Spiritualizing Language

Have you ever heard someone say something only to learn they were saying something else?

In his book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis suggests people should stop redefining words to make them more spiritual. His example: long ago people were called "gentlemen" if they had land or money. Later people considered a gentlemen to be a person who 'acts like a gentlemen', i.e. they were polite.

So imagine there was a third party who heard so-and-so was a "gentlemen". How should he understand such a description? The poor man has no way of knowing what was said! He has to go and find out for himself who this person is.

So for the sake of academics and communication we should only use words to mean what the general consensus says they mean. Or scholards that teach at expensive schools. Right?

They answered Him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, `You will become free'?"
Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin."
John 8

C.S. Lewis is a man of genius and understanding, but here his intellect fails to approach Jesus' style. Jesus was continually misunderstood because he used words to mean what he wanted them to mean and not what the crowd thought they meant.

"Destroy this temple and I will build it again in three days."
"Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."
"I have food to eat that you did not know about."

Jesus' spiritualizing of language breaks down the chance of knowing what Jesus said in an encyclopedia kind of way. Here a general consensus of scholarship will not be able to explain this "food" Jesus had to eat. Here a publicly understood law will never be able to stop "slavery". Here a doctrine will never put Jesus into our lives.

Quite simply, you cannot meet the real Jesus through a third party.
You have to encounter him for yourself.


You can find the original image here.