The Mind of Christ – Transformed
The Mind of Christ – Transformed.
“Who is able to understand the mind of Lord Yahweh? Who is able to be His teacher? We, however, have the mind of Christ!” (1 Corinthians 2:16).
“We have…” (Greek, “echomen”), which means ‘are having,’ ‘are keeping,’ or ‘are holding;’ to have and to keep on having, an action in progress; a process that is now taking place; the present state is a continuing state. So the literal translation is, “We, however, are having the mind of Christ.” Through the Holy Spirit, we now are new creatures who were given the capacity to learn how to think like Jesus.
“… the mind of Christ.” (Greek for mind is “nous,” which means the highest knowing faculty of the soul, the spirit and understanding behind all we think and do). Through the Holy Spirit, then…
We are being given the capacity to think the thoughts of the Anointed One;
We have the growing ability to reason, to be logical, and to think things through like Jesus;
We are being infused with the ability to understand God’s wisdom;
We are being equipped with the moral intelligence of the Lord;
We are being given access to the reasoning behind the actions of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit;
We are in the process of perceiving spiritual matters as Christ perceives them;
We have an increasing ability to understand life from God’s perspective;
We will be continually inspired to develop the divine common sense and street-smart shrewdness that Jesus was known for;
We are gaining insight into what truly matters according to the thinking of God;
We have a growing ability to reflect and ponder according to the will of Christ;
We enjoy an ongoing co-mingling of our mind with Christ’s mind, until the end, when the new will have completely replaced the old, and those two minds will be indistinguishable.
“… Be transformed by the renewing of your minds…” (Romans 12:2).
The context for this classic passage from St. Paul to the Roman Christians is typically translated as, “I urge you, brothers and sisters, in response to God’s many mercies, is to offer yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God. That is your reasonable worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but instead be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Then you will be able to prove God’s will – His good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Ro. 12:1-2).
Bodies – (Greek, “somata”), which is more literally translated as “your very selves;” Hebrew scholars say that a physical person was generally not considered broken up into parts (mind, heart, body, soul, spirit), but instead each person was considered to be one whole self as a united substance. The human body represented the whole self.
Reasonable – (Greek, “logike”), which is from “logos;” our lifestyle of worship, our reasonable service, our logical ministry, is to be “Logos-like;” our sensible response to God’s mercies upon us is that our worship of God is done according to Christ, the Logos, formed to His way of thinking. Our reasonable worship is to be with the Logos mind, the very mind of Christ.
Conform – (Greek, “stematizo”), which means the schematics, the patterns of the world, the temporary scheme of things in life that are dictated by the culture around us; to fashion oneself into a particular pattern.
Transformed – (Greek, “metamorphoo”), which means a complete change into another form from the inside, becoming apparent and visible; the same Greek word is used for “transfiguration” in the mind-boggling episode on the Mt. of Transfiguration when Jesus is transfigured, transformed, metamorphosized, into heavenly light (Matthew 17, Mark 9, Luke 9). So we too become transfigured, transformed by the renewing of our minds. We are being transfigured, transformed from one glory to another in the image of the Lord, the Holy Spirit. (2 Corinthian 3:18).
Renew – (Greek, “ananeousthai”), which means to be in the process if moving upward to a new reality; to move upwards to newness; to go to a higher stage, taking new strides; to come to new levels of spiritual understanding; the process of making our minds new with the mind of Christ; the renewal of the mind is akin to a resurrection of the mind; to renew the mind is essentially to take an old mind and recreate it into a new one. The renewal of the mind is the only way one can be transformed, enabling us to discern God’s will.
Mind – (Greek, “nous”); please refer to the description of the same word as used above in 1 Corinthians 2:16.
Prove – (Greek, “dokimazein”), which means to analyze, to examine, to discern, to test out, to determine, all done with the intent to prove that something is good and acceptable; to discover and prove what is genuine and worthy.
In light of all these meanings of certain words in the passage, one could paraphrase Romans 12:1-2 this way:
“Brothers and sisters in Christ, I beg of you to respond to God’s many mercies by surrendering your whole human nature: spiritual, physical, mental, emotional; and your entire human selves: eyes, ears, mouths, feet, and hands; offer everything of who you are to God as living sacrifices. This will set you apart and show you to be holy and pleasing to God. Having everything about you and your lifestyle offered to God is the most sensible and reasonable way to worship. Do not allow yourselves to be molded into the shape of the culture around you with its values and opinions and worldviews. Don’t just copy the world without thinking, but continue to resist letting the world form you into its image, its way of thinking and acting. Instead, give free reign to the Lord and His Spirit as He completely changes you from within, as He transforms you through a radical renewing of your minds. Allow God to transfigure your mind into a completely new way of thinking, into a mind filled with the transfigured light of Christ. This is truly the only way you can discern His will and understand His desires for you and each other. For we know that His plans for us are good, and acceptable, and perfect.”
Our mustard seed of faith in Christ is all the permission He needs to grant us His mind. Offering Him everything we have, including our mind, is the only way for our thought-life to be transformed into His likeness. His making our minds new in Him is the only possible way we can discover His plans for us. The Lord intends a profoundly expansive change in us, and it starts in acquiring the mind of Christ.