The Mind of Christ.

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. – 1 Corinthians 2:14-16 ESV The wisdom of God is foolishness to men. The idea that a divine being sent His Son to live as a human being and die on a cross in order to pay for the sins of mankind is ludicrous to them. It is a delusional fable at best, a diabolical lie at worst. But Paul would argue that the problem lies not with the message or with the intent of the messenger. It is that those to whom the message is shared are incapable of receiving it. They can’t understand it. It would be like an American trying to understand a message spoken to him in a foreign language. The message and the messenger could both be accurate, but the meaning would be lost because the one to whom the message is being given doesn’t speak the language. The message of the cross is heavenly in nature. It is a spiritually based message that requires interpretation by the Spirit of God. Natural man, as Paul describes him, cannot understand the words and wisdom of God. Paul refers to him as “natural” simply to say that he is not spiritual or of the spirit. Anyone who has not placed their faith in Christ ia a natural man or woman. They lack the presence of the indwelling Spirit of God. And as Paul writes, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14 ESV). The Spirit of God speaks wisdom from God. He reveals the mind of God. “For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10-11 ESV).

It is impossible for natural man, under the control of his own sin nature, to comprehend the mind of God. Even those who have placed their faith in Christ as their Savior had to have help from God’s Spirit in order to believe. They had to have their eyes opened and their hearts regenerated by the Spirit in order to comprehend the life-changing nature of the gospel message. “The natural person can, of course, understand the gospel and experience salvation but only because the Holy Spirit illuminates his or her understanding” (Robert A. Pyne, “The Role of the Holy Spirit in Conversion,” Bibliotheca Sacra 150:598 (April-June 1993):204-5).

And the second the Spirit illumines the eyes of the natural person so that they can see and accept the wonderful message of God’s gracious gift of salvation through Christ, He comes to dwell within them. They go from being natural to spiritual. The word Paul uses is πνευματικός (pneumatikos) and it means “one who is filled with and governed by the Spirit of God” (“G4152 - pneumatikos - Strong’s Greek Lexicon (KJV).” Blue Letter Bible). Because of the Spirit’s presence within them, they have the capacity to understand the things of the Spirit, or as Paul refers to them, spiritual truths. It is not the wisdom or eloquence of men that make the things of God accessible and understandable. It is the Spirit of God. It is not human wisdom that makes spiritual truths discernible to men, but the Spirit of God. Even Paul admits, “When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths” (1 Corinthians 2:13 NLT). Even a spiritual person who attempts to speak spiritual truth without the Spirit’s help will end up relying upon human wisdom and his or her message will fall on deaf ears. It will lack power. It will be devoid of truth. It may be eloquent, impressive, even well-received, but it will not communicate the wisdom of God or contain the power of God.

One of the primary benefits of having the Spirit of God within us is the ability He provides to discern and evaluate all things. We have been given the Word of God and the Spirit of God in order that we might understand the will of God. Jesus told His disciples, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth” (John 16:13 NLT). With the Spirit’s help, we can accurately evaluate and determine God’s will for any given circumstance. The Spirit guides and directs. He comforts and consoles. He provides strength when needed and patience when waiting is necessary. We have a supernatural source of wisdom that allows us to know the mind of God. In fact, Paul simply says, “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16b ESV). With the Spirit’s help, we can know what Christ knows. We can see life as He does. We can live as He did. In other words, we can live Christ-like lives here and now. We have the capacity to live holy, righteous lives even though we still have our old sin natures and live in a fallen, sinful world. And the world will not understand us. Natural men and women will be incapable of discerning our ways. They will misunderstand us and be turned off by us. Our lives will make them uncomfortable. Our pursuit of holiness will leave them baffled. Our set-apartness will make them feel judged and so they will attempt to judge us in return. But because they are natural and not spiritual, they will never be able to understand what motivates and drives us. Our love for the Word of God will make no sense to them. Our trust in the will of God will seem naive to them. Our hope in our future salvation by God will come across as little more than wishful thinking to them. But we have the Spirit of God and, as a result, we have the mind of Christ.

Bad Fruit.

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.– Galatians 5:13-21 ESV One of the accusations the party of the circumcision leveled against Paul and his message of grace and freedom from the law was that it produced license. They most certainly used the teachings of Paul against him at this point. In his letter to the Romans, Paul wrote, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20 ESV). And yet, Paul went on to say, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:1-2 ESV). Grace was not a license to sin. The freedom it provided from the Mosaic law was not ticket to live as we pleased. It freed us from having to keep the law in order to earn favor with God. The law held us captive to our sin and in bondage to our own weakness to do anything about it. But the salvation offered in Christ set us free. It was William Barclay who wrote, “the Christian is not the man who has become free to sin, but the man, who, by the grace of God, has become free not to sin.”

That is why Paul warned his readers to not use their freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Their new-found freedom from having to keep the law did not mean they were free from having to live in keeping with the law. At one point in His ministry, Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment of God was. He responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40 ESV). Paul used these very words of Jesus to admonish his readers. Loving God meant living according to His holy will. Loving others required loving them selflessly and sacrificially, which is why Paul said, “through love serve one another.”

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul provided an entire chapter on the subject of love. In it he wrote, “If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, ‘Jump,’ and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love” (1 Corinthians 13:1-7 MSG).

But this kind of love is only possible with the help of the Holy Spirit. Without His help and our reliance upon His power, we will tend to live in the power of our own sinful flesh. We will become selfish and self-centered. We will tend to gratify the desires of our old nature, which Paul describes with painful accuracy. These fleshly desires are the exact opposite of what the Spirit wants to produce in us. They are counter to the will of God and reflect a love for self more than a love for Him. They most certainly don’t model a love for others. Look at Paul’s list: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, and wild parties. Each of these “works of the flesh” reveal a disdain for God and a dislike for those around us.

The moral, ceremonial and civil sections of the Mosaic law were designed to regulate the lives of the people of Israel regarding their relationships with God and with one another. But as Jesus said, all of the commandments could be summed up by two simple commands: Love God and love others. Loving God meant not loving other gods. Loving others meant not becoming jealous of them, getting angry with them, lusting after them, or taking advantage of them. Notice that his list has more to do with our relationships with one another than our relationship with God. There is a reason for this. The apostle John wrote, “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20 ESV). The greatest expression of our love for God is to be found in our love for those whom He has made. When we love one another, we are loving God. When we live selflessly and sacrificially, we are exemplifying the very character of God. When our lives are marked by self-control and a focus on the needs of others, we reflect the nature of God. But all of these things are only possible when we live according to the power of God’s indwelling Spirit.

A life continually characterized by the works of the flesh is a life devoid of the Spirit of God. Those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ have received the Spirit of God. They are no longer slaves to sin, incapable of living righteous lives. They have been given the Holy Spirit and have the power to love God and love others. That’s why Paul told the Romans, “But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all)” (Romans 8:9 NLT). The presence of the Spirit within us does not guarantee that we will live sinless lives, but it does mean that we don’t have to live sin-dominated lives. Living according to our own sinful flesh will always produce bad fruit. But living according to the Spirit of God produces good fruit that pleases God and blesses others.