Chapter XV - Genesis
Spiritual gateway
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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of sin and sin's progeny. This false sense of existence
of sin and sin's progeny. This false sense of existence
is fratricidal. In the words of Jesus, it (evil, devil) is
"a murderer from the beginning." Error begins by
reckoning life as separate from Spirit, thus sapping the
foundations of immortality, as if life and immortality
were something which matter can both give and take
away.
Only one standard
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What can be the standard of good, of Spirit, of Life,
What can be the standard of good, of Spirit, of Life,
or of Truth, if they produce their opposites, such as evil,
matter, error, and death? God could never
impart an element of evil, and man possesses
nothing which he has not derived from God. How then
has man a basis for wrong-doing? Whence does he
obtain the propensity or power to do evil? Has Spirit
resigned to matter the government of the universe?
A type of falsehood
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The Scriptures declare that God condemned this lie as
The Scriptures declare that God condemned this lie as
to man's origin and character by condemning its symbol,
the serpent, to grovel beneath all the beasts
of the field. It is false to say that Truth and
error commingle in creation. In parable and argument,
this falsity is exposed by our Master as self-evidently
wrong. Disputing these points with the Pharisees and
arguing for the Science of creation, Jesus said: "Do men
gather grapes of thorns?" Paul asked: "What com-
munion hath light with darkness? And what concord
hath Christ with Belial?"
Scientific offspring
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The divine origin of Jesus gave him more than human
The divine origin of Jesus gave him more than human
power to expound the facts of creation, and demonstrate
the one Mind which makes and governs man
and the universe. The Science of creation,
so conspicuous in the birth of Jesus inspired his wisest
and least-understood sayings, and was the basis of his