Chapter XV - Genesis
Spiritual gateway
538:3
Truth should, and does, drive error out of all selfhood.
Truth should, and does, drive error out of all selfhood.
Truth is a two-edged sword, guarding and guiding.
Truth places the cherub wisdom at the gate
of understanding to note the proper guests.
Radiant with mercy and justice, the sword of Truth
gleams afar and indicates the infinite distance between
Truth and error, between the material and spiritual, –
the unreal and the real.
Contrasted testimony
538:11
The sun, giving light and heat to the earth, is a figure
The sun, giving light and heat to the earth, is a figure
of divine Life and Love, enlightening and sustaining the
universe. The "tree of life" is significant of
eternal reality or being. The "tree of knowl-
edge" typifies unreality. The testimony of the serpent is
significant of the illusion of error, of the false claims that
misrepresent God, good. Sin, sickness, and death have
no record in the Elohistic introduction of Genesis, in which
God creates the heavens, earth, and man. Until that
which contradicts the truth of being enters into the arena,
evil has no history, and evil is brought into view only as
the unreal in contradistinction to the real and eternal.
538:23
Genesis iv. 1. And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she
Genesis iv. 1. And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she
conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man
from the Lord [Jehovah].
Erroneous conception
538:26
This account is given, not of immortal man, but of mor-
This account is given, not of immortal man, but of mor-
tal man, and of sin which is temporal. As both mortal
man and sin have a beginning, they must
consequently have an end, while the sinless,
real man is eternal. Eve's declaration, "I have gotten
a man from the Lord," supposes God to be the author