A DOUBLE-MINDED MAN

 

The mind is important, even tantamount, in scripture. Speaking of God, Job confessed about his dutifulness to God, “But He is in One Mind, and who can turn Him? and what his soul desireth, even that He doeth” (Job 23:13).

So, God is one in mind. “Mind” in that passage is not in the original Hebrew; it is implied and added clarity. Where the “mind” is in the text, the meaning applies to the inner person especially of the “creatures” called “adama.” The mind is therefore the soul of mankind, but we think of the mind as the faculty that uses reason and logic — cognition — and that it is transmitted by a network in the brain that carries information.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary provides two definitions that complement each other: “The element or complex of elements in an individual that feels, perceives, thinks, wills, and especially reasons; and the conscious mental events and capabilities in an organism.”

The mind in scripture is mentioned most often as the “heart.” Therefore, the heart is the mind. To give your heart to God as the acceptable sacrifice would be to give Him your mind: feelings, perceptions, thoughts, willingness, reasoning, conscience, and activities. It is as much as giving God your all. That all is everything, your “Oneness” — to be of “one mind,” or has Paul said it, “Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind” (Rom 14:5); persuaded that God is the Way and only Way to salvation and that is all your feelings, perceptions, thoughts, wills, reasoning, consciousness, and activities. In other words, your actions must be of the same mind as your soul.

Think on this: The soul of Jesus — the Holy Ghost — was the Image of His “bodily shape” (Luke 3:22). When Jesus walked, He walked in tandem with His Mind, or soul. Jesus was not two Beings, but a human being who walked the Way of the Image inside of Him that was endowed within Him when John baptized. John said, “Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost” (John 1:33).

That says many things: (1) That no others retained the Spirit, specifically their own “Ghost,” (2) that the Ghost of Jesus was “Holy,” (3) that Jesus was One with the Holy Ghost thereafter, at least until the crucifixion, and (4) that only the baptism of Jesus is effective because only He is Holy. (He gave up the Ghost — His bodily-shaped Shadow — at death.)

Holiness implies an “awesome God” in that holy is “hagios” in the Greek and means an “Awful Thing.” Hence, one that is holy is like Jesus and the person is an “awful thing” as well, as a new creature in Christ. Perhaps awful implies “awesomeness” or just a difference between a Holy Thing and an Earthling.

Now for a what if? What if the feelings, perceptions, thoughts, willingness, reasoning, conscience of Jesus were out of synchrony with His actions or visa versa? To be of “One Mind” is for the activities to reveal the innermost being. That is called nowadays as “walk the talk.” Jesus walked that Way and He was of “One Mind” as Job revealed God TO BE.

Because Jesus was of One Mind, and He was, we too must be of One Mind, to wit: 

⁸ Be ye all of One Mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous: ⁹ Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. (1 Pet 3:8-9)

 Jesus was accused of being “beside Himself” (Mark 3;21), or unstable, but He showed them just how stable he walked! He was, in a sense, beside Himself in that His Walk was His talk, the “Word.”

Peter validated the Merriam-Webster definition of mind; in verse 8 the inner creature — the soul or “heart,” and verse 9 the actions of the man. Peter indicated that the walk must be about the thoughts or else the person is out of harmony with both God and himself unstable. If not, he thinks one way and walks another! (I capitalized One Mind) because our minds must be like the “One Mind” of God.

Now, consider the Creation of mankind: 

²⁶ God said, “Let us make man in our Image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” ²⁷ So God created man in his own Image, in the Image of God created He him; male and female created He them. (Gen 1:26-27)

 God is an Invisible Being who was Creative. He was and is Mind. That Invisible Image is “selem” in the Hebrew. That is important! The root meaning of selem is “to shade” (Strong 2006). Thusly, the Image of Adam and Eve were the “Shadow” of God. This first phase of creation was God generating the soul and mind of mankind before the foundation of the earthly things (Ephes 4:1).

God is Mind, but also Invisible — Spirit — whose “shape” is the soul that resembles those who cast their shadows… beings. “Our Image” therein was like the angels and God, both are invisible beings. Good angels were of the Image, or Mind and Spirit of God, and so were the first human beings! Mankind was created single-minded as God is One Being.

With sin, something genetic occurred; Adam and Eve encountered another “image” (nahas in the Hebrew). That “image” was translated “Serpent” in the English, but the root word means Image as well, and now we have the characteristics of that image: “to practice divination, divine, observe signs, learn by experience, diligently observe, practice fortunetelling, take as an omen” (ibid). The Image was not a Serpent at all, but a creature with a different mind; one that practices awful things: divination and so forth.

Thereafter, the genesis of the creatures changed; they went from single-minded who thought and walked like God — their steps were in synchrony with their souls — to those who walked like men but thought like that old creature. They became unstable, or depraved, in their ways. Both Adam and Eve became “double-minded” because their thoughts and actions were out of step. Before, they had been stable (Gen 1:321) and after sin they failed to walk the Walk of God and according to the brother of Jesus, “A double minded man is unstable in all his ways” (Jas 1:8).

Double-minded meant that their thoughts were unstable, or wavering. “Man” therein is generic therein and means the human creature. That implies that the mind of modern man was derived from the nahas — the thoughts of the Beast. Therefore, the genetics of mankind changed.

After sin, with an inglorious image, God put onto them fleshes of skins (Gen 3:21) to cover their shame, and to be like He Himself when manifested by Jesus.

However, they had obtained the mind of the Nahas — the image of the fallen angel, Lucifer. They thereafter exhibited two images, one much different than the other. Both Adam and Eve became double-minded and unstable in their ways. They had the cunning of the Beast and the Mind of God that was meant to walk in harmony with their souls.

Scripture, therefore, points to mankind having two minds. As it turns out; they do have two minds and even two brains! The creatures, at first, were single-minded; were they also single-brained? More on that to come later.

(picture credit; Trailers from Hell; :Man with Two Brains")