Latest / Reformed Thinking / Counting the Cost | C. S. Lewis

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Counting the Cost | C. S. Lewis · Reformed Thinking

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Hello, and welcome back to the show.
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You're listening to Reformed Thinking.
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I am your host, and I'm sitting down once again with our
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resident expert to open up the books that have, well, really
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shaped the Christian mind for generations.
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We're so glad you're here. It's good to be back.
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I always look forward to these conversations.
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We have a very specific goal today.
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We're speaking directly to you, the learner.
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We know you aren't here for, you know, for fluff.
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You want to understand what we believe.
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But maybe more than that, you want to know how it applies to
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your actual life, to your stress, your fears, and your
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hopes. Precisely.
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We aren't interested in a theology that just stays in the
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ivory tower. If it doesn't work on a Tuesday
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morning when you're stuck in traffic, it probably isn't worth
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much. I agree completely.
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Now we do need to set the ground rules right up front.
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This is reformed thinking. That means we look at everything
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through a specific lens. We hold to the Westminster
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Confession of Faith. We view the world through the
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doctrines of grace, God's absolute sovereignty, and of
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course, the reality of man's condition.
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Usually when we do that, we're pulling down these, you know,
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heavy volumes. We're reading Calvin's
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Institute's or looking at the Puritan writings of John Owen.
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But not today. Today we're doing something a
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little different. We're taking a book that is
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probably sitting on the shelf of almost every Christian listening
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to this. We're looking at CS Lewis and
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his classic Mere Christianity. It's a classic for a good
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reason, but we aren't looking at the whole book.
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We are zooming in on one specific chapter near the end.
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It's titled Counting the Cost. This chapter is so fascinating
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to me because Lewis is often remembered as the safe
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apologist. He's the Narnia guy, he's the
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kindly old professor with the pipe.
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But in this chapter, the gloves really come off.
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They certainly do. I would argue this is one of the
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most aggressive chapters in the entire book.
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Lewis isn't trying to charm you here, he is trying to wake you.
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Up and our mission today is to analyze Lewis's argument in this
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chapter, specifically looking at the command Be perfect.
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OK, We want to figure out why the Christian life often feels
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significantly harder after you convert than it did before.
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That is the paradox, isn't it? That's the thing we need to
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solve. And we're going to see if
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Lewis's analogies, which are so vivid, line up with our Reformed
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understanding of God operates on the human soul.
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Because we get this wrong. We fall into a ditch on one side
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or the other. You either fall into legalism
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thinking you have to earn God's favor, or you fall into despair
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thinking you never will. There's not much middle ground.
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So let's start with a hook. I want to ask you, and I want
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you listening to really chew on this.
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Why does God seem to issue commands that are impossible to
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keep? He knows we're fallen.
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He knows we are dust. He knows I can't even go a whole
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day without losing my patience or having a selfish thought.
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And yet Jesus looks at the crowd in Matthew 5.48 and says be
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perfect. It sounds like a setup, doesn't
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it? It feels like a setup to fail.
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Why would you give a command that you know we cannot possibly
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obey? That is the question that just
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haunts people. But here is where Lewis takes
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us, and it aligns so well with our theology.
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He suggests that the command is not a hurdle for us to jump over
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to get to God. It's a promise.
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It's a promise of what God is ruthlessly determined to do to
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us. OK, let's unpack this.
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We're looking at section one of our outline the Be Perfect
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paradox. The text is plain.
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Be therefore perfect, even as your Father, which is in heaven,
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is perfect. When most people read that, what
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is the immediate reaction? What do you feel in your gut?
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Ha. Panic, or maybe just a heavy
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sense of exhaustion. You look at that standard
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perfection and then you look at your own life.
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You look at the fact that you snapped at your kids this
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morning or you had a jealous thought about your Co worker
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just 5 minutes ago. And the gap between you and
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perfect feels infinite. It's not even on the same map.
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Right, so the logic in our brains goes something like this.
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God demands perfection. I am not perfect, therefore God
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must be displeased with me and I'm basically on my own until I
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can get my act together. We view it as a transaction, A
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precondition. I give God perfection.
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He gives me His help and His blessing.
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But Lewis just flips this entire idea on its head.
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He argues that we are completely misreading the intent of the
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command. He says the text actually
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implies something more like. The only help I will give you is
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help to become perfect. That's a massive shift in
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perspective, but honestly it sounds almost more intimidating
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at first. It can be.
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It really can. Lewis is saying that God is not
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interested in partial measures. He isn't a mechanic who just
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wants to get the car running again so it can limp down the
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highway. He intends to restore the car to
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absolute showroom condition. He isn't interested in just
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passing us up. I.
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Know he's saying I will help you, but you need to understand
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where this train is going. The final destination is
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perfection. I will accept nothing less than
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a complete and total overhaul. To explain this, Lewis uses an
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analogy that I think everyone can relate to.
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He talks about the toothache and the mother.
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Yes, this is vintage Lewis. He taps into that childhood
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memory we all seem to share. So he says when he was a child,
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he would often get a toothache and he knew that if he went to
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his mother, she would give him an aspirin.
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She would give him something that kill the pain so he could
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get some sleep. And that is all he wanted.
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Immediate relief. Just make the pain stop.
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But he says he would wait until the cane was absolutely
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unbearable before he'd go to her.
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He would suffer for hours alone in his room.
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Why? Because he knew she wouldn't
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just give him the aspirin. There was a catch.
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There's always a catch, right? The catch was the dentist.
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He knew that if he complained about the tooth, she would give
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him the aspirin. Sure, but the very next morning
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she would March him straight to the dentist.
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And that's the whole crux of the analogy.
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The child wants pain relief, the mother wants health.
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Lewis writes. I could not get what I wanted
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out of her without getting something more, which I did not
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want. He wanted the aspirin.
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He absolutely did not want the dentist drilling into his mouth.
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This is a perfect picture of how we so often treat God.
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Think about our prayer lives. We come to him with these very
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specific problems. Lord, I feel so guilty about
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this thing I said. Lord, I'm so anxious about my
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finances. Lord, please fix my marriage.
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We want the aspirin. We just want the guilt to go
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away. We want the anxiety to stop.
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We want the immediate relief of the gospel.
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And God says here is grace. So he gives the aspirin.
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He does. He absolutely does.
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He grants the forgiveness. Justification is real.
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The guilt is gone. But like the mother, he refuses
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to just treat the symptom. He insists on treating the root
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decay. He says I will forgive you for
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that outburst of anger, but now we're going to the dentist to
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deal with the pride that caused the anger in the first place.
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And Lewis says, I knew those dentists, they don't just fix
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the one tooth that hurts. That's not how it works.
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They start poking around at all the other teeth, the ones that
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haven't even started hurting yet.
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They would not let sleeping dogs lie.
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That's the phrase he uses. You go in for one tooth and the
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dentist finds three other cavities you didn't know you had
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and a gum issue you weren't worried about.
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And you're just sitting in the chair thinking, I didn't ask for
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any of this, I just wanted the one throbbing pain to stop.
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This aligns perfectly with our Reformed theology.
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It speaks to the sovereignty of God and salvation.
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We do not get to dictate the terms of the cure.
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God is the sovereign physician. He knows what we need far better
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than we do. It's like if you go to a doctor
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for a broken arm and he notices you have a serious heart
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condition that is going to kill you in a month.
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He's a terrible doctor if he only sets the arm and sends you
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on your way. That is a great way to put it.
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God's grace is not just a painkiller, is a reconstructive
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force. We want to be comfortable in our
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sin. God wants us to be holy.
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It's the difference between a landlord fixing a leak because
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you complained and an architect renovating a building because he
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owns it. He owns the building.
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That is the key, and that leads us directly into the second
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section, the the ruthless nature of this grace.
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Lewis brings up an old saying to describe this giving an inch and
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he'll take an L. An L is an old English
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measurements about 45 inches. So basically if you give a
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little, they take a lot. Everything.
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And Lewis says our Lord is like that dentist.
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If you give him an inch, he will take an L.
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This is where the rubber really meets the road for
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sanctification. Lewis talks about why people
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usually come to religion in the 1st place.
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They have these specific sins that are bothering them.
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Maybe it's something they find shameful, like a secret
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addiction or a streak of cowardice.
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Or maybe it's just a nuisance sin that's messing up their
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daily life, like a bad temper or drinking too much.
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Right. The motivation is often very
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practical. God, please stop me from
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drinking too much because it's ruining my marriage and it's
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costing me money. That is the specific request.
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And Christ's responses, OK, I will cure that, but I'm
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absolutely not going to stop. There it is terrifying when you
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stop and think about it. You invite him in to fix the
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lock on the front door and suddenly he is ripping up the
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floorboards in the attic looking for dry rot.
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That is why Jesus said to count the cost.
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Lewis is very explicit here. He says the cost isn't just
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giving up the sins you think are fun.
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The cost is that once you invite him in, he stays until the job
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is completely done. And the job he has in mind is
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literal perfection. Listen to the language Lewis
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uses here. He imagines God speaking
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directly to the soul. Whatever suffering it may cost
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you in your earthly life, I will never rest, nor let you rest
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until you are literally perfect. I will never rest, nor let you
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rest. That reminds me of that famous
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poem, The Hound of Heaven. God in relentless pursuit.
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It does, and from a Reformed perspective, we talk about the
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perseverance of the Saints. Usually we mean that to say you
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can't lose your salvation, and that's true.
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But the flip side of perseverance is that God
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persists in his work on us. He is relentless.
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He is the hound of heaven. It just completely destroys the
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idea of the carnal Christian, doesn't it?
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The person who just gets their ticket punched for heaven and
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then lives however they want. That category doesn't exist in
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Lewis's framework, and it doesn't exist in the Bible.
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If you believe belong to him, He is working on you.
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He might be working with what feels like a painful dentist
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drill, but he is working. You cannot simply have Jesus as
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Savior and refuse Him as Lord of the renovation project.
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So we have this impossibly high standard perfection, and we have
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this ruthless dentist who won't stop drilling until we are
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perfectly healthy. That sounds exhausting.
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It feels impossible, and on our own it is.
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But then Louis pivots. Yes, and I love this pivot
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because it saves us from total despair.
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We move to Section 3. Easy to please, hard to satisfy.
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This is a distinction he borrows from George MacDonald, the
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Scottish author who was a massive influence on Lewis's own
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thinking. God is easy to please but hard
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to satisfy. That sounds like a
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contradiction. What does it actually mean?
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Well, the best way to get it is to use the analogy Lewis gives
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the baby walking OK. So you have a father and you
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have a little baby who is just learning to stand up.
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The baby wobbles, takes 2 steps and falls flat on its face.
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Now look at the father's reaction.
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Is he angry? Is he standing there with a
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clipboard and saying you failed, you are not walking perfectly, I
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am ashamed of you. No, of course not.
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The father is thrilled. He's clapping.
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He's pulling out his phone to record it.
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He's calling the grandmother to tell her the news.
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He's absolutely delighted by that first stumbling step.
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That is easy to please. God is not standing over us with
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a scorecard deducting points every single time we trip.
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He delights in the stumbling effort of a new believer.
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He delights in the smallest movement toward holiness.
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He sees the heart, he sees the effort, not just the result.
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And here is the hard to satisfy part.
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The father is not content to let the child stay there.
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If the child is 20 years old and is still just stumbling and
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crawling across the floor, the father is not pleased.
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He is deeply worried. He wants the son to walk with a
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firm, manly stride. He is hard to satisfy because he
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knows what the Son is capable of becoming.
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That is such a helpful distinction because I think many
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of us bounce between two really bad options.
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What do you mean by that? Well, either we think God is
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just perpetually angry at us all the time because we aren't
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perfect yet. That's legalism.
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Or we swing the other way and think God doesn't really care
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about holiness at all, so we just stop trying and that's
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cheap grace. Right.
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And this distinction from McDonald avoids both ditches.
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The theological application here is massive.
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First, you get this incredible encouragement.
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God is not angry at your stumbling attempts today.
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If you found a temptation today and you won for 5 minutes before
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you failed, He saw the fight. He is pleased by the effort.
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Perfection is not the prerequisite for His love.
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We are justified by faith, not by our walking ability.
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But the warning is definitely there too.
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Oh, the warning is there, and the warning is that He will not
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settle for our mediocrity. He intends to bring us to the
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full stature of Christ. And this is where I have to
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point out something. Resisting this process isn't you
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preserving your your identity or your personality.
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It is you fighting against your own good.
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You are actively fighting the Father who wants you to be able
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to run just so you can keep crawling around on the floor.
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It's like we are arguing for our right to remain disabled.
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That is exactly what sin is. It's a spiritual disability, and
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sanctification is the physical therapy.
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It hurts like crazy, but it's the only way we're ever going to
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learn to run. This leads us to a trap that I
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think is so common, especially in our culture today.
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We call it the decent ordinary chap fallacy.
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Oh yes, the I'm a good person argument.
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It is the default religion of the West, I think.
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Lewis identifies this sentiment perfectly.
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You hear people say it all the time.
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I don't want to be a St. I don't want to be some super
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spiritual Mystic. I just want to be a decent,
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ordinary person. And we say like it's a humble
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thing, like we're being modest. Oh, I'm not aiming to hide.
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Just regular old me. I pay my taxes.
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I don't cheat on my wife. I'm generally nice to the
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neighbors. But Lewis says this isn't
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humility at all. He calls it a fatal.
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He says it's actually born of laziness and cowardice.
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That is harsh, isn't it? Calling someone a coward for
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wanting to be decent. But think about why he says it.
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It goes right back to the creator creature distinction
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that we find all through the Westminster Confession.
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We are the machine. He is the inventor.
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We are the picture. He is the painter.
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Meaning the picture doesn't get to decide what it's supposed to
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depict. The clay doesn't argue with the
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Potter. Right.
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We do not know what we are intended to be.
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We have the small, limited earthly view of decent.
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We think decent means staying out of jail and being generally
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nice. But God has a glue print for
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glorious. Lewis uses a biological analogy
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here to explain why stopping at decent is a complete disaster.
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He talks about evolution in the womb.
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Yes, he traces our biological history.
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He says. We passed through these
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different stages. At one point in the room, the
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embryo looks a bit like a vegetable, then it looks a bit
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like a fish, and finally it looks like a human baby.
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And he says, imagine if that fish stage had a voice.
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It might have said, you know what?
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I'm good right here. I don't want to become a baby.
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Being a fish is fine. It's warm in here.
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I have gills. I just want to be a decent
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ordinary fish. Right.
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And if the fish had its way, it would never become a human.
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It would never breathe air. It would never know love or
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music or thought or reason. It would miss out on everything
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it was designed for. It would just be a fish.
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So when we say I just want to be a decent, ordinary person, we
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are the fish refusing to be born.
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That is it precisely. We are currently content to be
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ordinary people, but God has a different plan on a much higher
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level. To shrink back from that plan is
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disobedience. It's refusing to evolve,
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spiritually speaking, into the creature He designed you to be.
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That is a powerful reframing. It makes our contentment with
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mediocrity sound like a serious sin.
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Because it is. It's telling the artist stop
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painting now. I like it better as a rough
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sketch. It's a profound insult to the
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artist who has the finished masterpiece in his mind.
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So we have established that we are the canvas, not the painter.
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But then Lewis gets into the mechanics of how this painting
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actually happens, and he hits on something that sounds very, very
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reformed. The necessity of divine power.
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This is Section 5 in our outline.
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Lewis argues that we cannot trust our unaided efforts to
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keep us decent for even 24 hours. 24 hours?
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That feels like a really low bar.
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Surely I can be a decent person for one day without God's help.
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Lewis says no. And honestly, if we're being
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honest with ourselves and we look at our own hearts, he's
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right, he says. If God does not support us, not
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a single one of us is safe from some gross, awful sin.
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This just validates the doctrine of total depravity.
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It does. It absolutely does.
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The Westminster Confession teaches that since the fall, our
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will is in bondage to sin. We do not have the natural
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capacity to please God on our own.
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Without God's restraining grace, there is no crime, no cruelty,
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no vice that we are not capable of committing.
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I think we often forget that. We look at criminals or bad
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people on the news and we think, oh, I can never do that.
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And Lewis and the Bible says, Oh yes you could.
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The seeds of every single sin are in every human heart.
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The only difference between you and the monster on the news is
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grace. So on the one hand we are
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totally dependent, we can't even stay decent for a day without
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him, but on the other hand there is this incredibly high goal.
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Yes, this is the paradox again. Lewis writes that no possible
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degree of holiness or heroism which has ever been recorded of
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the greatest Saints is beyond what he is determined to produce
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in every one of us in the end. Wait.
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Pause. Right there, every one of us.
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Every single Christian without exception.
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So the listener who is driving to work right now, the mom who
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is struggling with toddlers and feels like a failure, God
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intends to produce in them the same quality of holiness that
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was in the apostle Paul. The bravery of Peter after
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Pentecost, the love of the apostle John, the endurance of
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Paul. God intends to produce that
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quality of life in you. That feels impossible.
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It just does. It is impossible for you, but
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not for the dentist. Now we have to clarify the work
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will not be finished in this life.
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That's another reformed point. We do not believe in
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perfectionism in the sense that you stop sinning before you die.
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Right. We will always struggle with the
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flesh as long as we are in these bodies.
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That's a given. But God means to get us as far
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as possible down that road before death, and He guarantees
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the completion of the work and glorification.
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He has a plan and He has the power to execute it.
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OK, so if God is doing this work and He is determined to make us
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like Christ, why does it hurt so much?
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That brings us to Section 6, the confusion of the faithful.
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This is a very practical section because people experience this
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all the time and it can cause a real crisis of faith.
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Here's the scenario. A man turns to Christ.
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He repents. He stops his heavy drinking.
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He stops gambling. He starts going to church.
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He cleans up his act. And he naturally, logically
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expects his life to get easier. It's the good karma idea, isn't
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it? I'm on God's team now, so he
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should smooth the road for me. I'm doing my part.
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But often the complete opposite happens.
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All sorts of troubles come. He gets sick, his company
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downsizes and he loses his job. New kinds of temptation pop up
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that he never had to deal with before.
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And he thinks I must be doing something wrong.
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Or maybe God is punishing me for my past.
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Or worse, he thinks this whole Christianity thing doesn't work.
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It's a lie. But Lewis says no, you're
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misreading the situation. It is not punishment, it is
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promotion. Promotion.
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Losing your job and getting sick is a promotion.
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How does that work? Think about the gym.
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If you go to a trainer and you say I want to be an Olympic
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lifter, what does the trainer do?
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Does he give you the little 5 LB plastic weights?
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No, he puts more weight on the bar until you can barely lift
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it. Then he helps you and the next
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week he has even more weight. Exactly, Lewis says.
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God is forcing us up to a higher level of spiritual reality.
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He puts us in situations that require bravery, patience and
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love far beyond our natural capacity.
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So when I'm in a situation where I feel like I cannot handle
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this, I do not have the patience for this person that isn't an
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accident. No, that is the resistance
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training. God is saying I know you don't
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have the patience. That is precisely why I put you
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here, to grow the patience. He is not fixing the old
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machine, He is building a new one that can handle more weight.
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It's the difference between repairing a bicycle and turning
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it into a motorcycle. Right.
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If you want a motorcycle, you can't just slap an engine onto a
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bicycle frame. The whole thing will collapse.
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You need a heavier frame, bigger tires, better brakes, a whole
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new system. And the process of installing
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all those new parts, stripping down the old bike, welding on
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new steel is disruptive. It's messy.
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Disruptive is a mild word for it.
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It is destructive to the old self.
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Which sets up Lewis's most famous analogy in this chapter.
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Maybe in the whole book, The house and the palace.
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This is Section 7. This is the image that stays
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with people for a lifetime. I've heard so many people say
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this changed how they view their struggles.
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Lewis says imagine yourself as a living house.
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God comes in to rebuild that house.
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At first it all makes perfect sense.
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He comes in and he fixes the drains, he stops the leaks in
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the roof. Right.
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Those are the obvious sins. OK, God, I get it.
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I'll stop swearing. I'll be nicer to my neighbors.
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We understand that. We knew the house needed a few
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repairs. It was a bit drafty.
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But then he starts knocking down walls.
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He starts smashing through the living room with a sledgehammer.
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He rips off the entire back porch and it hurts abominably
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and it doesn't make any sense at all.
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The house is a wreck. It looks worse than when he
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started. And the homeowner, which is us,
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is standing there in the middle of the dust and the debris just
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screaming, what are you doing? You are destroying me.
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And here is the reveal, Lewis writes.
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The explanation is that he is building quite a different house
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from the one you thought of. We thought we were being made
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into a decent little cottage, a nice cozy place where we could
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be comfortable, sit by the fire and read a book.
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But he is building a palace. He's throwing out a new wing
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here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making
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courtyards, things we never asked for and can't even
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understand the purpose of. Why?
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Why a palace? Why all this extra space and
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grandeur and pain? He intends to come and live in
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it himself. That is the key.
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That is the doctrine of union with Christ.
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That Reformed theology treasures so much.
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We are temples of the Holy Spirit.
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If the King of Glory is going to move in, the structure has to
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match the resident. You cannot put the creator of
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the universe into a spiritual shack.
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That changes everything about how we view suffering and
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growth. If I'm just a cottage, then this
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level of construction is unnecessary violence.
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But if I'm a palace in the making, the violence is actually
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necessary progress. Precisely.
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The scale of the construction matches the scale of the
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destiny. The pain you feel is the
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breaking of the old small self to make room for the glory of
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God to dwell in you and. What a destiny it is.
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Section 8 takes us to the final state glorification.
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Lewis uses some very bold language here.
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He says God intends to make us into gods.
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OK, now we need to clarify that immediately before we get a
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flood of emails accusing us of heresy.
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Yes, Lewis is putting gods in lowercase.
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He is absolutely not saying we become the creator.
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We do not become omnipotent or omniscient.
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We remain creatures. We don't get our own planets to
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rule. So what on earth does he mean?
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He means we become dazzling, radiant, immortal creatures.
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He describes us as being like stainless mirrors.
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Mirrors. That's a great image.
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A mirror's job is just to reflect what's in front of it.
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If we are stainless perfect mirrors, we will reflect God's
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power and delight and goodness perfectly.
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We're on a smaller scale, of course, but the reflection will
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finally be true and unblemished. So when he says God's, he means
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we will share in God's communicable attributes, His
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Holiness, His love, His joy, to the absolute maximum capacity of
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a created being. Yes.
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And he says the process will be long and in parts very painful.
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But that is what we are in for. That is what we are in for.
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There's a real sense of inevitability there, isn't
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there? It goes right back to
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sovereignty. God's sovereignty guarantees the
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end result. Now, Lewis does mention free
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will here, he says you have free will and if you choose, you can
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push me away. Right.
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And as Reformed believers, we would want to nuance that a
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little. We believe that God's grace is
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ultimately irresistible. It overcomes our resistance.
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We would look at a verse like Philippians 1.6.
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He who began a good work in you will carry on to completion
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until the day of Christ Jesus. We believe God is effective.
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He actually accomplishes what He sets out to do.
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But I think we can agree with Lewis on the experiential level.
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It feels like we can push him away.
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We feel the struggle and we certainly have the
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responsibility not to fight against him.
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Absolutely. The warning is real.
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If you fight the dentist, you are only prolonging the pain.
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You're just keeping the toothache and refusing the cure.
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And the promise is that if we let him, or rather because He
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enables us to let him, he will make the feeblest and filthiest
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of us into a dazzling creature. Think about that for a second.
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The person you see in the mirror every morning.
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One with all the insecurities, the shameful habits, the
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fatigue, the little compromises. God intends to turn that person
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into a creature so glorious that if you saw them now in their
25:04
final form, you might be tempted to worship them.
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That is the hope of glory. That is what the palace looks
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like when it is finally finished.
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So we have covered a lot of ground here.
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We've gone from a toothache to a palace.
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Let's try to summarize the big take away for the learner.
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I think the main take away is that the command be perfect is
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not a burden meant to crush you, it is a prophecy of your future.
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I love that it isn't just a rule, it is a prediction of what
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will be. It's a promise I will make you
25:35
perfect. And the pain of the Christian
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life, the struggle against sin, the trials, the discipline that
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is the pain of the dentist. It is pain that leads to health,
25:45
not pain that leads to death. So if you are listening to this
25:49
and you are struggling, maybe you feel like your life is being
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knocked down and torn apart. It might not be because you are
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failing. It might be because God is
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making you into a palace when you only wanted to be a
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comfortable little cottage. That is a perspective shift that
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can get you through a lot of dark nights.
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It changes the question from why is this happening to me into
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what are you building in me. I want to leave you, the
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listener, with one last provocative thought.
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Lewis suggests that this transformation is available to
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the feeblest and filthiest. It isn't reserved for some
26:19
spiritual elite. Right.
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It's for everyone who is in Christ.
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But here's the question for you to chew on.
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Are you holding onto a cottage mindset because you were afraid
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of the construction costs of the palace?
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Are you settling for being decent because you are terrified
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of what it might cost to become glorious?
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That is the real question, isn't it?
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Are we brave enough to let the Divine Architect, the Heavenly
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Dentist, do his complete work? Thank you for joining us on this
26:46
deep dive into Mere Christianity.
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This has been Reformed thinking. We hope this conversation helps
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you not just to read, but to understand.
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And not just to understand, but to trust the builder.
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Amen. Until next time.