On October 31, 1963 Lewis writes to Mr. (?) Young:
“1. I believe in the Virgin Birth
in the fullest and most literal sense; that is, I deny that copulation with a
man was the cause of the Virgin’s pregnancy.
“2. It is not easy to define what
we mean by an ‘essentially human body’. The records show Our Lord’s Risen Body
could pass through closed doors, which human bodies can’t: but also that it
could eat. We shall know what a glorified body is when we have one ourselves:
till then, I think we must acquiesce in mystery.
“3. When Scripture says that
Christ died ‘for’ us, I think the word is usually…(on behalf of), not…(instead
of). I think the ideas of sacrifice, Ransom, Championship (over Death),
Substitution etc. are all images to suggest
the reality (not otherwise comprehensible to us) of the Atonement. To fix on any one of them as if it contained and
limited the truth like a scientific definition wd. in my opinion be a mistake.”
[All excerpts from letters taken from The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Walter Hooper editor, Harper San Francisco.]
I include the above excerpts
because they show Lewis continuing to correspond regarding the Christian faith,
setting forth his beliefs, and because they show Lewis’s sense of the mystery
of the Gospel.
Lewis’s sense of mystery was born
of his sense of the greatness of God, from a sense that the Gospel, God’s
Revelation, has layers and depths and nuances and facets that proclaim that God
is God and that we are not; that God is to be worshipped in His majesty and
mystery, and that on our best days we are children. Adults who do not know that
on their best days they are children before the Almighty have a tendency to be
presumptuous toward God and others; Lewis knew what it was to be presumptuous,
he knew what it was to be hyper-critical of others, and this may have
contributed to his insistence that he would articulate and defend Mere Christianity, but beyond that he
would give his fellow pilgrims plenty of room.
There are mysteries that we must acquiesce to; we see glimpses, we taste
portions, we touch elements; but we just can’t see it all, we can’t eat it all,
we can’t get our hands and arms around it all – let alone our minds. Our hearts
can experience more than our minds can comprehend – and oh how presumptuous to
think that our minds can explain all that is in our hearts. If I can’t fully
explain all that is in my heart toward my wife, what a fool I would be to think
I can explain all that is in my heart toward God and in God’s heart toward me.
And of all the mysteries
associated with Scripture and the Gospel, what greater mystery is there than
the Atonement? We can speak of it forensically, we can speak of it biologically
and organically, we can speak of it in narrative; but we can never speak of it
without mystery if we are true to Scripture, acknowledging our human
limitations and God’s Godhood. The Atonement is as greater than our
understanding as the cosmos is greater than Earth; and we know that the
Atonement is greater still.
When we glimpse how great the
Atonement is we see that the idea of meritorious works by men and women is akin
to children building sand castles with the idea that they will withstand the
high tide. Our works bear no relation to the depth of our sin or the
superabundant grace of God, just as the strength of sand castles bears no
relation to the mighty ocean.
Perhaps we would be a witnessing
people if we were a people bowing in worship, awestruck at the mystery of the
Atonement; rather than a people who insist on reducing everything to the
explicable and definable. Perhaps we would be an obedient people if we were a
people convinced that the mystery of the Gospel exceeds our comprehension and
that the greatness of God dwarfs our intellects; when our religion ceases to be
transcendent we have no cause for obedience and worship for we have made
ourselves functionally equal to that which we profess to worship and profess to
obey.
We may sing songs such as
“Majesty” and “Now is the Time to Worship” but we sing as if we served a
constitutional monarch who reigns at the pleasure of the people – not a Monarch
who demands and deserves self-sacrificial obedience.
Paul writes of “holding the mystery of the
faith with a clear conscience”, (1Timothy 3:9); it is an ever-unfolding
mystery, both in history and hopefully in our lives. Perhaps we will be
surprised to find on That Day when we stand before Him, that rather than having
all of our questions answered that the mystery will loom greater than we ever
imagined – and with the elders around the Throne (Revelation Chapters 4 &
5) we will find ourselves on our faces before God. Worthy is the Lamb.
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