Breath Of God

The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

Breath of God

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The clip we just watched is from the movie, “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe,” which was based upon the book written by C.S. Lewis. In the show we are introduced to four children, Peter, Susan, Edman, and Lucy.

On a rainy day, while at their uncle’s house, they decided to play hide and seek. Lucy picked an old wardrobe to hide in and to her amazement she stumbled into a doorway to another world, the magical kingdom of Narnia.

Later, after initial disbelief, the rest joined her and began a wonderful and dangerous adventure into a land under the curse of winter. A land populated by some really remarkable creatures.

The land was under the dominion of the great emperor across the sea and His King, Aslan, a lion. But at this time it was ruled by a wicked queen who was an usurper to the throne, who held Narnia under her spell and curse of perpetual winter, where it was always winter but never Christmas.

While the children were moving toward Aslan’s castle the queen was chasing them, and on the way they saw signs that the landscape was changing. The curse of perpetual winter had lost its grip; therefore they knew that Aslan had returned.

Now, to understand this story, it’s important to understand that C.S. Lewis was writing a children’s story to parallel the real story of the coming of Jesus Christ. Aslan represents Jesus, whom the Bible refers to as the Lion of Judah. The wicked queen represents Satan, the present ruler of this world.

Towards the end of the movie, Aslan allows himself to be killed taking the place of one of the children, Edman, who had deserted to the wicked queen. Aslan sacrificed Himself, and was killed upon the stone table. But at sunrise, the table cracks and Aslan is resurrected, risen from the dead.

But a fierce battle was being fought between the forces of good and evil, between the forces of Aslan and those of the wicked queen. With Susan and Lucy, Aslan travels to the wicked queen’s castle where there was an army of good beasts whom the queen had turned stone.

Seeing this, Lucy and Susan despaired until they saw Aslan breathe onto Mr. Thmnus, and as Aslan’s breath touched the statue, the stone melted away to become flesh, and that, which was stone, was now made alive. Aslan then leads this army to battle and Aslan Himself defeats the wicked queen.

Now, it was this last part of Aslan breathing on these stone statues and them coming alive that really stuck out to me as we have been looking at a series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit. And it reveals a truth of how God turns hearts of stone into heart of flesh.

This is seen throughout the Scriptures, but no place better than what is recorded for us in Ezekiel chapter 36.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” (Ezekiel 36:26-27 NKJV)

In this chapter, God reveals His future plans for His people. How He will ultimately destroy Israel’s enemies, make the land productive and fruitful again, rebuild the ruined cities, and bring back His people to the land. And to confirm this promise, the Lord lifts up His hands and swears an oath to its reality (Ezekiel 26:7).

But why do the people have a heart of stone to begin with that needs reviving. In a word, “disobedience.” Instead of following God’s word and ways, the people ignored God by doing what they wanted they way they wanted to do it. So God removed them from the land. But His promise was that they would once again be restored.

So what can we learn from this. In 1 Corinthians 10:1 the Apostle Paul says “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come.”

What we see is God’s desire to restore and revive His people, who through disobedience has hardened their hearts against Him. But for His name’s sake, a name by which we are identified with, but a name that humanity has profaned through sin, but for His holy name sake, He will turn our hardened and stony hearts into hearts of flesh, where we will no longer walk separate from God, but will walk in all of His ways. And God does this through His Spirit, by breathing into us His breath of life.