In the Christian Science Bible Lesson April 30, 2012 Issue

Silence the serpent

For the lesson titled "Adam and Fallen Man" from April 30–May 6, 2012

Kathleen Collins

This week’s Bible Lesson, titled “Adam and Fallen Man,” invites us to take a fresh look at the story of a talking serpent. Traditionally, many view the account of Adam and Eve and the serpent as a history of the downfall of humanity, but it’s actually a parable leading to the truth about God’s creation. As Science and Health puts it, “The purpose of the Hebrew allegory, representing error as assuming a divine character, is to teach mortals never to believe a lie” (p. 540, citation 4). 

The serpent’s beguiling position is that by disobeying God, “ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5, Responsive Reading). This supposed “mingling of good and evil,” this “philosophy of the serpent” (Science and Health, p. 269, cit. 7), was the ruin of Adam and Eve: “From Genesis to the Apocalypse, sin, sickness, and death, envy, hatred, and revenge,—all evil,—are typified by a serpent, or animal subtlety” (Science and Health, p. 564, cit. 27). But the Christ is the antidote to this poisonous lie: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (I Corinthians 15:22, cit. 19). The pure and simple truth is that “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31, cit. 3). The serpent cannot corrupt us from this “simplicity that is in Christ” (II Corinthians 11:3, cit. 1). 

The serpent’s lie is exposed throughout this Lesson. Science and Health gives a telling definition of serpent (see p. 594, cit. 3) and characterizes the serpent as “pantheistic error” (p. 306, cit. 9), “sin” (p. 338, cit. 12), “material sense” (p. 534, cit. 23), and “that false claim—that ancient belief” (p. 567, cit. 29). 