C. S. Lewis on Illuminated Sonship

In the final chapters of his Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis gives some deep, deep articulations of the Christian's present union with God. These articulations are thoroughly Trinitarian. More controversially, they even have a touch of what the Eastern Orthodox tradition calls "theosis" in them. The fact that the believer lives in a relationship of mutual indwelling with his personal God, without loss of his own personhood, is an inexplicably beautiful reality. The human never becomes His Creator, but the human is transformed from the inside out by the direct operation and presence of His Creator. This relationship speaks to the depth of our God's love – intimate, transformative, ineffable...

Here are some beautiful passages:

"God is love, and that love works through men – especially through the whole community of Christians. But this spirit of love is, from all eternity, a love going on between the Father and the Son. / And now, what does it all matter? It matters more than anything else in the world. The whole dance, or drama, or pattern of this three-Personal life is to be played out in each one of us: or (putting it the other way round) each one of us has got to enter that pattern, take his place in that dance. There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made" (p. 176).

"Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die?" (p. 176)

"The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God" (p. 178).

"...a real person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you. It is not a question of a good man who died two thousand years ago. It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge, and eternity" (pp. 191-92).

"...the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose. It says in the Bible that the whole universe was made for Christ and that everything is to be gathered together in Him" (p. 199).

"The command Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we are 'gods' and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him – for we can prevent Him, if we choose – He will make teh feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful, but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said" (pp. 205–6).

"For mere improvement is not redemption, though redemption always improves people even here and now and will, in the end, improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine. God became man to turn creatures into sons: not simply to produce better men of the old kind but to produce a new kind of man" (p. 216).

"What will all that chatter and hearsay count (will you even be able to remember it?) when the anaesthetic fog which we call 'nature' or 'the real world' fades away and the Presence in whgich you have always stood becomes palpable, immediate, and unavoidable?" (p. 217).

"It is not a change from brainy men to brainier men: it is a change that goes off in a totally different direction – a change from being creatures of God to being sons of God. The first instance appeared in Palestine two thousand years ago" (p. 220).