C.S. Lewis: The Atheist Who Found God

C.S. Lewis was a brilliant Oxford atheist, certain that Christianity was a myth and determined to keep God at arm's length. This is the story of how the evidence, a midnight conversation with J.R.R. Tolkien, and a quiet ride to the zoo in his brother's motorcycle sidecar brought the most reluctant convert in England to his knees. And it leads to the most personal question Jesus ever asked: "But who do you say that I am?" A five-minute reminder that an honest answer to that question changes everything. Scripture echo: Matthew 16:15, John 14:6 Key figure: C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), Oxford scholar, author of Mere Christianity and The Chronicles of Narnia Read or listen on the blog: https://rodneycoe.com/cs-lewis-who-do-you-say-i-am/ Five minutes. Pull up a chair. "And that, friend, is how God lifts up your day."

Transcript

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Picture a brilliant young man in his rooms at Oxford late at night, a pipe in his hand, and a stack of books on the desk. He's one of the sharpest minds in England, and he's an atheist. Settled, certain, there is no God, there never was, and that is the end of it. But lately, something has been bothering him. The harder he studies, the more evidence refuses to behave. The most hard-boiled atheist he knows has just admitted to him that the historical case for the gospels is surprisingly strong. And night after night, in that quiet room, this man feels what he can only describe as someone approaching, someone he desperately does not want to meet. Stick with me. You need to hear the rest of the story. Welcome to Lift Up Your Day, short stories with a biblical heartbeat. I'm Rodney Coe, and today the atheist who fought God with everything he had. And the one question he could not get around. His name was C.S. Lewis, and you may know him as the man who wrote the Chronicles of Narnia. But long before Narnia, Lewis was one of the most committed atheists in Britain. He taught English literature at Oxford. He was clever, widely read and completely certain that Christianity was a comforting myth for weaker minds. Then two things began to crack his certainty. The first was his friends. One of them was a quiet professor named J.R.R. Tolkien, the man who would write The Lord of the Rings. Late one September night, Tolkien and another friend walked with Lewis for hours talking about myth and truth, and whether the old stories of a dying and rising God might be pointing to the one story that actually happened. The second thing was the evidence itself, which kept refusing to fall apart in his hands. So in 1929, Lewis finally gave in to the existence of God. He knelt down in his room and prayed, and described himself afterward as the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England. Notice that. And by the time they reached the zoo, he did. No lightning, no sermon, just a man who had finally stopped running. And here is why this matters for you and me. For years Lewis had tried to keep Jesus at arm's length by filing him away under a great moral teacher. But he came to see that Jesus never left that option open. A man who says the things Jesus said is not simply a wise teacher. He is either a liar or a lunatic, or he is exactly who he claimed to be, the Lord. That brings us to the most personal question in all the Bible. One day Jesus turned to his disciples and said, But who do you say that I am? Not what does the crowd say? Not who does your grandmother say? Who do you say? That is a question everyone needs to answer because that answer is the answer that defines your life. C.S. Lewis, the smartest skeptic in the room, finally answered it on his knees, and the man who had resisted the faith with everything in him became its most beloved defender in the last 100 years. So let me leave you with the only question that really matters today. Who do you say that Jesus is? And that, friend, is how God lifts up your day.