Serpent type: human likeness, God who gives life

“And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” The serpents were biting those of Israel in the desert; then the God of all commanded Moses to set up a bronze serpent: “And it shall be,” he says, “if a serpent bites a human, and he looks toward the serpent, he shall also live.” What then is the riddle? And why is the one who looks at the serpent saved? Therefore the Only-begotten Word of God, existing as life by nature, became in the likeness that is as we are—that is, human; and the human is evil and as it were the serpent; yet even if he became as we are, if someone looks to him, he conquers death. And what is it to look to him, except precisely to understand carefully the mystery upon him? For then one will see him in the likeness of the evil ones—that is, of humans—yet life-giving as God, and making the bites of the evil serpents vanish. So there is one Lord and Son, the same one, both life-giving as God and in the form of the evil ones through economy.

The children, having “the palm branches, went out to meet him, and were crying: Hosanna; blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, even the king of Israel.”