Can anyone know the Mind of God? His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. God’s Mind is inscrutable to us, but if we know the personality of Jesus we can catch a glimpse of the Mind of God.
Ancient Personality Theory
In 1946, a breath-taking discovery was made in a remote cave in Israel, by the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered accidentally, and they were almost perfectly preserved. These ancient scrolls turned many skeptics into believers of the Bible as the fragile, cracking parchments were studied.
I was fortunate enough to visit the Chicago Field Museum in 2007 to glimpse a bit of those precious parchments. When we entered the room, the lights were very dim. As we walked past the glass display cases, a light would come on only once every few minutes and then quickly be extinguished for fear of destroying the fragile scrolls. The chilled air was reverent and viewers were silent as they looked for a few tantalizing moments at the Hebrew writings.
We saw the book of Isaiah, originally written somewhere around seven hundred years before Christ was born. We were gazing at a message that was more than twenty six hundred years old. I don’t read Hebrew, but I was intrigued by the beautiful letters so carefully copied by cautious scribes.
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).
The scribes were the ones who had the task of copying Scripture so others could read it. They had a very strict code that they followed as they worked. They had to count every letter and every word. Before writing the name of God, they had to get up, take a bath, change their clothes, and sit back down to write.
They may have been so intent on the mechanics of copying they might not have considered the overall impact of this passage. But I wonder, after this page was completed; did they sit back and consider the import of the words they had just written? Did they wonder who this Son was going to be? What would it be like to know Him?
According to Jesus in Mark 12: 29-30, the most important commandment is for us to love the Lord our God: with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind and all of our strength. Not only does God want us to know him, but he desires us to love him as well. Let’s take a look at this God. Who is He? What are His attributes? He must be worthy of such complete devotion if this is the first and foremost command. Is he really as lovable as all that?
This post is the third in a series on knowing the personality of Jesus, who reveals exactly what God is like. Jesus is the Mind of God , the Wonderful Counselor.
The Mind of God
In Isaiah 9:6, the Hebrew words for “Wonderful Counselor” are “pele yoes.” “Pele” can mean miraculous, astonishing, astounding, or marvelous. And “yoes” means advisor, encourager, or one who gives counsel. The Wonderful Counselor is the One who contains miraculous, astonishing wisdom. Think of all the things the Wonderful Counselor has devised just with respect to the human body.
With the 60,000 miles of blood vessels inside the average human body, you could circumnavigate Earth two and a half times. Nerve impulses travel to and from the brain at speeds of up to 250 miles per hour, faster than a Formula 1 racecar. An adult is made up of 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (7 octillion) atoms. For perspective, there’s a measly 300,000,000,000 (300 billion) stars in our galaxy.
Our muscles are actually incredibly more powerful than they appear to be. Human strength is limited to protect our tendons and muscles from harming themselves. This limitation can be removed during an adrenaline rush, during which some people have lifted boulders or even cars to rescue others. If the human brain were a computer, it could perform 38 thousand-trillion operations per second. The world’s most powerful supercomputer, BlueGene, can manage only .002% of that. Your body produces 25 million new cells each second. Every 13 seconds, you produce more cells than there are people in the United States.
The Mind of God is certainly capable of incredible ingenuity and complexity. Every system in the universe originated in the Mind of God.
The Personality of Jesus
The Gospel of John reveals Jesus as the Son of God, or the Word of God, who existed from eternity past and who participated in creation. The Gospel of John is the most theological of all four gospels, and it is written for the Greek world, the center of knowledge and culture. The genealogy of Jesus is given from the standpoint of eternity. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning” (John 1:1-2). The truths about the Son of God are presented in His divine titles: the Lamb of God, the Only Begotten, the Light of the World, the Bread of Life, and the I Am. When Jesus is baptized, we see God the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus as a dove as God the Father roars His approval from heaven.
“At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Mark 1:9-11 NIV). What a beautiful picture of the members of the trinity intent on the same mission.
John, the writer of this Gospel, was very close to Jesus; many believe he was the apostle referenced as the one Jesus loved. “One of them, the disciple whom Jesus loved, was reclining next to him” (John 13:23 NIV). This is a picture of the closeness of Jesus to His Father, symbolized by the closeness of Jesus and John. “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known” (John 1:18). As John wrote about this close relationship, he could rely on his own relationship with Jesus, knowing Him so well. The themes of John include majesty, divinity, and all-powerful judgeship.
Our Wonderful Counselor can be described as the Mind of God, and the image that represents this side of Christ is the eagle. The eagle makes its nest up high, has sharp sight, and symbolizes rationality, insight, and divinity.
The Wonderful Counselor is a perfectionist. He was tempted to be imperfect (to sin) in every way, but never succumbed to temptation. Hebrews 4:15 reads, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.”
The Mind of God is very sensitive to the pain of His people. He wept when His friend Lazarus died (John 11:35). He had what we sometimes call a “bleeding heart.” When the religious leaders didn’t want Him to heal a sick man on a religious holiday, Jesus was grieved at their callousness. “He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored” (Mark 3:5).
The Mind of God would encompass judgment. Jesus could easily identify problems. Jesus was outspoken a number of times, but with good cause. He always directed His judgments to people who claimed to be believers of God, and yet clearly weren’t living as if they were. They were hypocrites. Jesus spent much time listing one sin after the other, warning them, “Woe to you.” He called these same hypocrites “a brood of vipers.” Jesus could be “in your face” when it served God’s purpose.
Jesus had the mind of a genius, compared to other human children. He exhibited a remarkable level of genius when His parents found Him, at the age of twelve, teaching adult religious leaders.
Orderliness and attention to detail are hallmarks of the Mind of God. When Jesus was getting ready to feed 5000 men in a miraculous way, He had them sit down in groups of fifty and a hundred first (Mark 6:39-40). If He had owned a tablet computer, He might have created an Excel chart.
Jesus sent His apostles on a mission trip at one point and gave them detailed instructions before they left. He told them which cities to visit, gave them directions on how to get there, and told them what to do when they arrived. He told them how much money they needed, what to wear, and what to pack for the trip. He gave them warnings about possible problems they might encounter. He left no detail to chance.
Jesus has the intense desire to right the wrongs of society. When He returns, He’ll do just that. We don’t have to take matters into our own hands, because He has promised that every word and deed will be brought into account. “But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the Day of Judgment for every empty word they have spoken” (Matthew 12:36 NIV).
Isn’t it reassuring to know someone is in charge to make sure all the rules are obeyed? Without detail-oriented, orderly Jesus, who will right every wrong, we would have no hope of eventual justice.
Making Friends with Jesus
Knowing the Mind of God is a difficult task for our finite human minds. But when we get to know Jesus personally by studying about His life, by prayer and by learning to trust His counsel we can begin to know Jesus as the Wonderful Counselor.
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The melancholy mind personality style will relate well to this personality style of Jesus. The melancholy mind loves order, is deep and introspective, often artistic or highly intelligent. If you don’t know your preferred personalty style, take the Personality Key test to find out. You will receive a free report that provides more information to help you understand your preferences, your gifts, and your possible growth areas.
To begin making friends with Jesus, read the gospel of John and mark the passages that refer to the sound counsel of God. This book of the Bible is full of the lofty wisdom that seems so contrary to the way the world works. Go to your Wonderful Counselor with your questions. And then wait patiently and silently for His answers. He may not answer the way we expect Him to, but we can always be assured He will answer in the wisest way.
…because U count, deb