The human mind is a beautiful gift from God. The past three installments have focused on the mind and its purpose and today’s will not be any different.
RUNDOWN OR RECAPITULATION
A recapitulation is to state again as a summary or to do a summary of what has already been said. We have discussed in three prior installments the function and purpose of the mind God graciously entrusts the New Man with. This section will capture a synopsis and then we will begin with today’s continuation of the function of the mind.
We have looked at the consequences of what men set their minds on. When we set our minds on the spirit, we produce life and peace in our own lives but when we set our minds on the flesh we produce death. We saw that this is why Apostle Paul told us to set our minds on specific things—"Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you." Php 4:8-9 (NKJV)
It is interesting to note that, if we successfully set our minds on the right things thus maintaining the peace of God, this verse confirms that, the God of peace will be with us—or put differently as per Romans 16:20, the God of Peace is the one who will— “swiftly pound Satan to a pulp under your feet” or “come down on Satan with both feet, stomping him into the dirt”.—once we have maintained the peace of God through the fight of faith and not succumbed to fears, anxieties and unbelief.
In the third installation of this series on the mind, I showed again the power of the mind in turning man into an adversary of God. It is possible to be a Christian and yet Satan to God and his purposes. The bible states as much using the scripture where Jesus rebuked Peter and called him Satan—telling him to get out of Jesus’ way and behind him so that Jesus could fulfill purpose without hindrance. This too is a function of the mind—making the new man a participator in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4) or turning them into adversaries of God (Matthew 16:23, Romans 8:7).
TRANSFORMATION
Mankind was created as a perfect being and placed into a perfect world of the garden of Eden. It was a world devoid of sin, hurt, disappointment, pain, or delays. Adam and Eve did not work for this. They inherited it as heirs of God. They were created on the sixth day and the first day they entered into was the seventh day—also known as the day of rest. God created man to abide in what is known as the Rest of God. The author of Hebrews calls it the Rest of God because it was the day in which God rested from all His works.
Heb 4:8-11 (NKJV)
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day.
9 There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.
10 For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.
11 Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.
The fall saw mankind kicked out of the rest of God. The wages of sin include the forfeiting of the rest of God—because sin introduced works.
Gen 3:17-19 (NKJV)
17 Then to Adam He said, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it': "Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life.
18 Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, And you shall eat the herb of the field.
19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return."
Sin introduced works. It is important to remember this. Works are synonymous with a sin nature and Rest is synonymous with a righteous nature. The verse above Heb 4:8-11 shows us that after the fall of man, the entire vocation and occupation of man was re-entry into what man had forfeited and lost—The Rest of God. The Jews failed to enter. Now another opportunity has been given to the Ecclesia to enter the Rest of God—so that the original plan of God can be accomplished. Man is created to abide in the rest of God and from this place man is to:
- Receive God’s blessing
- Be fruitful
- Multiply;
- Fill the earth and
- Subdue it;
- Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Gen 1:28 (NKJV)
Put differently, man is to take this Rest to the entire world. This is what some have seen in the charge of Jesus to his disciples as The Great Commission. It’s about God’s Kingdom as yeast permeating the entire fabric of all the nations on earth. But how can people take the Kingdom and its message to the ends of the earth when they themselves are alien to it? Selah!
What does all the above have to do with the mind or transformations?
Recollect that we are discussing perfect beings in a perfect world. How did perfect beings become sinful mankind and a perfect creation fall into a degenerated state?
The answer is found in the use of the mind. But let us use a step-by-step approach.
Gen 3:17 (TLB) And to Adam, God said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate the fruit when I told you not to, I have placed a curse upon the soil. All your life you will struggle to extract a living from it.
When God spoke notice, he did not get angry because Adam sinned but rather because he listened to and heeded Eve rather than God’s instruction. Why is this important to note? Because without this verse you cannot unlock the meaning of this other verse in the New Testament:
1Ti 2:14 (TLB) And it was not Adam who was fooled by Satan, but Eve, and sin was the result.
The first thing to note is Adam was not the pioneer of sin. It was Eve who originally sinned. The next thing to note is how the woman Eve, called to come help this man, and enable him enlarge the Rest, succumbed to trickery, and ended up becoming a snare for the man and all creation?
The answer can be found in a few verses. We will first look at God’s own rebuke and then see how the entire scenario played out.
Gen 3:13 (AMPC) And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled (cheated, outwitted, and deceived) me, and I ate.
God laid the blame on the woman. The scripture shows that before the fall, woman was not necessarily to be ruled [dominated] by man but after the fall, God added this strictness of rule to forestall this problem ever happening again and this is the basis of Apostle Paul and others forbidding women to hold authority over men. This is also the basis of the New Testament instructing that widows not be idle or busybodies (1 Timothy 5:13).
Gen 3:16-17 (AMPC)
16 To the woman He said, I will greatly multiply your grief and your suffering in pregnancy and the pangs of childbearing; with spasms of distress you will bring forth children. Yet your desire and craving will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.
17 And to Adam He said, Because you have listened and given heed to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it, the ground is under a curse because of you; in sorrow and toil shall you eat [of the fruits] of it all the days of your life.
The word rule here is Hebrew transliterated as mâshal. What does it mean? Let us consult a few bible dictionaries or lexicons:
BDB Definition:
1) to rule, have dominion, reign
1a) (Qal) to rule, have dominion
1b) (Hiphil)
1b1) to cause to rule
1b2) to exercise dominion
From H4910 (KJC) it means:
- dominion, 7
- reign, 4
- power, 2
- governors, 1
- ruler’s, 1
H4910 (NASEC)
מָשַׁל | mashal (605c); a prim. root; to rule, have dominion, reign: — dominion (1), gain control (1), govern (1), had charge (1), have authority (1), master (1), obtain dominion (1), really going to rule (1), rule (27), ruled (5), ruler (18), ruler's (2), rulers (6), rules (9), ruling (3), wielded (1).
H4910 (Strong) mâshal
A primitive root; to rule: - (have, make to have) dominion, governor, X indeed, reign, (bear, cause to, have) rule (-ing, -r), have power.
H4910 (Word Study)
māšal: A verb denoting to rule, to reign, or to have dominion over. Although its general tone communicates leadership and authority, its specific nuance and connotation are derived from the context in which it appears. In the creation narratives on the fourth day, God created the great luminaries. The greater luminary was to rule the day, and the lesser was to rule the night (Gen 1:18). It is also applied to people who rule: a servant over his master's household (Gen 24:2); a king over his country (Jos 12:5); or his people (Jdg 8:22-23); a people over another people (Jdg 14:4). God is also said to rule over His people (Jdg 8:23); not over His adversaries (Isa 63:19); over the nations (2Ch 20:6; Psa 22:28 [29]); over Jacob (Psa 59:13 [14]); over all things (1Ch 29:12).
So not only was there a transformation from perfect beings to fallen beings or sinful beings, a perfect creation to one in bondage (Romans 8:19-20)—but there was even a transformation of roles and realities.
The role of the woman underwent transformation and so did that of the man. The man now had to sweat to eat and to feed his household. Not only that, before the introduction of sin, man or mankind was not conscious of his body or he was not ruled by his physical senses—what others thought about him. The introduction of sin introduced embarrassment into the human experience. He only became self-centered when he fell and saw his body was naked Prior to this, he did not even know he was naked because his MIND was always fixed on the Spirit and the things of God.
This too is a transformation—but how did all the above transformations transpire? Where did it originate from?
THE BATTLEGROUND OF THE MIND
It started in the mind of the woman—when she opened it to the Dragon, his words and suggestions—aimed at casting doubt at the integrity and nature of God. Now let us comprehend the human soul. It is said to include our senses hence sensual appetites, our mind or the region of our being that we use for thinking and deliberations, our intellect, will, and emotions. Now is the soul literally distinct from our spirit? The scriptures does not say so. What it does say is:
Gen 2:7 (KJV) And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
A living soul is thus the result of the breadth of life [spirit] being infused into the dust sculpture God made. A soul is therefore not necessarily distinct from a spirit but they are joined in some way. The only thing able to separate or distinguish between soul and spirit is the logos—because it "… sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." Heb 4:12 (KJV). Here we see that thoughts and intents are from the heart. And one of the definitions of the Greek word translated heart (kardia) in Thayer's Greek–English Lexicon is:
- the soul or mind, as it is the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavors
- of the understanding, the faculty, and seat of the intelligence
- of the will and character
We shall therefore use the words mind and heart interchangeably in this exegesis.
All of these are employed in the dragon’s mental and psychological attack on Eve to cause her to be the first-ever to succumb to sin—thus introducing sin into the human race. How did he succeed in deceiving her or beguiling her to use a biblical term?
Gen 3:1-6 (AMPC)
1 NOW THE serpent was more subtle and crafty than any living creature of the field which the Lord God had made. And he [Satan] said to the woman, Can it really be that God has said, You shall not eat from every tree of the garden? [Rev 12:9-11]
2 And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit from the trees of the garden,
3 Except the fruit from the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.
4 But the serpent said to the woman, You shall not surely die, [2Co 11:3]
5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil and blessing and calamity.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good (suitable, pleasant) for food and that it was delightful to look at, and a tree to be desired in order to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she gave some also to her husband, and he ate.
In v.1, the battle begins with words. Words are simply vocalized thoughts. He used the same strategy against Jesus when he tried to tempt Jesus to abort his mission and submit to the Dragon so that the Dragon could give Jesus what he had taken from Adam. He asked a question of Eve meant to cause her to question her husband’s instruction and God who instructed her husband—" Can it really be that God has said, You shall not eat from every tree of the garden?”. What was he doing? Engaging her mind and thinking faculties. She took her mind off the things of God and started deliberating with the serpent the mundane and fleshly things such as what shall we eat? Her response included something God never said: “We may eat the fruit from the trees of the garden…Except the fruit from the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die”. God never said they could not touch it. The enemy continued his doubt casting mission by challenging directly the integrity of God—"You shall not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil and blessing and calamity”. He first called God a liar. When She dwelt upon it, her next set of thoughts may probably have included what has God lied to my husband about? Then the Dragon went for the jugular by insinuating that God did not just lie to you about what gives life and what leads to death but he also lied to you because he is keeping something precious from you--He does not want you to become like him. This is the genesis of the so-called equality movement. The enemy beguiled her by telling her, he has made you inferior, he is trying to cheat you but if you disobey his rules, his pattern, or his ways, you can become like him. The sad thing is she was already created to be just like him or in his likeness. This mental onslaught caused her to shift from spirit perception and move to sensory perception—dependence on senses.
Gen 3:6 (AMPC) And when the woman saw that the tree was good (suitable, pleasant) for food and that it was delightful to look at, and a tree to be desired in order to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she gave some also to her husband, and he ate.
The transformation from a perfect being to a sinful nature occurred in the battleground of the mind. After the fall she admitted she had been beguiled:
Gen 3:13 (AMPC) And the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled (cheated, outwitted, and deceived) me, and I ate.
2Co 11:3 (TPT) But now I’m afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s clever lies, your thoughts may be corrupted and you may lose your single-hearted devotion and pure love for Christ.
2Co 11:3 (AMPC) But [now] I am fearful, lest that even as the serpent beguiled Eve by his cunning, so your minds may be corrupted and seduced from wholehearted and sincere and pure devotion to Christ. [Gen 3:4]
The verses tell us beguiling has to do with our minds and thoughts—which if not set on the Spirit, can cause us to be corrupted and seduced from wholehearted and sincere and pure devotion to Christ. This is exactly what happened to Eve.
This is what the Holy Scriptures say:
2Co 10:4-6 (NKJV)
4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds,
5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
6 and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.
True spiritual warfare has to do with our mind-life. The arguments we entertain or do not entertain. We must not entertain anything that goes against the knowledge of God. Spiritual warfare also has to do with bringing EVERY thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. We must think Christ-thoughts. If these are not done, then you do not have victory in the mind and consequently, the God of Peace cannot punish all disobedience on your behalf.
We win in the area of the mind first.
RESTORATION BEGINS WITH THE MIND
If transformation from a perfect being to a sinful being happened from the region of the mind, how does one go back to where we lost it? If transformation from righteousness to sin began in/with the operation of the mind then how does transformation from sin to righteousness occur?
Rom 10:9-10 (NKJV)
9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Joh 3:16 (NKJV) For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Man’s conduct in the exercise of his mind led to perishing or death of mankind and creation. The same exercise of the mind—trusting and believing in God and his word leads to righteousness and life in abundance.
Those who did not enter their Rest did not enter because of unbelief—again the mind.
Heb 3:12-19 (NKJV)
12 Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God;
13 but exhort one another daily, while it is called "TODAY," lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end,
15 while it is said: "TODAY, IF YOU WILL HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS IN THE REBELLION."
16 For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses?
17 Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness?
18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey?
19 So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.
The verses above explain why the Israelites did not enter the true Rest of God prepared for them It was because of unbelief.
If we seek a restoration of what Adam and Eve lost or to enter the Rest of God, we must do the following:
Rom 12:2 (KJV) And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
The word translated here as “mind” is nous and it means:
Strong's Concordance with Hebrew and Greek Lexicon
intellect, that is, mind (divine or human; in thought, feeling, or will); by implication meaning: - mind, understanding.
Word Study
Mind, the organ of mental perception and apprehension, of conscious life, of the consciousness preceding actions or recognizing and judging them, intelligent understanding
Romans 12:2 draws a clear correlation between conforming to the world and its standards or transformation "…by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude] Rom 12:2 (AMPC). In the absence of this, a believer or Christian cannot “prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you]." Rom 12:2 (AMPC).
Transformation is thus truly a function of the mind. With the mind, we can transform or change our lives for the better. It happens by thinking God’s way—having the mind of God and thinking the thoughts of God vis-à-vis the thoughts of men. How do we do this? By using the word of God wisely—practicing
- what you have learned
- and received
- and heard
- and seen (Php 4:8-9).
Christians must read and listen to the teachings of the Gospel and …
- Be better disposed and more noble, entirely ready and accepting and welcoming the message of the Gospel taught
- with inclination of mind and eagerness,
- searching and examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so." Act 17:11 (AMPC)
This is what leads to transformation of men—when the truth is allowed to pierce and dominate our psyches. The truth sets free and transforms—starting with the human being and ultimately affects creation positively.
Ending Notes
The mind is very powerful. No one truly can say with certainty what it is or where it is located. It is not synonymous with a brain or beating human heart. What we do know is that it has the potential to shape a life, dictate a future, make one Satan or a child of God—and when submitted to God can release life and peace but when left on its own, it can produce death. It is also the agency of metamorphosis or transfiguration.
In Romans 12:2, the word transformed is translated from the Greek word metamorphoō and it means:
- to transform (literally or figuratively “metamorphose”): - change, transfigure, transform.
- to change into another form, to transform, to transfigure
G3339 (Word Study)
μεταμορφόω
metamorphóō; contracted metamorphṓ, fut. metamorphṓsō, from metá (G3326), denoting change of place or condition, and morphóō (G3445), to form. To transform, transfigure, change one's form. In the NT, only in the mid., metamorphóomai, to be transfigured. Used of the Lord's transfiguration on the mount (Mat 17:2; Mar 9:2) involving the miracle of transformation from an earthly form into a supernatural form which was externally denoted by the radiance of His garments and countenance. This suggests what the bodies of the righteous may be like as a result of the resurrection of our bodies (1Co 15:51 f.). In Rom 12:2 and 2Co 3:18, the idea of transformation refers to an invisible process in Christians that takes place or begins to take place during their life in this age.
The mind is the agency or faculty by which the divine exchange that transforms mere sinful man into Gods takes place—Apostle Peter refers to it as associates of the Godkind. The mind can cause a transformation from mankind to Godkind. It is true that once born-again and are new creatures and old things are passed away and all thing are made new. The faculty by which these glorious changes take place including accessing salvation and life eternal is the mind—by believing what is written. If we are good stewards of the mind, we will develop into our full potential as the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
2Co 5:21 (NIV) God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
The believer does not have the righteousness of God but is made the righteousness of God. This is too big for earthly minded to comprehend.
