The Mind Field has spent much of its short life
providing articles about the Christian mind. These articles have mainly presented that
mind from the standpoint of intellect or understanding. There have been suggestions along
the way that there is another side of the Christian mind. Now it is time to look more
carefully at that other side.
That there should be another side is inescapable if we think of knowing in Biblical terms.
Modern people, including ourselves, do not usually do that. In modern terms, knowledge
consists of facts, verified through the scientific method and retained in the mind like
information in a computer. Knowledge has been torn loose by Enlightenment man, with his
boast of autonomy, from any necessary response. Knowledge does not put me under any
responsibility to do anything. And as knowledge has been severed from action, so facts
have been ripped away from values. Both ways of seeing thins are part of the great modern
myth by means of which humans have attempted to set themselves free from the unbreakable
laws which God has built into His creation. The results have been adverse, to put it
mildly. Lawbreaking is never inconsequential.
Biblical knowledge can be described as follows. All that we know is something created. But
creation is, first of all, revelatory of God. And we are made in the likeness of God.
Therefore knowledge of Him as reflected in the creation requires response on our part,
just as a mirror is required to respond when we stand in front of it. So knowing and doing
are really inseparable. Our understanding of creation and our handling of it is meant to
be a part of our worship of and communion with God. To know the Truth, we must do the
truth. 1 John 1:6 says, "If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in
darkness, we lie and do not the truth . . ." So the Christian mind is more than an
intellectual understanding or a set of propositions. It involves a life. It must be
clothed in the vestments of humanity in order to be real.
The Mind of the Flesh
One good way to get at the two-sidedness of the Christian mind is to pay attention to
Paul’s description of the mind of the flesh and the mind of the Spirit in Romans 8.
In each instance there is a way of looking at the world, a pattern of understanding it,
and there is a way of life that flows out of that pattern. The mind of the flesh finds
expression in a fleshy life. But that life is really a form of death. It refuses obedience
to the law of God; it is enmity toward God, and it cannot please God. The mind of the
Spirit, by contrast, is life and peace. It is a way of understanding reality that finds
expression in a life led by the Holy Spirit and the awareness of God as the Father.
Paul does not elaborate in this chapter on the particular outlook of the mind of the
flesh, but if we turn back to Genesis 3:6, it is not difficult to identify its main
components. "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was
a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of
the fruit thereof, and did eat; and she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did
eat." This tree, as Schmemann points out, was the one thing that God had not blessed
with the primal pair. So now they are going to attempt to get something from it directly
instead of from God through it. They are going to by pass God in seeking blessing from the
creation. What they seek is pleasure, possessions ("A delight to the eyes" makes
us think of window shopping, the ultimate objective of which is possession) and power, for
wisdom gives power.
That this accurately pictures the fleshy mind is confirmed by two other passages. In
Matthew 4, where our Lord is tempted by the devil, the three temptations conform exactly
to what Adam and Eve were tempted to try and get from the unblessed tree. "Turn these
stones into bread" was a temptation to satisfy physical hunger and so obtain
pleasure. "Bow to me and I will give you the world" was a shortcut to the
repossession of the entire creation, which Christ was to regain by his suffering and
death. And "Jump off the temple wall" was an appeal to provide the kind of sign
so frequently requested by the religious leaders of Israel and so achieve power over the
people. 1 John 2:16 contains the same three components: "For all that is in the
world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life, is not
of the Father, but is of the world." Pleasure, possession, and power form an evil
threesome. None of these is wrong in itself; they become wrong when we attempt to get them
from creation and not from God through creation. Then the creation becomes an idol or
replacement for God, and the consequence of idol worship is always death.
The Mind of the Spirit
Paul doesn’t describe the elements of the mind of the Spirit either. However it is
clear that the mind of the Spirit is the mind of Christ, for the passage says that if the
Spirit of Christ dwells in you, then Christ dwells in you. That means that the mind of the
Spirit is the Christian mind. One way to identify the makeup of a Christian mind, then is
to see what our Lord’s mind was in contrast to the mind of the flesh described above.
The mind of the flesh seeks pleasure in and from the creation. Our Lord, however, in spite
of his consorting with tax gatherers and attending parties where there were known sinners,
was never accused of being a pleasure seeker. He was known, rather, as man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief. He wept over Jerusalem. He saw the common people of Israel as sheep
without a shepherd. And he was grieved. He of whom it is said, "In thy presence is
fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures forever more" (Psalm 16:11),
saw through the superficial frivolity with which the powers of evil deceive us into being
blind to the real broken-ness of this world, and he took the pain into his own heart.
In this respect our Lord stood with and climaxed the great prophetic line of the Old
Testament. As Walter Brueggemann points out in The Prophetic Imagination, when
Solomon’s apostasy initiated the slide away from God that culminated in the
captivity, the characteristic response of the faithful prophets from that point on was
grief and hope. Jeremiah was known as "the weeping prophet." Hosea grieved over
his harlot of a wife. To be angry would have demonstrated a presumption of superiority
that the prophets would not allow themselves to descend to. To grieve shows a sense of
identification with a sinful nation that culminated in Christ’s bearing our grief and
carrying our sorrows. So one component of a Christian mind in it’s "being"
side is the grief which flows form a realistic awareness of the ruined condition of the
race and the consequent groaning of the creation (Romans 8:22).
A second side of the Christian mind on its life side comes to light when we contrast our
Lord’s life with the greed and avarice that characterized Adam and Eve’s desire
for possessions. Jesus told an aspiring disciple that the birds had nests and the foxes,
holes, but the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head. He didn’t own a piece of land.
He didn’t possess a house. He was supported by the gifts of his followers, and he was
buried in a borrowed tomb. He was a poor man.
This does not necessarily mean that the possessor of a Christian mind must not have any
material possessions. Someone has pointed out that when Abraham came down from the
mountain, he was still the owner of ver substantial riches, but after what he had been
through in the sacrifice of Isaac, those riches meant nothing to him anymore. His flocks
and herds had no more hold on his heart. His wealth was simply a stewardship over which he
was responsible. The spirit of greed and avarice had no further claim on him. Like our
Lord, he had become a poor man.
A third aspect of the other side of the Christian mind reveals itself in contrast to the
human lust for power, with all that entails in the manipulation of people and the use of
political or military power to exalt oneself or one’s group or nation over others.
Jesus, whose answer "I am" in the Garden of Gethsemane expressed his
identification with the God of the Old Testament, who laid the troops who had come to
arrest him flat on their backs on the ground (John 18:6), and who could have had twelve
legions of angels for protection, allowed himself to be utterly vulnerable. Before Pilate
he agreed that he was a king, and then he allowed Pilate to condemn him to crucifixion. He
was not proud and power conscious, but meek and vulnerable.
Here then is the contrast between the mind of the flesh and that of the Spirit. Not
pleasure, but grief and sorrow, though sorrow was under-girded with the most pure and
everlasting joy there is. Not possessions but poverty. Not power but vulnerability.
Twentieth century culture in the West is characterized by the pursuit of pleasure,
possessions and power. The church, if it is to witness effectively for the Lord, must be
characterized by true grief, genuine poverty, and willing vulnerability. Until she is
possessed of these characteristics in the judgement of the on-looking world, she will be
in continuing danger of making proselytes rather than genuinely newborn people.
A Proposed Approach
The Christian mind, then, has two sides, an understanding side and a being side. It is
fairly easy to find the major elements in a Christian understanding of life and the world.
They grow out of the Christian worldview of creation, fall and redemption. They include
the nature and work of the Word of God, the nature and purpose of created reality,
humanity as created in God’s image, then fallen and redeemed in Jesus Christ, the
nature of knowledge and a Christian view of values and aesthetics. In considering these
aspects in earlier issues, we have offered a Christian answer to the age-old questions of
philosophy.
However, the Bible was not written in an age of rationalism, but in an age of story. Our
Lord did not teach in theological sermons but in parables. So when we come to deal with
the life side of the Christian mind, it is a little difficult to know just how to approach
it. The New Testament contains several listings of the qualities of a godly person. The
Beatitudes in Matthew 5 provide a list of the qualities of subjects in the Kingdom of God.
1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, lists the qualities of a loving person. Colossians
3:12 and following has another list, as does 2 Peter 1:5 and following. How shall we best
develop a composite picture of this living side of the Christian mind?
Without any suggestion that this is the best or only way to do so, and particularly in
view of the importance of relationships to the human being, we will look in coming issues
at the life side of the Christian mind in relation to God, to other people, to self, and
to the creation. It is important to remember that this is not to give us another set of
achievement goals to measure ourselves by. Self-measurement is a necessity, but it easily
becomes a self-defeating process. If I try to estimate how humble I am becoming, I quickly
fall into the pit of pride. Paul discourages the practice in 12 Corinthians 4:3-4. Rather
let us think of these passages and the character traits they list as word pictures of our
Lord Jesus. We are his followers, and as we look at him, we will be unconsciously shaped
into his likeness. The change will not be perfect or complete this side of glory, but it
will be real and growing. It will make a difference in our lives. 1 John 3:2 says, "
. . . We know, that if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him
even as he is." What will happen completely then will take place partly here and now.
Before completing this issue, it may be well to mention one further thought. There is
great emphasis in the American church today on witnessing to the unsaved. That is
certainly a Biblical mandate, as seen, for instance, in Matthew 28:19-20 and in Acts 1:8.
However, none of the passages listed above mentions evangelizing. In his book, The
Gospel in a Pluralistic Society, Leslie Newbiggin makes the point that mission is not
fundamentally our work but the Holy Spirit’s. The Holy Spirit performs his work first
by molding the church into a new society. When the life of the church is obviously
different form the life of the world around it, this raises questions from that world. In
response to the questions, the church is able to give "a reason for the hope"
that is in it (p. 135 and following). Evangelism isn’t mentioned in the passages
listed above because unless the church is faithful to Christ and consequently different
from the surrounding culture, words of witness are not likely to be effective. The
emphasis in those passages lies on the likeness to Christ that is to be seen in the church
as it responds faithfully to him and so becomes a witness both to the surrounding culture
and to the "principalities and powers". This provides an added reason why it is
important for us to consider the other side of the Christian mind.
Editor: Al Greene
Alta Vista College
