Mind of Christ

“ And when the nothingness of the carnal mind was made plain, men saw the reality of the truth, as revealed in the Christ, back of it all. The divine message was whispered to a human mentality. And that mentality expanded under the God-influence, until at last it gave to the sin-weary world the Christ-principle of salvation. Let us call that human mentality, for convenience, the man Jesus. ”

“ He takes of the things of Christ and shows them to us, while we suppose that we discover them ourselves. He draws us to Jesus Christ, and enables us to depend on him for salvation; but we seem to direct our own steps, and put forth the unaided strength of our own mind. Thus the Holy Spirit effects our renovation, and makes us willing, in the day of his power, to come to Jesus Christ; while he sees fit to conceal his agency, and condescends, when we are examining ourselves to see whether we are in the faith, to bear witness with our spirits that we are the children of God. ”

“ Into this perfect harmony of feeling and of purpose with the Supreme does Christ introduce His people. Gradually their thoughts are disengaged from what is trivial, and expand to take in the designs of the Eternal Mind. Gradually their tastes and affections are loosened from lower attachments, and are wrought to a perfect sympathy with what is holy and abiding. ”

“ May we have a stronger faith, a larger mind and affections, to receive Christ as he is revealed in the Word. The Bible reveals Christ to us, but the Spirit must reveal Christ in us. We are poor guilty creatures, and need pardon for all sin. He has shed his blood to make atonement—a satisfaction for sin, and having died for our sin, he is gone to heaven to present his Person and his Work to God for us. ”

“ If coming to Christ were a bodily act, and if the dependence to be reposed in him fell under the cognizance of the senses, we should be able to decide with perfect ease whether we have come to him or not. But it is simply a mental act, which may be performed even while the believer remains in a state of doubt. To believe or to trust in Christ, is the first act of the mind; but to come to a satisfactory conclusion that this act of dependence agrees with the requirements of the Scripture, supposes that a process of examination and comparison has taken place. ”

“ Note, If we would know the mind of God, we must apply to Jesus Christ, who lay in the bosom of the Father, and in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, not hidden from us, but hidden for us. ”

“ Thus does a perfect faith in Christ perfect the conscience of believers, by guiding, quickening, and by producing a perfect sense of obligation.
3. The influence of faith, in Christ upon the imagination.—There are few exercises of the mind fraught with so much evil, and yet so little regarded, as that of an evil imagination. Many individuals spend much of their time in a labour of spirit which is vain and useless, and often very hurtful to the moral character of the soul. ”

“ If one brings to an examination of Christ's nature the preconceived notion of His omniscience, the doctrine of the limitation of His knowledge seems an outrage on belief; but if one approaches the question with the orthodox formula in mind, one is prepared to find that His cognitive faculties were perfectly human and humanly perfect. ”

“ This miracle upon the mind of such a man outshone the miracles upon men's bodies; and giving a man such another heart was more than giving men to speak with other tongues.
4. He confuted and confounded those that opposed the doctrine of Christ, v. 22. He signalized himself, not only in the pulpit, but in the schools, and showed himself supernaturally enabled, not only to preach the truth, but to maintain and defend it when he had preached it. (1.) He increased in strength. He became more intimately acquainted with the gospel of Christ, and his pious affections grew more strong. ”

“ Chapter 3
1 If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, our life, is revealed, then you will also be revealed with him in glory. 5 Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry ”

“ Will any dare to speak against loving the Lord our God with all our heart, and our neighbour as ourselves? against a renewal of heart, not only in part, but in the whole image of God? Who is he that will open his mouth against being cleansed from all pollution both of flesh and spirit; or against having all the mind that was in Christ, and walking in all things as Christ walked? What man, who calls himself a Christian, has the hardiness to object to the devoting, not a part, but all our soul, body, and substance to God? ”

“ So when the Christian quietly goes on his circle of duties, ever seeking, by the help of God's grace, to do the will of his Lord,—he shows to the world a living example of the power and truth of religion; he does good not for the look of the thing, but because the love of Christ constraineth him to act as conscience directs. ”

“ I am the truth, the reality. It is no longer a symbol telling you something about a distant God, but the Father Himself is in Me, speaking and acting among you through Me.
What do we find in Christ? We find perfection of moral character, superiority to circumstances, to the elements, to disease, to death. We find in Him One who forgives sin and brings peace of conscience, who bestows the Holy Spirit and leads to perfect righteousness. We cannot imagine anything in God which is not made present to us in Christ In any part of the universe we should feel secure with Christ. ”

“ To be like "God manifest in the flesh"—what is it but to realize a mental development and maturity far transcending all that the wisest ever attained to in this mortal state, perpetual union of our redeemed humanity with the Divinity, and a blissful process of assimilation going on forever? Christ is light without darkness; and to be like him implies a clearness of understanding and a certitude of truth free from all prejudice, distortion, and blinding error. ”

“ Looking at the natural sun weakens the eye. The more you look at Christ, the Sun of righteousness, the stronger and clearer will, the eye of faith be. Look but at Christ, you will love him, and live upon him. Think on him continually,——— keep the eye, constantly upon Christ’s blood, or every blast of temptation will shake you. If you see sin’s sinfulness, to loath it and mourn, do not stand looking upon sin, but look upon Christ first, as suffering and satisfying for it. ”

“ We study the traits of His character, mark His footsteps, and pray for grace to be like Him, and yet, somehow, we succeed but very little. And why? Because we are wanting to pluck the fruit while the root is absent. If we want really to understand what the imitation of Christ means, we must go to that which constituted the very root of His life before God. It was a life of absolute dependence, absolute trust, absolute surrender, and until we are one with Him in what is the principle of His life, it is in vain to seek here or there to copy the graces of that life. ”

“ This is no mere influence, but a Personal Presence, the Living Christ within, and it is to be “through faith.” It is faith that admits Christ to the heart, allowing Him to enter into every part of the “inward man.” ”

“ We are Christians precisely because we have struck, in the person of Jesus, upon a fact which is incomparably richer in content than the feelings that arise within ourselves.” “Only because Christ is present for us can we possess God with complete clearness and certainty.” ”

“ So also we have already become familiar with the simplicity of the message of God in Christ, and the simplicity of the faith which, {54} rooted in the consciousness of sin and need, and equally possible for all men who can share this consciousness, is required to welcome God's offer, and so be brought by Christ into living union with Him. ”

“ It lasts unchanged amid the cataclasms of worlds. And this people whose genius made Christianity, whose genius still rules the greater part of it, what are their conceptions of Christ? What part of His life is it that has caught their reverence and adoration, what side is it of His character that appeals to them, what is the emotion that the name of Christ awakens in these believers? ”

“ He declares that when the Scriptures instruct and perfect the man of God, they are effective, "not as a meer relation of things done," but as the medium of the living Word which reaches the inward Man, the hidden Man of the heart, the Christ in us, so that we pass beyond "the history of Christ" and rise to "the experience that Christ is born within us." ”

“ The same affection, desire, and motives which have stimulated true Christianity in all ages, and given impulse to goodness, in or out of the Church, have nerved her purpose to build on the new-born conception of the Christ, as Jesus declared himself, — namely, “the way, the truth, and the life.” Living a true life, casting out evil, healing the sick, and preaching the gospel of Truth, — these are the ends of Christianity. ”

“ Perhaps this may be because, in thinking much of our salvation, we have put out of sight our King, the divine fact which no soul of man to whom it is presented can ignore. In the idea of Christ is life; let the thought of Him once get touch of the soul, and it rises up, a living power, independent of all formularies of the brain. ”

“ What is meant, then, by saying that Christ is the ideal character or norm of life is that He represents to us human nature in its typical or ideal form. As we behold His perfection we feel that this is what we were made for, this is the true end of our being. Every one may, in short, see in Him the fulfilment of the divine idea and purpose of man—the conception and end of himself. ”

“ Let yourself be borne upon it until your whole soul cries, with the unutterable groanings, too deep and too intense for human speech, ‘Holy Father! make me holy in the truth.’ As you trust in Christ as the truth, the reality of what you long for, and in His all-prevailing intercession; as you wait for the Spirit within as the Spirit of truth; look up to the Father, and expect His own direct and almighty working to make you holy. The mystery [p148] of holiness is the mystery of the Triune One. The deeper entrance into the holy life rests in the fellowship of the Three in One. ”

“ Christ’s God I could believe in, could accept. He is the God—the genius, if you prefer the word, of the human race. He is seeking—still seeking to make man in His own image. He has given man thought, consciousness, a soul. ”

“ To each man, that which he worships, and that alone, is God. I worship Christ, therefore to me Christ is God. What will you say to that? I suppose you will say "A non-miraculous Christ ought not to be God to you"? Why not? How does He differ from your conception of God? Is He less loving, less merciful, less just? "No," you reply, "but He is less powerful." How is He less powerful? Has He less power of pitying, loving, forgiving, raising men from sin to righteousness? Is He less powerful in the spiritual world? "Perhaps not; but He is less powerful in the material world. ”

“ What, then, must be the sentiments of a sincere, fervent, simple, and upright soul, already bathed in the light which radiates from the great mysteries of the faith, and touched by the infinite love of Jesus Christ revealed in them, when it discovers the nature of the obstacles which lie in her path? ”

“ XIV. For how are our eyes made whole? That as by faith we perceive Christ passing by in the temporal economy, so we may attain to the knowledge of Him as standing still in His unchangeable eternity. For there is the eye made whole when the knowledge of Christ's divinity is attained. Let your love apprehend this; attend ye to the great mystery which I am to speak of. All the things which were done by our Lord Jesus Christ, in time, graft faith in us. We believe on the Son of God, not on the word only, by whom all things were made; but on this very word, "made flesh that He might dwell among us" ”

“ A merely metaphysical conception of the divinity of Christ in terms of substance or essence, as these are commonly thought, must, therefore, wholly fail to satisfy. We must be able to recognize and bow before the personal will of the personal God revealed in Christ, if we are really to find God through him. A strong sense of the personal, then, such as the social consciousness evinces, must see in Christ, above all, a personal revelation of a person. ”

“ Life more abundantly. What kind of life, Lord and Master? Eternal life. Has He come with that great life of His to give a little and then stop? Nay, to give all to every one that every one will take.
I marvel to find Christian men denying that Christ is the type and manifestation and revelation of the possible divinity in universal humanity. It is written all over the Bible. What says Christ Himself? I have come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly. As the Father has sent Me into the world, even so I send you into the world. You shall be My disciples. ”

“ Now, our only adequate statement of the inner reality—the essential meaning—of any being, can be given only in terms of the purpose which God calls {204} that being to fulfil. To see, then, that God's purpose concerning Christ is absolutely unique, and that God's purpose is, to make in Christ the completest possible personal manifestation of himself, is to see that Christ's essential relation to the Father is absolutely his own, unshared by any other. ”

“ Jesus lived and died and rose again to prepare for us a new nature, to be received day by day in the obedience of faith: we ‘have put on the [p172] new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.’ Let the inner life, hid with Christ in God, hid also deep in the recesses of our inmost being, be acknowledged, be waited on, be yielded to, it will work itself out in all the beauties of holiness. ”