Jesus Christ makes it possible
I am writing this blog for the benefit of generation Z and the millennialists—those who grew up at the time when words became what we wanted them to mean. The point I want to make with them is that there are words given to us that carry their own meaning from within them. The word “soul” is one such word.
Latin and Greek from which so many of our words originated, define “soul” in these ways. Soul in Latin is anima, which means life or breath. The definition for “soul” in Greek is psyche (ψυχή) which means basically the same–life.
It is my conviction that “soul” is one of those words that cannot be thought of apart from the God who created the “soul’–beings who possess His signature. We are living at a time when young males and females hesitate to have children because they are selfish—we’ll talk about that accusation later in the blog. But for now, Psalm 121 assures us that God, the Maker of heaven and earth, by His grace and mercy, desires that each child we bring into this world should spend eternity with Him who bears His signature.
Even in a fallen world where ours and our children’s futures are full of so much suffering, the “soul” is to remain faithful to the faithful Creator that bears His image/signature. “Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good”. 1 Peter 4:19
“Elohai neshamah,” a Jewish prayer recited upon waking,
begins with the words
“My God, the soul You have placed within me is pure.”
I write these words trusting that you will keep in mind the inevitable fact that each new child brought into this world contains the signature of God which is an eternal fact. In the final chapter of his book, The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis writes about this signature of God in a most interesting way of explaining this fact.
The mould in which a key is made would be a strange thing, if you had never seen a key: and the key itself a strange thing if you had never seen a lock. Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the Divine substance, or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions. For it is not humanity in the abstract that is to be saved, but you — you, the individual reader, John Stubbs or Janet Smith. Blessed and fortunate creature, your eyes shall behold Him and not another’s. All that you are, sins apart, is destined, if you will let God have His good way, to utter satisfaction… Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it — made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand. C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, Harper One, 1996, pp. 149-152
Even souls that become sick with sin have a place in heaven. Lewis viewed the “sin sick soul” as being bent back in on itself. This is the selfishness of which I earlier accused us of. It refuses the goodness of the One who created it. There are so many ways to describe such a soul: self-centered, egotistic, narcissistic, restless and rebellious, indicative of a soul that has been convinced that it belongs to itself. The sin sick soul is bent in on itself. The idea of the “sin sick soul bent in on itself” is a theological concept with roots in the teachings of St. Augustine and later developed by Martin Luther. Augustine described the sin sick soul as a soul that is restless until it rests in God its Creator.
Luther used the Latin phrase incurvatus in se to describe a sin sick soul as one “curved inward on oneself.” This distortion creates a deeper spiritual sickness and in so many cases leads to psychological crisis.
C. S Lewis says that pride within bends the soul. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If every one else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking, there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasurable pride of being above the rest.
Lewis tells us that In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that—and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison—you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Touchstone, 1996), pp. 109-112.
If we are looking only to ourselves, the pleasures are short-lived. Behold, joy and gladness, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating flesh and drinking wine. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” Isaiah 22:13
Pride makes it impossible to look beyond ourselves. Greg Ogden writes that at the center of every word in the Bible, comes the command that we are to love God with everything we’ve got and love our neighbors in the same way that we cherish ourselves. Really, is that possible? Yes! Here is the amazing thing. Every child born of a woman bears the signature of God. Every child born of a woman has lost their soul’s connection to the One whose signature is written into it.
Therefore when we raise children to only enable them to compete and thrive in a competitive world, how then are they to live if their soul becomes ethically wounded? It takes no astute professional to define what this means. One’s own conscience advises one—the pains of injustice, of deceit and betrayal are the informants. How terrible a thing it is to neglect to tell our children about this because He seems too idealistic.
As an adult, Oden writes “I was not even aware that I had dismissed Jesus’ belief in me. But what had taken over my spirit in my attempt to be authentic was a focus on where I had fallen short of Jesus’ call. In my desire to make sure that I was not deceiving myself about my capacity for sin, I had given up the upside possibility that the character of Jesus could actually take over my life.
If Jesus says it’s possible to be like Him, in spite of being morally assailed day after day, then it’s absolutely possible. This is what it means to live a fruitful life. It means to live by faith in the One who makes life possible.
We are told that Abraham was beyond the age of siring a child and Sara’s womb beyond conceiving a child. But by faith they accepted God telling them that their descendants would exceed the stars in the heavens. The marriage of Abraham and Sara is the mystery of the impossible made possible. It is the same mystery of faith between a male and a female that dares to bring a living soul into a fallen world. Faith in the Triune God is the catalyst that presents the trophies of God’s goodness and grace made possible through Christ.
