Latest / Reformed Thinking / The New Men | C. S. Lewis
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
- 0:01I am your host and I have to admit I have been looking
- 0:05forward to this specific conversation for quite a while
- 0:08now. It is so good to be here.
- 0:09Yeah, and you were totally right.
- 0:11We are tackling something today that usually gets glossed over
- 0:14in Sunday school. Yeah, we often stop at the
- 0:17whole, you know, be nice part of Christianity.
- 0:19We forget that the New Testament is talking about something far
- 0:22more radical than that. That is spot on.
- 0:25Before we get into the weeds, let's Orient you, the listener.
- 0:28We are looking at books and big ideas, ideas, but we are doing
- 0:31it with a very specific pair of glasses on, right?
- 0:35We hold to the Westminster Confession of Faith.
- 0:37We view the world through the lens of historic Protestant
- 0:41Christianity. So when we read an author, even
- 0:44a giant like CS Lewis, we are constantly asking questions.
- 0:47Questions like Does this align with the sovereignty of God?
- 0:50Yes. And does this reflect the true
- 0:52condition of man? That has to be our anchor.
- 0:55Theology is the framework for reality.
- 0:58If you get the nature of God or the nature of man wrong, you get
- 1:01everything wrong. And Lewis is interesting because
- 1:03he was an Anglican. He was not strictly Reformed in
- 1:07the Calvinistic sense. No, he was not.
- 1:09But in the section we're covering today, he hits on
- 1:12truths that resonate heavily with our theology of
- 1:15regeneration. So we are doing a deep dive into
- 1:18the final section of Mere Christianity.
- 1:21It is the chapters often grouped under the New Men.
- 1:24And the hook here is startling. It really is.
- 1:26Lewis basically argues that the Christian life is not about
- 1:30moral improvement. Right.
- 1:32It is not about making a bad man good.
- 1:34It is about a biological, or rather a super biological
- 1:38change. It is the difference between
- 1:39painting a rock and turning the rock into a flower.
- 1:42He argues that the human race is effectively undergoing a change
- 1:46of species. He uses the language of
- 1:48evolution to describe the shift from creatures to sons.
- 1:51Which sounds almost like science fiction when you say it out
- 1:53loud. A change of species it.
- 1:55Does, but he is describing a spiritual reality that is so
- 1:58concrete that change of species is really the only language that
- 2:02fits. He posits that the next step in
- 2:04human evolution has already happened, but it is not at all
- 2:07what the world expects. Let's unpack that distinction
- 2:10between improvement and metamorphosis.
- 2:13I think this is where so many people get stuck.
- 2:14I know I have. Me too.
- 2:16You think the goal of being a Christian is to stop losing your
- 2:19temper or to stop drinking too much?
- 2:21Right. To be a nicer husband or wife?
- 2:23Yeah. You think it is about Polish?
- 2:25That is the default mode of the human heart.
- 2:27We want a code of conduct. But Lewis uses a striking
- 2:31analogy to shatter that idea. He says imagine you have a
- 2:35horse. OK, you can train that horse to
- 2:38jump better. You can groom it, feed it well
- 2:40and make it the best possible horse it can be, sure.
- 2:43But Lewis says Christ did not come to teach a horse to jump
- 2:46better. He came to turn the horse into a
- 2:48winged creature. A Pegasus.
- 2:50Spot on. Now, from a horse's perspective,
- 2:53that is not an improvement, that is a nightmare.
- 2:55Because a horse knows how to be a horse.
- 2:58It knows what oats are. It knows what a stable is.
- 3:00Exactly. Wait, that is correct.
- 3:03It does not know what flying is. Glowing wings sounds painful.
- 3:07It sounds unnatural. It is not betterment in the
- 3:10sense of the same thing, just higher quality.
- 3:12It is a complete alteration. A horse that jumps better is
- 3:15still a horse. A winged creature is a new
- 3:18category of being. He also compares it to turning a
- 3:20tin soldier into a real man. The tin soldier might like being
- 3:25tin. He is hard, he is shiny, he does
- 3:28not feel pain if. You told him I'm going to turn
- 3:30you into flesh. He would probably say no thanks.
- 3:33Flesh bleeds, flesh rots. Yeah, I want to stay tin.
- 3:36That connects so well to the reformed understanding of the
- 3:38old man and the new man. We are not just trying to fix up
- 3:41the old man. The old man has to die.
- 3:43He has to be crucified. You cannot refine the old atom
- 3:47into the new atom. It requires a death and a
- 3:49resurrection. That is the winged horse.
- 3:52It is a fundamental structural change.
- 3:54Lewis grounds this from the concept of evolution, which was
- 3:57obviously the dominant scientific narrative of his
- 4:00time. Just as it is ours.
- 4:02But he flips the script on what the next step looks.
- 4:04Like he does, he challenges the popular imagination.
- 4:07Think about our modern pop culture, comic books, movies,
- 4:09futurism. When people imagine the next
- 4:12stage of human evolution, what do they see?
- 4:15The Superman. It is always us, but with a
- 4:18higher IQ or maybe telekinesis. Or we live for 300 years.
- 4:23It is essentially man plus. It is man with the volume knob
- 4:26turned up. More intellect, more control.
- 4:29But Lewis says look at the actual history of nature.
- 4:32Evolution is rarely linear like that.
- 4:35He give this brilliant illustration about dinosaurs.
- 4:37I love this image, he says. Imagine you are an observer
- 4:40millions of years ago watching these massive armored reptiles.
- 4:44You see them getting bigger, you see the armor plating getting
- 4:47thicker, you see the spikes getting sharper.
- 4:49If you were betting on the future, you would bet around the
- 4:52tank. You would say the next step is a
- 4:54dinosaur that is twice as big and has twice as much armor.
- 4:57But you would be. Wrong.
- 4:58Completely wrong. The future did not belong to the
- 5:00tank. The next step was this tiny,
- 5:03naked, unarmored, big brained animal called a human.
- 5:07It went in a completely different direction.
- 5:08It was a sharp bend in the stream.
- 5:10Precisely. The new ability was not just
- 5:12more armor, it was a new kind of ability.
- 5:14It was intelligence. It was consciousness.
- 5:16And Lewis argues that the next step for humanity, the step from
- 5:20natural man to spiritual man, is going to be another shark bend.
- 5:23It is not going to be just smarter, man.
- 5:25It is going to be something totally new.
- 5:28He even suggests it might not be a evolution in the biological
- 5:31sense anymore, that the method of change itself is changing.
- 5:35Yes. He says he expects the next step
- 5:38to supersede the very mechanism of evolution.
- 5:41Evolution works through reproduction, survival of the
- 5:44fittest, and physical death. The next step operates on a
- 5:47different set of rules entirely. It is not passed down through
- 5:50the genes. You cannot breed it.
- 5:51This brings us to the core of his argument about BIOS and Zoe.
- 5:55We need to spend some time here because this distinction is the
- 5:58engine of the whole chapter. It is the theological bedrock.
- 6:01Lewis distinguishes between two Greek words for life.
- 6:05BIOS is the biological life. It is what we have by nature.
- 6:09It is what the horse has, what the dinosaur has, and what the
- 6:12unregenerate man has and. What are the characteristics of
- 6:15BIOS? It is temporary.
- 6:17It is always running down. It needs constant maintenance.
- 6:20Food, air, water. It Eventually entropy wins.
- 6:24It decays and dies. It is a shatter in Zoe.
- 6:26Zoe is the spiritual life. It is the life of God.
- 6:29It is existed from all eternity. It does not run down.
- 6:32It is explosive, infinite and uncreated.
- 6:35So the entire project of Christianity, in Lewis's view,
- 6:38is not to fix up our BIOS, it is to get Zoe into US.
- 6:42Correct. A man with BIOS who tries to
- 6:44follow the moral law is just a statue trying to breathe.
- 6:47He cannot do it. He needs Zoe.
- 6:49He needs the life of God to enter him.
- 6:51And Lewis says that this is what happened with Christ.
- 6:53Christ is the first instance. In Jesus, Zoe came down and
- 6:57swallowed up BIOS. The spiritual life took on a
- 7:00biological form, killed the biological form on the cross,
- 7:03and then raised it up again as something new, a new species.
- 7:06So when we talk about being in Christ, we are not using a
- 7:10metaphor, we are talking about being grafted into that new
- 7:12species. It is organic.
- 7:14Lewis calls it a good infection. You catch it.
- 7:16That is such a visceral image. Usually we think of infection as
- 7:19bad, a virus, a sickness. But it is the most accurate way
- 7:24to describe how life spreads. You do not learn Zoe from a
- 7:27book, you catch it by being near the source.
- 7:30You get it by personal contact. Christ is the carrier.
- 7:34This leads to the practical question question of how this
- 7:36happens. Lewis lists a few differences
- 7:38between this new step and the old evolutionary steps.
- 7:42The first one we touched on it is not sexual.
- 7:45Right, old evolution is driven by sex.
- 7:47That is how the genes are passed on.
- 7:49But the new life is not genetic. This is actually a relief if you
- 7:53think about it. It means your spiritual state is
- 7:55not determined by your parents. Which is good news for many of
- 7:58us. Very good news.
- 8:00Lewis notes that there was a time in biology before sex
- 8:02existed, where organisms reproduce by splitting.
- 8:06Then sex appeared. Now for this spiritual step, sex
- 8:09is no longer the main channel. It is obsolete for this specific
- 8:12purpose. Then he talks about the second
- 8:14difference choice. In the past, when a fish evolved
- 8:16into a reptile or however the biology works, the fish did not
- 8:20get a vote, it just happened to the Organism.
- 8:22The fish never sat down and said I think I would like lungs,
- 8:25please. It was involuntary.
- 8:27But this new step, it is voluntary, it is offered, and we
- 8:31can refuse it. Now I want to pause here,
- 8:33because I know our reformed listeners are twitching slightly
- 8:37voluntary. Are we talking about free will?
- 8:40Because the Westminster Confession is pretty clear about
- 8:42the bondage of the will. It is a fairpoint to raise Lewis
- 8:46was not a Calvinist, and he uses language that highlights human
- 8:49agency more than we might. But let's look at what he is
- 8:52actually describing. He says the new life is offered
- 8:54and we can reject it. From a reformed perspective, we
- 8:57would say yes, and the tragedy is that the natural man always
- 9:00rejects it. Right, left to our own devices,
- 9:03we are the tin soldier who likes being tin.
- 9:06We hate the idea of becoming flesh.
- 9:08We love the dark, so while the step involves our will, we must
- 9:13consciously turn to Christ. That turning itself is a gift of
- 9:16grace. God has to change the heart
- 9:18before the will can choose Him. We call that irresistible grace,
- 9:22or effectual calling. But the experience of it, the
- 9:24experience is 1 of choosing. We do not feel dragged, we feel
- 9:28drawn. So Lewis is describing the
- 9:29experience of the step. We have to actively cooperate.
- 9:32We are not robots. And he points out the danger of
- 9:35refusal. This is the flip side, he says.
- 9:38We can dig in our heels and let this new humanity pass us by.
- 9:42And this is a terrifying thought.
- 9:44The train of the future, the real future of the universe, is
- 9:47leaving the station. You can choose to stay on the
- 9:49platform. But if you stay on the platform,
- 9:51you do not just stay as you are. You rot.
- 9:54That is the third difference, the stakes.
- 9:57In previous evolutionary steps, if a creature did not evolve,
- 10:01what did it lose? It went extinct.
- 10:03It lost a few years of biological life.
- 10:05Finite loss. But here, if you were, if you
- 10:08use this step, you lose an infinite prize.
- 10:11You lose the very reason you were created.
- 10:13Lewis uses a womb analogy here that I find incredibly helpful
- 10:16for understanding why the Christian life feels so hard.
- 10:19It is brilliant, he says. Imagine a baby in the womb.
- 10:22It is warm, it is dark, it is safe.
- 10:25The baby's entire world is that womb.
- 10:27It is fed without effort. Now suppose the baby could
- 10:29think. It might say I do not want to
- 10:32leave this place I am. Comfortable.
- 10:33I do not want to go out there. I hear it is cold.
- 10:35I have to breathe air. That sounds exhausting.
- 10:38That is right. But if the baby stays in the
- 10:41womb past its time, what happens?
- 10:43It dies. The womb is only good as a
- 10:46preparation for what comes next. Lewis says we are currently in
- 10:49the womb of nature. The doctor has arrived to
- 10:51deliver us. And birth is a crisis.
- 10:54It is traumatic. It involves blood and pain and
- 10:57crying. The baby is being ripped away
- 11:01from the only security it has ever known.
- 11:03That is what conversion feels like.
- 11:05That is what sanctification feels like.
- 11:07It is the trauma of being born. That reframes the cost of
- 11:10Christianity completely. People ask, why do I have to
- 11:13give up my thins? Why is it so painful to follow
- 11:15Jesus? And the answer is because you
- 11:17are being born. You cannot stay in the womb of
- 11:20the old man and live. And just like the baby cannot
- 11:22imagine the life outside, the colors, the tastes, the
- 11:25relationships, we cannot fully imagine what the new life is
- 11:28like. We just know we have to go
- 11:30through the door. This brings us to the speed of
- 11:32the change. Lewis makes an observation that
- 11:35I think is really comforting for those of us looking at the state
- 11:37of the modern world. He says this step is happening
- 11:40like a flash of lightning compared to cosmic history.
- 11:43He calls us early Christians. Which sounds odd.
- 11:45We are 2000 years in. We feel like we are late to the
- 11:49party. But look at the timeline of the
- 11:51universe. If the universe is billions of
- 11:54years old and human history is 10s of thousands of years old,
- 11:58then 2000 years is a blink. Lewis says we are still in the
- 12:02infancy of the new humanity. We are still teething.
- 12:07That is such a necessary perspective shift because the
- 12:10narrative out there is that Christianity is dying.
- 12:13Science has disproved it, or it is politically unpopular, or
- 12:17secularism is taking over. We hear this constantly.
- 12:20The world has been writing Christianity's obituary for
- 12:22centuries. Lewis is so witty here.
- 12:25He says the world constantly Pats down the earth on
- 12:27Christianity's grave, thinking. Finally that is over.
- 12:31Now we can move on. And then they hear a noise.
- 12:33A rumbling. They look around and
- 12:35Christianity is broken out somewhere else.
- 12:37It refuses to stay dead. It started with the crucifixion.
- 12:39Absolutely. The first and biggest
- 12:41disappointment for the world was when the man they killed came
- 12:44back to life. And the body of Christ at church
- 12:46has been doing the same thing ever since.
- 12:48It is a resilient, supernatural life.
- 12:51It is Zoe. You cannot kill it with
- 12:53persecution. You cannot kill it with bad
- 12:55press. You cannot kill it with apathy.
- 12:57It always resurrects. So if this new man is real, and
- 13:01if there are people who have this Zoe life, can we swat them?
- 13:05Do they have a glow? No Halos, unfortunately, but
- 13:08Lewis says they are recognizable if you know what to look for.
- 13:11And this is where he challenges our stereotypes.
- 13:13Again he asks, What do you picture when you think of a holy
- 13:17person? I think we all have a
- 13:19caricature, someone solemn, maybe dressed in beige, a bit
- 13:22judgmental. They smile, but it does not
- 13:24reach their eyes. They are always talking about
- 13:27issues. The sour St.
- 13:29Lucas says the new men are not like that at all.
- 13:31He describes them as stronger, quieter, happier and more
- 13:35radiant. They do not draw attention to
- 13:36themselves. He has that great line about how
- 13:38you think you are being kind to them, but really they are being
- 13:41kind to you. Yes, that flows from what he
- 13:44calls the paradox of need. This is massive.
- 13:47The Newman love you more than anyone else does, but they need
- 13:49you less. That is a hard concept to
- 13:51swallow because we usually conflate love with need.
- 13:54I love you because I need you to complete me.
- 13:56That is the plot of every romantic comedy.
- 13:59That is natural love. That is BIOS love.
- 14:02It is based on lack. I am lonely.
- 14:04Fill my void. I am insecure Tell me I am
- 14:07pretty. But God does not have a void.
- 14:09God is full. So when God loves, it is purely
- 14:12for the benefit of the beloved. It is entirely selfless because
- 14:16he needs nothing from us. So as we become more like him, I
- 14:20mean as we take on his nature. We become less needy.
- 14:23The new men do not need your approval.
- 14:26They do not need your attention. Because they are full of Christ.
- 14:29They can actually see you and love you freely.
- 14:31He mentions that wanting to be needed is a particular
- 14:34temptation for British people. It is the trap of the helper.
- 14:37We like to be the savior. We like people depending on us.
- 14:40It makes us feel valid. The new men are free from that.
- 14:42They're just available, and Lewis says they seem to have
- 14:45endless time. That is the most convicting part
- 14:48for me. Endless time.
- 14:49I feel like I am always running 5 minutes late physically and
- 14:51spiritually. It is a sign of our anxiety, is
- 14:54it not? We are trying to secure our own
- 14:56existence. We are frantic because we are
- 14:58building our own Kingdom. They know their existence is
- 15:00securing Christ so they can be present.
- 15:03They're not in a hurry. And he says they recognize each
- 15:05other like a secret society. The secret society, the new
- 15:08humanity, He says it must be great fun.
- 15:11They can spot each other across barriers of color, sex, class or
- 15:14creed. There is a resonance there.
- 15:16You meet someone, maybe from a totally different culture or
- 15:19background, but you sense that same Zoe life in them and
- 15:23instantly you are family. I have experienced that you meet
- 15:27a believer in a strange place and within 5 minutes you have a
- 15:30deeper connection than you do with neighbors you have known
- 15:32for 10 years. That is the organic unity of the
- 15:35new species. OK, so we have this new species.
- 15:38They are happier, stronger, connected to Christ.
- 15:41But here comes the fear. And I think this is a very
- 15:43modern fear. We value individuality above
- 15:47almost anything else. We are told to be yourself, live
- 15:50your truth. The idol of authenticity.
- 15:53Right, so the fear is, if we all enter into Christ, if we all get
- 15:56the same Spirit, will we not all become the same?
- 16:00Are we heading toward the world of clones?
- 16:03Is Heaven just a factory line of identical tin soldiers?
- 16:07The Borg collective resistance is futile.
- 16:11Do I lose me? Lewis tackles this head on and
- 16:14his answer is a resounding no. In fact, he argues the exact
- 16:19opposite. You only become truly yourself
- 16:22when you are in Christ. He.
- 16:23Uses 2 analogies here. Let's start with the light
- 16:26analogy. He says imagine a group of
- 16:28people standing in the dark. You cannot see them.
- 16:30They're just vague shapes. Now shine a bright light on
- 16:33them. That light is the same for
- 16:34everyone. It is one light.
- 16:36But does the light makes them look alike?
- 16:38No, it makes them visible. And it reveals their
- 16:40differences. The light shows that one has a
- 16:41red coat, one is tall, one is short, 1 is smiling.
- 16:44The common element, the light, is what allows their
- 16:46distinctiveness to appear. Christ is the light.
- 16:49When He shines on us, our true personality, the specific way
- 16:52God made us finally becomes visible.
- 16:54And then he uses the salt analogy.
- 16:56This was classic Lewis. It is, he says.
- 16:58Imagine someone who has never tasted salt.
- 17:01You give them a pinch. It is strong, it is
- 17:03overpowering. It has a very distinct taste.
- 17:06They might think if I put this on my eggs or my cabbage it will
- 17:09kill the taste. Everything will just taste like
- 17:11salt. Which is a logical assumption if
- 17:13you do not know how chemistry or cooking works.
- 17:16A strong flavor usually masks a weak one.
- 17:18Right, But we know that salt actually brings out the flavor
- 17:21of the food. The egg tastes more like egg.
- 17:24The cabbage tastes more like cabbage.
- 17:25Lewis argues that Christ is the salt.
- 17:28He does not obliterate your personality.
- 17:30He enhances it. He makes you more you.
- 17:33So Peter became more Peter when he followed Jesus.
- 17:36He did not become a generic disciple.
- 17:38That is correct. He became the rock.
- 17:40His impetuous nature was sanctified, not erased.
- 17:43But this leads Louis to a deeper philosophical point about where
- 17:46personality comes from. He deconstructs the idea of the
- 17:49natural self. This is the part that hurts.
- 17:52We tend to think that our natural self and my immediate
- 17:55desires, my quirks, my temper is the real me.
- 17:58I was Born This Way. Or I'm just being authentic?
- 18:01Louis asks. Are you sure?
- 18:03Let's look at that self. Where did those desires come
- 18:07from? He lists things like biology and
- 18:09propaganda. Right.
- 18:10My decision to get angry might just be my digestion or a lack
- 18:13of sleep. My political views might just be
- 18:16what my parents taught me or what I read in the newspaper.
- 18:19My romantic desires might just be hormones.
- 18:21It is humbling, he is saying. We are less persons than we
- 18:25think. We are just meeting places for
- 18:29biological and social forces. We are a collection of
- 18:32reactions. In our natural state, we are
- 18:34driven by instinct and conditioning.
- 18:36That is not personality, that is just machinery.
- 18:39Lewis argues that Christ is the author.
- 18:41He invented the character that you were meant to be.
- 18:43Like a character in a novel, Hamlet does not have a
- 18:45personality until Shakespeare lights him.
- 18:47Perfect. And if Hamlet runs away from
- 18:49Shakespeare and tries to write himself, he will not become more
- 18:52interesting. He will just become a blank page
- 18:54or a scribble. He has no existence apart from
- 18:57the author. Lewis says the more we resist
- 18:59Christ and try to be ourselves, the more we actually fall into
- 19:02sameness. And he points to history for
- 19:05proof. This is a great observation, he
- 19:08says. Look at the great tyrants and
- 19:10conquerors. They are all monotonously alike.
- 19:13It is true, whether it is ancient Rome, Genghis Khan or
- 19:16modern dictators, the pattern of sin is boring.
- 19:19It is always the same greed, the same ego, the same paranoia, the
- 19:23same violence. Sin is repetitive.
- 19:26It is a broken record. But look at the Saints.
- 19:29Moses is different from David. Peter is different from Paul.
- 19:33St. Augustine is different from
- 19:35Saint Francis. Holiness creates variety.
- 19:38Sin creates uniformity. That is such a counterintuitive
- 19:41point. We think sin makes us
- 19:43interesting and edgy. But it does not.
- 19:45It just makes us predictable. To be truly original, you have
- 19:48to be holy. So if we want this real
- 19:49personality, if we want to become these new men, how do we
- 19:53get it? What is the method?
- 19:54The method is the hardest thing in the world, and yet the
- 19:56simplest. It is surrender.
- 19:58Losing your life to save it. It is the central paradox of the
- 20:01gospel, Lewis says. If you look for your own
- 20:03personality, you will never find it.
- 20:04You will just find your own shadow.
- 20:06You will be staring into a mirror checking your reflection.
- 20:08And we all know people like that.
- 20:11They are exhausting. But.
- 20:12If you look for Christ, you will find Him and you will get your
- 20:15personality thrown in as a bonus.
- 20:18It is like that in social life too, is it not?
- 20:21He mentions the party scenario, yes.
- 20:23The person at the party who is trying desperately to make a
- 20:26good impression usually makes a bad one.
- 20:28They are too self-conscious. Am I being funny?
- 20:31Do they like me? They are stiff.
- 20:33But the person who forgets themselves.
- 20:36The person who is genuinely interested in the other people,
- 20:39who is laughing at the jokes, who is just there, that is the
- 20:42person who comes across as charming and original.
- 20:44They have forgotten themselves, and so they have found
- 20:46themselves. In an art, this applies to
- 20:49creativity. The writer who tries to be
- 20:51original usually ends up just being weird.
- 20:54No man who bothers about originality will ever be
- 20:57original. That is a quote for every artist
- 20:59to tape to their monitor. If you try to be unique, you
- 21:01will just be quirky. But if you try to tell the
- 21:03truth, if you focus on the object not the self, you will be
- 21:06original without even noticing it.
- 21:08So the practical application is what Lewis calls the daily
- 21:11dying. It is mortification.
- 21:13It is saying no to the natural self, everyday killing, the
- 21:16ambition, the wish to be the center of attention, the
- 21:19resentment, the safety of the womb.
- 21:21Lewis says. We must keep back nothing.
- 21:23That is frightening. Nothing that you have not given
- 21:26away will ever be really yours. It is total surrender, but the
- 21:30promise is total restoration. He ends with that beautiful
- 21:33cadence. Look for yourself, and you will
- 21:35find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair,
- 21:38rage, ruin and decay. But look for Christ and you will
- 21:42find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.
- 21:45It brings us back to the Westminster Confession.
- 21:46Really, the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him
- 21:50forever. We find our enjoyment, our
- 21:52identity, our new man nature only when we stop staring at
- 21:56ourselves and stare at Him. Amen to that.
- 21:58It is not about becoming a better version of your old self.
- 22:01It is about letting the old self die so the Son of God can live
- 22:04through you. It is about trading the tin
- 22:06soldier for the real man. So here's the recap.
- 22:09The Christian life is a metamorphosis, a change of
- 22:11species from creature to son. It is a voluntary step,
- 22:15empowered by grace, where we surrender to Christ, the first
- 22:17of the new man. It is happening now, quietly,
- 22:20like a secret society spreading across the world, and the only
- 22:24way to join is to give up everything you think is you, to
- 22:27find the real you in him. That is a solid summary.
- 22:31Now here is a provocative thought to leave you with, Lewis
- 22:34says. These new men are already here,
- 22:36dotted across the earth recognizing each other and makes
- 22:39me wonder, are we missing them? Are we so focused on our
- 22:43cultural markers, political tribes, denomination, label,
- 22:47specific styles of worship that we failed to spot the Zoe life
- 22:51standing right in front of us? That is a real danger.
- 22:54We look for the uniform, not the life.
- 22:55Maybe the true church is more hidden and more alive than we
- 22:58realize. It is a thought worth chewing
- 23:00on. Thanks for joining us on
- 23:02Reformed Thinking. Until next time, keep thinking.
- 23:04And keep looking for the new man.