George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis (7)

 

 

From C. S. Lewis’s Preface to the MacDonald Anthology:

 

“It must be more than thirty years ago that I bought – almost unwillingly, for I had looked at the volume on that bookstall and rejected it on a dozen previous occasions – the Everyman edition of Phantastes. A few hours later I knew that I had crossed a great frontier…Nothing was at the that time further from my thoughts than Christianity…I was only aware that if this new world was strange, it was also homely and humble; that if this was a dream, it was a dream in which one at least felt strangely vigilant; that the whole book had about it a sort of cool, morning innocence…”

 

“What it actually did to me was to convert, even to baptize…my imagination. It did nothing to my intellect nor (at that time) to my conscience. Their turn came far later and with the help of many other books and men. But when the process was complete…I found that I was still with MacDonald and that he had accompanied me all the way and that I was now at last ready to hear from him much that he could not have told me at that first meeting.”

 

“But in a sense, what he was now telling me was the very same that he had told me from the beginning.”

 

What do you see in Lewis’s words? What do you perhaps see in Lewis? What do you identify with? Is there anything utterly foreign to you?

 

Do you have long-term relationships with authors who have lived before your time? Is there a man or women, who lived before your time, whose writing has spoken to you in Christ in a profound way?

 

I emphasize “lived before your time”, or perhaps mostly before you time (such in my case C. S. Lewis), because while contemporary authors have their place (I hope!), those who have gone before us have stood the challenge of time, their words have been tested. Often people who lived outside of our own time and immediate culture have more to say to us of lasting value than we have to say to one another – we can lack perspective because of our attention on the immediate and its pressures. Naturally the Bible is the best example of this because the Bible is transcendent – the Word of God is alive in Christ ever and always.

 

Lewis’s idea of crossing a frontier is prominent in his writing and his experience and we will explore that in the next reflection (the Lord willing), but right now I’d like us to think about Lewis’s imagination being baptized and converted.

 

In The Abolition of Man Lewis wrote of “men without chests.” What does our imagination do with this image? Do we see men literally without chests? Or do we see beyond words? Do we see into the words? Do the words “men without chests” help us to “see” a condition of humanity, especially Western humanity?

 

Mankind is abolished when our hearts and souls are stripped from us, when they are educated and programmed out of us, when notions of righteousness and goodness and truth and beauty and courage are exterminated within us. Mankind is abolished when our God-given imaginations are either silenced or perverted.

 

What do I mean when I ask, “Do we see men literally without chests?” Of course I mean “physically without chests.” But what does Lewis mean from a literary point of view? He certainly doesn’t mean “physically”. Lewis is giving us a literary image that he wants us to explore using our imaginations in conjunction with our intellects and consciences.

 

Prior to his conversion, Lewis struggled with the tension between materialistic atheism and the sense that there must be something more than what the eye can see or that can be proved by scientific experiment. Lewis could not shake the sense that there are such things as goodness, truth, and beauty – and evil and despair; that there are things “other” than the material.

 

Imagination is seeing beyond what is seen, it is also a bringing into conceptual existence, it is also visualizing the words we hear and read. Perhaps imagination has more facets, it certainly does not have less. Perhaps we are the closest to our Creator when we participate in holy imagination. Does not Paul teach us to look at the things that are unseen, rather than the things that are seen? (2 Cor. 4:18). Did not Moses “see” Him who is invisible? (Heb. 11: 27).

 

When Jesus speaks of His being the Light of the world, the Bread of Life, eating His flesh and drinking His blood, being the Resurrection, destroying “this temple,” – can we hear and see and read these words, can we hear His Voice – without imagination?

 

Is it really possible to read Psalm 23 without imagination? Come now, is it really possible?

 

Did not God create Man in His image? That is, does not God speak with images? We speak of the image of God, and yet we do not want to speak of imagination, of visualizations, of that which is unseen being seen and heard and touched. Jesus is not the dialectical proposition of God, Jesus is the image of God, the exact image of God. Certainly the Logos can only be seen and experienced holistically by the grace of God – He cannot be defined, He is the I AM.

 

Lewis felt that had his imagination not be baptized and converted, that he may have “floundered into its darker and more evil form, slithering down the steep descent” of Romanticism. [Preface, XXXVII].

 

There are, I think, at least two insidious movements in our time with respect to the imagination. On the one hand we see the perversion of imagination in which we have pandemonium. On the other hand, we have materialism in many forms, including in Biblical interpretation. Is it too much to suggest that the church is also engaged in the abolition of man when it insists on naturalistic hermeneutics?

 

After all, the historical – grammatical method, on its face and at its root, is naturalistic and materialistic, it does not require grace or the Holy Spirit – it requires learning and employing a method. We can say that it leaves nothing to the imagination, or better, to the God-inspired imagination. Of course, learning and employing the historical – critical method is critical to good grades and graduation in many seminaries, and professing adherence to it is required for membership in some academic and ecclesiastical circles. (This requirement would disqualify the writers of the New Testament and the Church Fathers, including Augustine. O yes, it would also disqualify Jesus.)

 

A fair reading of 1 Corinthians 1:17 – 2:16, and of Jesus’ teaching on the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room, ought to show us that Divine illumination and revelation are the essence of Biblical hermeneutics. How can we experience such things without our imaginations being converted and baptized? If our epistemology is faulty, then our exegesis and hermeneutics will be faulty and fall short of the glory of God.

 

Perhaps we can simply say that Jesus Christ is our epistemology and hermeneutic (Luke 24:27; 44 – 47).

 

The New Testament’s view of the Old Testament is not the product of the historical – critical method, it is the fruit of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ living in the People of God, enlightening men holistically in communion with the Trinity and the saints and the mysterious Living/Written/Spoken Word from ages past.

 

The emperor is stark naked, we have become Christian men and women without chests – and we do not think it strange. How can men without chests help other men without chests? How can dead bones live?

 

I don’t think we appreciate Lewis’s statement, regarding MacDonald, that it has not seemed to him "that those who have received my books kindly take even now sufficient notice” that MacDonald is Lewis’s master. (Preface, XXXVII). We want to separate Lewis’s didactic work from his imaginary work, but it cannot be done. For example, in The Problem of Pain, Lewis lays a foundation of the numinous, of the “Other,” as he moves into the subject of pain. The numinous remains with us throughout the book – even though we may want to bring Lewis’s thinking on pain down to the naturalistic.

 

The most beautiful passages in the Chronicles of Narnia are those in which Aslan appears. Everything in every book, and every book bound together, anticipates Aslan’s appearance. Every time, and I do mean every time, I reread a book in the Narniad I read it longing to see Aslan. The joy I have in seeing Him, and in others seeing Him – both in the story and in daily life – fills my soul with love and the numinous – the cloud of glory. The Narniad is a high sacrament for me, a high sacrament indeed.

 

As I open the Scriptures daily I do so in anticipation of seeing Jesus – whether I am in Leviticus or 1 Kings or Obadiah or John – I expect to see Jesus coming to me and coming to His People – coming to us. It never occurs to me that Jesus might not be greeting me and meeting me when I open His Book.

 

How have we strayed so far from loving Jesus?

 

Yes, yes, you are right. It is difficult for professing Christians without chests to love.

 

Can these dry bones live?

 

O holy Father, baptize, convert, and renew our imaginations in the image of your Son Jesus.

 

 

George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis (6)

 

 

I want to share some observations that may be helpful to some of us, and in the next post we’ll return to MacDonald and Lewis.

 

Jesus Christ is Biblical Christianity, and Biblical Christianity is Jesus Christ. There is cultural Christianity, there is churchy Christianity, and then there is Jesus Christ as He is revealed through the Scriptures. I think the Nicene Creed has no peer when it comes to expressing the essence of the Bible. And may I gently say that we are foolish children if we think creeds are unimportant – for we all have creeds, written or unwritten; so why not honor a creed that was forged in the fires of persecution, deep Biblical reflection and hard labor, and a passion for the glory of God in Jesus Christ?

 

I can’t begin to tell you of the many peoples I’ve met over the years, I say “peoples” because I’m thinking of communities, whether churches or ethnic groups, or theological traditions, or groups that almost defy definition such as the Jesus People and many of the folks in the early Charismatic Movement.  Nor can I hardly begin to share the many authors I’ve read from various traditions, many long dead (in the natural) and some still living. I owe many debts to the living and the dead – I am the product of many wonderful sisters and brothers in Jesus Christ – including dear friends over the years…again…some are now in the Presence of our Lord…some are still on earth.

 

The women and men I remember, the ones who have built into my life, the ones who have made a difference, are those who have loved Jesus Christ and have transmitted that love to me and others; for you can’t separate loving Jesus and loving others, or truly loving others and loving Jesus. This is a love with clear articulation and definition, it is not nebulous. The form it takes is the Crucified Christ, it is cruciform; Paul writes that he determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified – O friends, if we do not hear and see this message we ought to run from what we do see and hear; as the disciples on the Mount, we want to look up and see only Jesus.

 

I will be the first to say that this makes life a bit difficult – not so much with respect to the world, for the world is the world is the world. Rather, it makes life difficult with respect to the professing church, for it seems that Jesus is never enough for us. We want our best lives now. We want success. We want to be esteemed by others. We want to accumulate things. We would much rather talk about “church” than talk about Jesus. Just listen to what Christians talk about and you will see what I mean.

 

This is a mystery to me, this propensity we have to talk about everything and everyone but Jesus. Why is this? If we truly know Him, then why don’t we talk about Him? What good is it to be a good Presbyterian or Roman Catholic or Baptist or Pentecostal if we don’t talk about Jesus? What good is it to be confirmed or baptized or to be ordained if we don’t know Jesus? What good is beautiful worship music or lively “praise” music if we don’t know Jesus? And frankly, a “Christian” worldview, if there is such a thing, is worthless without knowing Jesus Christ – for without knowing Jesus we can think we are something that we are not.

 

This insistence on Jesus Christ being Christianity makes life difficult with professing Christians because we don’t like it – we have our own agendas; political, nationalistic, economic, denominational. We also take subsidiary elements of the Bible out of context and make them the main thing – we often go from one “spiritual” religious “Biblical” fad to another, it is like having a membership in the “revelation of the month club.”

 

And the thing is, these “new” main things all look pretty good, they all appeal to our sense of making things better for us and others – usually these things that distract us from Jesus Christ are not bad things but good things. As the adage goes, “The good is the enemy of the better, and the better is the enemy of the best.” Let’s recall that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil looked good. If we are not in love with Jesus we will not see this, we will not understand it, we will not have an eye nor an ear for it.

 

The Nicene Creed is not enough, the Bible is not enough, Mere Christianity is not enough – the Person of Jesus Christ is not enough. It seems was always want to add something to Jesus Christ.

 

But the men and women who have spoken into my life have insisted that Jesus is indeed not only enough, but that He is everything.

 

As with Lewis and MacDonald, and as Murray with Law, I have known saintly men and women who have radiated Jesus Christ and yet who have not always seen certain elements of the Bible as clearly as we might desire. I have also known people, and I have been one myself, who have had finely-turned doctrinal knowledge, but who have not been gracious or loving or caring or forgiving or giving or sacrificial – in short, who have not radiated Jesus Christ. As I look back over my life, I am appalled at what I see in my past, for there was a time when at best I was a Pharisee.

 

Someone once said to me that right doctrine produces right living. That is not true. Jesus Christ living in us produces righteous living – frankly, right doctrine without Jesus Christ can be dry orthodoxy and it can be toxic in the self-righteousness it can produce. Perhaps the most important doctrinal question is, “What do we think about Jesus Christ?” Or perhaps, “How is our relationship with Jesus Christ?” Then the next question is, “How is our relationship with His Body, His Bride, His Temple, His Church?”

 

We can hardly have a relationship with someone if we don’t communicate with them and they don’t communicate with us. If we speak to God then of course we ought to expect that God, our dear loving heavenly Father, will speak to us. Of course we ought to expect that our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, who died and rose for us, who has given us His very Nature, will speak to us. Of course we ought to life live in and by the Holy Spirit, speaking to us holistically – whatever that may look like in our respective lives, in our marriages and families, in our congregations, our friendships.

 

And we ought to expect that God will speak to us through the transcendent Body of Jesus Christ, for we are members of one another. We ought to always be learning from one another, growing with one another in Jesus Christ.

 

I owe debts to so very many men and women in Jesus Christ, so many I have known in person, and so many through history via books of their writings and their recorded words and deeds. I owe a debt to William Law because I owe a tremendous debt to Andrew Murray, and since Law built into Murray, I owe a debt to Law. I was introduced to Murray just months after becoming a follower of Jesus, so for 58 years Andrew Murray has been a mentor to me in Jesus Christ…always pointing to Jesus, always encouraging me to abide in Jesus, to rest in Him, and to live by the Holy Spirit.

 

I owe a direct debt to both MacDonald and Lewis, or I suppose I could say that I owe a double debt to MacDonald. While I can’t recall when I first encountered Lewis, I also can’t recall when I haven’t been reading Lewis. Considering that Lewis called MacDonald his master, I obviously owe MacDonald a debt for I owe Lewis a debt.

 

But I owe MacDonald another debt, a first debt, a debt incurred prior to encountering Lewis; for when my mother read The Princess and the Goblin to me as a child, the numinous reached into my soul and gave me a sense of the Other that has continued to grow within me, in Christ, to this Day.

 

I am deeply thankful that others in Christ have touched me and continued to point me to Jesus, always to Jesus…from many traditions, from traditions within traditions, from seemingly outside traditions (such as the Jesus People), from many ethnicities and social and economic environments. I want to live as a Mere Christian, die as a Mere Christian, and stand before our Lord Jesus as a Mere Christian. After all, He has purchased me and I am His mere bondservant.

 

 

 

George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis (5)

 

From Andrew Murray’s Introduction to William Law:

 

“I confess that in all my reading I have never found anyone who has so helped me in understanding the Scripture truth of the work of the Holy Spirit. And it is because I know of no one who has put certain aspects of needed truth with the same clearness, that I cannot but think that he is a messenger from God to call His Church to give the blessed Spirit the place of honour that belongs to Him.”

 

“…all true religion in heaven and earth, consists in nothing but an absolute and unalterable dependence upon God, and how the highest blessedness is nothing but the most complete surrender to let this blessed God do His work.”

 

Here again we see a similarity in Murray’s approach to William Law and C. S. Lewis’s approach to George MacDonald.

 

Lewis said that he was not a theologian, I’m not sure in what sense he meant that, or why he made the statement – he was certainly a critical thinker, he knew the Church Fathers who laid the theological groundwork for our faith by articulating its cardinal doctrines from Scripture. He knew ancient Greek and Latin; he read the New Testament in Greek and reviewed the translation work of J. B. Phillips at Phillips’s request. Sometimes I think Lewis may have used “I’m not a theologian” to give himself a pass not to move beyond Mere Christianity, at least a pass in not making public statements about certain doctrines and practices. Of course I really don’t know what Lewis meant, but functionally I consider him a first rate theologian.

 

Murray could not give himself a pass by saying that he wasn’t a theologian, for he was trained in theology and was a leader in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa. It was as a pastor, a theologian, and a leader in his denomination that he writes the following in his Introduction to Law:

 

“In some respects no two men differ more than John Calvin and William Law…And yet no one reminds me more of Calvin than Law. Calvin’s theology had but one thought, the glory of God, and our absolute dependence upon Him. The shape this principle took in his teaching of the Predestinating Sovereignty of Grace, Law utterly rejects. And yet, I have nowhere met a teacher who, from another side, has opened up this same truth of the Glory of God and our absolute dependence on Him, as Law.”

 

“Often the thought has come to me of seeing Calvin and Law in heaven, very near each other, side by side, in deepest prostration, special witnesses to that absolute dependence which alone can bring God the glory due to His name.”

 

Murray was a Reformed pastor and leader, his roots were in Scottish Presbyterianism and the Dutch Reformed church, his immediate audience was his Reformed denomination – as such he addressed the elephant in the room, the differences between John Calvin and William Law. Murray saw them reconciled in Jesus Christ – they were both seeking the glory of God.

 

C. S. Lewis also saw the glory of God in George MacDonald – MacDonald was pointing to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and MacDonald’s glorious expression of God overshadowed those areas in which MacDonald may have displayed an imperfect understanding.

 

And here is the critical thing to remember, MacDonald and Law were centered on the Person of Jesus Christ and the Good News about Him. They were centered on the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There may have been areas of their thinking that did not align with orthodoxy, but in practice, in their love for God and love for people, they were often more orthodox than those who were orthodox.

 

Over the years people have often recommended “Christian” teachers and authors to me who are not centered on Jesus Christ and His glory. They are focused on the supreme “self” and not Almighty God. They are positive thinkers; they teach ten or twelve or twenty principles that promise to make our lives better. They sell us the idea of having our best lives now. They dangle success and health and wealth in front of us. They will equip us to manipulate God to answer our prayers. They often caricature the Cross and the Atonement and our need for repentance, confession, new birth, and obedient discipleship.

 

If our lives are not centered in Jesus Christ then we will not discern false teaching, for we will not have ears to hear and eyes to see, we will not have a sensitivity to the Voice of our Good Shepherd. George MacDonald and William Law teach us to hear this Voice, they teach us to live in deep daily relationship with the holy Trinity, and how to live with one another in Christ.

 

Believing and articulating orthodox doctrine is no substitute for living in fellowship with Jesus Christ – if we are truly born of the Holy Spirit then we are to live in, and by, and through, the Holy Spirit in Jesus Christ.

 

There is beauty is Christocentric doctrine; as Dorothy L. Sayers said, the beauty is in the dogma. We see this beauty as we are in Jesus Christ. Outside of the Bible I know of no beauty greater than the Nicene Creed – but this beauty is the beauty of Christ, and of the Father and of the Holy Spirit and of the communion of saints. This is a sacramental beauty that comes to me in God’s glory – it never fades, its glory ever increases.

 

Lewis and Murray, two critical thinkers, can teach us to look for Jesus in others within the tent of Mere Christianity; they can teach us that the centrality of Jesus Christ, as He is revealed in the Bible, is the core of Christianity, indeed, Jesus Christ is Christianity. Murray and Lewis knew there is such a thing a lifeless orthodoxy, both Law and MacDonald challenged misconceptions about God in their teaching and writing as they pointed to a vibrant life in the Holy Spirit and in deep communion with the Father and the Son.

 

In our next reflection, the Lord willing, I hope to share some things I’ve observed in life regarding the above, and then we’ll come back to Lewis and MacDonald.

 

George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis (4)

 

 

Now I’d like to bring Andrew Murray (1828 – 1917) into our conversation, a remarkable husband, father, friend, and pastor -  a pastor not only to his congregations, but to southern Africa, and to much of the world (then and now) through his writing and his example of living and loving in Jesus Christ.

 

As a leader in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, Murray dealt with pastors and theology that were heretical. He was instrumental in founding a seminary in South Africa for two reasons, one was that South Africa had an increasing demand for pastors which the U.K. and Europe could not supply. The other was that the Dutch Reformed Church in the Netherlands was, at that time, departing from the Bible. Murray cared deeply about Biblical teaching, and he took church discipline seriously – seeking to remove heretical pastors from their positions in accordance with the tenets of the Dutch Reformed Church and the Bible.

 

Like Lewis, Murray was a “Mere Christian,” seeking Jesus Christ, seeking to live in Jesus Christ, and seeking to bring others to know Jesus Christ. Andrew Murray was more a citizen of the Kingdom of God than he was a member and leader in the Dutch Reformed Church (where he served as moderator and in other leadership positions thorough out his life) - though perhaps he never thought in those terms for he worked with English speakers, Dutch speakers, diverse ethnic groups, and Christians from many traditions. He also ministered the Gospel to both British and Boer during the bitter Second Boer War (1899 – 1902) and for doing so was criticized by both sides.

 

With the above as a brief background, let’s consider Murray’s Introduction to William Law. Here is how it begins [the copy I have is titled The Power of the Spirit, Selections from the Writings of William Law, edited by Andrew Murray, Bethany House, reprinted from the 1896 edition]:

 

“In publishing the new volume of Law’s works, I owe a word of explanation to the Christian public, and all the more because some with whom I feel closely united have expressed their doubt of the wisdom of giving greater currency to the writings of an author who differs markedly in some points from what we hold to be fundamental doctrines of the evangelical faith.

 

“First of all, let me say that, as in publishing the former volume, so now in issuing this, I only do so because I do not know where to find anywhere else the same clear and powerful statement of the truth which the Church needs at the present day. I have tried to read or consult every book I knew of that treats of the work of the Holy Spirit, and nowhere have I met with anything that brings the truth of our dependence on the continual leading of the Spirit, and the assurances that that leading can be enjoyed without interruption, so home to the heart as the teaching of the present volume.

 

“It is because I believe that teaching to be entirely scriptural, and to supply what many are looking for, that I venture to recommend it. I do so in the confidence that no one will think that I have done so because I consider the truths he denies matters of minor important, or have any sympathy with his views.”

 

Do we see a similarity in Lewis when writing of MacDonald? Lewis writes in his Preface to the Anthology, “I dare not say that he is never in error; but to speak plainly I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself.”

 

Both Lewis and Murray are looking for Jesus Christ, they are looking for the Spirit of Christ – this is not a nebulous feeling and way of thinking they are seeking, it is not touchy – feelie, for Jesus Christ is the image of God and the image of God is articulated and given definition in Jesus Christ, the Word, the Logos. Murray and Lewis were both highly critical thinkers – and they both dearly loved Jesus and the Bible.

 

Lewis did not dismiss areas of MacDonald’s thinking that were imperfect, nor did Murray dismiss areas of Law’s thinking that were imperfect, but they both saw the glory of the Spirit of Christ overshadowing the imperfections.

 

And here is a critical point, MacDonald and Law were Christocentric, they were both centered on Jesus Christ, they both honored the Lordship of Jesus Christ and were pointing to Jesus Christ. They both believed in deep koinonia with Jesus Christ, and they were not afraid – even at their personal peril – to contrast dead orthodoxy and praxis with life in the Holy Spirit. (Law’s Address to the Clergy takes up most of the book Murray published). Law and MacDonald were ostracized by other pastors, they were men of courage as opposed to conformity.

 

What can we learn from Lewis and Murray and their respective approaches to George MacDonald and William Law?

 

The short answer is, “Living in Jesus Christ is everything.” But what does this life look like when specifically considered in Lewis’s Preface to MacDonald and Murray’s Introduction to Law?

 

It seems to me that Lewis and Murray call us back to being centered in Jesus Christ and in His Kingdom. On the one hand we have lost the centrality of Jesus Christ and can no longer discern between Biblical and non-Biblical teaching, on the other hand many of us find our primary identity in a particular Christian tradition rather than in Jesus Christ and His Kingdom – and in so doing we shut ourselves off from the glorious Body of Christ and become self-centered rather than Jesus centered.

 

If a tradition is rooted in Jesus, then it ought to be rooted in John 17 and our oneness in the Trinity, and if a tradition falls short of the unity of John 17, a unity which is essential to our life and witness, then we ought to have the courage to admit there is a problem within our tradition and seek our Lord’s help in aligning our faith and practice with His Word.

 

That is, if a tradition falls sort of promoting a Kingdom of God perspective and practice, and a recognition of the Body of Christ, we ought to seek God’s help in being faithful to His Word as opposed to our limiting tradition.

 

If we are called to lay down our lives for the brethren (John 15:12 - 14; 1 John 3:16), then this applies to not only us as individuals, but to us as families, congregations, denominations, traditions…in whatever groupings we may find ourselves.

 

(And let’s be clear that even those who insist they are “nondenominational” are nevertheless also in some sort of tradition, some primary way of thinking and practice. We are not born in a vacuum; we do not learn and grow in isolation.)

 

I do not want to live and die as a Presbyterian or a Baptist or a Roman Catholic or a Pentecostal or a Lutheran; I want to live and die as a Christian, a Mere Christian. I want to appear before Jesus as one of His followers. I may find myself worshipping and serving Him primarily within a particular tradition and understanding and practice, but by His grace I want to do so as a disciple of Jesus Christ serving within His Body and in His Kingdom, with His name and the name of His Father written on my heart and mind – no other name, no other name.

 

If there is not some measure of tension in all of this, might we not need to reconsider how we are living?

We’ll pick this back up in our next reflection…the Lord willing.

 

George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis (3)

 

 

Lewis writes in his Preface to the Anthology, “This collection, as I have said, was designed not to revive MacDonald’s literary reputation but to spread his religious teaching. Hence most of my extracts are taken from the three volumes of Unspoken Sermons. My own debt to this book is almost as great as one man can owe to another: and nearly all serious inquirers to whom I have introduced it acknowledge that is has given them great help – sometimes indispensable help toward the very acceptance of the Christian faith.” (page XXXIV, italics mine).

 

Then we have (page XXXVII), “I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him. But it has not seemed to me that those who have received my books kindly take even now sufficient notice of the affiliation. Honesty drives me to emphasize it.” (italics mine).

 

I have read lots of books and articles about C. S. Lewis, and I have often seen the quote about Lewis regarding MacDonald as his master, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it emphasized in its context. In other words, Lewis didn’t write of MacDonald being his master in a passing fashion, but rather in the Preface to an anthology which was the result of hours upon hours over years of reading, pondering, selecting, and then presenting MacDonald’s work in order to “spread his religious teaching.”

 

And consider again, “My own debt to this book is almost as great as one man can owe to another.”

 

Since C. S. Lewis was not given to hyperbole, since he was a careful writer with few missteps, (so few, I think, that when he does make them they are glaring – such as passages in The Four Loves), he must have meant what he wrote about MacDonald – but do we take Lewis seriously? For it isn’t just what I’ve quoted above that communicates Lewis’s debt to MacDonald, it is the entire Preface, and it isn’t just the Preface, it is the entire Anthology.

 

The quote about MacDonald being Lewis’s master does not do justice to what Lewis is saying, the entire Preface needs to be read, and reread, and reread again to gain the depth and texture of what that quote means, to see in some measure the force of what Lewis is writing.

 

And then consider that Lewis gives us a glimpse of how he engaged in evangelism – he gave MacDonald’s Unspoken Sermons to people! We read above, “…and nearly all serious inquirers to whom I have introduced it [Unspoken Sermons] acknowledge that it has given them great help – sometimes indispensable help toward the very acceptance of the Christian faith.” (italics mine).

 

Again, in all my reading about Lewis, I don’t think I’ve ever seen this statement explored.

 

Would we like to know what book one of the greatest thinkers of the 20^th century gave to others to help them know Christ? It was Unspoken Sermons. But you see, dear friends, Lewis was more than a great thinker, he was a great lover, a lover of goodness, truth, and beauty – and it was as a lover that he came to know Jesus Christ, and as a lover (with a sharp mind!) that he lived, and taught, and wrote.

 

Therefore Lewis writes of MacDonald, “…but to speak plainly I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself” (page XXXV).

 

In MacDonald, Lewis finds “the Spirit of Christ Himself.”

 

It strikes me that neither Lewis nor MacDonald can be straightjacketed within a particular Christian tradition – as much as we might like to try. To be sure, there are those who would exclude MacDonald from the tent of Mere Christianity, but who would keep Lewis. Isn’t this a curious thing?  It is curious because if we believe what Lewis says about his debt to MacDonald, and if we accept his endorsement of MacDonald, then how can we accept and promote Lewis and reject MacDonald?

 

As I mentioned in a previous post, I think Lewis was looking for Christ and he saw Christ in MacDonald – and here’s the thing dear friends, we can have finely-tuned beliefs and doctrines and miss Jesus Christ. We can have well thought out propositional truth, carefully crafted statements of faith, and not have Jesus Christ at the center of our lives. Jesus Christ is a Person and we are to live in relationship with Him, our life in Him is organic – His Divine Nature is either in us or it is not, we are either abiding in the Vine or we are not.

 

I can have…and we all do…imperfect doctrinal understanding but be organically in Christ. I can live Christocentrically and yet have elements of my understanding that are immature or misinformed. I can also articulate a well – developed system of Christian thought and doctrine and Bible knowledge, and yet not live Christocentrically, and I can even be outside an organic relationship with Jesus – not actually knowing Him. Nicodemus knew a lot, but what he didn’t know was that he needed to be born again.

 

“The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (Jn. 3:8). What did this statement of Jesus’ do to Nicodemus’s well – defined rabbinical understanding?

 

MacDonald was a child of John 3:8. Of course we don’t much care for anything having to do with John 3:8, not really. After all, we can’t put the wind or the Spirit in a package, we can’t harness it (though we try), we can’t truly comprehend it, we can’t define it, we can’t control it, we can’t make it conform to our traditions – we can’t put new wine into our old wineskins. Better to drink flat soda than the fermenting lively wine of the Holy Spirit.

 

Jesus says, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” (John 5:29 – 40).

 

What Jesus says about the Scriptures, also applies to orthodoxy and the traditions within orthodoxy. If what Jesus says is true of the Greater Thing – the Scriptures, it is most certainly true of the lesser things.

 

Do we take Lewis’s statements about MacDonald seriously?

 

In our next reflection, the Lord willing, we’ll look at how Andrew Murray’s Introduction to William Law is similar to Lewis’s Preface to MacDonald.

 

[Note: Unspoken Sermons is in the Public Domain and can be found on the Internet.]

 

 

 

George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis (2)

 

 

In Lewis’s George MacDonald, An Anthology – 365 readings, Lewis provides 365 quotes from about 15 of MacDonald’s works. Some of these works are novels, some collections of sermons, some fantasy or Faerie stories, and some reflections. Some of the quotes are short, many are substantial, much more than a couple of lines.

 

Could I provide 365 quality quotes from one author? If I could, how long would the process take? I’ve been reading C. S. Lewis and Andrew Murray, both prolific writers, for almost 60 years, and in the instance of Lewis, a few thousand of his letters. Murray and Lewis would be my only possible candidates, but could I really provide 365 quality quotes? I wouldn’t know until I tried. How long would the project take?

 

Then consider that the Anthology was published in 1946. Lewis became a Christian in 1931, and while he first read Phantastes years earlier, I don’t know that he read any more of MacDonald until he surrendered his life to Jesus Christ in 1931. I don’t know when Lewis began working on the Anthology, but let’s say it was 1945, so we’ll give Lewis one year to compile the book. This means that from 1931 – 1944, 13 years, Lewis read and absorbed and integrated MacDonald’s extensive body of work – while Lewis was teaching, writing, doing academic research, reading scores of other books and articles and academic papers, engaged in voluminous correspondence, caring for a demanding older friend, maintaining significant friendships, and brushing his teeth.

 

The Anthology is a remarkable accomplishment and indicates the mass of the iceberg below its tip – the Anthology is the tip; we can only wonder at what lies below. Thankfully Lewis gives us a glimpse of the iceberg’s mass in his Preface.

 

At this juncture I want to bring in Andrew Murray, for there is a remarkable similarity between Murray’s appreciation of William Law and Lewis’s debt to George MacDonald. Just as Lewis wrote a Preface to introduce readers to MacDonald, Murray wrote an Introduction to his, Selections from the Writings of William Law. Lewis and Murray both acknowledged that MacDonald and Law were not perfect, that they had blind spots; but having made the acknowledgments, they were joyful in endorsing the glorious core of their respective writings, the core being Jesus Christ and the glory of God.

 

Murray and Lewis were both vigorous intellectuals. Rigorous thinking was a hallmark of both men. W. T. Kirkpatrick, “the Great Knock,” put Lewis through intellectual boot camp, providing him with a foundation that he built upon throughout his life.

 

Murray left South Africa as an adolescent, with his brother John, to attend college in Scotland and seminary in Holland – both demanding academic environments – before returning to South Africa to become a leader in the Dutch Reformed Church and the greater Kingdom of God. Murray had occasions when he had to deal with heretical teaching within the ranks of Dutch Reformed pastors, and his concern for sound Biblical theology helped spur him to, with the help of others, establish a divinity school in South Africa to counterbalance Dutch and German theological trends away from the Bible in Europe.

 

In MacDonald, Lewis touched Christ; in Law, Murray touched Christ. Or better, both men were touched by Christ, by His transcendence, by His glory, by the luminosity of the Living God.

 

I think there is something we can learn from Murray and Lewis here, and I think it is worth spending some time looking at the similarities of Lewis’s Preface and Murray’s Introduction. You don’t need to be well – versed in Lewis or Murray or MacDonald or Law to follow this, because we’re looking at basic principles and understanding, but of course I hope you will enjoy what you read and that you’ll find food for reflection.

 

As I have pondered Lewis and Murray and their appreciation of MacDonald and Law respectively, I have concluded that what was important to Murray and Lewis was the centrality of Jesus Christ – Lewis saw this in MacDonald, Murray saw this in Law – they saw Christ and the Cross and the transcendent glory of God, and thus they could freely compile the Anthology and the Selections for others with confidence.

 

Lewis used the term Mere Christianity to indicate those Christian doctrines and beliefs which the Church has held to be true throughout the ages, the cardinal elements of our faith, and as much as people have tried to force Lewis into a particular Chrisitan box, from Evangelical to Roman Catholic, Lewis remains a “mere Christian,” who worshipped within the Anglican Communion.

 

While Murray was committed to the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa, serving terms as its moderator, he was also very much a “mere Christian.” Murray worked with pastors and missionaries from various traditions, and he drew spiritual nurture from brothers and sisters outside of the Reformed tradition. It is no mystery why Andrew Murray’s writings have touched generations of Christians across the Kingdom of God – Christ and His Kingdom were everything to him; he has been called the Apostle of Abiding Love.

 

To be continued…

George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis

 

 

In the series just concluded, on being with one another forever, I mentioned that I’d like to spend some time in the preface that C. S. Lewis wrote to George MacDonald An Anthology - 365 Readings. I hope you will come along with me in my reflections on MacDonald and Lewis; we’ll see where these go.

 

I was a boy when my mother read MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin to my brother Bill and me. Hearing, seeing, and entering into that story was one of my first experiences with the numinous. It was a foundational experience in that I experienced a land, a realm, a reality that has remained with me all my life. However, it was a foundation that was hidden for many years by the detritus of confusion, anger, instability, and a host of other things – including things that we might not readily think of, such as the wisdom of man as can be displayed in naturalistic Christianity with its Enlightenment hermeneutics (including elements of Evangelical Christianity), and in some forms of Chrisitan experience (including elements of the Praise & Worship movement) that obscure the depth of the numinous in Christ.

 

Without the Presence of Christ, we really have nothing – no matter how ecstatic our experience and no matter the depth and breadth of our intellectual endeavors.  I am afraid we are more pagan that we’d like to admit. 

We cannot conjure the Presence of God with music and lyrics, nor can we impress Him with our finely – tuned doctrinal thinking; our Father has said, once and for all, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” We still don’t seem to have grasped this.

 

My mother died a few days before her 44^th birthday. Thinking back, I would love to ask her why she chose to read MacDonald to us. Did someone read MacDonald to her? Did she encounter MacDonald on her own?

 

This leads me to two things about Lewis, MacDonald, and me; we all lost our mothers when young. I was older (17 years old) when I lost my Mom than Lewis (9 years old) and MacDonald (8 years old) were when they lost their mothers (I have two younger brothers, though Jim is now with Jesus), but my loss helps me to identify with their losses.

 

The other thing has to do with Lewis and his brother Warren, as children they created stories of talking animals, in fact, they created a world of talking animals…and they wrote about this world; it was a world they never forgot. Why? Well, I think it was because they touched the numinous and the presence of that “land” continued to work within their lives right up until they drew their last breaths. When their lives were crashing around them at the death of their mother, they could find some measure of refuge in Boxen.

 

My mother used to create stories for my brother Bill and me of Susie and Molly Mousie (I don’t think Jim had been born yet). Now here I am writing about this at 74 years old, and while I can only recall one actual story of these mouse sisters, I can see my mother’s facial expressions and her body language and hear her voice – I can see into the land of Susie and Molly Mousie. Did someone tell her stories of Susie and Molly when she was a girl?

 

I must share one more childhood memory which has remained with me, and which my brother Bill has, I think, preserved all these years. Mom purchased an unfinished chest of drawers for us, which we painted a deep green. Being children of the 1950s and early 1960s, we were into outer space exploration. We had a map of the solar system hanging on the wall of our bedroom.

 

One day we decided that we needed a spaceship, it was one thing to look at the map on the wall, it was one thing to look up into the heavens, but if we were going to lead the way in space exploration we obviously needed our own spaceship. What to do? Why of course the solution was to create a spaceship.

 

On the back of our chest of drawers we drew the control panel for a spaceship – I can still see those instruments and gauges. Being confident in our creative work, we bypassed testing and immediately launched into outer space. It was remarkable that we could travel as far as we wanted and never run out of fuel, and when we got hungry we could immediately touch back down in our bedroom and find something to eat in the kitchen. I don’t understand all the fuss about mega budgets for space exploration when all NASA needs is a fleet of well – made chests of drawers.

 

I think brother Bill still has our spaceship, or perhaps he has passed it on to one of his children. I understand that the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum asked him to donate it to their collection, and I further understand that foreign governments have attempted to purloin the technology, but Bill has steadfastly guarded our secrets and preserved this family treasure.

 

Well, Chesterton wrote to the effect that all he really needed to know he learned in the nursery as a child – for there he touched the numinous, there he touched transcendent reality that we do our best to eradicate from children and adults. I’ll close this reflection with C. S. Lewis’s dedication of The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe to Lucy Barfield:

 

“My dear Lucy, I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand, a word you say, but I shall still be…your affectionate Godfather, C. S. Lewis.”

To be continued…

With One Another – Forever!!! (8)

 

 

From eternity past, hidden in God, was the Father’s eternal purpose to bring about a family through His Son Jesus Christ, that He might be the “Firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:10 – 11). This is One Family, not two – for the middle wall of partition has been broken down once and for all (Eph. 2:11 – 3:13; 4:1 - 16) (why do some of us attempt to rebuild this wall?).

 

Paul writes that “the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things: so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord…” (Eph. 3:9 – 11). The outworking of this is “…one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all” (Eph. 4:6) and a Body in which we need each other to grow and live and “grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ” (Eph. 4:15).

 

Are we to think that having come to know one another in the deep eternal purposes of God on this earth, that we shall not know one another in our fulness in Christ in the ages to come? Are we to think that the holy bonds of friendship, forged in the vicissitudes of this challenging and often painful life, shall not continue in greater glory and thanksgiving in the ages to come? It is in these very relationships within our Father’s Family that the universe beholds the immeasurable glory of the Atonement and the reconciliation which Jesus Christ has wrought – for in being reconciled to God in Christ we are reconciled to one another and no longer see and understand one another “according to the flesh” (2 Cor. 5:14 – 21).

 

When Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends,” (John 15:13), He calls us into a holy way of life with one another in Him – it is a tragedy that we don’t see this – and all our religious glitz and glitter and self-help preaching and feel – good teaching can’t make up for our failure to obey His call to love one another as He loves us.

 

One of the first things I learned when I began pastoring, much to my surprise, was that people who have gone to church for years do not really know each other. Sitting in a pew together, being in the same Sunday school class, belonging to a men’s or women’s group, does not mean that we really know one another.

 

As, by God’s grace, we began home groups, as we introduced retreats, as our church leadership meetings became more about Jesus (I hope) than “business,” people began to discover one another. Folks who had been sitting in church together for decades learned things about each other, important things, that they never knew – I’m talking about joys and sorrows, I’m speaking of character, hopes and fears and challenges and giftings. And friendships began to take hold, while in other cases friendships deepened; koinonia in Jesus Christ sprang forth in glory, streams of living water flowed in what had been dry and thirsty lands.

 

I heard, “I never knew,” from folks who were discovering the joy of friendship in Jesus Christ, the joy of relationship in the Body of Christ.

 

O dear friends, God has given us treasure in one another. The Scriptures reach a glorious crescendo in the portrayal of this treasure in Revelation chapters 21 and 22 – for we are the New Jerusalem with the Father and the Lamb at its very heart – with the Light of God and the River of Life and the Tree of Life.

 

What glorious delight we have to look forward to; in the Father, in the Son, in the Holy Spirit…and most assuredly, most certainly…in one another.

 

Amen.

With One Another – Forever!!! (7)

 

 

“By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.” 1 John 5:2.

 

 

“Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.” 1 John 4:11 – 12.

 

“We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” 1 John 3:16.

 

John’s first letter is a Niagara of love, love in the Trinity and love for one another in the Trinity. It flows from the Gospel of John, including Jesus’ words in the Upper Room, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” John 13:34.

 

Does 1 John 5:2 make sense to you? Why is our love for God and our obedience to His commandments an expression of our love for one another? In other words, why do we obey God?

 

A child may say, “I obey God because I’ve been commanded to obey God.” Those are fine training wheels for the bicycle, but do we want to use training wheels for the rest of our lives? Would it not seem a bit strange to see a group of adults riding bicycles with training wheels, after having ridden bikes for decades?

 

Someone else might say, “I obey God because I love God. I am in a relationship with God and I want to please Him, to be one with Him, to live in koinonia with Him, and His commandments are not burdensome.” (See 1 Jn. 5:3). Here we have the mystery of our Nature in Christ, and as we learn to live in the Vine (John 15) and walk in the Holy Spirit (Romans 8), what was once external becomes internal (Hebrews chapters 8 and 10).

 

This also brings us to the realization that our brothers and sisters are integral participants in our relationship with the Trinity, for while we have not seen God in the flesh, we certainly see our brothers and sisters in the flesh.

 

“No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:12). Note that God’s love is matured and completed in us as we love one another! We cannot love God in isolation from loving our sisters and brothers in Jesus Christ! In fact, our love for God and God’s love in us is brought to maturity in our love for one another.

 

“If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20).

 

So then, back to 1 John 5:2, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments.”

 

We can also say that we obey God because we love one another, just as John could say in 1 John 1:3 that to have koinonia with him and his companions would mean having koinonia with the Father and the Son. O dear friends, our lives matter to one another whether we see it or not, for we are members one of another in Christ, we are members of the Body of Christ (Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4); we cannot be complete in Christ without one another.

 

Faithful parents often do things for their children and not for themselves. Spouses do things for one another and not for themselves. Friends do things for friends (true friends at least) and not for themselves. Brothers and sisters do things for one another and not for themselves.

 

Our faithfulness to our Father and Lord Jesus matters to others, whether they know it or not, whether they see it or not, for we are members of one another. Sadly, the professing church in America is imprisoned in a self-centered therapeutic prison that is all about the divine and sovereign “me, me, me.” My own personal holy wants and needs and feelings rule the day, not my Lord Jesus and certainly not those around me, not my brothers and sisters in Christ nor my neighbors.  

 

Yet, as John writes in 1 John 3:16, we are called to lay our lives down for one another – this is to be our way of life in Jesus Christ.

 

I have said more than once, that I have often been obedient to Christ not because I felt like being obedient, but because I knew it was important to others that I be obedient. My life is no longer my own; it belongs to Christ, and in Christ it belongs to His People.

 

O dear friends, our hearts are being “knit together in love” (Col. 2:2) in Jesus Christ, and having been so knit, we can be assured that our relationships will continue into eternity.

 

To be continued…

With One Another – Forever!!! (6)

 

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.” Revelation 2:17.

 

This may appear to be a strange verse in an exploration of living in eternity with one another in Jesus Christ, and yet it strikes at the heart of the matter. In pondering the glory within and through and behind this verse (for the inside of this verse is larger than the outside – in other words, we can’t really “see” this verse until we move into the verse and live in the verse and live through the verse into the eternals), I have found no greater guides than C. S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory, and George MacDonald in The New Name. And, as students of Lewis know, MacDonald’s The New Name is the headwaters of Lewis’s The Weight of Glory.

 

In Lewis’s preface to his, George MacDonald, An Anthology – 365 Readings, he writes:

 

“The Divine Sonship is the key – conception which unites all the different elements of his thought. I dare not say that he is never in error; but to speak plainly I know hardly any other writer who seems to be closer, or more continually close, to the Spirit of Christ Himself.”

 

“I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master; indeed I fancy I have never written a book in which I did not quote from him. But is has not seemed to me that those who have received my books kindly take even now sufficient notice of the affiliation.”

 

While I want to continue to ponder Lewis’s preface, I’ll defer until this series on being with one another in eternity is completed and then, the Lord willing, come back to the preface in some more writing. For the present, Lewis quotes from The New Name in the anthology. Below are some excerpts I’ve selected from The New Name; can you connect what MacDonald is saying with the glory of being with one another in eternity?

 

 

“The true name is one which expresses the character, the nature, the being, the meaning of the person who bears it. It is the man's own symbol, - his soul's picture, in a word, - the sign which belongs to him and to no one else. Who can give a man this, his own name? God alone. For no one but God sees what the man is, or even, seeing what he is, could express in a name-word the sum and harmony of what he sees. To whom is this name given? To him that overcometh. When is it given? When he has overcome. Does God then not know what a man is going to become? As surely as he sees the oak which he put there lying in the heart of the acorn. 

Why then does he wait till the man has become by overcoming ere he settles what his name shall be? He does not wait; he knows his name from the first. But as -- although repentance comes because God pardons -- yet the man becomes aware of the pardon only in the repentance; so it is only when the man has become his name that God gives him the stone with the name upon it, for then first can he understand what his name signifies. 

It is the blossom, the perfection, the completion, that determines the name; and God foresees that from the first, because he made it so; but the tree of the soul, before its blossom comes, cannot understand what blossom it is to bear, and could not know what the word meant, which, in representing its own unarrived completeness, named itself. Such a name cannot be given until the man is the name.”

 

“God's name for a man must then be the expression in a mystical word--a word of that language which all who have overcome understand--of his own idea of the man, that being whom he had in his thought when he began to make the child, and whom he kept in his thought through the long process of creation that went to realize the idea. To tell the name is to seal the success--to say, "In thee also I am well pleased."”

 

“From this it follows that there is a chamber also – (O God, humble and accept my speech) – a chamber in God himself, into which none can enter but the one, the individual, the peculiar man, - out of which chamber that man has to bring revelation and strength for his brethren. This is that for which he was made – to reveal the secret things of the Father.”

 

“Each will behold in the other a marvel of revelation, a present son or daughter of the Most High, come forth from him to reveal him afresh. In God each will draw nigh to each.”

 

MacDonald is saying that, in Christ, we each have a unique aspect of God to display to others, and that our New Name indicates that aspect, that dimension (I’m not sure there is an adequate word for what I mean by “aspect” and “dimension” because we don’t know what we don’t know).

 

When MacDonald writes, “Each will behold in the other a marvel of revelation,” I think of Lewis writing that, “It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor.”

 

Peter writes, “But you are a Chosen Race, a Royal Priesthood, a Holy Nation, a People for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light…” (1 Peter 2:9). 

In the deep wisdom and holy purposes of our God, it takes us all, in Christ, to display our Father’s excellencies.

 

To be continued…

 

 

 

 

 

With One Another – Forever!!! (5)

 

 

I hope we’ve seen that our Father has not only created us for koinonia with Himself, but also for koinonia with one another – so much so, that to have koinonia with one another is to have koinonia with the Father and the Son – we saw this in 1 John 1:3. If our experience and concept of the Church and the Body of Christ falls short of this, perhaps we ought to revisit just what the Bible teaches us about who Christ Jesus is and who we are called to be in Him.

 

When we read passages such as 1 Corinthians 12:12, “For even as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ,” we are not reading an analogy or metaphor, we are reading about an organic reality. Now for sure we may begin with metaphor and analogy, but as we enter into the depths of God’s Word we will come to experience the organic life of the Body of Christ, with Jesus Christ as the Head of His Body (Eph. 1:22 – 23; 4:11 – 16; Col. 1:18; 2:19).

 

“Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing [koinonia] in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing [koinonia] in the body of Christ? Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body; for we all partake of the one bread.” (1Cor. 10:16 – 17).

 

I’ll close this reflection with the conclusion from what is perhaps, with good reason, C. S. Lewis’s most famous sermon, The Weight of Glory:

 

“It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbor. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbor’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken.

 

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

 

All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.

 

Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations -these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

 

This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner – no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat– the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself is truly hidden.”

 

In reading the above, I'm reminded of Paul's words to the Colossians:

 

“For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” (Colossians 3:3 – 4).

 

To be continued…