The Unadjusted Gospel by Mark Dever

Author:Mark Dever
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crossway

There is the danger that in our engagement with the culture, we can become earthly minded. We’ve all heard the saying, “Don’t be so heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good.” There are other modern-day equivalents such as: “The church needs to be relevant.” And sometimes, “The church must meet people’s needs” (meaning earthly, physical needs). But that simply doesn’t fit what Paul says here. The only way to be of any earthly good is to be increasingly heavenly minded. So Paul ends where he began.

Look Up and Look Out

Paul calls us instead to “seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things that are above, not things that are on earth” (vv. 1–2). Paul grounds this exhortation in our resurrection and ascension with Christ: “If [we] have been raised with Christ,” he says in verse 1, and in verse 3: if we “have died, and [our] lives are hidden with Christ in God . . .”

What has happened to Christ has happened to us through our union with Christ through faith. Since we’re in heaven with Christ, what we seek has changed. We look up at Christ where he is seated in the heavenly realm. We look out to his coming.

When Christ who is our life appears, then we also will appear with him in glory. We are to be glory-seeking people. That’s our perspective. We long and work and pray for the highest glory—the glory of God in Christ, which we will share when he comes! So the apostle really ends where he started: pushing us up into Christ. It’s all Christ from beginning to end. Christ is our purpose. Christ is our philosophy. Christ is our practice. And Christ is our perspective. Let us be given over completely to Christ.

Paul lists the results of engaging the culture with an earthly mind in verses 5–11. In a word, the result is earthly living. We will hardly escape looking like the world in all its depravity. So we need desperately to raise our gaze from “the culture” and behold the Son seated in the place of honor beside his Father. As we look for him and look at him, we’ll look like him (1 John 3:2–3). Since our lives are hidden in Christ, then we ought to be looking for and leaning toward and longing after the person and place where our lives exist. Our minds are to be on things above.

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