A Significant symbol found in the Bible is that of a woman. Through Christian Science we learn that this symbol stands primarily for generic man, the image, or idea, of our Father-Mother, God. One of the first mentions of the woman, as this figure assumes spiritual meaning, appears in Genesis (3:15). Here the Lord God is pictured as saying to the serpent, which appeared in the garden of Eden and which is the Scriptural symbol of evil, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
Interpreting this verse in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy says (p. 534), "The serpent, material sense, will bite the heel of the woman,—will struggle to destroy the spiritual idea of Love; and the woman, this idea, will bruise the head of lust." According to Christian Science, evil is nothing more than a false sense, which makes man and all creation appear to be mortal and material. But this evil sense, while claiming ego and entity, has neither identity nor reality. The effort of error to substitute its false mentality for real consciousness falls before divine Science, with its revelation that man is God's pure reflection, the idea of divine Mind.
In the wilderness, Christ Jesus successfully resisted error's effort to substitute material sense for his real selfhood, the Christ —God's perfect idea. Through divine Science he bruised the head of lust; he destroyed carnal instincts. We read that after his victory "the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him" (Matt. 4:11). In overcoming the three temptations, the Master was dealing with the three phases of lust that claim embodiment in mortals: the lust which is false appetite, the lust to destroy flesh, the lust to possess matter.
Jesus' victory over carnal instincts fitted him for his healing ministry, in which he displayed the power of the divine idea over the will of the flesh at every point. By first exercising the dominion of the Christ, the divine nature, over the mortal nature, he was enabled to destroy evil's expression— lack and storm, sin, disease, and death. Because he had rejected error's claim to a place in his nature, there was no fear or sin in him to which evil could come; and he could thus save himself from its depredations, even from death and the grave.
John must have had clear insight into the Master's accomplishments, for he described evil in three elementary forms and warned against them. He wrote (I John 2:15, 16): "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. ... For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." He continued with these comforting words: "The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."
False appetites of every kind lose their mesmeric urge and disappear when individuals realize through Christian Science that man is a spiritual being, fed forever with the bread of heaven. This sustaining food is the Word of God, the truth of Life, which gives vitality and perpetual freshness to consciousness. Truth satisfies; it quenches fleshly appetites. Truth quiets the physical senses and demonstrates the fact that the senses of man are spiritual.
The lust of mortal mind to destroy the flesh it makes loses its force under the Christian influence of divine Love. Humanity begins to see the end of war as it is being mentally outlawed by moral force. Other destructive means of mortal mind range from the cruel remark, designed to make a victim squirm, and slander, intended to desecrate character, to the inroads of disease and the impulse to murder. These lusts must be and can be destroyed by the Christ-power, which unfolds Love's infinitude. The heart chastened by Christ loses all desire to harm and seeks only to bless and protect.
In treating disease, it is vital that the Christian Scientist realize the nothingness of error's lust to destroy flesh, its purpose to injure or obliterate mankind. The spiritual idea bruises the head of material sense —proves its unreality—and the patient's health is restored. God's will for man's harmony and wholeness becomes apparent as the will of the flesh to destroy is put down.
The lust to possess matter is native to material sense wherever individualized. So thoroughly did Christ Jesus rebuke this evil in the wilderness that he was never known to place any value on material possessions thereafter. He acquired only what he needed, whether it was a coin with which to pay a tax, a few loaves and fish with which to feed a multitude, a room in which to partake of the last supper, or a tomb which he was to open with the glorious power of Life. Intelligence, not matter, sufficed him. Spirit was his substance; the divine law of supply was his to demonstrate.
Through Science we learn to express the Christly purity that overcomes the lusts of the flesh. The womanhood of Truth provides the power of purity, whereby God's idea is unveiled and material sense is made to disappear. In "Miscellaneous Writings," Mrs. Eddy says (p. 37), "In proportion as we oppose the belief in material sense, in sickness, sin, and death, and recognize ourselves under the control of God, spiritual and immortal Mind, shall we go on to leave the animal for the spiritual, and learn the meaning of those words of Jesus, 'Go ye into all the world . . . heal the sick.'"
With the knowledge of Truth expanding its purifying and healing power through divine Science, "the world" is surely passing away. "The woman"—the spiritual idea of God—is bruising the head, the vital part, of lust. Man's true life in Spirit, which "abideth for ever," is being understood as his only life, his immortal and sinless being.
