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"Take
Heed" Ministries
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Cecil Andrews, PO BOX 13, Ballynahinch, BT24 8AL, Northern Ireland. Telephone/Fax 028 9756 5511. E-MAIL - takeheed@aol.com WEBSITE - http://www.takeheed.net |
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C
S LEWIS: AN AUTHOR TO AVOID
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Once more the movie world is about
to unveil its latest ‘blockbuster’ in the form of ‘The
Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe’ that is
based upon the writings of C S Lewis. As happened with Mel
Gibson’s ‘The Passion’ much of professing Christendom is viewing this as a
tremendous opportunity for both heralding the gospel and for evangelising the
lost and so it is clear that they appear to have learned nothing from their
similar but misplaced confidence where ‘The Passion’ was concerned.
At the outset let me make it plain
that I have not personally read the book upon which this movie is based but I
do know that with all the hype surrounding the movie and its claimed
‘Christian’ message I am in no doubt there will be an upsurge in sales of ALL
the writings of C S Lewis, particularly those that supposedly
demonstrate his skill as an ‘apologist for Christianity’.
Just as scripture
interprets itself [“the Holy Spirit teacheth, comparing spiritual things
with spiritual” 1 Corinthians 2:13] so to ‘interpret’ C S Lewis it
is necessary to compare and analyse what he has written overall and not just
base a judgment upon an obscure ‘interpretation’ of a children’s ‘fantasy’
novel.
In recent years I wrote a series
of articles entitled ‘Was C S Lewis truly “our greatest Christian
writer”? ‘ –
This was a title ascribed to him in an article by a local
preacher and author. These articles can be viewed by following these links
http://www.takeheed.net/news25.htm
http://www.takeheed.net/JUNE%202003.htm
http://www.takeheed.net/DECEMBER%202003.htm
http://www.takeheed.net/JUNE%202004.htm
These articles later formed a
section in my book ‘Try the spirits: Volume 1’
– the other 2 sections in this book considered ‘Philip Yancey:
turning the grace of God into lasciviousness?’ And ‘Alpha: Attend
or Avoid?’
Should you wish to obtain
a copy of this book, if you live within the
In this article I simply want to
reproduce the sections that dealt with my concerns about the views of C S Lewis on ‘repentance’
‘regeneration’ and ‘redemption’.
These concerns are based upon my reading of the writings of C S Lewis in
‘Mere Christianity’ and ‘Prayer: Letters to Malcolm’.
The first command of the Lord as
recorded in Mark’s gospel is “Repent and believe the gospel” [Mark
It is clear that REPENTANCE is
no ‘soft option’ and so a correct understanding of it is absolutely vital to
the eternal well being of every individual. In ‘Vine’s Expository
Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words’ we read the following under ‘REPENT,
REPENTANCE’ on page 525 –
‘signifies
“to change one’s mind or purpose,” always in the NT involving a change
for the better, an amendment, and always, except Luke 17:3-4, of
“repentance” from sin…In the NT the subject chiefly has reference to
“repentance” from sin and this change of mind involves both a turning from
sin and a turning to God. The parable of the Prodigal Son is an
outstanding illustration of this.’
In one of
my Daily devotional books [‘Footprints of Faith’; edited by Alan
from the conviction that it has
offended God’
Joseph
Addison.
I think
that quote captures well the essence of biblical REPENTANCE.
From God’s Word we also learn that
REPENTANCE is a gracious gift to undeserving sinners held in Satan’s
grip. Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 2:24-26 “And the servant of the Lord must not
strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient. In meekness instructing
those that oppose him, if God perhaps will give them repentance to the
acknowledging of the truth, And that they may recover themselves out of the
snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will”
Commenting on these verses Matthew
Henry wrote ‘Repentance is God’s gift…The same God who
gives us the discovery of the truth does by His grace bring us to the
acknowledging of it, otherwise our hearts would continue in rebellion
against it…When sinners repent, those who before were led captive by the
devil at his will come to be led into the glorious liberty of the children
of God and have their wills melted into the will of the Lord Jesus’. In
his Study Bible notes Pastor John MacArthur wrote on page 1878 – ‘All
true repentance is produced by God’s sovereign grace [Ephesians 2:7]…When God,
by grace, grants saving faith it includes the granting of repentance from sin.
Neither is a human work’.
The book ‘Mere Christianity’ written by C S Lewis is divided
into 3 ‘books’ and chapter 4 of Book 2 is
entitled ‘The Perfect Penitent’. I want to quote some extracts from this chapter
[pages 53-58] to help you understand how C S Lewis understood and articulated his
view of REPENTANCE. Referring to the Lord Jesus C S Lewis wrote – ‘What did He come to do?
Well, to teach of course; but as soon as you look into the New Testament or any
other Christian writing you will find they are constantly talking about
something different – about His death and His coming to
life again. It is obvious that Christians think
the chief point of the story lies there. They think the main thing He came to
earth to do was to suffer and be killed. [Paul
under inspiration taught this – see I Timothy
In 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 referred
to above, Paul sets out in the clearest of terms what constitutes “the
Gospel” – it is not a ‘theory’ – it is a
declaration of the historical reality of the death, burial and resurrection [“according
to the scriptures”] of the Lord Jesus Christ. If “the Gospel” is not
‘Christianity’
then why would the Lord Himself instruct His followers to “Go ye into
all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” [Mark 16:15] and why
would Paul believe that he would actually be failing in his calling to be an
Apostle by declaring “Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel” [1
Corinthians 9:16].
C S Lewis continues ‘We are told that Christ was
killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins and that by dying He
disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what
has to be believed…Now on the face of it that is a very silly theory…On the
other hand, if you think of a debt, there is plenty of point in a person who
has some assets paying it on behalf of someone who has not…when one person has
got himself into a hole, the trouble of getting him out usually falls on a kind
friend. Now what was the sort of “hole” man had got
himself into? He had tried to set up on his own…he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering,
saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the wrong track… - that
is the only way out of our “hole.” This process of surrender – this movement
full speed astern – is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance
is no fun at all. It is something much harder than eating humble pie. It means
unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training
ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death’. Perhaps you’re thinking to
yourself that this all sounds more or less in harmony
with what God’s Word teaches. Well – listen to what C S Lewis goes on to
say – ‘In
fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here comes the catch. Only a bad
person needs to repent [true]: only a good person can
repent perfectly [false]. The worse you are the more
you need it [true] and the
less you can do it [not true as it is God’s gracious gift – Jeremiah prayed
“Ah, Lord God…there is nothing too hard for thee” and God responded “I
am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is there anything too hard for me?” (32:17
& 27)]…The
only person who could do it [repent] perfectly would be a perfect person –
and he would not need it. Remember, this repentance,
this willing submission to humiliation and a kind of death, is not something
God demands of you before He will take you back [Not true
– look again at the scriptural imperatives quoted earlier]…He could let you off if He
chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like’ – what a
poisonous mix of ‘truth’ and ‘error’ these writings of Mr Lewis are.
C S Lewis continues ‘we now need God’s help in
order to do something which God, in His own nature, never does at all – to
surrender, to suffer, to submit, to die…But supposing
God became a man – suppose our human nature which can suffer and die was
amalgamated with God’s nature in one person – then that
person could help us. He could surrender His will, and suffer and die,
because He was man; and He could do it [repent!] perfectly because
He was God. You and I can go through this process [repentance!]
only if God
does it in us [true];
but God can do it only if He becomes a man [not true – we read of
people in the Old testament like David and Manasseh ‘repenting’ and that was
before Christ’s incarnation].
Our attempts at this dying [our repentance!] will succeed only if we men share in God’s dying
[God’s repentance!]…we cannot share God’s dying unless God dies; and He cannot die except
by being a man [normally true – but remember Mr Lewis is here
speaking in terms of ‘repentance’ and not of Christ dying ‘sacrificially’]…That
is the sense in which He pays our debt and suffers for us what He himself need
not suffer at all’.
Back in 1994 I had a series of
written exchanges with a strong supporter of the beliefs of Edward Cooney
[his followers are often referred to as ‘Cooneyites’]. In one
letter she wrote ‘Believing in a doctrine or doctrines about Jesus is not
salvation…With regard to the doctrine of the Atonement…it was the
sacrificial life of Christ, poured out unto death, even death on the cross,
in perfect obedience to the will of God. It is by this complete
sacrifice of his life that we are reconciled to God…I believe the penal
substitution theory [Christ atoningly suffering as a substitute for His
people on the Cross] is false doctrine’. I just wonder was C S Lewis whilst
living in
My reading of all this is
that Mr Lewis has equated the sinless Lord’s innate ability to resist
sin with fallen man’s necessity to repent of sin. In so doing I believe that Mr
Lewis has maligned the impeccable character of our Lord every bit as much
as when Kenneth Copeland teaches that the Lord was ‘born again’ in
hell. It seems to be that Mr Lewis has heretically confused the Lord’s ‘resistance’ to
sin with ‘repentance’ from sin.
Near the end of this PART 2 of my assessment of C S Lewis I
wrote ‘My
reading of all this is that Mr Lewis has equated the sinless Lord’s innate
ability to resist sin with fallen man’s necessity to repent of sin. In so doing
I believe Mr Lewis has maligned the impeccable character of our Lord…It seems
to be that Mr Lewis has heretically confused the Lord’s “resistance” to sin
with “repentance” from sin’. Subsequent to actually writing
this PART 2 I purchased the latest ‘Dictionary of Theological Terms’ by
Alan Cairns
and I came across this entry on page 426.
Vicarious
repentance theory of the Atonement
Also known as the Theory of Sympathy and
Identification. We may summarise it under the
following points.
1. The only atonement necessary for sin is a perfect repentance.
2. Such a repentance from man would have been sufficient for salvation,
had he been able to offer it.
3. Christ offered a perfect repentance [please remember in my article I looked at what Mr Lewis
wrote in his chapter in ‘Mere Christianity’ called ‘The Perfect
Penitent’] on behalf of man and so procured forgiveness.
4. The death of Christ was merely a
sympathetic entering into the Father’s condemnation of sin, and as such showed
the wickedness of sin and condemned it.
The theory
is objectionable on various grounds.
1. It fails to see that sin makes the sinner liable to punishment.
2. It denies any objective quality in the atonement [i.e. It denies that Christ’s atoning death actually
and effectively accomplished salvation for anyone].
3. It is a contradiction in terms – repentance is purely a subjective [relates to self] thing and cannot
be valid unless it is personal. That Christ felt and sorrowed over the sins He
vicariously bore for His people is certain [Psalm 40:12] but it was impossible
for Him to turn back to God [during His life on earth] from committed sin, for – even in bearing our sins [on the cross] – He had never
turned away from Him.
4. THERE IS NOT A FRAGMENT OF SCRIPTURAL SUPPORT FOR IT.
This definition by Mr
Cairns seems to perfectly encapsulate the conclusions that I had come to when
analysing what Mr Lewis had written on this
subject of ‘repentance’ and it has come as an encouraging
confirmation to my own understanding to discover that what I had ‘unearthed’
had already been identified and ‘quantified’ by Mr Cairns who for 33 years has
been a lecturer in Systematic Theology in the Theological Hall of the Free
Presbyterian Church.
To begin with I want to consider 2
things namely – firstly, what is ‘regeneration’ and secondly, does
sinful man have any input into his own ‘regeneration’?
In answer to the first question –
what is ‘regeneration’ let me quote from Vines’ Expository Dictionary
of Old and New testament Words’. On pages 517-518
under the heading REGENERATION we read the following ‘Palingenesia
“new birth” (palin – “again”; genesis – “birth”) is used of
“spiritual regeneration” [Titus 3:5] involving the communication of A NEW LIFE,
the two operating powers to produce which are “The Word of Truth” [James 1:18;
1 Peter 1:23] and “The Holy Spirit” [John 3:5-6]…The NEW BIRTH and REGENERATION
do not represent successive stages in spiritual experience, they refer to the
same event but view it in different aspects. The NEW BIRTH stresses the
communication of spiritual life in contrast to the antecedent spiritual death; [see
Ephesians 2:1] REGENERATION stresses the inception of a new state of things
in contrast with the old’ [see 2 Corinthians 5:17].
Turning to the second question –
does sinful man have any input into his own ‘regeneration’ I think we
need to consider carefully the Lord’s words to Nicodemus in John chapter 3
where He declares the necessity of being “born again” [ie ‘regenerated’]
for entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. In considering question one we read that
in ‘the communication of A NEW LIFE’ there were ‘two operating
powers’ namely “The Word of Truth” [‘seed’ – see Luke
Any resultant offspring has had no
input whatsoever into his ‘first birth’ and in like-fashion anyone graciously ‘born
again’ [‘born of the Spirit’ – see John 3:6] has had no input into his own ‘regeneration’.
As we read in Jonah 2:9 and Psalm 3:8 “Salvation is of, and
belongs to the Lord”. God does use other independent human agents to sow
and water the ‘seed’ but as Paul explained in 1 Corinthians 3:6-7,
any resultant ‘fruit’ is entirely due to God ALONE – “I have planted,
Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then, neither is he that
planteth anything, neither he that watereth, but God giveth the increase”.
I often hear unregenerate people
being urged to ‘exercise faith’ – but what is ‘faith’? Well, we
find the answer in Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is the substance of things hoped
for, the evidence of things not seen”. This is something a “natural [unregenerate]
man” [1 Corinthians
Let me at this point say that if
anyone promotes teaching on REGENERATION that is in conflict with what
has already been biblically shown, in the earlier part of this article, to be
the truth on this matter of REGENERATION, if they accommodate in their
thinking the necessity for some input by sinful man, whether in the form of a
conscious decision coupled with religious ritual, then I believe they are
promoting a ‘false gospel’ such as that anathematised by Paul in Galatians
chapter 1. There, Paul, under inspiration, rejected the false
teaching of a human decision to submit to ‘ritualistic’ circumcision as being
necessary for salvation - “And certain men which came down from Judea taught
the brethren and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye
cannot be saved” [Acts 15:1].
This was mirrored in one of the
greatest modern-day errors committed by so-called ‘evangelicals’
back in 1994 when they signed their agreement to the ‘Evangelicals and
Catholics Together Agreement’ – an agreement that in effect sanctioned
2 ways in which people could become Christians. One was the biblical and true
way as outlined in Vines’ Expository Dictionary but the second was the
false ‘ritualistic’ way as captured by these words from the agreement – ‘Those
converted, whether understood…as having experienced the reawakening of the new
birth originally bestowed in the sacrament of baptism’ – this
was a statement that Charles Colson, Bill Bright ,
J I Packer and other ‘evangelicals’ had no
difficulty in publicly endorsing – what a betrayal of divine truth!
Now, how does C S Lewis view REGENERATION,
namely ‘the communication of A NEW LIFE’ as we learnt from Vine’s definition?
Let me turn again to his book ‘Mere Christianity’ and there we read on page 59 - ‘In Christ a new
kind of man appeared: and the new kind of life, which began in Him, is to be
put into us’. I have great difficulty with this statement for this
reason – Jesus Christ was the INCARNATE Son of God whereas believers today are
REGENERATE sons of God. To my way of thinking Mr Lewis is as wrong here
as was Kenneth
Hagin Snr when he taught ‘Every man who has been born again is an incarnation
and Christianity is a miracle. The believer is as much an incarnation as was
Jesus of Nazareth’ [Quoted by Hank Hanegraaff on page 383 of the hardback edition of his
book ‘Christianity in Crisis’].
Jesus Christ was the
SINLESS INCARNATE Son of God whereas believers are SINFUL REGENERATE sons of
God – yes, believers now have ‘spiritual life’ and their personal hope and
God’s earnest desire is that they should ‘be conformed to the image of his
Son’ [Romans 8:29] but we must never forget that the INCARNATE Son of God
was IMPECCABLE whereas sadly, as we all know from bitter experience, believers
are REGENERATE but PECCABLE sons of God – ‘If we say we have no sin, we
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us’ [1 John 1:8].
Later on page 59 of ‘Mere
Christianity’ Mr Lewis writes ‘There
are three things that spread the Christ life to us: baptism, belief, and that
mysterious action which different Christians call by different names –
Holy Communion, the Mass, the Lord’s supper’.
When professing Christians use Christian
terminology, their understanding of that terminology must be framed in the
context of the ‘faith community’ with which they personally identify. [By way of
example, when a Mormon speaks of ‘salvation’ he usually has ‘resurrection’
in view whereas a Christian would have an altogether different theological
concept in mind].
So when C S Lewis speaks
of ‘belief’ sandwiched between ‘baptism’ and ‘Holy
Communion’, it is patently evident that his ‘belief’
is that the reception of what he calls ‘the Christ life’ or what
Christians would call REGENERATION comes to a person via a SACRAMENTAL
SYSTEM.
On page
62 of ‘Mere Christianity’ he
writes ‘this new life is spread not only by purely mental
acts like belief, but by bodily acts like baptism and Holy Communion…God never
meant man to be a purely spiritual creature. That is why He uses material
things like bread and wine to put new life into us’.
These teachings would all be
perfectly consistent with his own personal identity with the Anglican Church
and also with his ‘fellowship’ with active, practising Roman Catholics. For
the same reason it would also explain why the writings of C S Lewis are widely
available in Roman Catholic bookshops. Each of these SACRAMENTAL SYSTEMS involve
‘belief’ or what I referred to earlier as ‘a
conscious decision coupled with religious ritual’ and the reality is that such ‘belief’ has no concord with the biblical
teaching on REGENERATION.
‘REDEMPTION.
We come
now in this final part to consider his teachings on REDEMPTION. One of the most glorious truths at
the heart of the ‘Gospel of Christ’
is the message of redemption. It has gripped the hearts of hymn writers when they
penned words like ‘Redeemed how
I love to proclaim it, redeemed by the blood of the lamb’ and ‘There
is a redeemer, Jesus, God’s own Son, precious lamb of God, Messiah, Holy One’.
I want to consider this matter of redemption from two angles – I want firstly to look at what C S Lewis believed about what I would call ‘individual redemption’ and then to look at what C S Lewis believed about what I would call ‘corporate redemption’.
Before
homing in on these two ‘angles’ let us first establish the clear biblical
meaning of ‘redemption’.
In his ‘Dictionary of Theological Terms’, Alan Cairns wrote ‘the deliverance of God’s elect from a state
of sin into a state of salvation by the means and merit of the ransom paid
by Christ on their behalf’. Mr Cairns went on to quote from John Owen’s classic ‘Death of
Death’ (p 147) – ‘Redemption…is the delivery of any one from captivity and
misery by the intervention “lutrou” of
a price or ransom. That this ransom, or price of our
deliverance was the blood of Christ is evident’.
Through
the sacrificial shedding of His blood on the Cross of Calvary Christ paid a
ransom price to purchase a ‘group of people’ and so release them from
their ‘state of sin’ [condemned] and bring them into a ‘state of salvation’ [justified].
We learn who this ‘group
of people’ are when we read the words of Paul to the Ephesian Elders in Acts 20:28 – “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and
to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed
the church, which he [Christ] hath purchased with his own blood”.
‘The Church’ speaks of
both ‘individual’ and ‘corporate’ redemption. Not only do
this ‘group of people’, the ‘individuals’ who ‘corporately’ make
up ‘The Church’, now belong to Christ, but they also enjoy a
special benefit that flows from that ‘blood bought’ Calvary
transaction. John Murray, in his book, ‘Redemption: Accomplished
and Applied’ wrote ‘when Paul says that in the beloved “we
have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” [Ephesians 1:7;
Colossians 1:14], it is quite plain that he conceives the forgiveness of
sins as the blessing accrued from blood redemption…the death of Christ is redemptively
efficacious in reference to sin’.
The questions we must
consider are these. Firstly, to what effective extent has Christ redeemed
the ‘individuals’ who ‘corporately’ comprise ‘The Church’?
Is ‘individual’ redemption ‘plenary’ or ‘partial’?
Then secondly, is ‘corporate’ redemption effectively limited only
to ‘The Church’?
Where ‘individual’ redemption is
considered, the teaching of Scripture is clear. As far as an individual’s “sin”
is concerned there is ‘plenary’ [FULL] forgiveness and not ‘partial’.
Twice in the book of Hebrews God spells out what has been accomplished in the
realm of “forgiveness” as a result
of the redemptive work of Christ, WHO ALONE is “the mediator of the new covenant” (Hebrews 12:24). In Hebrews
When God forgives a true “born again” believer - He forgives
FULLY and that person is no longer under “condemnation”
- which is the position of every unregenerate unbeliever – John 5:24 “verily, verily I say unto you, he that heareth my word and
believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into
condemnation but is passed from death [CONDEMNED] unto life [JUSTIFIED]”
In an
article in the December
2003 Evangelical Times entitled ‘Why Was Jesus Born’? Peter Jeffrey cited the equivalent of a modern-day ‘parable’ when he wrote ‘Christmas
is probably the most expensive time of the year. All those presents…have to be
paid for. When January comes and the credit card bills roll in, the full cost
is seen. We may end up heavily in debt. But wait a moment, ‘Why Jesus Was Born’ is
about the cost God was willing to pay to remove your debt of sin. What
if in January your credit card debt was FULLY paid by someone else…Your sin has
run up an enormous ‘debt’…if you turn to Jesus and trust in His death for the
forgiveness of your sin…you will find that Jesus has paid the debt [FULLY] for you. That is why He was born and that is why He died’.
Did C S Lewis teach that, for a believer, their ‘debt was FULLY paid by
someone else’ - that ‘someone else’ being Jesus Christ and that upon death they would go
immediately “to
be with Christ which is far better” [Philippians
‘Of course I pray for the dead. The action is so spontaneous,
so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against
it would deter men [Cecil’s comment – would “There is
therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1) be a sufficiently ‘compulsive
theological case against’ praying
for the dead?] And I hardly know how the rest of my prayers would survive if
those for the dead were forbidden. At our age the majority of those we love
best are dead. What sort of intercourse with God could I have if what I love
best were unmentionable to Him? On the traditional Protestant view, all the
dead are damned or saved. If they are damned, prayer for them is useless. If
they are saved, it is equally useless…To pray for them presupposes that
progress and difficulty are still possible. In fact you are bringing in
something like Purgatory. Well, I suppose I am…I believe in Purgatory…the very
etymology [origin] of the word Purgatory
has dropped out of sight. Its pains do not bring us nearer to God, but make us
forget Him. It is a place not of purification but purely of retributive
punishment [a wrong view in the opinion
of C S Lewis]. The right view returns magnificently in Newman’s Dream. There if I remember rightly, the
saved soul, at the very foot of the throne, begs to be taken away and cleansed.
It cannot bear for a moment longer ‘with its darkness to affront that
light’. Religion has reclaimed Purgatory. Our souls demand Purgatory,
don’t they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us “It is true, my son,
that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are
charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away
from you. Enter into the joy”? [Cecil’s
comment – these sentiments are Biblically true because believers are “accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6) and “the blood of Jesus Christ
his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7)] Should we not reply “With submission sir, and if there is no
objection, I’d rather
be cleaned first”. It may hurt you know – “Even so, sir”. [Cecil’s comment – Did C S Lewis never read what Paul wrote to vile sinners who had become believers? - “And such were some of you, but ye are WASHED, but ye
are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the
Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11)] I assume that the
process of purification will normally involve suffering…But I don’t think
suffering is the purpose of the purgation. I can well believe that people
neither much worse nor much better than I will suffer less than I or more. No
nonsense about merit. The treatment given will be the one required, whether it
hurts little or much. My favourite image of this comes from the dentist’s
chair. I hope that when the tooth of life is drawn [death] and when I am
coming round [entering
eternity] a voice will say, “Rinse
your mouth out with this”. This
will be Purgatory. The rinsing may take longer than I can now imagine. The
taste of this may be more fiery and astringent than my present
sensibility could endure. But More and Fisher shall not persuade me that it
will be disgusting and unhallowed’.
These teachings of C S Lewis are
a clear denial of the Biblical teachings of the inspired, revealed extent to
which Christ has redeemed ‘individuals’!
But what about the
effective extent of Christ’s ‘corporate’ redemption – is it
effectively limited only to that ‘group of people’, those ‘individuals’,
who ‘corporately’ comprise ‘The Church’.
The Bible teaches that only
Christians, only those “born again” [John 3:5], only those who “by
one Spirit…were all baptised into one body” [1 Corinthians
The Apostle Paul knew and taught
that only those who had “Jesus Christ and Him crucified” [1 Corinthians 2:2]
preached to them and who were “quickened” [brought to
spiritual life] [Ephesians 2:1] and who were
“baptised” [1 Corinthians 12:13] by that “one spirit” were in “the
body, the church” and belonged to Christ for he wrote in Romans 8:9 “If
any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his”. This is why Paul
wrote so passionately of missionary endeavour in Romans 10:13-15 “For
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall
they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in
him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher.
And how shall they preach except they be sent.”
Paul knew that “the gospel of Christ…is the power of God unto salvation”
[Romans
So, the effective extent of
Christ’s ‘corporate’ redemption, according to the Bible, is limited to
those who have “the gospel of Christ” preached to them and who by the
work of the Holy Spirit are subsequently “converted” [Matthew 18:3]. Did
C S Lewis believe and teach that? Again, sadly, the answer is yet
another resounding ‘No’.
On
page 173 of ‘Mere Christianity’ C S Lewis wrote –
‘There
are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to
concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with
Christianity and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For
example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the
Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (although he might
still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points. Many of
the good Pagans long before Christ’s birth may have been in this
position…Consequently it is not much use trying to make judgments about
Christians and non-Christians in the mass’. [Cecil’s
comment – if this were true then there would be no point in sending
missionaries to ‘merciful Buddhists’ and ‘good Pagans’]
These teachings of C S Lewis are
a clear denial of the Biblical teachings of the inspired, revealed effective
extent of Christ’s ‘corporate’ redemption of ‘The Church’.
I think the
simplest overall way to summarise the false teachings of C S Lewis on
these points is to say that he has ‘under-estimated individual
redemption’ and ‘over-estimated corporate redemption’.
Roger Fay, a Pastor
in
My understanding is that this upcoming movie will be the first in a series based upon the writings of C S Lewis so this is a topic that is likely to be in the spotlight for quite some time.
In the light of what I have
written in this article I would urge discerning Christians to desist from
giving any endorsement to the ‘Christian apologetics’ of C S Lewis as they fail
the standard of trustworthiness [see 2 Timothy 2:2] set forth in the
Word of God.