THE first thing that strikes me is the wonderful dignity of this mind; it carries us up to the mind that indited the word, and we get this faculty, through grace, as poor sinners; and if we do not keep this in mind we shall exalt ourselves. We see this in Nicodemus coming to Jesus, saying, “We know that thou art a teacher come from God,” &c. Was Jesus flattered? No: but He sends him back, and tells him that he had come in the wrong way; that he had not the faculty to understand; that he must go back to be “born again.”
We have been taken into wonderful blessedness and privileges, but God would only take us there as poor sinners. We see the same thing in the 4th of John. The Lord meets none in this Gospel but as poor sinners. He talks to the woman of Samaria about her sins, before He does about His Messiahship.
We must ever come to the word, “as new-born babes,” simply as saved sinners. The fault with the Corinthians was, that they had become Grecians, or Critics.
Our having the mind of Christ is in character with all our endowments, We have the life, righteousness, and glory of Christ, and, therefore, the mind of Christ. May we be kept thinking how we get this mind; it is just as we get everything else—by the Brazen Serpent.
The written word is the only thing that this faculty has to do with; just in proportion as we possess this mind, we shall value the word. The word of God will not submit itself to anything else; but in the possession of the mind of Christ, we shall get Christ, as it were, peeping out all through the Scriptures.
This mind has an infinite range. Brethren may have different measures of it, but there is nothing alarming in that: the alarming thing is to sit together as Grecians, and not as sinners saved by grace.