The combination within him of insight with vitality, wisdom with wit, and imaginative power with analytical precision made Lewis a sparkling communicator of the everlasting gospel. Matching Aslan in the Narnia stories with (of course!) the living Christ of the Bible and of Lewis’s instructional books, and his presentation of Christ could hardly be more forthright. “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.” Then, on the basis of this belief and the future belief that he is risen and alive and so is personally there (that is, everywhere, which means here), we must “put on,” or as Lewis strikingly renders it, “dress up as” Christ””that is, give ourselves totally to Christ, so that he may be “formed in us,” and we may henceforth enjoy in him the status and character of adopted children in God’s family, or as again Lewis strikingly puts it, “little Christs.” “God looks at you as if you were a little Christ: Christ stands beside you to turn you into one.” Precisely.
Not just evangelicals, but all Christians, should celebrate Lewis, “the brilliant, quietly saintly, slightly rumpled Oxford don” as James Patrick describes him. He was a Christ-centered, great-tradition mainstream Christian whose stature a generation after his death seems greater than anyone ever thought while he was alive, and whose Christian writings are now seen as having classic status.
Long may we learn from the contents of his marvelous, indeed magical, mind! I doubt whether the full measure of him has been taken by anyone as yet.
Read it all.
James I. Packer–Still Surprised by C.S. Lewis
The combination within him of insight with vitality, wisdom with wit, and imaginative power with analytical precision made Lewis a sparkling communicator of the everlasting gospel. Matching Aslan in the Narnia stories with (of course!) the living Christ of the Bible and of Lewis’s instructional books, and his presentation of Christ could hardly be more forthright. “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.” Then, on the basis of this belief and the future belief that he is risen and alive and so is personally there (that is, everywhere, which means here), we must “put on,” or as Lewis strikingly renders it, “dress up as” Christ””that is, give ourselves totally to Christ, so that he may be “formed in us,” and we may henceforth enjoy in him the status and character of adopted children in God’s family, or as again Lewis strikingly puts it, “little Christs.” “God looks at you as if you were a little Christ: Christ stands beside you to turn you into one.” Precisely.
Not just evangelicals, but all Christians, should celebrate Lewis, “the brilliant, quietly saintly, slightly rumpled Oxford don” as James Patrick describes him. He was a Christ-centered, great-tradition mainstream Christian whose stature a generation after his death seems greater than anyone ever thought while he was alive, and whose Christian writings are now seen as having classic status.
Long may we learn from the contents of his marvelous, indeed magical, mind! I doubt whether the full measure of him has been taken by anyone as yet.
Read it all.