S1E11 – MC B2C4 – “The Perfect Penitent”

Welcome to the penultimate chapter in Book II! In this episode we look at Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. How did it save us? How have different Christians tried to explain it? Do we need to understand the mechanics of how it works in order to be saved? These questions and more will be discussed on this episode of “The Eagle and Child”, so pull up a chair and raise your glass. Cheers!

S1E11: “The Perfect Penitent” (Download)

Show Notes

Introduction

• This episode attempts to answer two questions:

1. Why did God become man?

• Matt describes this in terms of “invading enemy-occupied territory”, which is language used by Lewis in the next chapter, Chapter V: “The Practical Conclusion”.

2. What did the death and resurrection of Jesus do for us?

Toast

• Today Matt and David were drinking Ballast Point Bonito. If this beer is unacceptable to you, please tweet @pintswithjack with recommendations…or better yet, send some beer!

Discussion

01. “Divine Mission”

• Why did Jesus come 2,000 years ago? Many people would say that He came to earth to teach, but, as Jack points out, the New Testament seems to focus on His death and resurrection, suggesting that this was the central point of Jesus’ mission.

And now, what was the purpose of it all What did he come to do? Well, to teach, of course; but as soon as you look into the New Testament or an y 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.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Perfect Penitent

• Then Lewis makes a point: the reality of the atonement and the theories of atonement are not the same thing. The former is Christianity, the latter is simply an attempt to explain how it works.

The central Christian belief is that Christ’s death has somehow put us right with God and given us a fresh start. Theories as to how it did this are another matter … Theories about Christ’s death are not Christianity: they are explanations about how it works.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Perfect Penitent

• Matt read the following two passages from the New Testament describing Jesus’ sacrifice:

For God indeed was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.

2 Corinthians 5:19

Because in Him, it hath well pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell; and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, making peace through the blood of his cross, both as to the things that are on earth, and the things that are in heaven.

Colossians 1:19-20

02. “The Formula”

• Lewis gives the “formula” for Christianity…

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.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Perfect Penitent

• Lewis uses the analogy of food to further explain this. Matt mispronounces “vitamins”, but fortunately, David was around to correct him.

People ate their dinners and felt better long before the theory of vitamins was ever heard of: and if the theory of vitamins is some day abandoned they will go on eating their dinners just the same.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Perfect Penitent

• Though he states that theories about how Christ’s atonement works is secondary, Jack tries to explore it anyway. He looks at the theory of Substitutionary Atonement, but here are some different theories of the atonement:

Ransom to Satan
Recapitulation Theory
Dramatic Theory
Mystical Theory
Moral Influence Theory
Example Theory
Commercial Theory
Governmental Theory
Penal Substitution Theory

…

• David mentioned Penal Substitution Theory and offered a brief comment on one of the problems he sees with this theory. For a more thorough analysis, try reading this article from Joe Heschmeyer of Shameless Popery.

• Lewis mentions that his own church, the Anglican church, does not put forth one theory as superior.

My own church – the Church of England – does not lay down any one of [the theories] as the right one. The Church of Rome goes a bit further. But I think they will all agree that the thing itself is infinitely more important than any explanations that theologians have produced.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Perfect Penitent

• Jack explains that the “Church of Rome goes a bit further” when it comes to explaining the Atonement. David suggested that what he means by this is that the Catholic Church says that some theories are not congruent with Catholic theology.

03. “Substitutionary Atonement Theory”

• Lewis puts forward some issues with the idea that Jesus took a punishment in our place, calling it silly on first glance. But he then goes on to explain that if we think of our “debt” in terms of money rather than punishment, it makes more sense.

The one most people have heard is the one I mentioned before – the one about our being let off because Christ has volunteered to bear a punishment instead of us. Now on the face of it that is a very silly theory. If God was prepared to let us off, why on earth did He not do so? And what possible point could there be in punishing an innocent person instead? … 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 … it is a matter of common experience that, when one person has got himself into a hole, the trouble of getting him out usually falls on a kind friend.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Perfect Penitent

• Although the Catholic Church doesn’t put forward an official theory of the atonement, whereas the Reformed tradition speaks of the Father punishing Jesus, Catholic explanations place emphasis on the value of Christ’s sacrifice offered to the Father.

04. “The Debt and Repentance”

• What is this “debt” we owe? Lewis explains that it is the fruit of our rebellion against God. In order to end this rebellion, we need to repent.

Now what was the sort of ‘hole’ man had got himself into? He had tried to set up his own, to behave as if he belonged to himself. In other words, fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: 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 and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor – that is the only way out of our ‘hole’.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Perfect Penitent

• Matt thought back to the previous chapter, discussing Satan and the fall, which Lewis presented as a rebellion, or a civil war.

The moment you have a self at all, there is a possibility of putting yourself first – wanting to be the centre – wanting to be God, in fact. That was the sin of Satan: and that was the sin he taught the human race.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Shocking Alternative

• Jack explains that repentance isn’t something which God demands of us which he could simply wave. Rather, repentance is simply the description of what going back to God is like. Therefore, it’s not optional!

This process of surrender – this movement full speed astern – is what Christians call repentance … 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.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Perfect Penitent

• What is repentance? Jack explains…

This repentance … is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and whick He could let you off if He chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like. If you ask God to take you back without it, you ware really asking Him to let you go back without going back. It cannot happen.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Perfect Penitent

05. “Perfect Penitent Theory”

• This leads to a dilemma. Only a bad person needs to repent, but because he’s bad, repentance is difficult. The person who could repent perfectly wouldn’t need to repent.

Here comes the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person – and he would not need it.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Perfect Penitent

• David mentioned that he’s an “Eastern Catholic”. If you would like to know more about the Eastern Churches, he has an article he wrote after visiting the church which would eventually become his home parish.

• Lewis explains that God helps us to love by putting a little bit of His love in us.

He lends us a little of His reasoning powers and that is how we think: He puts a little of His love into us and that is how we love one another.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Perfect Penitent

• The idea of participating in the life of God is most clearly articulated by 2 Peter 1:4 where he speaks about participating in the Divine Nature. If God helping us is God putting a little bit of Himself in us, then what do we do when we need to repent? This is not something God does! That is, unless He became man…hence, the Incarnation.

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. Nothing in God’s nature corresponds to this process at all … God can share only what He has: this thing, in His own nature, He has not.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Perfect Penitent

06. “The Incarnation”

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 would do it perfectly because He was God. You and I can go through this process only if God does it in us; but God can do it only if He becomes man.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Perfect Penitent

• When speaking about the mind-boggling nature of the Incarnation, of God becoming man. To drive this point home, David quoted the Byzantine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom …

It is proper and just to sing hymns to You, to bless You, to praise You, to thank You, to worship You in every place of Your kingdom; for You are God ineffable inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever existing, yet ever the same, You, and Your only-begotten Son, and Your Holy Spirit…

John Chrysostom, Byzantine Catholic Liturgy

• David mentioned going to Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park where he went on Sundays in London to listen to people debate. The Muslims he met really grasped the audacious, breathtaking claims of Christians concerning the Incarnation. That which is not assumed cannot be elevated.
• When speaking about the incarnation, David paraphrased a line found among the Early Church Fathers and best expressed by St. Gregory:

For that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus

• What hope does this give for us? Pelagianism says, essentially, that we can save ourselves, “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps”, so to speak. This heresy was condemned by the Catholic Church in the 5th Century. In contrast to this, David quoted Romans 5:8…

But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

07. “Unfair Advantage”

• Didn’t Jesus have an unfair advantage in being God?
• Firstly, the Gospel accounts don’t make it sound easy. David mentioned Hematidrosis, which is the condition where one sweats blood due to stress, described in Luke 22:44, and depicted in the movie The Passion of the Christ. Even if it was, that isn’t a good reason to reject that help! Jack makes the point that it was, in fact, only possible because He was God! Jack uses the analogies of learning to write or someone pulling you ashore.

I have heard some people complain that if Jesus was God as well as man, then His sufferings and death lose all value in their eyes, ‘because it must have been so easy for Him’ … In one sense, of course, those who make it are right. They have even understated their own case. The perfect submission, the perfect suffering, the perfect death were not only easier to Jesus because He was God, but were possible only because He was God.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Perfect Penitent

• Lewis then offers some analogies here:

The teacher is able to form the letters for the child because the teacher is grown-up and knows how to write. That, of course, makes it easier for the teacher; and only because it is easier for him can he help the child. if it rejected him because ‘it’s easy for grown-ups’ and waited to learn writing form another child who could not write itself (and so had no ‘unfair’ advantage), it would not get on very quickly.

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, The Perfect Penitent

If I am drowning in a rapid river, a man who still has one food on the bank may give me a hand which saves my life. Ought I to shout back (between my gasps) ‘No, it’s not fair! You have an advantage! You’re keeping one foot on the bank’? That advantage – call it ‘unfair if you like – is the only reason why he can be of any use to me. To what will you look for help if you will not look to that which is stronger than yourself?

• Matt referenced a book by Henri Nouwen, “The Return of the Prodigal Son”.

Wrap Up

Concluding Thoughts

• The outline for this chapter is available here.
• The C. S. Lewis Doodle team has been working on videos for “The Four Loves”, but as for this week…

• Check out Essential C.S. Lewis and the All About Jack podcast from William O’Flaherty. In particular, look at the episode with Peter S. Williams talking about his book, C.S. Lewis vs the New Atheists where he looks at The Problem of Goodness, which draws on the material covered in Book I of “Mere Christianity” concerning the Moral Law.

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