I have discussed with extensive documentation the dualist interaction we have with the Holy Spirit in repentance thanks to the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross to restore the indwelling of His Holy Spirit in repentant believers. We are witnessing in our time how certain Muslims are having dreams that are bringing them to the acceptance of the Truth of Jesus Christ as their Savior. Looking back at Scripture we see how God has acted on the perceptual apparatus of humans as He does even today. Hunt discusses this reality through the experience of persons in the Old Testament and of two persons to whom the resurrected Jesus appeared prior to His ascension, one of whom was Cleopas:

“Jesus now approached these two on the road [to Emmaus], but He did something He had not done with any of the women - He held their eyes so that they would not recognize Him. The word used is a strong word (krateo), indicating that God ‘laid hold of’ their perceptual apparatus. In the Old Testament, when Elisha’s servant was frightened by the Aramean army that surrounded Elisha, Elisha prayed and God ‘opened’ the servant’s eyes to see the Lord’s chariots of fire surrounding them (2 Kings 6:17). Later the Lord caused the Aramean army to hear chariots and horses that did not exist (2 Kings 7:6). God does operate on our perceptual apparatus as it suits His purposes.”

These comments speak to the dualist interaction that we can have with the indwelling Holy Spirit in our time as it has been documented in Scripture. Yes, we can pray TO God the Father, but we also can HEAR FROM Him. Our perceptual apparatus is becoming more understood as neuroscientists examine the mechanisms of the synaptic networks of the human brain and how they are accessed to transmit specified information.

In Chapter 7 of Hunt’s book, he discusses the ultimate redemption of humans, showing God’s eternal plan for believers:

“In the future life, redeemed humans will judge the angels (1 Cor. 6:3). They will reign with Christ (Rev. 5:10). These two facts tell us that regenerate humanity is the nobility of the universe. Redeemed humanity will someday be the highest ranking of all creatures, even above the angels. From the beginning, God intended our Christlikeness. Redeemed and perfected humanity is God’s highest creation.”

And as I have pointed out in my books and selected blogs God intended to have a personal, intimate communion with the crown of His creation, Man. His indwelling of the human spirit by His Holy Spirit was lost at the Fall but has been restored to repentant believers by the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We already have dualist communion restored by His grace and love, but we do not yet have the full redemption and communion that will be realized in the New Creation in the living presence of Jesus Christ. This is our blessed Hope!

Hunt discusses the initiatives taken by Jesus during His time on earth:

“We would not have the mind of Christ if we were not aware that all His initiatives were at the disposition of His Father. Although He often initiated an action, He claimed, ‘I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.’ (John 5:30)”

This relationship between God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, is the ultimate goal we seek as believers, and God created mankind with the ability to commune intimately and personally with His indwelling Holy Spirit. We seek His righteousness, only to be fully achieved in the New Creation in His presence.

Hunt states that “Nothing like the cross of Christ shows us how holy God really is. The appalling and terrible requirements of God’s awesome holiness called for nothing less than the cross to make us holy. At the same time, nothing like the sacrifice of Christ shows us how vast God’s love is and how far He is willing to go to reach us in His infinite love.”

These comments by T. W. Hunt explain why I entitled my second book, The Boundless Love of God.

Hunt asks, “Why is our freedom from the bondage of sin so important to having the mind of Christ? The person with the mind of Christ has focused attention. When we are in bondage, our attention is on our own lusts, fixations, loyalties, ambitions, grudges, and all that binds us to the world system. Christ’s freedom within us facilitates the mental quality of attention - attention to God, to His word, to prayer, and to His voice. God’s goal is our freedom.”

I post excerpts from Hunt that gives believers a goal in Christ:

“Jesus was sensitive to His Father in the utmost degree. He said, ‘I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught me’ (John 8:28). He claimed to see what the Father was doing, to hear what the Father was saying, and to do nothing independently of the Father. He devoted Himself to reflecting the mind of the Father, and His reflection was exact.

“As the Father is to the Son, so Christ is to us. He imitated the Father; we imitate Christ. He saw the activity of the Father; we pay close attention to the known earthly activity of Jesus (and, for that matter, also to His present activity). He heard from the Father; we must hear from Him. The Father taught Him; He teaches us. He could do nothing independently of the Father; we cannot function independently of Him. He was very close to the Father; we must remain close to Him.

“The opposite of will is instinct (by instinct I mean unwilled reactions). Major or life-changing decisions are not a problem with animals. With human beings, the will is that part of our mind over which we have control. ‘We are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ’ (2 Cor. 10:5). The will enables us to obey in spite of feeling. Often we cannot control our emotions, but we always have control over the will. Our identification with Christ must begin here or not at all.”

I pray that the information I have shared in my books and blogs gives compelling reason to believe that we can and do hear from the Holy Spirit in our time, reflecting the intimate, personal communion that existed between the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. It is a communion restored to believers by the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ who lives. I have explained this communion in the context of dualist interaction.

Hunt describes the spiritual mind:

“Romans 8:6 gives us another adjective to apply to the spiritual mind: ‘The mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.’ The spiritual mind is peaceful. Paul had said in the previous verse, ‘Those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit’ (Romans 8:5). Note again that we set our minds. Peace is a fruit, not an attainment. Our work is setting the mind; God’s work is the peace. Sin separates us from God, the source of peace.”

I pause in posting excerpts from the book by T. W. Hunt to share a personal comment reflecting what I have learned by over 20 years of apologetics research and writing. I wish to address the question what it means to be “in Christ.”

Joyce Meyer has described being “in Christ” as being transplanted from one pot or vase where a plant is not thriving, even dying, to another one in which the roots of the plant can thrive, extending deep into nutritious soil to bring new, strong, fruitful life to the plant. Through the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ resurrected repentant believers have an intimate, personal communion restored with the indwelling Holy Spirit as Counselor and Helper. Consider what life on earth could be if we live completely by the Counsel of the indwelling Holy Spirit, the life that Jesus Christ lived while He was on earth. He lived totally by the Counsel of God the Father, even to His death by crucifixion, so all mankind has the gift of redemption and promise of eternal life! No, as long as we mere humans are “bound” to our earthly bodies, we cannot live totally by the Holy Spirit because of our fallen human natures. But the indwelling Holy Spirit restored to us in repentance is an “already but not yet” reality. We are blessed to experience the spiritual life in Christ in our space-time, and we look forward with Hope to the promise of an eternal life in the presence of Jesus Christ, no longer susceptible to the fleshly death of living in the absence of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

It is my prayer that the information I have shared in my books and many blogs gives validity and meaning to living “in Christ,” able to live in a bidirectional, personal communion with the Holy Spirit made possible by God’s created neural synaptic networks, a dualist interaction unique to human beings, the crown of God’s creation.

I quote Dr. Hunt:

“The Old Testament places little emphasis on our becoming like God while the New Testament reiterates numerous injunctions to imitate God or to be like Christ. In its earliest pages, the Bible tells us that God created us in His image (Gen. 1:26; 5:1) Yet after Adam’s fall, the Old Testament has very little reference to our likeness to God and no admonitions to become like Him. The Old Testament emphasis is on the difference between God and man. ‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. . . . The New Testament makes a radical shift in its emphasis. Here God in Christ is made like us: ‘Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same . . . . Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God.’ (Heb. 2:14, 17). After redemption was accomplished, the New Testament picks up the theme from the opening chapters of the Bible, and once more we are to be like God. Paul said, ‘Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness’ (Eph. 4:24, emphasis added).”

Our righteousness and holiness can come by the Counsel and Help of the Holy Spirit whom the resurrected Jesus sent as He promised to indwell believers in repentence, an indwelling that was lost at the Fall but restored by the love and grace of God through the sin sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

In my next several blog posts I shall include excerpts from T. W. Hunt’s book, The Mind of Christ: The Transforming Power of Thinking His Thoughts. I have repeatedly stated in my books and blogs that the human mind is created in the image of the Mind of God. I hope my presentations about this truth are compelling. I have looked at the mechanisms currently understood in neuroscience by which the immaterial mind of Man [and Mind of God] interact in dualistic fashion with our material synaptic networks. Now I wish to focus on the Mind of Jesus Christ as considered by Dr. Hunt, a Mind that communes with us in our time.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, Who, being in the form of God, . . . Took upon Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. Philippians 2:5-7

The Kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17:21

These two Scriptures are included on the back cover of Hunt’s book and give a powerful introduction to his comments and teachings.