Farewell to the Shadowlands is a chapter in C. S. Lewis’ book, The Last Battle. It is the eschatological bookend of the Chronicles of Narnia.
Goodbye to Narnia
In The Last Battle, Narnia and the world it resides in, is destroyed, and most of the characters die in the final are killed off. It all sounds rather gloomy and tragic. One of the surviving characters (King Tirian) ends up in what he initially believes is a small dark stable.
Yet when Tirian enters this stable it ends up being larger and brighter than the world outside. Moreover, he’s met with friends who had just died. Now they are alive and changed. He then meets the Christ figure Aslan who informs them that the Narnia is gone forever. In fact they witness its destruction through the open stable door.
The Holidays Begin
The Old Narnia is gone. But Aslan tells everyone it was only a Shadow-Land, just like England. They are now confronted with the Real Narnia and England which are infinitely better and cannot be destroyed. Aslan says, “The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”
They are encouraged to explore Narnia further. One of the characters (Jewel the unicorn) uses the phrase “Further up and further in.” The further “in” they go the larger Narnia becomes and there is no end to discovering its wonders.
Lewis finishes off with this,
All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
An infinitely increasing joy…
If very new chapter is better than last, that means joy is infinitely growing on top of being eternally present. Is Lewis over-reaching? Interestingly enough, the theologian Jonathan Edwards was of the same opinion. He wrote that God is infinitely perfect in holiness and nature and cannot increase or diminish in splendor. See Matthew Everhard’s book A Theology of Joy – Jonathan Edwards. (Page 71)
Even so, Edwards says that, “we shall forever increase in beauty ourselves; where we shall be made capable of finding out and giving, and shall receive, more and more endearing expressions of love forever.”
Does that seem impossible to us? Maybe the problem is that we’re finite creatures. We can’t understand how eternity works. In our fallen finite natures we cannot even hold onto our current snippets of fleeting joy, let alone contemplate a state of ever-increasing joyfulness.
In fact doubt our bodies could stand even a tiny glimpse of the joy and love which awaits us. We will have to wait on the Lord to change us. Then we will know true joy.
Some texts to ponder
You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Psalm 16:11
…and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Eph 2:6-7 (See also 1 Cor 2:9)
Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 1 John 3:2
Out of the Shadowlands and further up and further in…
Maranatha!
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