When we speak about the mind of Christ, we speak about the Holy Spirit's revealing the truth of Jesus into the renewed mind of the Christian. Many millions of people have been born again, received salvation and entered into this covenant of grace that we're now part of. As parts of the covenant has been preached to unsaved people, enough light came through to let them know that they can be saved by Jesus and that they could be forgiven.
From this revelation, the Church was born. But, when we look at today's Church, we see that a large part of the Body of Christ has strayed a long ways from what Jesus told the Apostle Paul in the beginning of this covenant. Paul speaks about his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus in 2Corinthians 12:1-5 (Amplified) . While he was in a rapturous state in the Lord, he was blinded by the light of the glory of Christ. During his three days of blindness, he stayed in the presence of the Lord. Paul declared that he didn't know whether he was caught up in his flesh and blood body or just in his spirit. Either way, Paul said he was in the presence of the Lord.
During this time, Paul said that he received the revelation of the new covenant from the Lord Himself. Until this time, even the Apostle didn't understand what was going on. The Apostle Peter was still preaching to the Jew. They were still speaking about circumcision and the Law.
When Paul began preaching salvation to the Gentile, he and Peter clashed several times about it. There was now a covenant that included the Gentile and that covenant wasn't based on Law and sacrifice. Now, there was a covenant totally based on grace to be received by faith in Jesus.
Those who had been covenant people under the Law, had to now learn about grace. As Gentiles, we had to learn about a God we had never before known. All this had to be taught to the people by the word of mouth and preaching. It was many years before the letters that Paul wrote to the Church would be compiled into what we refer to as the New Testament or new covenant. We now have these letters called Epistles to the Churches.
Throughout the years, we've gotten away from the truth of the revelation Jesus, God Himself showed Paul. Man has taken the Word of God and interpreted it by man's wisdom. The carnal mind of man cannot understand the power of the covenant of grace. Man felt he needed to accept and be accepted by God through his own works. Because we failed to allow the Holy Spirit reveal the covenant to us, we used our own wisdom to unravel the Mystery of Christ and not let the Spirit do it.
Only the Holy Spirit can translate the Spirit of the Word. Man, in all his wisdom, has no ability to understand it without the Holy Spirit. We are intelligent enough to read and understand the words, but have no ability to receive the depth behind the Word. We read this truth in 1Corinthians 2:13-14 (Amplified) which says, "And we are setting these truths forth in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Holy Spirit, combining and interpreting spiritual truths with spiritual language (to those who possess the Holy Spirit)."
Paul states here that only the Holy Spirit can interpret and reveal the Spiritual truth of what he's writing in Verse 14, "But the natural, non spiritual man does not accept or welcome or admit into this heart the gifts and teachings and revelations of the Spirit of God."
Many sermons and preaching that come from today's churches are more of man's wisdom than the Spiritual revelation of the Word. It's as though, man with his natural mind, can't believe the truth of what Jesus has really done. Man looks, reads, preaches and tells others that this is God's Word. He says he believes what it says and will even fight over his convictions about the Bible. Yet, when he reads spiritual truth with a carnal, unrenewed mind, he stumbles at the grace of what he reads. It is revealed to his mind only in the carnality of man's thinking. 2Corinthians 5:21 (Amplified) says that, "For our sake He made Christ (virtually) to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in and through Him we might become (endued with, viewed as being in, and examples of) the righteousness of God (what we ought to be, approved and acceptable and in right relationship with Him, by His goodness)."
We can read what these words say in our natural, carnal minds and intellect, but without the Holy Spirit bring revelation, we still stumble at this truth. We keep hearing such things in the Church as "None are righteous and all have sinned" and "We're old sinners saved by grace, but we'll still be sinners until we die." We hear sermons about how we've sinned and fallen short of God's glory. We hear sermons more on our old sin nature than the new Image. The carnal mind will accept the statement that after we die, we'll be made righteous, but will deny the fact that the Word (by revelation) declares in Romans 5:9 (Amplified), "Therefore, since we are now justified (acquitted, made righteous and brought into right relationship with God) by Christ's Blood, how much more (certain is it that) we shall be saved by Him from the indignation and wrath of God)."
Many Christian still fear the thought of facing the Father when we get home, because we still fear punishment for our failures. Even the Word tells us differently, we continue trying to obtain righteousness by our own performance.
Only the Holy Spirit can reveal the full truth of the sacrifice of Jesus to the heart of man. Carnal minded Christians (those who haven't allowed the Holy Spirit to reveal the Word to them) are still trying to do what Jesus has already done. We think it makes us humble to think and speak of ourselves as sinners. In the light of the Word of revelation, it makes us sound prideful by not believing what Jesus has done for us. The carnal mind will actually deny that Jesus was enough to make us righteous before God. The carnally minded man is always trying to do something to make himself righteous.
When the Holy Spirit reveals the righteousness of God through Christ Jesus, the man who will receive this truth will see that if he is made righteous with Christ's Own righteousness, then nothing I can do can improve on that righteousness. Jesus' right standing with God is as perfect as you can ever be. The Spirit minded man will believe it, receive it and rejoice in it with thanksgiving and praise and rest by faith in the Lamb of God.
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