Book Four, Chapter 1: Making and Begetting

With Book Four, Lewis begins what he titles Beyond Personality, his first steps into the doctrine of the Trinity. In Chapter 1, he defends the idea that theology is worth the effort. He then asks two questions: in what ways are we naturally sons of God, yet not actually so, and what do Christians mean when they say Christ is the Son of God?

John 1 helps with both. Start with us. Verse 12 says that to those who received him, Christ "gave the right to become children of God." The word become matters. It suggests we are not simply children already by default. Something has to be given. Verse 13 adds that these children were "born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." This new status doesn't come from family line or human effort. It is a gift.

Now look at Christ. Verse 14 says "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" and speaks of "glory as of the only Son from the Father." Verse 18 says "the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known." Notice what is different. The Word is not given a right to become anything. John says the Word was there before: "he was before me." He is not a newcomer who was adopted into the family.

Here is an everyday illustration of the difference that the chapter's title points to. A woodworker can make a table. The table is something different from the woodworker: useful, shaped, but not the same kind of being. A parent who has a child brings forth someone of the same kind as the parent. Scripture doesn't use that picture in these exact words, but it helps explain why John treats Christ's sonship as unlike ours. Christ is not the first and finest thing God made. He is the Son who shares the Father's life.

That is why verse 16 matters so much for us: "from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace." We receive from someone who has what we lack. Our sonship is received. His is his own, and he shares it.

This changes how you read your own standing before God. You are not trying to climb into God's family by effort. You are invited to receive. And the one who invites you has come close, since the Word "dwelt among us." Knowing that the Son is truly the Son keeps the gift from being cheap. It was costly for him, and generous toward you.