By Neil Earle
The movie “Voyage of the Dawn Treader” from The Chronicles of Narnia series is much better than some of the reviews might lead you to believe. After all, it even beat out Johnny Depp and Angeline Jolie in “The Tourist.”
“Dawn Trader” is from a seven-novel series called “The Chronicles of Narnia” written in the early 1950s by the Christian thinker, C.S. Lewis (1898-1963). Narnia is usually accorded recognition as a classic children’s series complete with dragons, dwarfs, fauns, sea monsters and talking animals. The movie had its share of these but compared to such demon-haunted fare as “Harry Potter” one leaves the theatre feeling strangely positive and uplifted. It’s expected to do better as a Christmas favorite for families.
I think C.S. Lewis would have liked that. Lewis was an Oxford-Cambridge teacher who wrote widely on many subjects. He was a renowned literary critic. He died on November 22, 1963, the same day as author Aldous Huxley and President John F. Kennedy. Lewis achieved fame in the mid-twentieth century as a robust defender of the Christian faith as well as a noted literary scholar. During World War Two the British government asked him to broadcast a series of faith-building lectures over the BBC which he did. Lewis was actually offered a knight-hood by Winston Churchill for his part in bolstering British morale but he turned the offer down. Didn’t want to be identified with a political party. His radio talks were issued in 1952 under one volume as the provocative best-seller Mere Christianity. During the war Lewis often visited RAF airmen who knew they would be dead after 18 missions. Perhaps this is why Mere Christianity sometimes has such a hard no-nonsense feel to it.
In this book Lewis refined a bold philosophical formula that has stirred much interest, from readers as diverse as Ronald Reagan and Chuck Colson. It has been called “The Trilemma.” In 1995-1996 when I taught a ninth grade Bible class in Pasadena, CA, this seemed to grab their attention (or so I think!). Many appeared fascinated by this almost unforgettable Lewis tactic for crystallizing some of the essential rudiments of the Christian faith. Lewis set out to answer the question: Was Jesus God or was he just another religious sage? The “Trilemma” tries to answer this question in brisk Lewis style.
It goes like this, in the inimitable words of Lewis himself:
“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about [Jesus Christ]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’
“That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.”
Wow – pretty bold stuff for a tweed-jacketed Oxford prof wouldn’t you say?
But Lewis doesn’t finish yet. He goes on:
“You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
Of course, as Lewis himself hastened to add, “it seems to me obvious that he was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently…I have to accept that he was and is God. God has landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form.”
No doubt about it, there are aspects of Lewis’ thought that are piercing and challenging even for Christians. But what about this view of Jesus Christ? What aspects of the life and teaching of Jesus led Lewis to conclude that he was neither Liar nor Lunatic but Lord?
As the English theologian John Stott puts it: “The most striking feature of the teaching of Jesus is that he was constantly talking about himself.” And about himself Jesus made the most astonishing claims. Remember? Jesus repeatedly advanced the notion that he in his own person was sufficient to deliver human beings from suffering and futility and to offer them a reason for living. Two well-known Scriptures make this claim:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29).
“I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never go thirsty” (John 6:35).
Any teacher or prophet who made the seemingly ego-centric claim that he or she could in their very person satisfy our deepest longings, replenish our most barren spiritual dryness or heal our most broken dreams and serve as a never-failing source of inner nourishment – such a teacher had better make good on those claims or else. Else the accusation “Liar! Liar!” would drown out his claims. Buddha doesn’t offer such a stark choice. Neither does Confucius or Mohammed or Ron Hubbard. The Hindu Vedas do not speak in such personal terms. But if the New Testament documents are to be believed Jesus makes good on these claims. Consult the account of the demon-possessed man in Mark 5:1-20 or reread the testimony of the Roman centurion at the Place of the Skull (Matthew 27:54) or ask any three people you meet in church next week. One of them will regale you with a Jesus experience that can change your week. Maybe your life.
If Jesus lives up to His claims He is no liar. He is the truth personified.
But it goes even further than this.
As John Stott mentioned in his great argument for the faith titled Basic Christianity, Jesus made four clusters of claims. These four themes pointed unmistakably to his view of himself as equal with God (a notion seen in turnabout fashion in Philippians 2:6 and again in John 14:8-11). The first of these revolve around his direct association with the Father. “I and the Father are one,“ Jesus taught his astonished disciples. “If you have seen me you have seen the father (John 14:9).” He offended his enemies with the bold statement: “Before Abraham was born, I am (John 8: 57-59).”
Secondly, Jesus accepted worship as Lord and God. This happened at least three times (Matthew 14:33; Luke 5:8; John 20:28-29).
Thirdly, Jesus claimed to forgive sins and bestow eternal life (Matthew 9:1-8; John 5:26). His enemies knew what this meant. “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” they murmured (Luke 5:21). Right. That was precisely Matthew’s point.
Fourthly, Jesus claimed to judge the world (John 5:25-30) as is seen most notably in the parable of the Sheep and Goats (Matthew 25: 31-46). As Stott remarks: Were such a preacher to show up today making these claims he or she might not escape the attention of the psychiatrists. In fact, even Jesus’ own family wondered if he had not lost his mind (Mark 3:20-21). But he hadn’t, of course, and one of the great evidences that he had not was that his own family later acknowledged who he was – sinless Son of God, Savior of the World (Acts 1:12-14).
Yes, C.S. Lewis well knew what Peter and Andrew, James and Mary and millions of later disciples have found out – Jesus Christ is Lord. Our job is to proclaim that truth to the nations. Perhaps Lewis, the inventor of the Dawn Treader and the creator of Narnia and the great 20th Century advocate of Christianity should get the last word:
“We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed.”