Our Relationship with God: 7. The mind of Christ

The regenerated man has another mind, ‘the mind of Christ’[1], another understanding, ‘that which is in Christ Jesus’[2], another heart, in which ‘dwells Christ by faith’.[3] He becomes like unto Christ and fulfills his purpose.

Man acquires the ‘mind of Christ’, which means that he knows the plan of God that He has for every soul and he has an inspired longing to become a co-worker with God in the grandiose work of divine regeneration. He feels honoured and benefited because his Creator visits him from the evening until the morning and from the morning until the evening.[4] From this perspective he sees the purpose of every man and for this reason he does not dare ever to harm ‘one of these little ones’[5], of his brothers who have a common destiny with him.

As Christ bore within Him all the generations of mankind, prayed for all with sweat like drops of blood in Gethsemane, suffered, was crucified and rose again for the salvation of the whole world, ascending up into the heavens so as to intercede for all Adam, thus also the man who is spiritually reborn loves God with all his heart and prays for the salvation of all as for his own salvation. Just as Christ became the New Adam, in Whose Person was recapitulated all things, so the one who is regenerated becomes like another Adam, another centre of creation, which he brings before God in his prayer of supplication. Such a man is unable to do anything other than honour his fellow man.

We said that the man who is born of the spirit acquires the understanding ‘which is in Christ Jesus’. As the Apostle Paul explains, this understanding is made manifest in a holy competition among the faithful: who will humble himself more before the other, sacrificing his will for the other, and who will honour and love the other more than himself?[6] In essence, these are the defining characteristics of the humility and love which Christ manifested when He came to the earth ‘not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life as a ransom for many’[7]. These characteristics are transmitted as virtues to the faithful through their birth from the Gospel of the ‘Father of the world to come’[8], the ‘Author and finisher’[9] of their salvation, Jesus Christ. Being founded on such understanding and principles of life, the relationships of the children of God become like those in paradise even during this life on earth.

[1] 1 Cor. 1:16.

[2] Phil. 2:5.

[3] See Eph. 3:17.

[4] Job 7:18.

[5] Mark 9:42.

[6] See Phil. 2:2-4, 1 Cor. 10:24.

[7] Matt. 20:28, Mark 10:45.

[8] Isa. 9:5 (LXX).

[9] Heb. 12:2.