How can I have the mind of Christ?

For discerning, we need the right spiritual condition. The "natural man," i.e., man in his natural or unconverted condition, does not discern them at all. The "spiritual," i.e., the converted man, not only indwelt but also governed and characterized by the Spirit of God, alone can take them in. Possessing the Spirit we have the mind of Christ. Governed by the Spirit the eyes of our hearts are opened to understand.

Since the divine instructions to us are that we be transformed by the renewing of our minds, we may well enquire how we may get our minds renewed. The answer is, by getting them formed according to God's thoughts and forsaking our own. And how shall this be? By soaking them in God's Word, which conveys to us God's thoughts. As we read and study the Word in prayerful dependence on the enlightening of the Spirit of God, our very thinking faculties, as well as our way of thinking, become renewed.

And so the waywardness of the Philippians has given us this incomparable picture of our Lord Jesus Christ in His humiliation to death, even the death of the cross. Paul says, Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. You will note how he puts it. He says, Let this mind be in you. He does not tell us to undertake some course of self-denial or fasting or prayer, some rigorous exercise of discipline, such as mortifying our bodies; but he just says, Let it be in you. The mind of Christ will be there most certainly if you will only let it be there. The Holy Spirit has come down to form Christ in you, and the mind of Christ will be active in you, if you will only let it be there. By putting this wretched self of yours in its place you shut the Master out, and thereby you shut out from your life that character which in Him was so pleasing to God.

In regard to thinking as God thinks, we have a very strong word used in 1 Cor. 2:16, "But we have the mind of Christ". It has been pointed out that the word for "mind" there means "the same thinking capacity". The marvel is we have the thinking capacity "of Christ" and can understand divine things with the same kind of mind as Christ. We have this by having the Spirit Who searches the depths of God. May we use that mind in our thinking and so be found always considering for God. Christ will then come to light in each one of us and the features of God will be seen in display in testimony.

God has "provided some better thing for us" in every respect. He has given us the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Accordingly, says Paul, writing, not to the Ephesians or the Philippians, but even to the Corinthians, "We have the mind of Christ", the intelligence of Christ, the capacity of spiritual understanding (1 Cor. 2:16). Not, of course, that we have the same measure as the Lord, Who had and was Himself the wisdom of God, and this absolutely. We have nothing save in and by Him, and hence only in dependence on Him. However, as Christians having the Holy Ghost, we have not the mere mind of man only but of Christ. The intelligence of Christ is ours; and this shows why what was true in principle of Abraham is increasingly — so to speak — true of the Christian, for it could not be said, in the full force of the term, that Abraham had the mind of Christ. The Holy Ghost had not yet come, for Jesus was not yet glorified. Now that the Lord Jesus has accomplished the redemption, and has gone up on high, He has sent down the Holy Spirit to dwell in His saints, to make them the temple of God, and even the body of each believer the temple of the Holy Ghost, just as His own body was, He on earth having His body perfectly holy, and ever fit for the Spirit without redemption, we only in virtue of His blood. Hence, never till the blood of Christ was shed could any other here below be the temple of the Holy Ghost. Jesus was the temple of the Spirit; we, I repeat, are only so because our sin is judged in His cross, our guilt blotted out by His blood. Therefore the Spirit of God comes down to dwell in us, putting honour on the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; and because of this we have a divine power opening into all that God communicates.

Verses 5 to 11 are one of those amazing portions of the Scripture. It sets before us the amazing pathway of our Saviour from heaven’s highest glory down to Calvary’s depth of woe. The passage is so sublime that it seems to defy the human spirit to comprehend what is found in it. ‘Let this mind be in you’ or, Have this for your mind — your principle of thought and feeling — ‘which (was, and is,) also in Christ Jesus’ — the principle of thought and feeling which was in Him.There is no verb in the latter part of the verse, but we must use one in English. We generally use the word ‘was’, but there is nothing in the Greek to limit the meaning to either past or present: and even though exalted to the highest glory, He is ‘this same Jesus’ (Acts 1:11), so we have inserted, ‘was, and is’. ‘Have this mind in you which (was and is) also in Christ Jesus.’ And what was ‘this mind’? Was it not an utter and absolute self-forgetfulness? Oh, my brethren, here is the cure for all our quarrels and divisions, our misunderstandings and difficulties with one another: ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus’.

We all feel at once how desirable a thing this is. If we have any knowledge of ourselves and of the state of affairs generally among the people of God, we know that it is to all appearance an impossible thing. Yet there is a way by which it may be achieved, and verses 3 and 4 of chapter 2 show us that way. Nothing is to be done in the spirit of contention or vainglory, but everything in that lowliness of mind which leads one to esteem others above themselves and consider the things of others and not only the things of self. The ‘one mind’ of verse 2 is certainly to be achieved if the lowly mind of verse 3 is produced in us all. A difficulty, however, would still be felt if the lowly mind were to us only an abstract conception. We want it to be a living reality before our eyes, and we have it thus in Christ Jesus. If there is to be only one mind, whose mind is that one mind to be? — ‘Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus’ (v. 5).

How, then, can we "be of the same mind in the Lord"? The Apostle clearly shows that this can only be as we are marked by "lowliness of mind," and, to have the lowly mind, he says, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." His was the lowly mind that led Him to make Himself of no reputation in order to serve others in love. Self likes to be served, and thinks it is exalted when being served by others; but love delights to serve.

If, then, we each forget self, refuse to seek a reputation for ourselves, and seek only to serve others in love, according to the lowly mind of Christ, we shall have the mind of the Lord, and "be of the same mind in the Lord."

Beloved friends, we have something stupendous before us, in the world: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.” We know how we feel when an unkind word is spoken to us; we know how we feel when someone denies us our rights; when men trample upon us, when they will not do us justice; we know how our spirits are ruffled at such times, do we not? But it was never so with the Son of God's love. The apostle says, let His mind be in you. Do not let the sun go down upon your wrath; do not quarrel among yourselves; do not let your angry feelings rise; think of the Master; think of His humble obedience; and let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.

As we trace this wonderful path, down and down, from the highest glory to a cross of shame, let us not be content with merely being admirers of that which is morally beautiful — for this is possible even for a natural man. We need grace, not only to admire, but that there may be a practical effect produced in our lives according to the Apostle's exhortation, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." In the light of the lowly mind seen in Jesus, we may well challenge our hearts as to how far we have judged the vainglory that is so natural to us, and with the lowly mind have sought to forget ourselves in order to serve others in love, and manifest something of the lowly grace of Christ.