“For God is not merely mending, not simply restoring a status quo.
Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity.”
– C.S. Lewis
As ironic as it is, Christians (those who participate in a Kingdom) have largely lost the concept of nobility.
Perhaps the notion of nobility got lost when the the last knights and ladies of the Middle Ages died off. Or perhaps we've lost the idea of nobility because we've lost a part of the Gospel itself. What I mean is this: In our attempts to be 'authentic' to each other, the world and to God, we've not only recognized the depths of our sin, we've decided that our selves are synonymous with those foul places.
Yet Scripture has stated otherwise:
"But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart."
-- Luke 8:15
Something better now defines us: something stronger, regal and resplendent. This transformation wasn't a mere brushing-up, nor a tinkering with the old in order to improve it. It was something wholly different: a bestowing of a fundamentally different nature -- supernatural supplanting natural.
Does the idea of Christian nobility sound too prideful for us? Are we so used to living in the mud of false humility that we cannot receive the more substantial redemption he is offering?
In C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, the children who become allies of the great Lion discover what they were meant for all along, as Aslan renames them in order to reveal their true natures:
And Aslan gave the children each a new name:
- “For God is not merely mending, not simply restoring a status quo. Redeemed humanity is to be something more glorious than unfallen humanity.”