Jesus Christ, the Serpent

The snake was originally a symbol for Jesus Christ. The reason can be easily seen if we look at other cultures: the shedding of the snake's skin is a type of rebirth that associates the snake with healing, regeneration, resurrection, and eternal life.

We can see traces of this in: (1) Moses turning the staff (one might say a rod, even, symbolically, a rod of iron) to a snake; (2) Moses lifting up the brass serpent, to which the camp of Israel had to look if they were to be saved; and (3) the veneration of that same object up until the time of Hezekiah, when understandable respect (like unto that paid to certain relics of Joseph Smith in the early days of the LDS Church) had turned into idol worship.

"But wait," you say. "Is not the serpent the form or sign or image that Lucifer took in the Garden?"

Indeed. But it has always been the pattern and method of the Deceiver to be Anti-Christ and, wherever possible, declare "I am the Only Begotten, worship me!" Whether he took on the actual appearance of a serpent in some way, spoke through a talking serpent in some way, or (more likely to my mind) revealed some "sign of the serpent" analogous to other sacred signs (just as the Holy Spirit descended displaying the sign, and not in the physical form, of the dove, according to JS), he did so in order to co-opt that symbolism for himself.

Is it not for this reason, to appear as the glorious being that he is not, that he oft appears as an angel of light?

Lucifer did not appear in "the sign of the serpent," as we might so call it, because that sign was ordained for evil, but because it was ordained to be a sign of the Savior and yet, unlike "the sign of the dove," was not a sign that Lucifer was barred was using.

Extra note: If we assume that we can learn anything substantial about Book of Mormon peoples from Amerind culture then the veneration of the snake in the Americas points to (1) the shift not being completed until at least the Jewish Diaspora and/or (2) a restoration of the true meaning of the symbolism of the snake at some point during BoM times. If the latter, that could lead to the interesting situation of the Nephites venerating the snake while the Lamanites decry this as yet another sign of the moral decay of the former.