SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 6
Lewis is entranced by the beauty of his surroundings and drawn by the robust sound of flowing water, which turns out to be an enormous and spectacular waterfall that is impossibly large by human standards. Lewis sees one of the ghosts, the man named Ikey (who wanted to bring back some solid objects from Heaven to be able to sell in the Grey Town[Hell]), struggling in the bushes and motioning for Lewis to take cover. Lewis notices that Ikey is next to a remarkably beautiful tree covered with golden apples, and that Ikey is trying to collect fruit that has fallen from the tree. He has extreme difficulty in this because of the weight even of the leaves, but eventually manages to pick up a small apple and hide it in his pocket. As soon as he does so, a thunderous voice calls out “Fool! Put it down!” It was a thunderous yet liquid voice, and Lewis realizes that the waterfall itself was speaking and that though it did not cease to look like a waterfall it was also a bright angel who stood, like one crucified, against the rocks and poured himself perpetually down towards the forest with loud joy. The Voice then tells Ikey there is no room in Hell even for the smallest apple and then invites him to stay and learn to eat such apples, saying even the leaves and blades of grass would delight to teach him. Terrified, the ghost flees.
MAJOR THEMES IN CHAPTER 6
1.The extraordinary Beauty of every aspect of Heaven embraces all the earthly senses and surpasses them.
“Before me green slopes made a wide amphitheatre, enclosing a frothy and pulsating lake into which, over many-coloured rocks, a waterfall was pouring. Here once again I realised that something had happened to my senses so that they were now receiving impressions which would normally exceed their capacity.”
How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Ps. 84:1-2 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” I Cor. 2:9
2. Dimensions and size in Heaven are beyond earthly comprehension.
“On earth, such a waterfall could not have been perceived at all as a whole; it was too big. Its sound would have been a terror in the woods for twenty miles. Here, after the first shock, my sensibility “took” both, as a well-built ship takes a huge wave. I exulted. The noise, though gigantic, was like giant’s laughter: like the revelry of a whole college of giants together laughing, dancing, singing, roaring at their high works.”
This is what the LORD says: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Could you build me a temple as good as that? Could you build me such a resting place? Is. 66:1
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in. Isaiah 40:22
3. Heaven is the perfection of the original Garden of Eden and reflects not only Genesis but Revelation as well.
“Near the place where the fall plunged into the lake there grew a tree. Wet with the spray, halfveiled in foam-bows, flashing with the bright, innumerable birds that flew among its branches, it rose in many shapes of billowy foliage, huge as a fen-land cloud. From every point apples of gold gleamed through the leaves. “Fool,” he said, “put it down. You cannot take it back. There is not room for it in Hell. Stay here and learn to eat such apples. The very leaves and the blades of grass in the wood will delight to teach you.”
Through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Rev. 22:2) And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden. (Gen 2:9-10)
4. Heaven is a type of solid Reality that makes anything earthly seem a mere shadow by comparison.
“If the grass were hard as rock, I thought, would not the water be hard enough to walk on? I tried it with one foot, and my foot did not go in. Next moment I stepped boldly out on the surface. I fell on my face at once and got some nasty bruises. I had forgotten that though it was, to me, solid, it was not the less in rapid motion…Round the Tree grew a belt of lilies: to the Ghost an insuperable obstacle. It might as well have tried to tread down an anti-tank trap as to walk on them.”
They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. (Heb. 8:5) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering…therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. (Heb. 12:22ff) For he was looking forward to the city with eternal foundations, whose architect and builder is God. (Heb 11:10)
5. The presence and image of Christ permeate every aspect of Heaven.
“It was quite unlike anv other voice I had heard so far. It was a thunderous yet liquid voice. With an appalling certainty I knew that the waterfall itself was speaking: and I saw now (though it did not cease to look like a waterfall) that it was also a bright angel who stood, like one crucified, against the rocks and poured himself perpetually down towards the forest with loud joy.”
The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Rev. 22:3-5)
And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. (Rev 21:22-23)
LEWIS AND THE WATERFALL IMAGE
Coleridge: A Deliberate Starting Point in The Abolition of Man“In Lewis’s thinking…the Cora Linn waterfall was an external object of nature that ‘merited’ the designation ‘sublime’ not because the viewer had ‘sublime’ feelings but because the waterfall was in itself ‘sublime,’ an awesome embodiment of cascading liquid crystal, wet, translucent, a synesthetic sonance of natural art to human sense, by its physical existence. “–S.L. Reagles The Equivocal Tao of ‘Nature’
Characteristics of Waterfalls and the Biblical Idea of Living Water
–“They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, cisterns that cannot hold water” Jeremiah 2:13
—“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” John 7:37
—‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water…but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:10ff
My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.–Psalm 42
Augustine’s On Christian Doctrine:: “Living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things: to love things, that is to say, in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that should be loved less or more, or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally. ”
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.—Philippians 4:8-9
