Renewing Of The Mind
Paul said, in Ephesians 4:23, “and be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” To develop a Christ-like character and life there are two things we must do. Paul mentions the negative side in verse 22 where he says we are to put off the old man. The old man is the corruption of sin, which, Paul says, grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts. Then, in verse 24 he says, “put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”
Right between these two verses is the verse we quoted in the beginning. We are to have the spirit of our minds renewed. The spirit is what man uses to communicate with God. When this lies inactive, or when it is dead, without spiritual life, then a person will be lead to sin and trespass against God. The mind is filled with sin, and is lead to think and reason along the line of sin and evil. But, when spiritual life enters in through Jesus and by the Holy Spirit, the spirit of man is quickened, made alive, and made new. The mind is then energized to think and reason along new principles. And that is what happens when the Spirit of God renews the spirit of our minds.
This renewing, in the Greek language, is in the passive voice, meaning that the subject of the sentence is being acted upon, rather than doing the action itself. So, the subject of this sentence is ‘you,’ meaning us, and the action is being done to us rather than we doing it. It is the Spirit of God who does this renewing. When He comes in, He gives us new spiritual powers and helps us to work with Him as He directs us in using those spiritual powers. But He is the One who does this. We can’t produce those powers in ourselves, and we can’t know how to use them in ourselves. The Spirit alone can do this for us and in us.
According to the Greek, the word ‘renewed’ is coming from the standpoint that it is something brand new. It hasn’t been there before. In other words, when the Spirit of God renews the spirit of our mind, it is a total transformation from what has been there before, and there is something there, or something done which has never been done before. Our thinking, the direction of our mind, is totally new. As one writer put it, “the sanctifying Holy Spirit produces a liberated human spirit which now motivates the mind not only to a new mentality, but to an entirely new outlook and attitude towards Christian living.” We approach life from an entirely new viewpoint, because the spirit of our minds has been renewed.
We will revisit this, but today let us thank God for this renewing of our minds which causes us to become focused on Him and Him alone as the center of our life!