The word of God speaks of a profound mystery here. It gives to us an insight into the mind of God. Who can know the mind of the Lord? Man cannot even know completely his own mind. He surely cannot know the minds of other men—what they are thinking, what they have purposed, or the motivations behind their words and actions. But here we catch a glimpse of the mind of the Lord. We see the mind of the Lord as he reveals that to us in Jesus Christ. And what a gracious sight we behold! His thoughts to us are thoughts of love.

The mind is the faculty of thinking and planning. Man does what he does deliberately out of his mind. The animal has a mind as well. Yet the animal is no rational and moral creature. The animal with its mind lives out of its instincts. Man with his mind lives out of that mind. The mind is closely related to the will. With the will man chooses what the mind presents to it as good. The mind is in turn informed by the heart. Out of the heart are all the issues of life. The heart is that faculty in which man loves. He lives out of what he loves. What he loves in his heart, he decides with his mind that it is good, and with his will he chooses that which the mind says is good. As such a rational and moral creature, man is the reflection of God, his creator.

And mystery of mysteries, we have laid before us the mind of God. Oh, yes, the apostle says that this mind was in Christ Jesus. In Christ Jesus, in his incarnation, in all his words and works, and especially in his cross, we see a mind at work. Yet it may not be forgotten that the person of Christ is the person of the Son of God. The mind of Christ is the mind of God. Indeed, it is the mind of the eternal Son, the second person of the Trinity. It is the mind of the one who is God of God and Light of Light; he is coequal and coeternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Christ is eternally begotten, not made. In his mind with the Father and the Spirit, Christ planned and determined all things from eternity. He is worthy of all honor and praise. He is God, and he has all the prerogatives of God. The mighty angels cover their faces with their wings before Christ. He is the one who occupies the sapphire throne and by whose command the world was created and is sustained from moment to moment.

And that sapphire throne Christ exchanged for a stable floor. He did not suppose in his mind that his honor as God was a thing to be held onto. Christ looked not on his own things—his glory, honor, and prerogatives. But Christ looked on the things of others—our terrible plight as damnworthy sinners without God and without hope in the world. He made himself of no reputation. Christ took on himself the form of a servant. He entered the darkness of our night of sin and death. He became a man, and he humbled himself to the bitter and shameful death of the cross. How can we even begin to grasp the love, the grace, and the mercy that filled that beautiful mind, the very mind of God? Christ’s thoughts toward us were thoughts of peace. And to establish peace he became nothing for us.

Let that mind be in you. Your mind is as ugly as Christ’s mind is beautiful. No, you cannot attain that mind for yourself. He must give it to you. The one with that beautiful mind must lay hold on you. He must change your mind and make it like his mind. Then you begin to live out of that mind and not out of your own selfish mind that seeks only your own things. When you begin to look on the things of others, then that is the work of the mind of Christ in you. And it is beautiful.