Through His Spirit, Christ has given His regenerate people His own mind to discern and comprehend what the natural man cannot. This is why you see the world so differently from your unbelieving friends and family. Christians think through every issue in life with spiritual (albeit imperfect) minds—that is, minds that have been enlightened by the Spirit.

The Christian is to interpret all of life through the lens of God’s plan, revealed in His Word, and providence, discerned in time. How we think about God and His decree will determine how we think about every providence in life, whether it’s an unexpected medical bill, the loss of a job, or an unfulfilling vacation. We process the events of life according to our mindset, which entails our deepest affections, aspirations, attitudes, and axioms. Our reactions and actions in life, therefore, betray our mindset, just as Christ’s mindset led to and was demonstrated by His work of humiliation, as Paul writes in Philippians 2:5–11. Staggeringly, this mind of Christ—His affections, aspirations, attitudes, and axioms—becomes ours through the work of the Spirit that unites us to Christ in a glorious, mystical, and inseparable union. Many of us, however, tend to undervalue the sweeping implications of this blessed union. Every salvific benefit that we enjoy flows to us from that vital and intimate union with our Head, including a new, spiritual frame of mind. So while we possess the mind of Christ through this union, we’re also called to imitate the mindset of Christ.

The Already Christian Mindset

The already aspect of our mindset can be seen in Paul’s assertion “But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). By virtue of our union with Christ, we currently have His mind. This doesn’t mean that we ontologically possess His brain; it means that Christ, by His Spirit, has enlightened our minds to see God’s revelation and wisdom in the gospel. We’ve come to perceive and receive the Holy Spirit’s “thoughts” penned in the Scriptures and applied to us by the Spirit Himself. The Holy Spirit gives us a spiritual mind whereby we now see things according to God’s wisdom. He “enlighten[s] our minds in the knowledge of Christ” (Westminster Shorter Catechism 31).

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