“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
-Genesis 3:15
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.'”
“I—I opened a door and just found myself here, your Majesty,” said Edmund.
-C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
“Ha!” said the Queen, speaking more to herself than to him. “A door. A door from the world of men! I have heard of such things. This may wreck all. But he is only one, and he is easily dealt with.”
Articles in this Series
See the first article for the list.
On the Fear of Doors
As I mentioned in the last article, the White Witch is “taller than any woman Edmund had ever seen”, with a “proud and cold and stern” face. To the reader, she seems frightening and invincible. But, before the passage I quoted above, she inquires whether Edmund is a “Son of Adam” or “human”. Upon Edmund’s confirmation, she remarks that there is “A door from the world of men” which “may wreck all”. The first chink in the Witch’s armour and the first weakness that readers should detect is a fear of doors. But why is that the case? The answer is that she knew the ancient rhyme, recounted by Mr Beaver: “When Adam’s flesh and Adam’s bone / Sits at Cair Paravel in throne, / The evil time will be over and done.” When Adam’s children are enthroned in Cair Paravel, the Witch’s reign will be shattered. In this article, I want to examine our immediate passage in light of Christ’s incarnation. Yes, Christmas has recently passed, but reflection on the incarnation should not to be restricted to Advent or Christmas. In later articles, we will surely be able to look at different nuances of this theme of enthronement.
There are at least two ways (and these ways are not mutually exclusive) in which we can theologically understand the prophecy recounted by Mr Beaver. The first option is that when Christ, who took on flesh in the incarnation, sits enthroned at the Father’s right hand, then Satan’s dominion will be shattered. The ascension follows after Jesus’ incarnation, life, death, and resurrection, and the result of all these actions in His ministry is Satan’s defeat. The second option is that when the children of God are “seated… in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6), Satan’s rule is defeated. It is this strange idea that is echoed in passages like the Spirit’s words to the church in Thyatira: “The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.” (Rev. 2:26-27). Note that the first option is causal. Namely, the cause of the Witch’s defeat is Christ, the God-man, enthroned at Cair Paravel. The second option is indicative of a cause. Namely, the enthronement and reign of God’s people is not the cause of Satan’s defeat but indicative of what causes this defeat, namely the person and work of Jesus Christ, which enabled this enthronement in the first place. This article will focus on the first option.
Let us lay some groundwork here. In talking about our first option, which is that the prophecy recalled by Mr. Beaver addresses the enthronement of the God-man in heaven, we must ask what we mean by the God-man. To ask this, we must ask what we do not mean. The Chalcedonian Creed provides helpful guidelines. It states that Christ’s “two natures [are] without confusion, without change” and “without division, without separation”.1 The first pair of negatives rejects the monophysite heresy, which states that Christ has one nature where divinity and humanity are mixed. The second pair of negatives rejects the Nestorian heresy, which states that Christ is two persons. The orthodox view is that Christ is “truly God and truly man”. He really, truly possesses both a divine nature and a human nature in one person. These natures are not mixed into one nature, nor is Christ two persons. Step outside the four negatives of Chalcedon, and you have bid adieu to Christian orthodoxy.2
Furthermore, let us discuss the ascension of Christ. The classic text here is Philippians 2:5-11: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” This text has been called the divine parabola3. A parabola is a U-shaped curve. Christ, being equal with God and at the top of the parabola, descended to the bottom by “empt[ying] himself”, and afterwards was “highly exalted”. Though much ink has been spilt on this, two comments will be sufficient here. The first is that Christ’s emptying must not be understood as a removal of His divine nature but a voluntary concealing of it. The former understanding is the kenotic heresy.4 The second is that the word “Therefore” in the phrase “Therefore God has highly exalted him” indicates not only a temporal progression but an inference relationship. It is because Christ humbled himself that, therefore, He was exalted. If asked how or why exactly it works like that, my first answer is that we do not have space and my second answer is that it beats me.
Now, we must understand Christ remained truly man and truly God when He ascended to the right hand of God. This reality is why Paul could say, “[T]here is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus”(1 Tim. 2:15). Christ, post-ascension, remained man. The theological implications of this reality are vast. For instance, Hebrews 4:14-16 says the following: “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” It is because Jesus has been tempted just as we have been, something which cannot be said of God (Jm. 1:13) but only of Jesus’ human nature, that we are given the impetus to persevere in our faith and the confidence to come to God. One could imagine Jesus pleading with His Father, saying, “Father, I have been tempted as they have been. I remember the temptation of Satan in the wilderness. I can still hear the deafening sound of hunger as he tempted me to turn the stones into bread. I can still feel the temptation to think that Satan’s offer of his authority would be so much easier than my destined path. Have mercy on these people, Father, sinful and faltering though they may be.”
But the implication I want to focus briefly on is that, in the words of Kevin DeYoung, “God has granted all power and authority to a man (Matt. 28:19; Eph. 1:21-22). Jesus Christ is exercising the dominion that human beings were made to have from the beginning (Gen. 1:28). The ruin of the first Adam is being undone by the reign of the second.”5 God exhorted Adam to take dominion (Gen. 1:28), and this taking of dominion which Strong’s Concordance defines as “to tread down” should have been exercised as soon as Adam saw his wife chatting with a talking snake. Adam should have crushed the serpent and treaded it down. But through the neglect of Adam, a great and dark winter entered the world, only to be undone by the serpent-crusher (Gen 3:15) who would exercise the dominion that Adam failed to exercise. And it is in this new son of Adam (Lk. 3:38) and in this greater Adam (Rom. 5:18), the one foretold in ancient prophecies, that man would have dominion and shatter Satan.
The Psalmist in Psalm 8 considers the greatness of God. He remarks, “[H]ow majestic is your name in all the earth!” and that “You have set your glory above the heavens.” (Ps. 8:1). God’s glory transcends and is above the heavens; not even a thousand galaxies can fully attest to it. He then declares that, “Out of the mouths of babies and infants, / you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.” Even the littlest of God’s creation cries out about His strength. And then the Psalmist remarks: ” When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, / the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, / what is man that you are mindful of him, / and the son of man that you care for him?” (Ps. 8:3-4). This question is the natural question that arises. When faced with the polyphonic attestation to God’s glory in His creation, our natural question is, “Who are we?” Great galaxies, fearsome beasts, jagged mountains, and sprinting rivers exist; we are mere creatures of the dust, fragile bundles of flesh and blood, seemingly insignificant specks in the universe.
Yet the surprising part is this: “Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings / and crowned him with glory and honor. / You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; / you have put all things under his feet, / all sheep and oxen, / and also the beasts of the field, / the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, / whatever passes along the paths of the seas.” (Ps. 8:5-8). Matthew Henry comments: “Man has sovereign dominion over the inferior creatures, under God, and is appointed their lord. This refers to Christ. In Heb 2:6-8, the apostle, to prove the sovereign dominion of Christ, shows he is that Man, that Son of man, here spoken of, whom God has made to have dominion over the works of his hands. The greatest favour ever showed to the human race, and the greatest honour ever put upon human nature, were exemplified in the Lord Jesus.”6 The enthronement of the God-man and the granting of dominion to this man shattered the rule of the dragon, who should have been killed under the first man’s dominion.7 Upon Christ’s ascension, Cair Paravel was occupied. The possibility of Christ’s incarnation and subsequent ascension was why the witch feared doors; it was through a door, so to speak, that God became man.
Footnotes
- See https://thewestminsterstandard.org/the-chalcedonian-creed/ as one online resource presenting this creed.
- I first learned the concepts in this paragraph from R. C. Sproul in his teaching series Foundations: An Overview of Systematic Theology.
- See James Montgomery Boice’s Philippians (Expositional Commentary), where he uses this term. His commentaries are excellent, Reformed stuff.
- See https://www.gotquestions.org/kenoticism-kenotic-theology.html. The article, as with most of the website’s articles, is helpful.
- See https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/theological-primer-the-ascension/.
- See https://biblehub.com/commentaries/mhc/psalms/8.htm.
- I have to be careful here by not engaging in reductionism. It is not merely because of the ascension that Satan’s rule is destroyed. Colossians 2:15 makes it clear that the cross was integral to this reality too. Yet we must not reduce the serpent-crushing to Calvary, either. If Christ had not lived a perfect life before His death, then there would be no perfect righteousness to impute to His people. All of the actions in Christ’s ministry served for the salvation of His people and the crushing of the serpent.
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