Articles
The Mind of Christ
The Mind of Christ
“Let not your heart be troubled…” (John 14:1). How comforting I the words of Jesus that follow these seem to us, and they were spoken to comfort His disciples still stunned by His words, “Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow afterwards” (John 13:36). But the Lord’s effort to comfort seemed only to perplex and disturb them more.
They had imagined themselves on the eve of an apocalyptic triumph and now these fearful, mystifying words. Peter, vowing to follow Jesus to death, if necessary, is told that, to the contrary, he will deny Him three times before morning (John 13:37-38). Thomas, deeply disturbed, asks how they can follow Him later when they do not know where He is going. Jesus’ reply, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me,” and “If ye had known me, ye would have known my Father also,” likely mystified him as much as it did Philip who, still looking for some marvelous manifestation of glory, said, “Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us” (John 14:5–8).
The disciples did not understand the way to heaven because their pre-cross vision of that road was altogether too worldly, too superficial. They dreamed too much of a change of circumstance and too little of a change of character. Is it possible that some of us also suffer from an immature conception of the kingdom? Have we been so long thinking of some future vision of God’s glory that we have neglected to see “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” which even now shines in the gospel (2 Cor. 4:6)? The Christ of the cross is indeed the instrument of forgiveness and reconciliation, but He is also the means of transformation. “But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory…” (2 Cor. 3:18).
It is to this truth about the way to heaven that Paul speaks in Philippians. “Have this mind in you,” he urges, “which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5). The road to glory is a road of transformation, of learning and imitating the very heart and mind of Christ. It is in imitating the character of Jesus that we “become partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), not by some future act of divine fiat. This is the road His disciples must walk now.
And what is the “mind of Christ”?
It is a meek and humble mind. As incredible as it may seem in One who is God in the flesh (John 1:1 & 1:14), Jesus did say that he was “meek and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29). And when we have seen Him, we have seen the Father. No wonder God “resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble” (James 4:6). Have this mind in you.
It is a self-emptying mind. Paul writes that the Son though divine did not count the glory He had with His father a thing to be held on to, but “emptied himself, taking the form of a servant” (Phil. 2:6-7). His incarnation was a yielding up of His rights for the sake of others who, though wholly undeserving of His mercy, were in desperate need of it. He was the Creator and we the creatures. He owed us nothing yet gave us everything. And when we have seen Him we have seen the Father. Have this mind in you. Philippians 2:3-4: “doing nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each counting other better than himself; not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others.”
It is a servant-mind. Though God He took the form of a “servant”. He tried to teach His disciples: “he that is greatest among you shall be your servant,” but it long fell on deaf, ambitious ears (Matt. 23:11, 18:1–6; 20:20–28; Luke 22:24–27). Nothing so shocked them as His arising from their last Passover together to gird Himself with a towel and stoop to wash their feet like a common household slave (John 13:5–10). And when we have seen Him we have seen the Father, the great servant-God. Have this mind in you (John 13:12–17).
It is a merciful and compassionate mind. How powerfully this is demonstrated by Jesus’ reaction to the sinful woman who suddenly rushed in where he was seated at a feast in the house of Simon the Pharisee and began to anoint and repeatedly kiss His feet, wiping away with her hair the sudden rush of her tears (Luke 7:36–38). Simon was aghast that Jesus allowed such a scandalous woman to so approach Him, but the woman, brokenhearted for her sins, came to the Son of God with the hope and expectation that He, unlike the Pharisee, would not reject her. So came Matthew and Zacchaeus and Simon the zealot, and many others. One of the most striking things about Jesus was that though Himself utterly sinless, honest-minded sinners were always comfortable in His presence. They knew that He cared for them, and that all His words however demanding were words of love. Have this mind in you.
Originally appeared in Christianity Magazine, Sept. 1998: Paul Earnhart, "Heart Lines: The Mind of Christ" (Edited).
