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The Practical Solution | C. S. Lewis · Reformed Thinking

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Welcome to the deep dive. And thank you for joining us.
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Our listener today is a learner. As somebody who wants to gain
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insight quickly but also thoroughly, we're cracking open
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some thoughts on the practical reality of Christian existence,
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and we're drawing exclusively from CS Lewis's very sharp
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analysis of what he calls the Christ life.
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Right. And this is a really interesting
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set of sources because Lewis moves past a lot of the, you
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know, the simple philosophical arguments for God.
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He focuses, almost like an engineer, on the mechanics of it
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all. The mechanics.
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Yeah, how a new spiritual existence, the Christ's life as
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he puts it, is not only attain, but how it's actually sustained
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in a person. So our mission today is to break
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down Lewis's solution to what he sees is the central problem of
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our existence. How does God actually get a new
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kind of life into us? We'll look at his famous 3
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methods for transmitting this life, His justification for
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believing in them which is based on authority, and then what he
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says about the final choice we're all given in this present
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moment. It's a deep dive into, you could
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say, the engineering of spiritual change.
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It goes way beyond just simple moral instruction.
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He's talking about a truly radical concept of participation
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in a whole new kind of humanity. OK, so we have to begin with the
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basic claim, which is, well, it's pretty staggering when you
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stop and think about it. Lewis establishes it right away,
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the appearance of a new kind of man in Christ, right?
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And then how humanity gets to participate in that.
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The entire practical solution really hangs on the uniqueness
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of Christ's person. It does.
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I think Lewis is essentially tackling the problem of human
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failure. You know, why can't we just
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decide to be good and then follow through?
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We've all been there. We have, and in his view it's
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because the quality of life we possess, the old fallen kind of
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life, is just incapable of achieving genuine, sustained
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perfection on its own. It's not in its nature.
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And Christ is the solution to this because He had to embody 2
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necessary truths at the same time.
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I think Lewis lays out that theological tension beautifully.
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He does. On the one hand, you have the
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perfect surrender and humiliation that Christ
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experienced. That was possible because He was
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fully man. He could genuinely submit, He
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could suffer and he could die. But, and this is the other side
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of that tension, the perfection of that surrender, the fact that
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his life and his death were truly effective and flawless was
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only possible because he was also God.
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So you need both. You absolutely need both.
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That duality is central to the whole system.
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Without the God man you just get another good human who you know
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eventually fails or is just overcome by death like everyone
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else. So the Christian belief that
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comes out of this duality is this idea of sharing.
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The logic is that if we are somehow joined to that unique
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new kind of life, if we share in Christ's humility, his voluntary
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suffering, his death. And the outcome for us is that
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we also get to share in his conquest over death.
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We share in his resurrection. And that sharing is where the
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whole practical solution leads. Yeah, Lewis is so clear on this.
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The goal isn't just slightly improved behavior.
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The idea is that after this life believers find a completely new
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existence. A new existence where they
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become perfect, perfectly happy creatures.
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That's the promised outcome of being grafted into this new,
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unique life source. It's a total change.
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And this is such a critical distinction he keeps coming back
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to. He says this concept is
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something more than just trying to follow Christ's teaching or
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his moral instructions. Right.
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So many people respect Christ as a great moral guide, maybe the
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greatest whoever lived, of course.
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But Lewis is saying the whole purpose of the Christ life is
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not imitation, which he thinks is in the end futile for us,
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it's participation. So what does he see when he
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looks at humanity? I think he sees us as being
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stuck. We want better, but we often
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revert to the same failures. And he addresses what he sees as
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a common human yearning this search for the next step in
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evolution. You know, move beyond our
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ordinary, flawed humanity. And instead of suggesting that
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we can achieve this new step through, I don't know, self help
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or meditation or political reform, yeah, Lewis just states
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flatly that this new evolutionary leap has already
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happened. It happened in Christ.
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Christ is the template, He's the prototype and the initiator of
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this fundamentally new kind of humanity.
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So we don't evolve to reach him, we receive him in order to
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become that next step. So if this new kind of man has
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appeared, the goal is not for us to struggle to become like him
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on our own steam. The goal is for the new kind of
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life that began in Christ to actually be placed into US.
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Yes, that transmission, that mechanism of getting the new
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life from him into us, that becomes the key practical
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problem Lewis is trying to solve.
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If it's not just about moral effort, what is the method?
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And that leads us right into the analogy Lewis uses for
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transmission, which, to be honest, is what makes his
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argument so memorable. It really sets the stage for the
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sheer oddness of the spiritual solution.
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Oh, absolutely, Lewis says. Look, if you want to grasp how
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the Christ life is spread, you should first look at how the
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old, ordinary kind of life is acquired.
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This is the life we all know, the one we get from our
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ancestors, our father and our mother.
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And we received that natural life without our consent.
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We had absolutely no say in the matter.
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Lewis really emphasizes that this process is, well, it's
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curious. It involves pleasure, pain,
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danger. It's a biological fact that's
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rooted in the material world. And he reminds you, the
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listener, that this mechanism is something people would never
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guess just by observation alone. He points out that most of us
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spent years in childhood trying to figure it out, and even when
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we were told the biological facts, we were skeptical.
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Yeah, kids find it hard to believe.
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Because it's inherently mysterious and in a way,
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counterintuitive. We take it for granted now, but
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if you actually stop and think about the physical process
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necessary to perpetuate life, it is strange, it's specific, and
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it's governed by rules we didn't invent.
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And the implication here is so powerful.
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Since the same God arranged that curious, non obvious process for
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natural life, a process that is biological, physical and
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strange, we should be prepared for the process of spreading the
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new kind of life, the Christ's life, to be odd too.
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That's a great way to put it. He's setting boundaries for the
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learner. God did not consult us for the
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invention of natural life. Nor for the spiritual life.
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We can't demand that the mechanism of salvation conform
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to our rational expectations or our aesthetic preferences.
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We have to accept the mechanism as it's given to us, however
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strange it might seem. That sets the table perfectly.
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So we accept that the spiritual mechanism might be strange
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because the natural one is building on that, Lewis
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specifies that there are three ordinary methods or things that
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spread the Christ life. Right, they function as
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conductors of this new existence.
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And he's careful to add a note of caution here, which is really
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critical to understanding his whole project of Mere
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Christianity. He says he's not dismissing
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special cases. No, not at all.
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He's not saying God can't act outside these means, He's just
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focusing on the standard reliable routes for general
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instruction the ordinary way. He give that great analogy, If
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you're telling someone how to get to Edinburgh, you tell them
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about the trains. They could take a boat or a
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plane or even walk, but those aren't the standard ordinary
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roads you teach. For general practical
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instruction, Lewis focuses on the standard mechanism taught by
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the widest body of Christians through history.
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OK, so let's list those three ordinary conductors exactly as
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Lewis presents them. Number one is baptism. #2 is
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belief. And 3rd, that mysterious action
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that's known by different names depending on your Christian
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prediction, Holy Communion, the Mass, or the Lord's Supper.
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This brings us to a really crucial point about Lewis's
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approach, because he has to address the many denominational
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differences that exist around these things.
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He does, and he maintains a very careful distance from declaring
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one more essential than the others.
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He's trying to find the common ground where Orthodox Christians
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agree on the mechanism even if they disagree on the metaphysics
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behind it. So he just notes the different
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Christians call the third action by different names, which
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reflects the historical differences in understanding the
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specifics. Is it a symbolic remembrance?
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Is it the literal presence of Christ?
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He sidesteps that entire debate. He explicitly says he is not
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weighing in on which of the three is the most essential.
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He even gives the example of a hypothetical Methodist friend
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who would probably prioritize belief more strongly than the
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other two. But he draws a really powerful
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conclusion from consensus. He does.
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He says that anyone teaching Christian doctrine it doesn't,
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no matter what their internal tradition is, whether they're
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Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, will in fact tell you to use all
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three. And for him, that consensus is
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sufficient for this stage of the discussion.
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The point is that the transmission requires this multi
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faceted engagement involving water mined and material
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elements. I think the learner might be
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thinking, OK, that's a massive leap.
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If Lewis admits he personally can't see the logical necessity
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of, say, bread and wine, why should we accept it?
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Isn't that just accepting rules without reason?
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And that's where Lewis returns to his personal admission of
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mystery. He says he personally cannot see
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why these three things should be the conductors of the new life.
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He doesn't pretend they're intuitively logical.
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He goes back to the birth analogy.
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He says, look, if he didn't already happen to know based on
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divine instruction, he would never have seen any connection
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between a particular physical pleasure and the appearance of a
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new human being in the world. It's a great point.
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The natural process of birth is mysterious.
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It's messy. It's physical.
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So we should expect the process of new birth to also be
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mysterious, corporate and to use physical elements.
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The practical conclusion he draws from this is the necessity
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of just accepting reality as it comes to us.
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We can't spend our lives arguing about what reality ought to be
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like or what we expected it to be like.
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Right. If we're presented with a fact
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about the spiritual world, we have to deal with the fact,
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however strange or undignified we think it seems, and this
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grounds his acceptance in the ultimate authority, which takes
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us directly to the next point. So we arrive at the central
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question. Why do we believe this strange,
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mysterious, non intuitive mechanism is the true 1?
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Lewis grounds this not in innate logic, since he admits the
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mystery, but in authority. And this is a point he spends a
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good deal of time justifying because, as he noted, the word
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authority often scares people today.
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It suggests, you know, unquestioning obedience to human
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structures. But Lewis quickly makes his
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definition relatable. He defines belief on authority
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very simply. It means believing something
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because you've been told it by someone you consider
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trustworthy. And it's not blind faith, it's
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informed reliance on a credible source.
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And he provides some really staggering evidence that almost
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everything we believe, I think Lewis puts the number at 99%, is
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based on authority. We think we're independent
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thinkers, but Lewis suggests we're constantly relying on
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others to navigate reality. We should spend a moment on his
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examples, just to feel the weight of this argument.
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Let's do it, OK? Consider geography.
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You believe New York exists, or London, or Tokyo, even if you've
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never seen them. That's belief on authority.
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You trust the maps, the news reports, the people who claim to
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have been there? Then there's science.
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You believe in the solar system, in atoms, in evolution, in the
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circulation of the blood. If you're not a professional
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physicist or a biologist, you accept these things based
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entirely on what scientists say. You rely on the authority of
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their specialized knowledge. And history is built entirely on
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authority. None of us saw the Norman
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Conquest in 1066 or the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588.
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We believe those events happened simply because people who did
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see them left writings that tell us about them.
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We accept the historical record as a trustworthy authority.
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The conclusion Lewis draws from this is pretty compelling,
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almost brutal, he says. A person who jibed at authority
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and all other things, who refused to believe anything
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unless they could prove it by pure logic or immediate personal
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observation, would have to be content to know nothing all
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their life. So rejecting the Christian claim
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because it rests on Christ's authority is actually
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inconsistent with how we live every other moment of our lives.
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Lewis flips the skepticism on its head.
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It's. A powerful argument.
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It is, he's saying. If we trust historians and
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chemists, why would we suddenly refuse to trust the authority of
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the one figure who claimed to be the creator of the very systems
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we observe? Lewis says he accepts the three
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means because history makes it plain that Jesus, whom he
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believes to be God, taught his followers that the new life was
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communicated in this way. So that reframes the whole
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debate. We're not questioning the logic
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of the mechanism, we're questioning the trustworthiness
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of the source. That's it.
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And once that life is acquired through these means, baptism,
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belief, communion accepted on Christ's authority, Lewis
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quickly moves to the topic of maintenance.
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He clarifies what these three means.
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Do not replace. Right.
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They're the engine starter, but they're not the continuous drive
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shaft. Good way to put.
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It these acts are definitely not a substitute for one's own
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necessary attempts to copy Christ or one's moral striving.
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That's the hard work of sanctification.
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If Lewis stopped at the three conductors, you might think this
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is just some spiritual vending machine.
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And he goes right back to the natural life analogy to explain
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the relationship between receiving life and maintaining
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it. You get your natural life from
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your parents, but that's no guarantee it stays.
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You can lose it. You can.
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You can lose it by neglect, by starving yourself, or you could
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drive it away by committing suicide.
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We have to feed it, we have to look after it, exercise it.
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But Lewis stresses that we are only keeping up a life we
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received. We are not making it ourselves.
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The origin of the life is entirely separate from the task
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of nourishing it. And the spiritual application is
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identical. A Christian can lose the Christ
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life that was put into them. They can stunt it, ignore it, or
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even drive it out through prolonged, unrepentant
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rebellion. So he or she has to make immense
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efforts to keep it. The moral effort is essential,
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but its function is restorative and protective.
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This is where it gets highly practical for the believer.
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Even the best Christian that ever lived is only nourishing or
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protecting a life they could never have acquired by their own
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efforts. They're not acting on his own
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steam. Right.
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Their struggle is not to start the spiritual life, but to
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respond to it and maintain that connection.
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This distinction is so critical, especially within a Reformed
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framework. Our effort in sanctification, in
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becoming holier, is a necessary response to the grace that
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provided the life in the first place.
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If we confuse maintenance with acquisition, we just fall back
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into a merit system. Lewis is very careful to make
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sure the source of the life remains external, divine and
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unearned. OK, so that sets up a huge
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difference between the person just trying to be good and the
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Christian. If this new kind of life is
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internal, what are the practical daily consequences?
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Lewis says. The most significant one is the
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ability to self repair. He uses the analogy of the
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living body beautifully here. Natural life allows a living
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body to repair its own cuts. It can fight infection.
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It can mend broken bones. It regenerate cells.
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A dead body doesn't. A dead body does none of that.
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If you cut a corpse, it stays cut.
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In the same way, then, a Christian is not defined as a
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person who never goes wrong. I mean, that's an impossible
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standard for fallen humanity. Instead, a Christian is defined
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as one who is enabled to repent, to pick themselves up, and to
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begin again after each stumble. And this capacity for recovery
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is possible because the Christ life is inside them, repairing
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them constantly, enabling that cycle of repentance and renewal.
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Lewis connects this capacity for recovery to Christ's own
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sacrifice. He suggests the internal life
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enables the believer to repeat in some small degree the kind of
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voluntary death Christ himself carried out.
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We should probably clarify that specific phrase.
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This voluntary death isn't a physical sacrifice.
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No, no. It's the necessary painful death
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to self and to sin that repentance requires.
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It's that constant, voluntary surrender of our own will and
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our own pride. Precisely.
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And this internal mechanism places the Christian in a
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completely different spherical position from others who are
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attempting to be good outside this system.
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How so? While other people, maybe non
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Christians, they hope to please God if he exists, or maybe to
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earn approval from good people by being good.
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Their goodness is the hard painful effort that comes before
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the reward or the acceptance. It's all conditional.
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But the Christian view completely flips the causality.
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It reverses the entire Western moral tradition.
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If the Christ life is the source, then any good they do
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comes from that internal life. God does not love us because we
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are good, He makes us good because He loves us.
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That is the critical theological distinction He's driving court.
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It removes the whole idea of earning merit through action and
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places all efficacy back on the source of the life.
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If you are good, it's not credit to you, it's just evidence that
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the life within you is active. And he justifies that causality
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flip with one of his brightest and most memorable analogies,
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the greenhouse roof. Oh I love this one.
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It's so good. The roof of a greenhouse does
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not attract the sun because it is bright.
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It becomes bright because the sun shines on it so.
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The brightness is just an effect.
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It's a secondary result, not the cause of the sun's warmth or its
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presence. Exactly.
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Our goodness, our love, our patience.
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All those things are simply the roof reflecting the sun that has
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already hit it. They are evidence of the light,
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not the means by which we earn the light.
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And this is Lewis's rejection of a purely mental or moral
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interpretation of what it means to be in Christ.
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That's so vital, Lewis argues, that when Christians speak of
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being in Christ, or Christ being in them, they're not just
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thinking about Christ or aspiring to copy him through
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sheer willpower. It's not just a nice thought or
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a spiritual metaphor, no. They mean that Christ is
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actually operating through them. This suggests a true objective
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union that moves beyond metaphor and into reality, where the will
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and the energy of the divine are expressed through the human.
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And this concept extends beyond the individual to the collective
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body. Lewis describes the whole mass
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of Christians as the physical Organism through which Christ
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acts in the world today. We are literally his fingers and
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his muscles. We are the cells of his body.
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Which makes the church, the collective body of believers,
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not just a club for morally aspiring people, but the
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functional physical vehicle for the continuing activity of the
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God man on earth. That is a staggering claim about
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the reality of the visible church.
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It is, and this physical Organism idea where we are
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Christ's fingers and muscles, explains precisely why the new
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life is spread by bodily acts like baptism and Holy Communion,
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and not solely by purely mental acts like belief or meditation.
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Luz calls this not just the spreading of an idea or a
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philosophy, but something more like evolution, a biological, or
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maybe more accurately, a super biological fact.
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It engages the entire comprehensive physical reality
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of the human person. This emphasis on the physical
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provides Lewis with a direct counsel to you, the listener.
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There is no good in trying to be more spiritual than God.
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We just have to accept the methods He has provided, even if
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they involve water, bread and wine.
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God never intended man to be a purely spiritual creature like
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an Angel or some disembodied spirit.
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We are body and soul, matter and spirit.
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This is why He uses material things to put the new life into
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us. He connects the material means
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directly to the Creator's intent for humanity.
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The irony is that we, as flawed creatures, often want to be more
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spiritual than our Creator. We might look at the use of
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matter, the physical ritual, the simple elements, and think it's
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crude and unspiritual. But Lewis counters this by
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saying God does not think that. Why?
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Because he invented eating. He likes matter.
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He invented it. So to scorn the use of material
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means like water for baptism or bread and wine for communion, is
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to inadvertently scorn God's own creation and the means he chose
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to use. If God became flesh, we should
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expect His work to involve flesh.
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And since Lewis argues that this life is spread by a super
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biological fact, not just an idea, we have to confront the
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ethical dimension. Does that mean salvation is
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confined only to people who happen to hear the message and
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have access to the physical ordinances?
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Right, he tackles that famous objection.
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Is it frightfully unfair that this new life should be confined
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to people who have heard of Christ and been able to believe
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in Him? Lewis's answer here is just a
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master class in theological humility and boundaries.
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He starts with the immediate truth.
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God has not told us what His precise arrangements are
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concerning the other people. He steps away from the debate by
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admitting the limits of our revelation.
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We don't have a map for every soul outside the visible church.
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However, he maintains 2 things we do know.
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First, no man can be saved except through Christ.
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Christ remains the single necessary channel of salvation,
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regardless of who is receiving it or how the knowledge gets to
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them. And here's the crucial
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distinction. The second thing, what we do not
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know. Yes, we do not know that only
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those who know Him and name Him can be saved through Him.
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Lewis leaves the door open for God's sovereign wisdom and mercy
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regarding those who, through no fault of their own, are outside
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the visible knowledge of Christ while firmly maintaining the
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necessary mediatorship of Christ.
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It's a very balanced approach. He doesn't offer false hope, but
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he doesn't define the limits of God's invisible work either.
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But Lewis immediately turns this uncertainty into a surprising
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and challenging application directed squarely at the
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listener. He does, he says, as if you were
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sitting there worried about people outside the Christian
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sphere. The most unreasonable thing you
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can do is remain outside yourself.
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It's a powerful, practical call to action.
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Based on his Organism analogy, we establish that Christians are
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Christ's body, the Organism through which he works.
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Every addition to that body you, the listener joining enables him
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to do more work in the world. So if you genuinely want to help
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those outside, Lewis argues, you must add your own cell to the
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body of Christ, who alone possesses the power to help
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them. The argument is that you can't
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help the body fulfill its function by remaining severed
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from it, debating from the sidelines.
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Lewis's striking image drives the point home perfectly.
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Cutting off a man's fingers would be an odd way of helping
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him do more work. To stand outside and criticize
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the limitations of the church, or worry about its effectiveness
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without joining the active Organism is to willfully
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incapacitate the very entity you wish to assist.
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The solution to the world's need is not criticism, but
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participation. That concept of participation
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leads us into the final objection Lewis addresses.
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Why is God landing in this enemy occupied world in disguise and
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running a kind of secret society to undermine the devil?
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Right. If he's all powerful, why
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doesn't he just invade in force, openly and obviously?
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Is he not strong enough? The answer is that the Christian
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belief is he is going to land in force.
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The invasion is a certain future expectation.
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We just don't know the timing. The present time is merely the
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temporary phase of occupation and secret resistance.
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And we can guess as to why he is delaying this overwhelming,
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obvious intervention. He wants to give us, the
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inhabitants of this occupied territory, the chance of joining
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his side freely. This present time is the time
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for choosing allegiance without coercion.
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Exactly. If God showed up today with
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irresistible glory, the choice would vanish.
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It would be impossible to refuse him, and Lewis argues that a
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choice made under overwhelming compulsion holds very little
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moral or spiritual weight. He uses another clear wartime
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analogy to illustrate the necessity of choosing now.
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During the occupation, he says, we wouldn't think highly of a
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Frenchman who waited until the Allies were marching into
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Germany when victory was already secured before announcing his
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allegiance to the Allied cause. The time for costly free
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allegiance is during the darkness of the occupation, when
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aligning yourself with the rightful sovereign carries risk
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and requires faith. This time of hiddenness and risk
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is what gives the choice its value.
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So what does this God invasion look like when it finally
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happens? Lewis says.
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We may not fully realize what it will be like when God interferes
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openly and directly in our world.
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It's not going to be a mere historical event like a new king
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being crowned. No, when that happens, it's not
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a political turning point. It is the end of the world as we
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know it. The metaphor is dramatic and
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absolute. It signals the end of history as
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we experience it. The analogy he uses for this is
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unforgettable. When the author walks onto the
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stage, the play is over the current reality.
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The current stage set, with all its physics and time constraints
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and darkness, is just dissolved when the creator steps in and
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removes the mask. And the nature of this invasion
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will be overwhelming. Lewis describes a moment where
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the whole natural universe just melts away like a dream, and
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something entirely new comes crashing in, something that
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never even entered our heads to conceive.
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Not just a better version of our world, but something utterly and
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completely novel. This final appearance will
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strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into
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every creature because it will be God without disguise.
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There will be no ambiguity, no possibility of ignoring him, and
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no room for neutrality. And the crucial consequence of
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this unmasked final appearance is that at that moment, it will
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be too late to choose your side. The choice will be eradicated
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because the compelling reality of God's presence will have made
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any other option impossible. It will be useless to claim you
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choose to lie down when the overwhelming reality of the
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author's presence has made it impossible to stand up.
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That won't be the time for choosing.
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No, it will be the time when we discover which side we really
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have chosen all along by the trajectory of the life we live
25:48
now. And the conclusion is the
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urgency of the present moment, now, today.
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This moment is our chance to choose the right side in the
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middle of the war, when the choice is still free and
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difficult. God is holding back solely to
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give us this chance, and that opportunity will not last
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forever. We must take it or leave it
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while the curtain is still drawn.
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What a compelling framework for practical Christian life.
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We talked about the appearance of the new kind of man in Christ
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and how that new life is transmitted through Lewis's
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three ordinary conductors, baptism, belief, and communion.
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Right. And we grounded the acceptance
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of those mysterious means and the logical necessity of
26:26
authority. Then we broke down that radical
26:28
shift in causality. The Christ like provides an
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internal self repair mechanism, meaning God makes us good
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because he loves us rather than loving us because we are good.
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And this super biological fact requires us to see the
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collective church as the physical Organism through which
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Christ actually acts. So for you, the listener, here
26:46
is a provocative thought to chew on as you consider the sources.
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If the current time is truly the only time we have to choose a
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side freely, and if the Christ's life is spread by Lewis's super
26:56
biological physical fact, what specific practical implications
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does that have for how you relate to matter to your own
27:03
body, to the bread and wine, and to the material world God
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invented and likes? If God works through the
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material, how should you honor that material reality in your
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daily obedience?