Conclusion:
“George
MacDonald gave his life to communicating the idea that if people knew who God
really was, they would believe in Him…he kept insisting: ‘But hear me this once
more: the God, the Jesus, in whom I believe, are not the God, the Jesus, in
whom you fancy I believe: you know them not; your idea of them is not mine. If
you knew them you would believe in them, for to know them is to believe in
them.’” (Christian Mythmakers, Rolland Hein, page 67).
Lewis wrote in
his Preface (pages XXXIV - XXXV), “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.”
For the past few
months Vickie and I have been spending weekly time with residents in a nursing
home. We gather and pray, sing, ponder Scripture, and take the adventure that
Aslan gives us. Our group is a mix of folks from memory care and from assisted
living – I can easily identify with both.
Larry was a
participant in our early weeks as a group, and while he is no longer a resident
of the community, in my heart I still see him and hear him. I particularly
recall a statement he made over and over during his time with us; “I’ve been
going to church all of my life and I’ve never heard these things.”
What things was
Larry referring to?
He had never
heard that he was a son of the Living God, he had never heard his life framed
in the context of Divine Sonship, Romans Chapter 8 was a land as foreign to him
as Siberia. Larry professed faith in Jesus Christ, Larry had been attending
church all of his life, how could he have not heard that he is a son of God and
a coheir of God in Christ? How could Larry have missed the Gospel?
Of course
Larry’s story is the story of most professing Christians; somehow, someway,
even after they come to know Jesus, they never hear the Gospel – bits and
pieces yes, but the Gospel itself in all of its glory…no. For the Gospel is
framed from eternity past to eternity future, and it extends far beyond
justification in and of itself – it moves from Romans 1:1 – 5:11 into our
identity in Christ and our precious sonship from 5:12 to 8:39 and beyond.
Do we really
teach justification if we do not teach the sonship in Christ that justification
is meant to lead us to? How can we say that we teach justification if we do not
also teach our glorious inheritance in Jesus Christ and our koinonia with the
Trinity? How can we not teach the entire Gospel – our perfect reconciliation to
God, by God, in Christ? How can we not teach that the Father sent the Son to
bring “many sons to glory”? (Hebrews 2:10).
I recall a
church retreat we had in Becket, MA many years ago. On the Sunday after the
retreat, one of our deacons stood before the congregation and said, “I’ve been
going to this church for over 70 years, and I never knew the things that God
had for me.” Our dear deacon was talking about the things associated with being
a son of the Living God.
As Lewis wrote,
George MacDonald’s thought was united by Divine sonship, by our lives in our
Father as men and women in our Elder Brother, Jesus Christ. Jesus came to show
us the Father, and MacDonald was continuing the work of Jesus Christ – just as
we are to do. Our calling is to show
others the Father, those who already know Jesus and those who don’t yet know
Jesus.
One of our
challenges is that so many religious people, so many professing Christians,
have an image of God that is not Biblical, that is not the image of Jesus
Christ. They insist on living outside the Holy of Holies, they insist on a
focus on sin, they insist on a system of works – righteousness…no matter what
they might say about being saved by grace. Intimacy with the Trinity is a
foreign concept, a strange language, to most professing Christians.
A challenge with
those who make no profession of Christianity is that they have caricatures of
the Gospel. These caricatures may be based on their observations of professing
Christians who do not live the Gospel but who may be quite religious, or they
may be based on lies told about God and His People. The point is that many folks
think we believe in a God that we do not actually believe in, and if they knew
the God we believe in, if they knew Jesus Christ – the Jesus of the Bible Living in us –
then they would believe in Him too because to know Him is to believe in Him.
And this brings
me to The Last Battle by Lewis. In The Last Battle Aslan is caricatured
to the point that he is merged with Tash, and Narnians, who ought to know
better, worship the enemy while rejecting the true Aslan. It is not the idols
outside the temple that are dangers, it is those which have been brought inside
the temple.
Our hearts are
called to belong to Jesus and to Jesus alone. In our hearts belonging to Jesus,
we discover that they also belong to one another. Our destiny is to know the beautiful
and perfect unity of the Trinity, we know this beauty as a People…ever and
always as a People.
Can we say with
Jesus Christ, and with MacDonald and Lewis:
“I will proclaim
Your Name to My brethren, in the midst of the Congregation I will sing Your praise”?
(Hebrews 2:12).
Amen.
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