The Mind Of Christ

About the Book

At the appointed time, Christ emerged as God’s invitation to humanity. It was an invitation meant to reconcile both humanity and the rest of creation to God. The mind of Christ was to end the enmity existing among humanity, and between humanity and the rest of creation. That is to say, the dividing wall which had kept humanity inimical against itself - the Chosen people of God against the Gentiles - Christ got broken down. United and unified, humanity which ought to zero itself into God through Christ and for Him, got divided up again this time into: the ‘world’ and the followers of Christ.

Like St. Paul, we would say, Christ is our freedom; our regeneration is in Christ; our nothingness is subsumed in Christ; our vocation is in Christ.

Walking as Christ walked (cf.1 Jn.2:6), the baptized Christian essentially distinguishes himself as having the same mind or attitude that was in Christ Jesus (cf. Phil. 2:5). A truly Baptized Christian is “alter Christus” (another Christ) in his commitment towards conforming to and confirming the demands of his Christian calling on a daily basis. Such are the demands of being ‘born again’ in Christ, which must be continually actuated until He (Christ) comes again. Such is the mind of Christ as He hopes to regenerate and transform our challenging world. Effort to keep this hope alive in the ‘born again’ Christian should spur him or her on toward facilitating the reign of God.

All through the scripture, mention is not made of Jesus misleading or misinforming anybody. Full of unbounded admiration, the crowd at the ‘Ephphatha’ episode had declared: “He has done all things well” (Mk. 7:37). When He wanted to bring the dead young man of Nain back to life as he was being carried out for burial, did He ask the widow (mother of the deceased) not to cry in vain? Did He not make the young man come back to life (cf. Lk. 7:11-17)? When He asked the man at the Pool of Bethesda and who had been sick for thirty-eight years to “Get up, pick up your sleeping-mat and walk around” (Jn. 5:8), was the man not cured at once (cf. Jn. 5:9)? Or, the blind man from birth that He asked to go and wash at the Pool of Siloam, did he not go and come back able to see (cf. Jn. 9:7)? When He asked Bartimaeus who requested: “That I may see again” (Mk. 10:51) to “Go; your faith has saved you” (Mk. 10:52), did his sight not return at once “and he followed Him along the road” (Mk. 10:52)? When He asked Peter and his brother, Andrew, to “Follow me and I will make you fishers of people” (Mtt. 4:19), and they followed Him at once, did He relent in fulfilling His promise? Are all of us not fruits of their labors? The mind of Christ is to save everybody.

Pitiably, what God calls blessed, the world in turn, condemns; the world condemns the people of God. Made whole as children of God, yet, the world declares them unclean, foolish, weak, and nothing. The world is completely oblivious of God’s stern caveat to Peter “What God has made clean, you must not call unclean” (Acts 10:15).

Can it be that the same words Jesus addressed to the Sadducees: “You are wrong for you know neither the scripture nor the power of God” (Mtt. 22:29), should be addressed to our own generation? Not realizing the fecundity of the word of God, and what God can do, the world now raises standard against the children of God. The world fails to admit that God prepares a banquet for His chosen ones in the sight of their enemies (cf. Ps. 23:5). St Paul asks: “If God is for us, who can be against us...? Who can bring any accusation against those that God has chosen. When God grants saving justice who can condemn?”(Rom. 8:31-33). God Himself has declared His people not guilty!

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