Mere Christianity -- Book 4, Chap. 5

The Obstinate Toy Soldiers

The central thesis of this chapter is:

The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.

Though we will never become “divine” beings – we are remade in Christ by His Spirit to share His glorified human life – that is what is meant by the word, “glorification.”  We enter into the fullness of Christ’s glorified humanity when he returns to take us home.

Lewis begins this chapter by wondering, had man not fallen, if things would have worked out very differently.  Perhaps we would have all simply been born “in Christ” so that our natural life (Bios) would have been drawn up into the supernatural life (Zoe).

We said previously:

But there is still a sense in which man’s natural, biological life is not like God’s spiritual life.  There is a huge difference.  Biological life comes through nature and like all other things of this creation it tends to run down and decay.  It can only be maintained by feeding off other parts of its environment – air, water, food, etc.  We can call it:  Bios.

The Spiritual life of God is eternal and is the source of all life in nature.  We can call it:  Zoe (cf. John 1:4, 11:25; 14:6; Rom. 5:10, 17; 6:23; 8:6, 10; 2 Cor. 4:10-12; Col. 3:3; 1 John 1:2; 5:11, 20). 

Bios has, to be sure, a certain shadowy or symbolic resemblance to Zoe:  but only the sort of resemblance there is between a photo and a place, or a statue and a man.  A man who changed from having Bios to Zoe would have gone through as big a change as a statue which changed from being a carved stone to being a real man.

And this is precisely what Christianity is about.  This world is a great sculptor’s shop.  We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.

But, in Adam, we did fall and now these two kinds of life (Bios and Zoe) are not only very different from one another but actually opposed.

The natural life in each of us is something self-centered, something that wants to be petted and admired, to take advantage of other lives, to exploit the whole universe.  And especially it wants to be left to itself:  to keep well away from anything better or stronger or higher that it, anything that might make it feel small.  It is afraid of the light and air of the spiritual world, just as people who have been brought up to be dirty are afraid of a bath.  And in a sense it is quite right.  It knows that if the spiritual life gets hold of it, all its self-centeredness and self-will are going to be killed and it is ready to fight tooth and nail to avoid that.

By nature (fallen) we are self-centered and full of pride.  And being so self-centered we are protective of our self-image, self-security, and self-significance, not wanting anything to detract or tarnish our ego.  Therefore, we are naturally defensive to anyone or anything that would cause us shame.

Imagine, as a child, having your toy soldiers suddenly come to life.  But the toy soldier doesn’t like his new fleshly body.  He sees it as spoiling his previous tin body.  He thinks you are actually killing him rather than making him better.  So he fights you trying to prevent you from being turned into a real man.

In a similar, but grander way:

The Second Person in God, the Son, became human Himself:  was born into the world as an actual man – a real man of a particular height, with hair of a particular colour, speaking a particular language, weighing so many stone.  The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but (before that a baby, and before that a foetus inside a Woman’s body.  If you can get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.

In the incarnation Christ became a real man – what all men were intended to be.  And his human life (sinless Bios) was taken into the begotten, spiritual life (Zoe).  We could then say that in Christ at least one instance of humanity finally “arrived” – had passed into the life of Christ.

Also, since our flesh is fallen, then the only way for our Bios life to be taken up into His Zoe life was through suffering and death.  So Christ chose the way set before us of:

poverty, misunderstanding from His own family, betrayal by one of His intimate friends, being jeered at and manhandled by the Police, and execution by torture.  And then, after being thus killed – killed every day in a sense – the human creature in Him, because it was united to the divine Son, come to life again.  The Man in Christ rose again:  not only the God.

That is the whole point.  For the first time we saw a real man.  One tin soldier – real tin, just like the rest – had come full and splendidly alive.

NB:  At this point in the chapter, Lewis’ Arminian colors begin to fly high!  What he has to say is still very helpful, but as Calvinists we would limit what he says next to the elect alone.

Lewis says that unlike the toy soldiers that are many different individual toys, separate from one another that humans are all interconnected with one another.  The whole human race is fit together like a tree spread over time.  The human race is one single growing organism – joined to one another in a symbiotic life.  In fact, we are all even joined to God as the source and governing sustainer of human life – He is what keeps us going, yet entirely distinct from us as our Creator.

So when Christ became a man, he didn’t just affect parts of the human race but the whole human race with new life.  Like a “good infection,” the Christ life spreads through all mankind.  It works its way back to all the people who lived before Christ as well as all who come after Him, even to those who have never heard of Christ.  “It is like dropping into a glass of water one drop of something which gives a new taste or new colour to the whole lot.”

In Christ the work of humanity entering into the Zoe life has already been accomplished for us:

The business of becoming a son of God, or being turned from a created thing into a begotten thing, of passing over from the temporary biological life into timeless “spiritual: life, has been done for us.  Humanity is already “saved” in principle.  We individuals have to appropriate that salvation.   

But the really tough work – the bit we could not have done for ourselves – has been done for us.  We have not got to try to climb up into spiritual life by our own efforts; it has already come down into the human race.  If we will only lay ourselves open to the one Man in whom it was fully present, and who, in spite of being God, is also real man, He will do it in us and for us.

As an aside, Lewis’ Arminian approach limits the salvific work of Christ to being saved “in principle.”  What does that mean?  When Jesus says, “It is finished.”  Does he mean that or does he mean “it is finished in principle?”  Did Jesus’ work save us or didn’t it? 

For Lewis, Jesus does the work (tough work) but we have to “appropriate” it?  What does that mean?  If we had the ability to make such movements towards God in the first place, why did God have to send His Son?  Are we potentially saved or are we saved? 

Notice where Lewis places the emphasis of the sole determining factor of who is saved and who isn’t.

But how do we “appropriate” this new life?  Through a “good infection” – “One of our own race has this new life:  if we get close to Him we shall catch it from Him” -- through faith alone in Christ we are united to Him.

Lewis says that you can state this work of Christ is several different ways: 

You may say that Christ died for our sins.  You may say that the Father has forgiven us because Christ has done for us what we ought to have done.  You may say that we are washed in the blood of the Lamb.  You may say that Christ has defeated death.  They are all true.   

If any of them do not appeal to you, leave it alone and get on with the formula that does.  And, whatever you do, do not start quarrelling with other people because they use a different formula from yours.

While we can certainly appreciate Lewis’ warnings about unnecessary division and disunity in Christ’s church, an admonition we certainly need to hear loud and clear today, we must be careful about drawing the line too broadly in theological definitions.  Lewis is certainly dealing with central doctrines here that are fundamental gospel truths and not adiaphora that we can all equally agree to disagree upon.  But of course this is a classical discussion within Christian circles and will continue to be so far into the future of the church.