What is the mind according to the Bible?

The important question to be settled is this — Is the mind of man (whence are his thoughts) a safe guide in the things of God? or is it affected by sin, and therefore unreliable? All scripture affirms that it is so affected, and since the cross (the crowning proof of it, 1 Cor. 2:8) its statements are more explicit and precise as to this. For subduing the earth, and things connected with it (see Gen. 1:28), its powers may be undiminished and the results astonishing, but in divine and eternal things there is total incapacity. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14). In Eph. 2:3, the mind, as well as the flesh, is said to have evil desires. In Col. 1:21, it is alienated and at enmity with God; and in 2 Cor. 4:4, the minds of those who believe not the gospel are blinded by Satan. These are some of the statements of scripture, and more serious ones could not be as to the effects of sin on the mind, and they are confirmed by others which declare the effects of grace.

In 1 John 5:20 we read "We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us" [believers] "an understanding that we may know Him that is true." In 2 Peter 3:1 this is called a "pure mind." In 1 Cor. 2:16 it is said to be "the mind of Christ." In Eph. 1:18 the Spirit enlightens it, and in Rom. 12:2 and Eph. 4:23 renews it.

The Spirit forms in the believer a faculty to understand what is revealed. We read in 1 Cor. 2:16, "But we have the mind of Christ". This is a remarkable statement, it means we have the thinking faculty of Christ. Not only has God worked in our hearts so that we recognise that He is revealing Himself, but He has given us His Spirit that we may understand what is revealed. Hence in that chapter we learn that spiritual things can be understood by those only who have spiritual capacity.

The word for "renewing" is "anakainow", something entirely new. We have an entirely new motive, an entirely new power in our thinking, for we think for God now and not for ourselves. It is in the present tense.

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.

(V. 16). In verse 15 the Apostle tells us that “the spiritual discerns all things”. It is not indeed that such naturally know the mind of the Lord, or can instruct Him; but the Lord has given to believers His Spirit and instructs them; such can therefore say, “We have the mind of Christ”.

"For," it is questioned, "who hath known the mind of the Lord: who shall instruct Him." This is knowledge inscrutable, because high above any creature level. "But we have the mind of Christ." Marvelous, precious declaration of fact! Having the Spirit of God, this is the revelation of the mind of Christ. The believer has this. Then he should certainly seek to make use of it in daily experience. If not, he is not "spiritual."

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.

There was another lesson in its place of no less weight — the incapacity of man without the Holy Spirit not merely to know or convey, but even to receive the truth of God. "But [the] natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he cannot know [them] because they are spiritually discerned; but the spiritual [man] discerns all things while he himself is discerned by no one. For who has known [the] Lord's mind that he should instruct him? But we have [the] mind of Christ." (Ver. 14-16.)

This is a momentous declaration in all its parts. For the apostle by the "natural man" means man as he is born and grows up, without being born of God or the Holy Ghost given to him. He might be ever so learned, scientific, intellectual and refined; still, till quickened of the Spirit, he is ψυχικός. He does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for to him they are folly; nor can he learn them, so as to appropriate them, apprehending their truth, because they are spiritually discerned, and the Spirit of God he has not as unbelieving in Christ. The spiritual man on the other hand is one who is not only renewed but in the power of the Spirit. He accordingly has a divine spring of discerning while he is beyond the ken of all who are destitute of the Spirit.

It is in virtue of the Spirit of God that the believer now stands in so astonishing a place, capable of discerning all things, yet himself outside the discernment of man. How great the folly of any saint in Corinth or elsewhere yearning after human wisdom! What makes it even more striking is the application the apostle appends from Isaiah 40:13. For there the prophet insists on the supremacy of Jehovah's intelligence, as before of His infinite goodness and power. Unsearchable Himself yet searching all, "who has measured the Spirit of Jehovah, and, the man of his counsel, will teach him?" As independent of man's measuring and instruction is the Christian in divine things, and this through the Spirit of God dwelling in him. Thus the use of Isaiah 64 bears witness that, as man's heart had not conceived the purpose of God before the world for our glory (not merely the nations, as Kimchi would have it, but man generally, Israel included), so God has revealed it now that Christ is crucified and received up in glory, and this by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven to be in and with us. But the use of Isaiah 40 goes farther; for the apostle ascribes to the Christian the mind (νοῦν) or intelligence of Christ, in whom God's wisdom is, and thus appropriates to us now by grace, as possessing the Holy Spirit, that which, belonging characteristically to God, is wholly independent of man and undiscoverable by him.

Man in his natural estate cannot know the things of God. He does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, he considers them to be foolish, because he has not the capacity for knowing them: and not having the spiritual capacity it is impossible for him to apprehend spiritual things. But the Christian, as having the Holy Spirit, and the state the Spirit gives, has the mind of Christ.

Perhaps we can take this opening of the understanding Of all the disciples (Lk. 24:45) as an illustration of the coming of the Holy Spirit to dwell in believers and take the things of Christ and make them real to them (Jn. 14:26). This shows that there is no understanding, no spiritual intelligence without divine intervention: 'But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For 'who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?' But we have the mind of Christ' (1 Cor. 2:14-16).

In the last verse we have the same contrast with the Old Testament: "For who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" and in answer to the challenge of the prophet it is, "but we have the mind of Christ." If I have Christ's mind, I have the thoughts that are in it and all that is included. We have not the divine mind abstractedly, but we have the Holy Ghost dwelling in us; and then comes all the revelation of the mystery.