“But we have the mind of Christ.”
1 Corinthians 2:16 NIV
When you have the Spirit of God, you have the mind of Christ. Growing in the gospel means aligning our thinking and living, more and more, with the mind of Christ and, consequently, the life of Christ.
Today we want to see an illustration of precisely what the mind of Christ is so that “in your relationships with one another,” you will “have the same mindset as Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5).
The illustration unfolds as Jesus begins to transition from the life He had lived among people to the death He would die for people. He initiated this transition phase with this announcement:
“From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Matthew 16:21 NIV
Question 1. According to Matthew 16:21 NIV, what specifically was on the mind of Christ?
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The gospel, which is the death and resurrection of Jesus for our sins, was always in the heart of Jesus, and now He shares His heart and mind with His disciples. But notice Peter’s response:
“Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”
Matthew 16:22
Peter loved Jesus, but, at this moment, Peter got it wrong. Peter didn't want the cross for Jesus because he had in mind a plan of Jesus liberating all Jews from Roman rule and authority and setting up His earthly kingdom. Jesus issues a strong rebuke to Peter:
“Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”
Matthew 16:23 NIV
Jesus' rebuke of Peter indicates that Satan had been working on Peter, blinding Peter's mind to the gospel (2 Corinthians 4:4).
Notice this key phrase in Jesus' rebuke: "you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns." This phrase is instructive for us today, for it teaches us what "the concerns of God" are. Jesus spoke the gospel, His upcoming death and resurrection for our sins, and this message, this truth is “the concerns of God.”
Do you see this truth? This passage teaches us that the mind of God, the concerns of God, and the mind of Christ are the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When the prophet Zechariah wrote, "The wounds I was given at the house of my friends" (Zechariah 13:6), he pointed forward to Jesus' future suffering and death at the hands of His own, the Jewish leaders. The cross was on the heart of God from eternity past (Hebrews 9:26), Jesus was "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8); all of biblical history was pointing forward to this momentous event.
Illustration: A man in love will constantly think of his beloved, carefully purchase a wedding ring, and eagerly await the day when the lady will become his wife. Even so, Jesus’ mind was set on Calvary’s cross, the great purchase of the church where “you were bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20) and taken to be the bride of Christ forever.
As a believer, you have the mind of Christ. Let the cross of love influence your every waking thought, burn up the sin in your heart, affect all of your relationships, and compel you to live in selfless humility and love: “For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).
Question 2. According to the teaching today, what is “the mind of Christ” that all believers have?
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Friend, we are not ignorant of Satan’s schemes; he wants to blind us and distract us from the gospel. He tries to trick us into thinking, as the Corinthians did, that the message of the cross is elementary, but we know that it is the message of wisdom for the mature. As we align our thinking with the mind of Christ, we will grow up in the gospel and walk worthy of it.