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Gen 3:1-13

The primeval state of man - of man before he became the subject of regeneration - is described in allegorical terms, as the earth, without form, and void, with darkness brooding over the face of a great deep. The six days of creation symbolically set forth his gradual rise, through the work of regeneration, out of this low condition into one of the highest degree of spiritual and celestial excellence. His fall was a gradual return to his former natural state; but when he returned to the ground from whence he was taken, he was no longer innocent in his naturalism; for now he had become evil. As there were steps that led up to the high state man reached in his Eden home, so there were steps that led down to the moral degradation that ultimately expelled him from Eden.

We must think of these most ancient people as involving in their spiritual, mental and physical structures the same constituents of humanity that we possess; but in them, all the elements of their being were in harmony. They, when fully regenerated, were open, from their inmost soul down through all their mental degrees of life - yea even to the most external planes of their bodies - to the descending life of the Lord. Everything was in perfect order.

The first movement downward came when a certain posterity of the Most Ancient Church felt an inclination to exalt and make prominent their individuality. In the beginning this was a mere suggestion, but it grew with succeeding posterities of that church until they felt it was no longer good to live alone with the Lord.

This led to Adam's deep sleep - the closure of the higher planes of the mind to the inflow of the Lord's life. It is not that the most ancient people did not possess a proprium, in the beginning; for without a proprium - an ownhood - they would not have had personal otherness from the Lord, and would thus have been incapable of regeneration. They always possessed an ownhood; but it was not made prominent, nor did they incline to it until a posterity came that wished to be led as of themselves.

This, in the beginning, was not an evil thing; for, at first, it did not take them away from the Lord, but only gave them a consciousness of individuality in following Him. The "rib" - the ownhood - was taken out of man and built into a woman imbued with innocence and thus rendered capable of serving man in his regeneration. But this state was much lower than the one described by Adam living alone in the garden; and it ultimately led to the utter ruin of the Most Ancient Church.

Up to this point, the sensuous nature in the most ancient people, yielded willing obedience to the dictates and impulses of the celestial principles of the mind. Like an obedient servant, the sensuous plane of their minds ministered to the attainment of the highest life. It kept its subordinate position. The whole plane of sense life was designed by the all-wise Creator to serve the higher life of the soul. The senses are inlets for certain kinds of knowledge - doors through which the outer things of the world enter the mind; and while they are kept subordinate to the higher principles of the soul, they serve the use of elevating and enlarging the mind; but when they are turned to and exalted above the intellectual and spiritual things of life, they close the mind to heaven and open it downward to the world and thus invert all true order.

This sensuous plane of life - the degree of life that belongs to the senses of the body - is what is meant by the serpent in the Eden story. It is said in this story: "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field." The animals to which Adam gave names stand for the affections and thoughts of the most ancient people; and by Adam naming the animals is meant that the man of the celestial church perceived the quality of all such affections and thoughts. And now, when it is said that the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, the thing meant is that the senses are more deceptive than any other quality of human life. They are the lowest and the least to be depended upon. They call for constant watchfulness on the part of the higher powers of the mind; they need constant direction and guidance. They belong to the outer extremes of human life and are open directly to receive impressions from the world, by which the memory is furnished with things which it can use with persuasive art in favor of the delights and cupidities of mere bodily life. The natural mind is formed by deposits from the world through the senses of the body: and the natural mind thus formed reasons from the sense plane, and thus rejects the truth of revelation, and doubts all Divine things. The senses cannot be trusted. The judgments and conclusions formed from them are always erroneous. Every wise man is called upon, in reaching the truth, to correct the impressions received from without through his senses. They cannot be followed. With the people of the most Ancient Church, this sensuous plane, while they remained in their integrity, was as wise as a serpent, because it admitted into itself the correcting light of the higher principles of the mind; but as succeeding posterities of that church began to incline to the sense life, to look to the senses for their interpretation of life, they came more and more under the influence of the sensuous side of their being, until all the inner avenues of life were closed.

To whom did the serpent make its appeal? To Eve. Eve is the symbol of the selfhood. The selfhood imbued with innocence, was at first a help-meet; but now it had grown so large in the regard of these most ancient people that it became a means by which the senses were able to involve them in complete spiritual ruin.

The tree of the knowledge of good and of evil was not a literal tree, for we can all see that the knowledge of good and evil could not have been the product of a tree. The knowledge of spiritual things is communicated to man by the Lord. It comes by revelation, given either through an internal dictate or by a written word of Scripture. Every man who does any serious thinking knows this to be true. He feels himself incompetent for such a discovery as the knowledge of spiritual things.

With the most ancient people this knowledge flowed in from the Lord and they were forbidden to attempt to gain it by any external methods. Of all the trees of the garden they might eat, excepting the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Why this prohibition? The fruit of every perception of goodness and truth, they were permitted to appropriate; but they must not appropriate to themselves the knowledge that belongs to God alone; for to eat of this tree meant a mental appropriation by which they would be led to believe that spiritual knowledge was the result of their own self-derived intelligence. But the Eve in this posterity of the Most Ancient Church - the ownhood - had opened the way for the pleading of the sense life. Knowledge, as a tree to see was planted by the Lord in Eden; for it is lawful to see the tree of knowledge - to seek to learn and comprehend the things of knowledge ; but it never is lawful to eat of the tree of knowledge because that act stands for making knowledge a result of our own efforts. It meant intellectual conceit. "Ye shall be as gods," the serpent said. This posterity of the Most Ancient Church yielded to the deception of the sense life. Men began to think of themselves as wise from themselves - to be as gods. The senses won out. "Eve ate and gave to her husband, and he did eat." The selfhood, the will, yielded to the senses; and as a result, the intellectual faculty consented. Innocence was lost. The soul was closed to God. The sense of guilt came. Conscience took the place of perception. They knew they were naked. Eden closed to them, and they were "sent forth to till the ground from whence they were taken.