2 Corinthians 11:3

But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ.

For a list of other New Testament passages bearing upon the great apostasy, see my Commentary on Acts, pp. 395,396, and my Commentary on Matthew, p. 96.

At the time of Paul's writing, only a few of the Corinthians were under the domination of the false apostles, "But there was a risk that they might distract the church as a whole from its loyalty to Christ."[11] Historically, and as regards the entire church on earth, Paul's fears were more than justified.

The great analogy between Eve as the wife of Adam I and the church as the wife of Adam II is in bold relief here. The seduction of Eve was therefore viewed by Paul as a prophecy of the seduction of the church. Paul dealt with this at length in 2 Thessalonians 2. Just as Satan through subtlety deceived Eve, Paul feared that the false apostles, doing the work of Satan, would deceive the church.

Several things of great importance appear in these lines: (1) The account of the temptation and fall as recorded in Genesis "was regarded by the inspired writers of the New Testament not as myth, allegory or fiction, but as a true record of what happened."[12] (2) Human egotism has always been the point of vulnerability of people. As Tasker said:

From Eve onwards the human heart has been prone to be deceived by those who, appearing to have wisdom, insinuate the most destructive of all lies, that men are not under an imperative duty to recognize and obey God.[13]

Craftiness ... This is even a stronger word than "subtlety," the corresponding word in Genesis; and it means "an extreme malignity which is capable of anything."[14]

The serpent beguiled Eve ... True and historical as the Genesis account is, there are mysteries in it which remain unknown. Macknight spoke of one of these thus:

Some think that the devil in that history is called a serpent figuratively, because in tempting Eve he used the qualities natural to serpents; and that the punishment inflicted on him, namely, his being confined to our atmosphere, is figuratively expressed by his going on his belly and eating dust. But others think that in the history of the fall the devil is called a serpent because he assumed the appearance of a serpent: and that after the fall a change was actually made in the form and state of that animal as a memorial of the devil's having abused its primitive form.[15]

[11] R. V. G. Tasker, op. cit., p. 145.

[12] David Lipscomb, Second Corinthians (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Company), p. 138.

[13] R. V. G. Tasker, op. cit., p. 146.

[14] Frank G. Carver, op. cit., p. 603.

[15] James Macknight, Apostolical Epistles and Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1969), p. 433.