When God brings new life, a genuine re-generation, to sinners like us, more than our future is changed. In addition to the promise of eternal salvation, we are given new minds right now. God’s Spirit gives us a “new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” (Col. 3:10) While we are not yet completely renewed, we are truly renewed.

[See the first installment here. There I argued for four simple ideas: Your thought life matters. Your mind and heart are never really separate. You are called to a sanctified mind. And you are responsible for your thoughts.]

To grasp the importance of our call to a sanctified mind, let’s consider what God tells us about us. How does Scripture teach us to view the human person and what does the mind have to do with that? What is the mind meant to be? And what happened to it?

The Bible teaches us to view humans with two essential parts: body and soul (theologians call this “dichotomy”). Against the unnecessary and unbiblical complications of trichotomy (seeing man as body, soul and spirit), dichotomy gives us the right orientation. Each of us are body and soul. And our thought life is intertwined with both.

In the garden of Eden, humanity existed–body and soul–in holiness and happiness, carrying well the image of God. This imago Dei, according to Paul, consisted in our righteousness and holiness. Unlike the animals, we were made to commune and communicate with God.

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