12/2/08
There are many aspects of life that interest people. Many of these aspects have been written about in books, made into plays, or, more recently, made into movies. Some of these aspects are love, strength, guilt, forgiveness, and sin. The Lord of the Rings has one such aspect. The aspect in The Lord of the Rings is sin. The “one ring” in The Lord of the Rings parallels sin in the world.
In chapter one of the film version of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Gladriel, the Lady of Lórien, discusses the forging of the great rings. She tells about how Sauron made three rings for the Elves, seven rings for the Dwarfs, and how “nine rings were gifted to the race of men who, above all else, desire power.” And she says, “[W]ithin these rings was bound the strength and will to govern each race, but they were all of them deceived, for another ring was made.” She goes on to say that “Sauron forged in secret a master ring to control all others and into this ring he poured his cruelty, malice and his will to dominate all life—‘one ring to rule them all.’”
The Devil, also known as Lucifer, also has a will to dominate all life. This fact is evident in Isaiah where the Bible says, “You [Lucifer] said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on…the utmost heights of mount Zaphon. I will I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High’”(Isa.14:13-14 TNIV). Here the Devil says he wants to become more powerful and more sovereign than God, he says he wants God to be below him. Since God is the ruler of everything, Lucifer is saying that he wants to dominate all life. Because of Lucifer’s rebellion, God threw him and all his followers out of Heaven.
Just as Lucifer was cast from his throne of power, so was Sauron severed from his ring of power. It was on the slopes of mount doom, where the ring was forged, that Isildur, who was the son of the king of Gondor, took his father’s sword and cut off the hand of Sauron. By cutting away Sauron’s ring, Isildur brought about his defeat. Isildur then had a chance to destroy the ring, “But the hearts of men are easily corrupted.” So Isildur kept the ring. The ring, being part of Sauron, had a will of its own, and caused Isildur to die, by betraying him when he was hiding from orks.
When Isildur died, the ring was lost for a very long time. After more than two thousand years, Gollum’s friend, Degul, found the ring, and Gollum killed him and stole it and it consumed him. Eventually Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit from the shire, found the ring in Gollum’s cave. He kept the ring until his “eleventy first birthday,” and on that day he gave it to Frodo Baggins, his nephew.
Because Sauron was rapidly gaining power, Frodo had to soon start on his long and hard journey in order to destroy the ring. In the same way, sin will one day be destroyed, because the devil has been getting more powerful since he first had his power taken from him.
Frodo faced many hardships on the road to Mordor where he was going to destroy the ring. In the same manner Jesus said, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (John15:18-20 NIV).
In Revelation, the Bible refers to a great battle in the end of time, when sin will be destroyed forever. It says, “Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore. They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God's people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them. And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown” (Revelation 20:7-10 NIV). This type of battle is also in The Lord of the Rings:
The Return of the King (the movie). The combined forces of Gondor and Rohan face the innumerable forces of Sauron at the gates of Mordor in sight of the great eye, which is Sauron. When all hope seemed to be gone, Frodo unwillingly overcame the power of the ring, and Gollum stole the ring and fell in the fire. At that point, Mount doom started to become active, and the evil forces of Sauron fell into a newly opened ravine that got covered over by the fires of mount doom. Then the tower on which Sauron lived crumbled and fell into the “burning sulfur.” Evil had now been defeated.
In the Bible, when sin and evil are defeated, God will bring his children home; then send everyone else to the punishment awaiting them. In The Lord of the Rings, after the defeat of Sauron, Aragorn was crowned King of Gondor and the world then experienced peace.
The Bible and The Lord of the Rings may be very different, but Lord of the Rings parallels the Bible in several ways, the most obvious is the parallel between “one ring” and sin. The ring, just like sin, consumes people, and the ring was destroyed just like sin will be destroyed in the end of time.
