Mere Christianity – Book 4, Chap. 11
The New Men
In the last chapter, Lewis described the process of Christ making the Christian into a “new man” like the process of turning a horse into a winged creature. The reason he used such a dramatic illustration was that the changed will not be simply “improvement” but a whole “transformation” into to something entirely new.
Lewis compares and contrasts this transformation in Christ to how we think evolution works. In evolution we see lower types of life evolving into higher types. Many have conjectured about what the “next step” in evolution will look like. They imagine that the next step will simply be some kind of improvement on the human being, perhaps a “Superman” figure. But they only view the evolution as a mere improvement on the former in some way.
Lewis thinks the next step will be more like the transformation from the old dinosaurs to human beings. The previous evolutionary step was not simply a heavier animal with thicker armor. Rather “the future had a card up its sleeve which nothing at that time would have led him to expect.”
It was going to spring on him little, naked, unarmoured animals which had better brains: and with those brains they were going to master the whole planet. They were not merely going to have more power than the prehistoric monsters, they were going to have a new kind of power. The next step was not only going to be different, but different with a new kind of difference. The stream of Evolution was not going to flow on in the direction in which he saw it flowing: it was in fact going to take a sharp bend.
Lewis then argues that what most people think about the next step in evolution to be of a similar mistake. They think that man will just develop greater brains and a greater mastery over nature (like the Superman). But Lewis thinks that the next step will much more like the one mentioned above – a truly new thing. “It will go off in a direction you could never have dreamed of.”
In fact, it will not really be a mere change at all, but a whole new method of bringing about change. Maybe the next step will not include the method of evolution at all. And as in the past, when these changes happened very few realized they were in the midst of a change at all.
Now, what we are calling the “next step,” Lewis imagines that we are already in the midst of that change in the transformation that Christ has brought to man. It is not a mere improvement on the old man, but a change in a totally different way – “a change from being creatures of God to being sons of God.”
Now the inauguration of that change/transformation has already taken place in Palestine two thousand years ago. And in this way of God, it is not an evolution at all “because it is not something arising out of the natural process of events but something coming into nature from outside.”
So how does this “next step” of transformation from supernatural powers differ radically from the evolutionary changes in the past?
1.
It is not carried on by sexual reproduction. There was a time when development used to go by different methods and should we be surprised in the method of development in the future will be different as well.
It is not carried on by sexual reproduction. There was a time when development used to go by different methods and should we be surprised in the method of development in the future will be different as well.2.At the earlier stages living organisms have had either no choice or very little choice about taking the new step. The change upward was something that happened to them, not something they did. But the new step from being creatures to being sons is voluntary (free will). Though we certainly could not have asked for it, once it was offered it was ours to take or leave. “We can, if we please, shrink back; we can dig in our heels and let the new Humanity go on without us.”
At the earlier stages living organisms have had either no choice or very little choice about taking the new step. The change upward was something that happened to them, not something they did. But the new step from being creatures to being sons is voluntary (free will). Though we certainly could not have asked for it, once it was offered it was ours to take or leave. “We can, if we please, shrink back; we can dig in our heels and let the new Humanity go on without us.”3.Christ is not merely the “first instance” of the new man – He is the new man. “He is the origin and center and life of all the new men.” He came into this natural world and brought the new, supernatural life (Zoe) with Him – a life that is new to us, though not new where it came from. And he translates it not merely by heredity but by the “good infection.” “Everyone who gets it gets it by personal contact with Him. Other men become ‘new’ by being ‘in Him” (i.e. faith union with Christ).
Christ is not merely the “first instance” of the new man – He is the new man. “He is the origin and center and life of all the new men.” He came into this natural world and brought the new, supernatural life (Zoe) with Him – a life that is new to us, though not new where it came from. And he translates it not merely by heredity but by the “good infection.” “Everyone who gets it gets it by personal contact with Him. Other men become ‘new’ by being ‘in Him” (i.e. faith union with Christ).4.The next step takes place at a different speed from the previous ones. Compared to the history of the universe the life of Christianity is “like a flash of lightning – for two thousand years is almost nothing in the history of the universe.” We are still very young compared to the lifespan of the world. Many have thought that Christianity would soon die out, beginning with the crucifixion of Christ. But the Man came to life again. And that has been happening ever since. Every time the world tries to kill what Christ started it springs to life in a new area. “No wonder they hate us.”
The next step takes place at a different speed from the previous ones. Compared to the history of the universe the life of Christianity is “like a flash of lightning – for two thousand years is almost nothing in the history of the universe.” We are still very young compared to the lifespan of the world. Many have thought that Christianity would soon die out, beginning with the crucifixion of Christ. But the Man came to life again. And that has been happening ever since. Every time the world tries to kill what Christ started it springs to life in a new area. “No wonder they hate us.”5.The stakes are higher. In the early stages of human life, if a creature became extinct it merely lost its few years of life on earth. But for the next step to loose here means the lost of a prize which is infinite.
The stakes are higher. In the early stages of human life, if a creature became extinct it merely lost its few years of life on earth. But for the next step to loose here means the lost of a prize which is infinite. Now this next step has already been taken and is being taken. Already new men are dotted all over the face of the earth. Some may be hardly recognizable but others are. What should you look for to see them?
One thing is for sure, they won’t look like the “religious people” we often think of.
They don’t draw attention to themselves. They tend to thin that you are being kind to them when they are really being kind to you. They love you more than other men do, but they need you less . . . They will usually seem to have a lot of time: you will wonder where it comes from . . . And I strongly suspect . . . that they recognize one another immediately and infallibly, across every barrier of colour, sex, class, age, and even of creeds. In that way, to become holy is rather like joining a secret society. To put it at the very lowest, it must be great fun.
And the new men are not all alike. Why? Even though we have lost ourselves in Christ and each of us have taken up the mind of Christ so that His will will become ours and His thoughts our thoughts that doesn’t mean that we are all the same.
Imagine a room full of people who live in the dark. You go in and invite them to come outside in the light so that they can become visible. When they come out it is the same light shining on each of them but the light actually shows us just how different each of them is.
Also, suppose a person knew nothing about salt. You give him a pinch of salt to taste and he is repulsed at the taste. You then tell him that we use it in all our cooking and he immediately responds that he doesn’t want to eat your food. But what he doesn’t understand is that salt has just the opposite effect when placed on food. Far from ruining the taste of food, it actually brings out all the distinct flavors of the food in a more powerful way and makes the food even better.
The Christian life is like that. The more and more we get ourselves out of the way and let Christ take us over “the more truly ourselves we become.” Christ made us this way. He has made each of us represent Him in some way and all the Christians of the world cannot exhaust His glorious beauty. He remade us with all the differences we have and those differences will only be truly evident as we loose our lives in Him.
In our natural states, we are really what our upbringing has passed on to us. Nothing really all that exciting.
It is when I turn to Christ, when I give myself up to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.
Real personality exists only in God. In our old natures we are all very much alike but it is only in Christ that we truly become real persons.
And the only way to gain this new personality is to give your old one away. That means that you can’t come to Christ trying to get a new personality. You have to stop thinking about yourself altogether. You can’t get it while looking at it, wanting it. It will just keep evading you at every turn.
Your new personality only comes when you are looking at Him. This is why so few ever find eternal life. They try to get it by grasping at it. That is there focus rather than loosing themselves in Christ.
You know this to be true because this is similar in everyday affairs as well. If you want to make a good impression on others then you will only do so when you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. In art and literature, you will never be original until you stop worrying about originality. This is true in all of life from top to bottom.
Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lost your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of you being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
