Undragoned: The Painful Mercy of Being Made New

In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis paints one of the most unforgettable pictures of transformation in all Christian literature—the undragoning of Eustace Scrubb. Once a selfish, complaining, and greedy boy, Eustace finds himself literally turned into the very creature that mirrors his inner state: a dragon. His isolation, pride, and greed have taken physical form.

Ashamed and miserable, Eustace tries to scrape off the dragon skin himself, clawing layer after layer. But each time he peels one off, another hard, scaly hide appears beneath it. As Lewis writes, “The same ugly stuff started coming back.”

At last, Aslan appears and says, “You will have to let me undress you.” Eustace later tells Edmund:
“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.”

When the last layer is gone, Aslan takes Eustace to a clear, shining pool:

“The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could bathe in it, it would ease the pain in my arm. The water was deliciously cool… and after a bit, the pain was gone. Then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again.”

This moment captures the mystery of sanctification—Christ’s transforming work within us. Like Eustace, we often try to reform ourselves by effort and resolution, but the corruption of the heart lies deeper than any self-improvement can reach. The Lion must do it. His claws wound, but they heal. His mercy hurts, because it is real.

This image echoes what Lewis later describes in Mere Christianity, in the chapter “Nice People or New Men.” He writes,
“The Christian way is different: harder, and easier. Christ says, ‘Give Me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures will do.’”

Just as Eustace had to let Aslan dig deeper than he could bear, sanctification demands surrender, not cosmetic repair. Christ is not interested in making us nicer versions of ourselves; He is making us new.

Lewis continues, “Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house… You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

When we surrender to the Lion’s claws—when we let Him strip away the dragon skin of pride, self-reliance, and sin—He is not merely improving our behavior; He is remaking our very nature.

This is what Paul means in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come.”

In Colossians 3:9-10 Paul writes, “You have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator”.

Sanctification is not self-improvement; it is divine surgery. It often feels like tearing, because the Lion’s claws reach down into the depths where our deepest attachments and false selves lie. But His goal is not to destroy us—it is to restore us.

What He strips away, He replaces with something truer, cleaner, and freer. Sanctification is painful because our false selves die hard—but the new self rises radiant in Christ’s likeness. When Aslan plunges Eustace into the pool, it echoes the waters of baptism, the place where death gives way to life, where we are buried with Christ and raised to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). The pool heals what the claws have opened. The same grace that cuts us free also cleanses and renews us.

Eustace’s transformation did not make him perfect, but it made him new. Lewis notes that “he began to be a different boy.” That is the ongoing story of every believer: the continual, gracious undragoning by the Spirit of Christ, who loves us too much to leave us scaly and alone.

Reflection Questions
Where are you still trying to “scrape off” your dragon skin instead of surrendering it?
In what ways have you asked God to make you nicer rather than new?
Can you trust His claws today—to cut only what must go, and to heal what remains?

Prayer
Lord Jesus, You are the Lion who wounds to heal. Tear away the layers of pride and sin that I cannot reach. Make me not just better, but new. Plunge me into the waters of Your mercy and raise me up in Your likeness. Build me into a dwelling fit for Your Spirit. Amen.