C S Lewis' Faith - What was the starting point?

"Yes," said Queen Lucy, "In our world, too, a Stable  once had something inside that was bigger than our whole world."
   -- From Chronicles of Narnia, by C S Lewis



The  Stable on the inside was bigger than the Stable on the outside

C S Lewis' faith was founded on the reality of the Incarnation: that God Himself took on human form and came to live among us, purposing to die for our sins and pay the penalty for our sins  to God Himself.

Lewis was a renowned student of ancient literature and was familiar with the age-old theme of a dying god who is raised to life again.

What drew him to Christianity was the growing conviction that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was the truth behind the myths.

The dreams of ancient pagan religions actually happened when God did in fact, take on human flesh, in the God-man of His Son, and then died for our atonement.

The Incarnation was not just a beautiful dream, a fantasy of human imagination, but was a historical reality.

In Lewis' day, and for years before, and now, the secular worldview of many scholars was to look at Jesus as a great teacher and a wise man, but certainly not the Son of God, God in the flesh.

But Lewis held at the doctrine of the Incarnation was an essential doctrine of he Christian faith.

"The central miracle asserted by Christians," he wrote, "is the Incarnation."

It is "the Grand Miracle," and the purpose of this Grand Miracle is to do for us what we could never do for ourselves."

Terry Glaspey comments on Lewis' view,

     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 God.....But we cannot share God's dying unless God dies,
     and He cannot die except by being a man. That is the sense in
     which He pays our debt, and suffers for us what He Himself
     need not suffer at all.

     Some are willing to conceive of Him as a great religious
     genius, applauding His high ethical demands upon humanity
     and cheering His concern for justice and righteousness....
     But if this is all we understand of Jesus, we have failed to
     truly understand Him....

     To put Jesus on the same level with Mohammed, Confucius,
     or Buddha is not one of the options left open to us. By the
     claims He made, He significantly parted company with those
     whom we would consider great moral teachers.

     He claimed to be something more than that.  He claimed to
     be God in the flesh. If He is not who He said He was, then
     He is either an evil liar or a crazy person.

        -- From C S Lewis, His Life and Thought,                    by Terry Glaspey


The claims of Jesus Christ compel us to a make a decision -- was He who He said He was, or was He a great cosmic con-man?

He didn't give us any other option.

He didn't intend to. 

     Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No
     one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew
     me, you would know my Father as well..."
                                   -- John 14:6-7