Copyright 2017 by Shea Oakley
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“There is, we have to admit, a line of demarcation between God’s part in us and the enemy’s region. But it is, we hope, a fighting line, not a frontier fixed by agreement.” – C.S. Lewis
Most, if not all, truly honest believers must admit to there being areas in their lives in which some kind of repetitive transgression against the laws of God and man continues. It doesn’t matter, in a sense, what kind of transgression we are talking about. It may be something that seems comparatively minor like texting while driving, or it could be something that would be considered worse by most, like some form of sexual immorality. Whatever the sin in question is, it is something that we are both consciously and actively struggling against, or it is something we have decided is “only a vice” and is self-condoned on an ongoing basis.
The difference between these two attitudes is what Lewis is alluding to here. We will almost certainly not be entirely free of any kind of morally wrong tendency and action as long as we live in this world. The question is what we are going to do with the evil we consciously discover to be present in our lives? Will we do everything we can, by the power of the Holy Spirit within us, to battle against and turn from our wrong actions, or will we decide to let those actions continue in our lives without a fight?
Lewis doesn’t address it explicitly in his quote, but the reason the Christian has to deal with this issue at all is the fact that, while we are “new creatures” inhabited and possessed by the Spirit of God (with our own spirits brought to life at the moment of our conversion) we also still have “the flesh” with which to contend. The flesh is what might be called our “old person”, the dynamic remaining in our hearts that draws us towards self-rule for the purpose of fulfilling our old wrong desires at any cost. This is the part of what somehow remains within us that we are commanded by our Lord to “crucify” each day, to put to death, in favor of a deeper relationship with, and obedience to, Him. That “crucifixion” is the God-empowered effort we make to repent from and forsake all sin on a daily basis. It is not easy to do; it involves a conscious battle in which we are in constant need of the overcoming grace of God in our lives, but it is something we are commanded by our Master to do. It is not optional….on any level.
When Lewis refers to “the enemy’s region” he is acknowledging another aspect of this battle, the reality that we do have an Enemy of our souls, his name is Satan, and he and his minions expend a considerable amount of supernatural effort tempting us to favor our flesh over our spirit. Our Enemy’s forever unchanging goal is to use our continuing ability to give in to selfish, sinful desires to separate us from God and other human beings and thus to utterly destroy us (or, if that is not possible, to make our lives as unproductive for God, and as miserable to ourselves, as he can).
It is with these two realities, the flesh within and the Devil without, with which we must both contend and decide on a response. As Lewis points out, there are really only two options. We must either continuously fight the sin in our lives or we must try to sign some sort of “treaty” with Satan that we will allow certain things we do that we know to be wrong to continue, to whatever degree and frequency, to be a part of our existence.
The unchangeable problem with the latter approach is twofold:
1. We cannot conclude any kind of compromising agreement, which will ever be truly honored, with a being that embodies only evil and whose only goal is to destroy us if he can and greatly harm us if he can’t.
2. The principle of the flesh within us is insatiable when it comes to sin. If we consciously allow “a little bit” of ongoing transgression to remain in our lives it ultimately cannot and will not remain “a little bit.” Whatever the sin in question is it will not stay static. Our indulgence of it will inevitably increase.
This why we must not allow any “frontier” that we believe “is fixed by agreement” to exist in our lives because such a frontier can never remain fixed and will only increase the existence of indulged evil within us. In fact this applies not only to agreements with our outer enemy, the Devil, but also our inner one, the flesh. We should no more make unenforceable “internal treaties” than unenforceable external ones.
As good and faithful soldiers in our King’s army we must only and always be prepared to fight every kind of evil, within and without, until some day we either go to be with Him or He returns to earth to finally destroy all evil in this fallen world, ushering in His eternal kingdom.
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