THE GOSPEL IN FILM — A CHRISTMAS CAROL (1984)
Few stories expose the human heart with such precision as A Christmas Carol. In the 1984 adaptation, George C. Scott gives us a Scrooge who is not merely cranky or misunderstood, but spiritually frozen—careful with coins, careless with souls. He is a man who has learned how to survive without love, and mistook that survival for wisdom.
Dickens understood something the gospel states plainly: sin is not only rebellion—it is contraction. The heart closes in on itself.
Scrooge does not begin the story as a monster; he begins as a man who has learned to protect himself at all costs. Love, to him, is inefficient. Mercy is wasteful. Generosity is foolish. Yet the Word of God tells us, “He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver” (Ecclesiastes 5:10). Scrooge’s poverty is not financial—it is relational.
The ghosts who visit him do not come to flatter or condemn, but to reveal. Christmas Past exposes the wounds Scrooge buried long ago—the losses, disappointments, and quiet griefs that hardened his soul.
The Gospel does this too. Before grace heals us, truth must uncover us. “Search me, O God, and know my heart” (Psalm 139:23). Repentance always begins with remembrance.
Christmas Present pulls back the curtain on the cost of Scrooge’s coldness. We see Tiny Tim—fragile and hopeful and beloved—and we hear words that sound far beyond Dickens: “God bless us, every one.”
It is impossible not to think of Jesus’ words, “As you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25:40). The Gospel insists that love for God is proven in love for people—and neglect is never neutral.
Then comes Christmas Yet to Come—the most terrifying mercy of all. The Spirit does not speak, because the future does not need explanation; it only needs to be seen.
A lonely grave.
A forgotten man.
A life spent and wasted.
This is not fear meant to paralyze, but fear meant to awaken.
The Bible calls it “the goodness of God that leads you to repentance” (Romans 2:4). Judgment, rightly understood, is not God delighting in punishment—but God warning us while there is still time.
And there is still time.
Scrooge’s transformation is sudden, but not shallow. He wakes up alive—truly alive. Joy spills out of him, generosity flows from him, and love returns to him as if it had only been waiting for permission.
He does not merely resolve to do better; he becomes new.
The Gospel calls this rebirth. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Christmas, at its heart, is not about nostalgia or sentiment—it is about invasion. God enters time to rescue what was lost.
Scrooge is not saved by effort, but by revelation. And so are we. When we finally see what matters—when eternity presses in on the present—love is no longer optional.
Dickens gives us a parable; Scripture gives us a Savior. The story resonates because it borrows gospel light. A hardened heart can still thaw. A wasted life can still sing. A man bound by fear and greed can still learn the freedom of love.
And that, perhaps, is why A Christmas Carol endures. It reminds us that Christmas is not for the comfortable, but for the changeable; not for the righteous, but for the repentant.
Christ did not come to congratulate Scrooges—He came to redeem them.
BDD
