The Incarnation and the Mind of Jesus Christ
by Rev. Dr. Frank Uhlir
"Let this mind be in you, which is yours in Christ Jesus." Phil.2:5-8
"Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..."Rom.12:2
We're apt to forget that the mind of Christ is supernatural, not merely human. Don't think that because you have the Spirit of Christ, you have the mind of Christ. God gives us His Spirit, but His mind has to be built, "constructed" in us, as we work out the habits of a holy life.
We can't form the mind of Christ in one instant, for all time. It has to be formed continually, all the time and in everything. "Acquire your soul", i.e.- the new way of looking at things, "with patience".
When God recreates us in Christ Jesus He does not merely patch us up, He makes us "a new creation". Every fibre of our being is no longer subject to our own dictates, but is subordinated to the Spirit of God within us, who enables us to form the mind of Christ.
The type of mind Paul urges us to build is clearly prescribed: the mind of true humility; the mind"which was also in Christ Jesus" when He was on this earth, utterly self-effaced, self-emptied. Humility is the expression of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the touchstone of saintliness.
"...who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped..."
Paul isn't saying that Jesus thought nothing of Himself: our Lord thought truly about Himself. There is no boasting here, no asserting of dignity, no presumption. It was along this line that Satan tempted Him - "Remember who you are. You are the Son of God. Assert the prerogatives of Sonship. Command that these stones become bread. Do something supernatural... throw yourself down from here."
It was a temptation to fulfilment of the Incarnation by a "short cut". Each time the temptation came, our Lord dismissed it: "I did not come to assert Myself. I came for God's will to be done through Me, in His own way" (John 6:38).
When we are reborn, a similar temptation comes to us - "You are a child of God, saved and sanctified. Presume on it; regard it as something to be seized upon." As long as our thoughts are fixed on our experience instead of the one God who gave us the experience, the practice of making nothing of ourselves is an impossibility. If we think only along the lines of our experience we become proud and censorial, not humble.
Being born from above is the gateway to a sanctified life, not to our boasting about some experience. The practice of building the mind of Christ will bring us to obey our Lord and Master as He obeyed His Father; the whole of our natural life is to be subject to this obedience.
It is not sinful to have a body and a natural life. If it were, it would be untrue to say Jesus was sinless, because He had a body and was placed in a natural life. But He continually sacrificed His natural life to the word and will of His Father, making it a spiritual life. We have to adopt the same practice. It is the discipline of a lifetime; we can't do it all at once. We are absolutely dependent on God, and yet strangely enough the last thing we learn spiritually is to make nothing of ourselves.
...but emptied Himself...
Jesus Christ humbled the Godhead in Himself so effectively that everyone without the Spirit of God despised Him. No one without the Spirit of God, or apart from a revelation from God, saw the true self of Jesus. He was "as a root out of dry ground", thoroughly disadvantaged in the eyes of everyone not convicted of sin.
The reference in 2 Corinthians 8:9 - [...though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor...] - is not to a wealthy man becoming poor, but to a wealthy God who became poor for mankind. Our Lord is the once-forever presentation of a self-effacing God. The purpose of the incarnation was not to affirm the beauty and nobility of human nature, but rather to remove sin from human nature.
To those who seek worldly wisdom, the preaching of Christ crucified is foolishness. But when a man knows his life is twisted, that his mainspring is deformed, he is then in the state of mind and heart to understand why it is necessary for God to become Incarnate. The self-limiting of Jesus is clear first of all to our hearts, not our heads. We cannot form the mind of Christ unless we have His Spirit, nor can we understand our Lord's teaching apart from His Spirit. We cannot see through it; but once we receive His Spirit we know implicitly what He means.
Things about which the intellect may be hopelessly bewildered are lustrously clear to the heart of the humble saint.
"I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them unto little children". Matt.11:25
"Let this mind be in you, which is yours in Christ Jesus." Phil.2:5-8
"Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..."Rom.12:2
We're apt to forget that the mind of Christ is supernatural, not merely human. Don't think that because you have the Spirit of Christ, you have the mind of Christ. God gives us His Spirit, but His mind has to be built, "constructed" in us, as we work out the habits of a holy life.
We can't form the mind of Christ in one instant, for all time. It has to be formed continually, all the time and in everything. "Acquire your soul", i.e.- the new way of looking at things, "with patience".
When God recreates us in Christ Jesus He does not merely patch us up, He makes us "a new creation". Every fibre of our being is no longer subject to our own dictates, but is subordinated to the Spirit of God within us, who enables us to form the mind of Christ.
The type of mind Paul urges us to build is clearly prescribed: the mind of true humility; the mind"which was also in Christ Jesus" when He was on this earth, utterly self-effaced, self-emptied. Humility is the expression of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the touchstone of saintliness.
"...who, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped..."
Paul isn't saying that Jesus thought nothing of Himself: our Lord thought truly about Himself. There is no boasting here, no asserting of dignity, no presumption. It was along this line that Satan tempted Him - "Remember who you are. You are the Son of God. Assert the prerogatives of Sonship. Command that these stones become bread. Do something supernatural... throw yourself down from here."
It was a temptation to fulfilment of the Incarnation by a "short cut". Each time the temptation came, our Lord dismissed it: "I did not come to assert Myself. I came for God's will to be done through Me, in His own way" (John 6:38).
When we are reborn, a similar temptation comes to us - "You are a child of God, saved and sanctified. Presume on it; regard it as something to be seized upon." As long as our thoughts are fixed on our experience instead of the one God who gave us the experience, the practice of making nothing of ourselves is an impossibility. If we think only along the lines of our experience we become proud and censorial, not humble.
Being born from above is the gateway to a sanctified life, not to our boasting about some experience. The practice of building the mind of Christ will bring us to obey our Lord and Master as He obeyed His Father; the whole of our natural life is to be subject to this obedience.
It is not sinful to have a body and a natural life. If it were, it would be untrue to say Jesus was sinless, because He had a body and was placed in a natural life. But He continually sacrificed His natural life to the word and will of His Father, making it a spiritual life. We have to adopt the same practice. It is the discipline of a lifetime; we can't do it all at once. We are absolutely dependent on God, and yet strangely enough the last thing we learn spiritually is to make nothing of ourselves.
...but emptied Himself...
Jesus Christ humbled the Godhead in Himself so effectively that everyone without the Spirit of God despised Him. No one without the Spirit of God, or apart from a revelation from God, saw the true self of Jesus. He was "as a root out of dry ground", thoroughly disadvantaged in the eyes of everyone not convicted of sin.
The reference in 2 Corinthians 8:9 - [...though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor...] - is not to a wealthy man becoming poor, but to a wealthy God who became poor for mankind. Our Lord is the once-forever presentation of a self-effacing God. The purpose of the incarnation was not to affirm the beauty and nobility of human nature, but rather to remove sin from human nature.
To those who seek worldly wisdom, the preaching of Christ crucified is foolishness. But when a man knows his life is twisted, that his mainspring is deformed, he is then in the state of mind and heart to understand why it is necessary for God to become Incarnate. The self-limiting of Jesus is clear first of all to our hearts, not our heads. We cannot form the mind of Christ unless we have His Spirit, nor can we understand our Lord's teaching apart from His Spirit. We cannot see through it; but once we receive His Spirit we know implicitly what He means.
Things about which the intellect may be hopelessly bewildered are lustrously clear to the heart of the humble saint.
"I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them unto little children". Matt.11:25