would happen to the human race, and he sold the human race into sin that he might have Eve, for he loved her.
Church Ages Book, page 104

³The tree in the life--the middle of the garden, in the midst of the tree... The tree was the woman.
Q&A On Hebrews #1, September 25, 1957 (tape #57-0925)

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