How CS Lewis’ “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” has helped me know, enjoy, and follow Jesus

notes

#1. Who is the only Hero of our story?

A. Not a tame lion
-Dangerous & Good

B. The Suffering Substitute

C. The Risen Conqueror

D. The Renewer of All Things

#2. What our story is…

War between good and evil

??This Bible forms a subtext for this thread in the story, too, because the story of cosmic conflict organizes the Bible from start to finish. C. S. Lewis himself provides one of the best ways of formulating this aspect of the Christian world view. In a printed debate on the subject of recreation, Lewis claimed that in a Christian view of the world, "there is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan" (Christian Reflections). For The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, we can substitute the names Aslan and the White Witch.

#3. Where our story is going…
Thirdly, the book provides glimpses of the eschaton—the final end with its accompanying destruction of evil and the triumph of the good. The world of Narnia itself poses something of a mystery or ambiguity here. In many ways, Narnia is an analogue to life on earth. We look at metaphors of the human condition as we travel with the children through Narnia. But at many points in the story, and especially in the last two chapters, we intuitively assimilate the action in the spirit with which we read the biblical book of Revelation, with its pictures of the final end. The turning of the statues back into people, a gigantic and decisive last battle, coronations at a great hall, living "in great joy" and remembering "life in this world . . . only as one remembers a dream"—all of these have an eschatological feel to them.