The Obstinate Toy Soldiers

Big idea

Summary

Lewis opens by describing the present conflict between our natural, self-centered life and the spiritual life God offers: our ordinary nature wants to be admired, to exploit its surroundings, and above all to be left alone, and it instinctively dreads anything higher or stronger than itself, much as someone raised in dirt might dread the discomfort of a bath. This fear is not entirely irrational, he notes, since real transformation would indeed mean the death of that self-centeredness.

He develops this through the central image of the chapter: a tin soldier magically being turned into a living man, who, not understanding what is happening, perceives only that his tin is being ruined and resists with everything he has, mistaking his transformation for destruction. This becomes Lewis's picture of how the natural self resists spiritual rebirth, correctly sensing that it will not survive the change intact.

Lewis then describes the incarnation itself: the eternal Son became a specific, ordinary human being, complete with a body, a family, and a language, so that one human nature could be perfectly and willingly united to the divine life. This union was achieved specifically through a human career of increasing self-denial, poverty, betrayal, and violent death, followed by resurrection, so that the 'killing' of natural self-will and the rising of new life happened fully, for the first time, in a single real human being.

In the chapter's final movement, Lewis argues that human beings, seen truly and outside the illusions created by living moment to moment, are not really separate individuals but one interconnected organism, like a vast branching tree, and are also never independent of God, who sustains each person's existence continuously. Because of this hidden unity, what was accomplished in Christ's one human life spreads its effect to the whole human race across all of time, so that salvation is already achieved 'in principle' for humanity, even though each person must still personally receive, or 'appropriate,' it.

Key points

• Describes the present opposition between our self-centered natural life and the spiritual life God offers, which the natural self instinctively resists.
• Uses the tin-soldier image to show how something facing transformation can mistake its own remaking for destruction and fight against it.
• Describes Christ's incarnation as the case in which a full, particular human nature was perfectly and willingly united to the divine, begotten life.
• Connects Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection to the 'killing' of natural self-will and its replacement by new, risen life.
• Argues that humanity, seen truly, is one interconnected whole rather than a set of separate individuals, which is why Christ's human life can affect the entire human race.
• Concludes that salvation has been accomplished 'in principle' for humanity as a whole, while individuals must still personally appropriate it, and that various biblical formulas for this are all legitimate.

Illustrations & analogies

• Lewis imagines a tin soldier turned into living flesh who resists because he perceives the change only as the ruin of his tin body, illustrating how the self-centered self resists spiritual rebirth.
• He compares fear of spiritual transformation to the fear a person raised to be dirty might feel toward a bath.
• He pictures humanity, viewed truly across time, as one single, complex, branching tree rather than a set of separate individuals walking about independently.
• He compares the spreading effect of Christ's transformed human life to a single drop of dye or flavoring changing the taste or color of an entire glass of water.

Notable lines

The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.

C. S. Lewis Book IV, Ch. 5 — The Obstinate Toy Soldiers

Humanity is already "saved" in principle.

C. S. Lewis Book IV, Ch. 5 — The Obstinate Toy Soldiers

One tin soldier—real tin, just like the rest—had come fully and splendidly alive.

C. S. Lewis Book IV, Ch. 5 — The Obstinate Toy Soldiers

Related Scripture

• Revelation 7:14
• 1 Corinthians 15:3

For reflection and discussion

1. In what ways do you recognize your own instinct to resist transformation, like the tin soldier who fears being turned into flesh?
2. How does picturing humanity as 'one single growing thing' rather than a set of separate individuals change how you understand Christ's death applying to the whole human race?
3. Lewis says salvation is accomplished 'in principle' but must still be personally 'appropriated.' What might that appropriation look like in a person's life?