05-4 Theology of the..

10 LOGIA
best to get me back on track. One of his favorite words of advice
on such occasions was, “Son, what you need here is to get your
head on straight.” Oh, how many times did I hear these words
growing up! Sometimes it seemed to me that my major problem
in life, from my dad’s perspective, was a continually off-center
head that was forever needing readjustment.
Now, many years later, I think that our heavenly Father is in
total agreement with my dad. He echoes the same words of advice
for me and all his children in his Word when it comes to the tasks
and challenges of Christian living. In 1 Peter he exhorts us to “gird
our minds for action.” David tells us in Psalm 7 that “the righteous
God tries the heart and mind” of all of us. Being “rightminded”
or in the right mind is of great importance for living
and growing in Christ.
Mind Renewal
The Christian as new creation and fleshly self really has a duality
in the mind, two minds, so to speak. Paul exhorts us to put
our heads on straight because “the mind set on the flesh is death”
and “hostile to God,” but the mind of Christ or the “mind set on
the Spirit is life and peace” (Rom 8:6). When we are drifting off in
the mind of the flesh, our heads are not on straight, and we need
to make the adjustment of putting on the new self and then walk
in the mind of Christ.
In Ephesians 4, Paul reminds us that there are two things that
we need to do continually in order to mature in Christ and fight
the inner war that is a part of our daily Christian living. The first
is to get our heads on straight by putting on the new self. The
second is mind renewal—to “be renewed in the spirit of [our]
mind.” Both tasks are also emphasized in Romans 12: “Do not be
conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of
your mind.” And the purpose of this mind renewal “So we can
prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable
and perfect.”
If, as a boy, my dad was always exhorting me to get my head on
straight, I must confess that insofar as that was actually accomplished,
he must be credited (together with Mom) with performing
the lion’s share of that task. And though I needed them, his
words sometimes were very hard and painful to receive. Likewise,
our Heavenly Father, exhorting us in much the same way, carries
out, through his Son, the lion’s share of mind adjustment and
renewal that he commands of us. And again we see another
instance of what God commands, God produces. He works in the
Christian life continually to get our heads on straight—casting
off the fleshly mind, putting on the mind of Christ—and then he
renews and matures that mind.
Applying Law and Gospel
Our Lord does all this by the Holy Spirit through his ministry
of law and gospel in the word and sacraments. Through
the law at full strength, he exposes our fleshly self-made plans
for acceptability and secure personal well-being and condemns
them for the idolatrous and unworkable plans that they are.
The real checkmate here is not simply that they are wrong.
Rather, it is that they don’t work and can’t work, and those who
rely and trust in such plans are not just wrong, they are dead.
This is full-strength law!
The most penetrating law is that which is directed not to our
behavior, but to the core of the fleshly self that is in the mind and
heart. That is where the rebellious strategies and goals are lodged,
formulated, and energized for action. It is on the level of fleshly
belief, hope, and trust that the law must be applied. A mere
behavioral application can often end up as moralizing, and the
sinful self can easily adapt to a certain modicum of nice, moral
living. And in Christians it often does!
We need to be clear about God’s objectives here as we battle the
flesh. God’s ministry of law in the life of the Christian is not to
reform the fleshly self. He is out to kill it. Paul exhorts us to mortify
and crucify the flesh. Kill it! Remember, the heart and mind
of the fleshly self is organized around a rebellious answer and
strategy to solve the problem of existence itself, personal wellbeing:
What do we need that we might be secure and acceptable
human beings, and what can we do for significant, meaningful
impact in life How the fleshly self in each one of us frames out
answers to this is ground-point zero where full-strength law
needs to be directed and applied again and again.
What does effective ministry of the law do for the new self
Nothing in any direct way, but it does create a powerful hunger
and thirst for our Lord’s bread of life and living water of the
gospel. The law itself imparts no spiritual nutrition or power for
Christian living, but it is God’s great appetite builder that sends
us running for the word of life. And the ministry of the gospel is
how our Lord feeds the new creation to sustain and mature our
faith and life in Christ. The cutting edge of this building up
through the gospel involves the Spirit’s work of mind renewal for
development and maturity.
There is another paradox here. Full-strength gospel can often
be the simple gospel: “You are forgiven, God loves you and
accepts you just as you are for the sake of Christ.” Or even, “Jesus
loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” For our little ones
in Christ we must take care to feed them continually with the
pure milk of the gospel. And sometimes the simple gospel is what
we need, just the plain but full-strength words, “you are forgiven.”
Yet it is also true that the gospel is not simple. There is
more to it in its implications and applications than we will ever
grasp in this life.
As we grow and mature in Christ, the Lord also intends for us
to feed on the “meat and potatoes,” indeed, the whole nine
courses of the gospel, not simply the milk and pabulum. The
Spirit is working through word and sacrament to renew our
minds and hearts to the full stature of the mind of Christ himself.
And we need this mature understanding and trust of faith to handle
the front lines of Christ’s warfare with the powers of darkness
in our lives and in the world: maturity for battle and service at the
tough outposts of life. The milk and pabulum of the gospel alone
will not provide that kind of growth and equipping. With a fullorbed
gospel the new creation becomes progressively built up for
a fuller and deeper flow of the love and ministry of Christ
through us to those he gives us opportunity to serve. LOGIA
NOTE
* Paraphrase of Søren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, pp. 31–43,
by Philip Yancy, Disappointment with God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan
Publishing House, 1988), 103–104.