The Strange Case of Old & New

Earlier in the year I read Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1868 Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Unusually, the gist of its plot is known by pretty much everyone, regardless of whether they have ever bothered to read it. This usually spoils somewhat a story, but I was pleased to learn the background to what I knew.

My edition included an essay discussing the book’s themes and the implications for the duality of Jekyll/Hyde character. One cannot describe it as a Christian book, though I noted how My Hyde enjoyed writing blasphemies inside a book of sermons which the more agreeable Dr Jekyll was pleased to possess. It reminded me of Paul’s comments regarding the Christian’s nature in Romans 7. Although there has been much discussion about whether the apostle’s words describe the unsaved state, it seems to me that he describes the inner struggle of every Christian, who enjoys the benefits of a new, God-given nature while still contending with the old:

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. (vv18-19)

The real Christian longs for that heavenly existence in which he is no longer prone to sin, no longer flat-sharing with the old, dirty man. No more battles, temptations, relapses or backslidings, for Christ will be all in all. Hasten, Lord, the day.