Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 5
The speaker leans on C.S. Lewis’s idea that God “in his own nature” does not surrender, suffer, submit, or die, so the Son became man to lead the way; how does that challenge the common evangelical tendency to treat Jesus mainly as a substitute instead of a “captain… setting an example” for the way we walk?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
Based on the transcript, Jesus is not only the one who dies “for” us, but the one who became human to do what God “in his own nature” does not do—so He could “lead the way” for us in surrender, suffering, submission, and death. That challenges a view of Jesus that stops at substitution and ignores discipleship shaped by His pattern.
- The Lewis quotation stresses the gap: “God in his own nature has never walked” the road of “surrender… suffer… submit… die.”
- The speaker says humans “desperately needed to be able to do these things,” implying Jesus’ incarnation equips and teaches, not merely covers.
- He explains that by “partaking in flesh and blood… he was able to accomplish these very things.”
- He explicitly adds: Christ was “leading the way for us, setting an example for us, becoming the captain of our salvation.”
- He connects this to Hebrews 2:14–15: Christ’s death also “destroy[ed] the works of the devil” and “released” us from death-fear, producing a new kind of courage.