This account is given, not of immortal man, but of mor-
538:27 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,
538:30 real man is eternal. Eve's declaration, "I have gotten
a man from the Lord," supposes God to be the author
539:1 of sin and sin's progeny. This false sense of existence
is fratricidal. In the words of Jesus, it (evil, devil) is
539:3 "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
539:6 were something which matter can both give and take
away.
Only one standard
What can be the standard of good, of Spirit, of Life,
539:9 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
539:12 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
539:15 resigned to matter the government of the universe?
A type of falsehood
The Scriptures declare that God condemned this lie as
to man's origin and character by condemning its symbol,
539:18 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,
539:21 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
539:24 gather grapes of thorns?" Paul asked: "What com-
munion hath light with darkness? And what concord
hath Christ with Belial?"
Scientific offspring
539:27 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
539:30 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
540:1 marvellous demonstrations. Christ is the offspring of
Spirit, and spiritual existence shows that Spirit creates
540:3 neither a wicked nor a mortal man, lapsing into sin, sick-
ness, and death.
Cleansing upheaval
In Isaiah we read: "I make peace, and create evil. I
540:6 the Lord do all these things;" but the prophet referred to
divine law as stirring up the belief in evil to its
utmost, when bringing it to the surface and re-
540:9 ducing it to its common denominator, nothingness. The
muddy river-bed must be stirred in order to purify the
stream. In moral chemicalization, when the symptoms
540:12 of evil, illusion, are aggravated, we may think in our igno-
rance that the Lord hath wrought an evil; but we ought
to know that God's law uncovers so-called sin and its
540:15 effects, only that Truth may annihilate all sense of evil
and all power to sin.
Allegiance to Spirit