C.S. Lewis on Repentance

As I’ve been reading through C.S. Lewis’ classic “Mere Christianity” this summer, I have been fascinated by the insights he makes about various topics. Along with the many popular sections so often quoted, like the liar, lunatic or lord trilemma and the convoy of ships analogy, I find his reasoning quite sound even among the less familiar passages.  For example, here is part of his explanation of repentance:

“Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means killing part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death. In fact, it needs a good man to repent. And here comes the catch. Only a bad person needs to repent: only a good person can repent perfectly. The worse you are the more you need it and the less you can do it. The only person who could do it perfectly would be a perfect person – and he would not need it.

Remember, this repentance, this willing submission to humiliation and a kind of death, is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose: it is simply a description of what going back to Him is like. If you ask God to take you back without it, you are really asking Him to let you go back without going back. It cannot happen.”

What do you think? Don’t take my word for it, read the book, don’t wait for the movie.


Have a little hope on me, Roger

Comments