CHAPTER III
The Temptation and Fall
Gen. 3:1-24
Agnes M. Lawson
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to Bible Study
The Colorado College of Divine
Science
Denver, 1920.
This chapter
is the answer to that persistent inquiry,
“How did evil come into the heart
of man if he was created perfect?”
The answer is that it came from outside
of man and not from within him, hence his
hope of victory. The sin that approaches
us from without cannot be a native
product of the heart of man. To choose
the serpent as the tempter is another
evidence of the artistry of the Hebrew.
Its stealthy movements, its deadly venom,
and the instinctive feeling of repulsion
it provokes in us all go to make it an
excellent symbol for sin. These are all
suggestions of the insidious approaches
of temptation.
It is the
woman consciousness that the serpent
approaches. The instinctive and
intuitional consciousness is always the
adventurer. Regardless of cost will she
embark on the trial of her own prowess.
“Deep, deep to the heart of life,
and high to heaven” must the woman
soar. Man’s cautious reason weighs
the consequences and therefore never
ventures into unexplored fields. Herein
is the essential difference in the
characteristics of the sexes; the woman
listens and sees, the man thinks and
reasons.
“The
serpent is more subtle;” it is to
this subtlety that the woman yields. Our
great security from sin is to see it as
it is and reject it. The woman stopped to
parley with the serpent and therefore
fell under its seductive guile. I once
heard Sam Jones, the evangelist, say:
“The devil is a gentleman; turn
your back upon him, and he will leave
you.” Sound advice that, for as
long as we entertain evil it stays with
us with all its arguments as to why it
should remain.
Eve makes
the mistake of listening to the voice
outside of herself and not waiting for
that guidance within to which she could
so absolutely trust. The “still
small voice” never errs, but alas!
the loud strong one does, for it is the
race belief in materiality. The lesson to
be learned by us is discrimination.
Wisdom lies at the root of our being. We
all know the way and the great lesson of
life is to go to the depth of our being
for guidance.
The serpent
said to the woman: “Yea hath God
said, ye shall eat of every tree of the
garden.” She replies that
man’s own safety is the object of
the prohibition. As Eve has stopped to
entertain him so the serpent grows
bolder. The serpent now denies the truth
of the divine warning and places upon the
mandate another construction than a
desire for man’s safety, arguing
that God desires to keep man in ignorance
and that the real motive for making the
prohibition is his jealousy lest the rise
of men into knowledge should place him on
terms of equality with his Creator. The
serpent first makes an assertion, next a
contradiction, last a promise.
Woman falls
because she separates herself from God.
She identifies herself with an appearance
rather than with reality. She interrupts
her intercourse with God, from whom her
life emanates, by this belief in
separation. “And when the woman saw
that the tree was good for food, and that
it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to
be desired to make one wise, she took the
fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also
unto her husband; and he did
eat.”
The
man’s and woman’s eyes are
now opened, and they know that they are
naked. The serpent’s promise is
fulfilled, but how differently from their
expectations! The act of sin is
immediately followed by a sense of guilty
shame. To the pure all things are pure.
The nude is never the naked. Innocence
and Purity alike are better expressed
without clothing, but no sense of
nakedness can be in the mind of either of
them. There is neither impurity nor
immodesty in the nude in art, a high
sense of chastity and the noblest
sentiments of life are thus fitly
portrayed. Nakedness is different,
however, for purity is gone when this
sense is there. To purity in its
undisturbed communion with God, every
natural thing is good and pure. As soon
as sensuous guilt enters the
consciousness the sense of nakedness
which is weakness and impotence enters
with it.
“In
every temptation there is the serpent,
the exciting cause without and the
answering inclination within.” To
follow any voice in the external world is
to fail, for all Wisdom is of the
Spiritual world. The worst thing about
sin is the sense of being lost; we have
no model for work; we have no guide for
advancement. All progress is stopped and
we are going around in a circle.
Sin warps
our judgment and decisions. The clothing
of the soul is the purity, wisdom and
power of the Spirit, and we divest
ourselves of them when we are beguiled by
the serpent. Then God comes to us in the
evening, always in the evening (to
blend). Man and woman who had enjoyed the
freedom of the garden and the confidence
and friendship of their maker now hide
themselves from Him. Is not this in
itself hell enough? We have lost the
companionship of God, and must go out of
the divine presence, and while the dark
pall is upon us we must remain out.
But God
never ceases to call, “Where art
thou?” This is a pertinent
question. When we are not in God’s
presence, WHERE ARE WE? The man justly
blames the woman, and the woman justly
blames the serpent, for temptation comes
to us from the outside, but when we
resist it strength and power come from
within. The Adam man never rises to this
dignity. The difference between the Adam
man and the Christ man is the difference
in his judgments. Truth’s eternal
command is: “Judge not according to
appearances but judge righteous
judgment.” Man cannot fall when his
judgments are true, never can he be in
sin, sickness or sorrow if his judgment
is righteous, for truth is the
exterminator of all error. We are always
whiners, shirkers and cowards when under
the delusion of sin. “Thus
conscience does make cowards of us
all.” The Adam man always blames
the outward excitement instead of the
inner inclination when he yields to
temptation.
The judgment
falls on the serpent first. The serpent
stands for the state of consciousness
which is surface judgment, judging
according to appearances. This is man in
his most ignorant state. “Thou art
cursed above all cattle, and upon thy
belly shalt thou go, and dust shall thou
eat all the days of thy life.”
This curse
is upon man as long as this state of
ignorance lasts. He is the prodigal in
that far country (materiality) and dust
and husks of swine is all that this
country yields for soul food. As man
learns more and more to form righteous
judgments he becomes more and more
“upright.”
Woman, the
first to listen to the serpent, must be
the first to repudiate him. “It
shall bruise thy heel but thou shalt
bruise its head.” As it had
affected her judgment she must take all
power from it by crushing its head. But
as long as woman is capable of being
beguiled by the serpent, she must in
sorrow bring forth her children, and be
in wrong relationship to her husband.
Intuition must lead reason, we never come
into right relationship with God until it
does. Reason follows and verifies
intuition.
And unto the
man God says: “Because thou hast
hearkened unto the voice of thy wife and
eaten of the tree* * *cursed is the
ground, and in sorrow shalt thou eat of
it all the days of thy life.”
“Thorns and thistles it will bear,
and in the sweat of thy face eat thy
bread.” Reason is that faculty that
must hold us true, it must not yield
under persuasion. Reason cannot travel
one step forward. It is not the steering
gear but the anchor, and as such should
hold us true. There is nothing dynamic in
it and it lacks initiative. So it is not
profitable to work under it. The curse is
the loss of the spiritual sense and
woman’s desire is to her husband;
they are governed by reason.
And Adam
called his wife’s name Eve (life)
because she was the mother of all living.
And the Lord God made coats of skin for
their protection. Man is clothed upon,
his ideas do not emanate from himself;
they descend upon him from infinite Mind.
All truth clothes us, and to accept an
untruth leaves us naked and ashamed.
Man is
driven out of Eden when he is disobedient
to the voice of truth. The Angel with the
flaming sword guards the entrance, to
keep the Way of Life, and we can enter it
only as we rise above the errors of
sense. We are happy in the garden in our
child innocence, we must re-enter it in
conscious power and purity.
* * * * *
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