Charlie Herndon introduces his Sunday School class…
In order to understand Truth (and be known by the Word of God [John 1:1]), Truth must be transposed into a form that can be understood and accepted by sinful man as a creature before his Creator. We are helpless in relation to Spiritual truth. Everything we know must be revealed.
How strange it is that God chooses physical substances (like bread and wine) to reveal himself; instead of as a conquering angel he comes as a baby boy who must be diapered, trained, taught, and raised to be a man. God himself, in his self-revelation and in an ultimate act of transposition, “made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.”
We will explore C.S. Lewis’ concept of transposition and apply this to some basic Christian truths. Does the view through the lens of transposition enhance both the knowledge and experience of Truth? As in Ezekiel’s valley, if these dry bones can live, they need the Spirit to breathe upon them and raise them to life. The Holy Spirit’s irruption into our physical universe comes through transposition, and one day we will be transfigured—just as Jesus displayed—into this new heavenly life.
Charlie Herndon has an M.A. in Theology from Beeson Divinity School, at Samford University in Alabama. He is a member at EPC with his wife, Pam, and their two daughters.
C.S. Lewis’s essay, “Transposition,” is available in The Weight of Glory: And Other Addresses, published by HarperCollins.