The Mind of Christ
Do you know the thoughts of God?
Do you presume to give him advice, or to be able to speak on his behalf?
We know what Jesus thought because we heard his words and we saw his actions.1
We should say the kinds of things that Jesus said and do the sorts of things he did.
Do you agree?
Funny thing about Jesus; he never had an unkind word for “sinners.” Jesus knew that everyone fell short of perfection and the degree of that shortage was of no particular concern to him.
Jesus knew that all of humanity was separated from God and he understood what he needed to do to fix that. He didn’t come to enforce a moral code or to start a new religion. He came to die. And he didn’t need our help or permission.
“I’ve got this.”
When Jesus was executed, he lay dead in a grave for three days then cheerfully stepped out of it and said, “I’ve defeated death and become the doorway to eternal life. Go tell the good news. Tell everyone. Ollie-Ollie All-in-free.”
Jesus was an encourager. He made everyone feel better, happier, loved.
On the day that Jesus rolled up to the Jordan River to be dipped in water by the wilderness prophet John, did John the Baptizer fully understand his own words when he said, “Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?” Did John know three years in advance that Jesus intended to be the final Passover lamb?
I’ve always wondered.
The Passover Lamb
More than a thousand years before Jesus was born, a once-free people were enslaved because they found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time; sort of like you and me, slaves to the obligations of life, the expectations of others, the tyranny of the merely urgent.
Then God sent a man to say to their captor, “Set these people free.”
The captor said, “Not happenin’.”
So they played tug-of-war for a while, then God said to his man, Moses, “It’s time to drop Little Boy on Hiroshima. Tell everyone to duck-and-cover.”
The Angel of Death was the atom bomb dropped that night. To duck-and-cover, all you had to do was kill a lamb that had no defect, then slap it’s blood on the left and right doorposts of your house and on the beam that spans those posts. When the blood from that beam dripped to the ground, a cross of blood was formed in your doorway.
Quite the symbol, huh?
But no one realized that at the time. They just did what Moses told them.
Here’s where it really gets interesting: Moses told them they must also make bread without yeast. In fact, they were to make sure there was no yeast to be found anywhere in their homes.
This “unleavened bread” was to be broken, and then shared by all. It’s a ritual that has been celebrated at Passover for the past 3,000 years.
Religiosity – that self-righteousness that causes a person to believe they can judge others in the name of God – is the yeast Jesus told us we must remove from our houses.
When Jesus said, “I am the Bread of Life,” he was declaring himself and his message to be untainted by the hypocrisy of manmade rules and expectations.3
How do we know this?
Because Jesus told us so.4
If even a tiny bit of man’s religiosity enters into his faith in God, that religiosity will spread itself just as surely as yeast spreads itself through dough.5
Search the Bible and you will see that Jesus never spoke an unkind word to “sinners.” Jesus knew that he, alone, was the solution to their problem.
He accepted them, loved them, attended their parties and drank their wine.
When Jesus walked the dirt roads of our planet, his closest friends and followers encouraged him to get political. “Rally the people. Straighten out this mess.”
But Jesus refused to do it. He knew that political change was a dark fountain of false hope.
Jesus gave us one instruction after he rose from the dead: “Go tell the good news.” But before the incarnate Word of God returned home to the father who spoke him, he also made it clear that we should (1.) beware the yeast of manmade rules; never sign God’s name to something he didn’t say, and (2.) don’t ever assume that political force is how we should spread the good news.
Please be careful not to sign God’s name to your political beliefs.
Do you know the thoughts of God?
Do you presume to give him advice, or to be able to speak on his behalf?
We know what was in the mind of Christ because we heard his words and we saw his actions.1
It is not “sinners” who make him angry. It is religious people who follow manmade rules and declare those rules to be God’s.6
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1 “Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord, or instruct the Lord as his counselor?” – Isaiah 40:13
Paul, quoting Isaiah 700 years later, said, “…for, ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.” – 1 Corinthians 2:16,
Paul is saying, “We cannot know the mind of God, but we have Christ as our role model and he spoke his mind clearly so that we could be guided by his words and actions.” To interpret, “But we have the mind of Christ,” to mean, “The thoughts we think are Christ’s thoughts,” is an error in interpretation.
2 “John the Baptizer went without food and drank no wine and you said, ‘He has a demon.’ And now you see me eating and drinking, and you say, ‘He’s a party animal and a drunkard and he hangs out with all the wrong people.’ – Luke 7:33-35, Jesus, responding to the religious leaders who criticized him
3 “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This wine is the new bargain bought with my blood; whenever you drink it, remember me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” – 1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty… All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me; that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”
– John 6:35-40, Jesus speaking
“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.”
– Matthew 12:32-33, Jesus speaking
4 “Be careful,” Jesus said. “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” They discussed this among themselves and said, “It is because we didn’t bring any bread.” Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why are you talking among yourselves about having no bread? Do you still not understand? Don’t you remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many basketfuls you gathered? How is it you don’t understand that I was not talking to you about bread? But be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast used in bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees (religious leaders.) – Matthew 16:5-12
Meanwhile, when a crowd of many thousands had gathered, so that they were trampling on one another, Jesus began to speak first to his disciples, saying: “Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy…”
“I tell you, whoever publicly acknowledges me before others, (I) will also acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever disowns me before others will be disowned before the angels of God. – Luke 12:1, 8-9
5 “Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.”
– 1 Corinthians 5:5-7, Paul speaking
6 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees (religious leaders) sit in Moses’ seat… They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them… Everything they do is done for people to see… “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are. Woe to you, blind guides!… You have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness… You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel… You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence… You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness… You snakes! You brood of vipers!…
– Matthew 23