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Writer's pictureAndy McIlvain

Aslan Is Not Safe! - Narnia Lore


Video from Into the Wardrobe


"In the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe there's a famous exchange between Mr. Beaver, Lucy Pevensie, Susan Pevensie and Mrs. Beaver. When Susan asks if Aslan the Lion is safe, Mr. Beaver responds: "Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.” Aslan the Lion is the most dangerous creature in all of Narnia. And that's good. Because HE is good--and he's the king. What does it mean that Aslan isn't safe? How can he be dangerous and good at the same time? Find out in this video." from video introduction.



"..After meeting with Aslan at the Stone Table, the other three Pevensie children tell him of Edmund's betrayal. Aslan dispatches a small army of centaurs, unicorns, deer and eagles to rescue Edmund from the White Witch. Edmund is taken by the creatures from the clutches of the Witch and brought before Aslan. After the great Lion restores Edmund, the boy is reunited with his siblings. "Here is your brother," Aslan declares, "and there is no need to talk to him about what is past."

Edmund tells each of them how sorry he is for how he has betrayed them. But his remorse is not enough. Soon the White Witch approaches Aslan to claim her prize.

"You know that every traitor belongs to me as my lawful prey and that for every treachery I have a right to a kill … that human creature is mine. … His blood is my property."

The queen was quite right. She had legal claim to Edmund's soul because of his treachery. But Edmund would not die for his sins. Instead, Aslan offered to lay down his life in place of the boy.

The great Lion surrendered to the Witch and her evil cohorts at the Stone Table, giving no resistance and saying not a word. They bound him with ropes so tightly that they cut into his flesh, then they shaved his body of its fur. The crowd surrounded him, kicking, hitting, spitting on him, jeering at him.

The White Witch approached the bound Lion and unsheathed her knife. Just before she gave the final blow, she said in a quivering voice, "And now, who has won? Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor? … Understand that you have given me Narnia forever, you have lost your own life and you have not saved his. In that knowledge, despair and die." With this, the Witch plunged the knife into his side.

We see a similar scenario in the biblical book of Isaiah:

Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. (Is. 53:4-5a, NASB)

If these two stories sound familiar, it's because Aslan is Jesus. C.S. Lewis created Aslan to give us a picture of Jesus on the cross. And as the prophet Isaiah wrote more than 700 years before Christ was born, Jesus went to the cross to take the punishment for the sin of all mankind.

.. from the article: Aslan and Jesus: No Greater Love



photo of Lion
The Lion of the Tribe of Judah


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