““Oh, Aslan!” whispered Susan in the Lion’s ear, “can’t we—I mean, you won’t will you? Can’t we do something about the Deep Magic? Isn’t there something you can work against it?”
“Work against the Emperor’s Magic?” said Aslan, turning to her with something like a frown on his face. And nobody ever made that suggestion to him again.”
It’s a scene from C.S. Lewis’ book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe that’s tough to forget. The White Witch (the usurper of the throne of Narnia and the enemy ofall that is right and good) comes before the lion Aslan (the rightful king of Narnia who does only good) and demands the death of Edmund, a snivelling boy who had betrayed his World War II era siblings. The witch makes her appeal based on a covenant made at the very beginning of time, what is called a “Deep Magic from the Dawn of Time.” If this covenant, the Deep Magic, written on the Table of Stone and engraved on the sceptre of the Emperor-beyond-the Sea, is violated, all Narnia will “be overturned and perish in fire and water.” Then Aslan does the thing that no one expects: he admits the truth of the Deep Magic and acknowledges her right to the blood of Edmund! To save Edmund, Aslan must spill his own blood in his place.
And then, after Witch has come by night and killed Aslan upon the Stone Table, anticipating certain victory over her enemies, Aslan comes back to life just as the daylight returns. He explains to the two girls who are the first witnesses of his return, that there was another covenant, a “Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time,” of which the White Witch was ignorant! He says, “If she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and darkness before Time dawned, she would have read a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.” It is by fulfilling this covenant, the Deeper Magic, that Aslan satisfies the demands of the Deep Magic, saves the traitor, defeats death, conquers the Witch, and enthrones the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve over Narnia in their rightful place. Afterwards, the symbol of the Deep Magic, the Stone Table, lies cracked, overwhelmed by the Deeper Magic, and becomes the place where the weak came to find the help of Aslan their king.
Okay, so some of you might be wondering what this children’s classic has to do with the Bible and the Covenants between God and Man? Well, the truth is, that story is the story of the Bible and the Covenants between God and Man! Lewis completely plagiarized the whole story arc from Almighty God. And if the story within The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe has its power due to the Deep and the Deeper Magic which give it direction and beauty, how much more will the story of our salvation at the hand of our God have even more beauty and wonder when we dig into the details of his covenants with us?
This short article was published in the Resurrection Times: Wednesday Edition, June 23, 2010. Its purpose was to whet the whistle of its readers for the up-coming sermon on the Doctrine of the Covenants.
