Scales

"Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly towards me... I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear... And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it...


So we at last came to the top of the mountain... and on the top of this mountain was a garden... In the middles of it there was a well...


The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first...


So I stared scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place... And then I scratched a little deeper and... my whole skin started peeling off beautifully... I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty... So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.


But just as I was going to put my foot into the water I looked down and saw that it was all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as it had been before... So I scratched and tore again and this under skin peeled off beautifully...


Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever may skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg.


Then the lion said... You will have to let me undress you. I was afraid of his claws... but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.


The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off...


Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off... and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobby looking than the other had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch... Then he caught hold of me- I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on- and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again."
-The Voyage of the "Dawn Treader", C.S. Lewis 


We cannot "undress" ourselves nor can we "bathe" ourselves, this is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It does not come without a moment of sharp pain, but without the pain it cannot be done, for our whole self must be laid down and that is painful. And when the moment of our painful self-death has passed the constant dull pain of sin and slow destruction will be gone and will not linger, for we will be reborn eternally new of our Lord Jesus Christ. But note, like the dragon we must "lay down flat on our backs" and allow Christ to "undress" us, bathe us and bring us forth again.