Warning not to think like everyone else does
“The Lord has given me a strong warning not to think like everyone else does.” – Isaiah 8:11
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is supposed to change our perceptual reality. That first Easter Sunday forced Jesus’ disciples to realize they’d been seeing things “from a human point of view,” including even their view of Jesus himself. Afterward, however, they did so no longer.[1]
For instance, the resurrection changed their understanding of wisdom and power,[2] and they came to see that their transformation would come largely from having their minds “renewed” in the knowledge of Jesus risen from the grave.[3]
In other words, Jesus’ death and resurrection were apocalyptic; revealing truth (about God, us, and life) that had long been hidden, at least from the average person.[4] Just as Jesus said from the cross, we operate in ignorance. We don’t know what we’re doing.
But we do now, or at least we should. Jesus’ resurrection, seen clearly, should open our eyes to the hidden dynamics at work on and in our lives. Quite literally the people who conspired to kill Jesus, believing he was a heretic who could not have come from God, should have realized their mistake when they encountered his risen presence.
They didn’t.
And the sad truth is that many Christians today still don’t. Instead of the resurrection changing the way Christians think about everything, many seem still largely enslaved to the “basic principles of this world,” using their faith in Jesus as ultimate justification.
When God warned the prophet Isaiah not to think like “everyone else,” the everyone else God was referring to was most likely Isaiah’s Jewish contemporaries, not all the crazy pagans from neighboring nations. To put this in more contemporary parlance, Isaiah wasn’t being warned not to think like all those secularists outside of the church but not to think like all those “religious” people inside the church who, perhaps unbeknownst to them, are really secular in their thinking.
For example, many Christians seem to uncritically accept the secular idea that justice is mostly (if not exclusively) about punishment. To bring someone to justice is to see that he receives the punishment owed him for whatever crime he committed. Rather than asking themselves is Jesus’ death and resurrection challenge that assumption, they apply the assumption to their understanding of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus died to suffer the punishment that we deserved, they reason. The outcome is their pre-existing secular assumption (and preference) regarding justice is now fundamentally rooted in the character of God rather than uprooted by the character of God.
Or how about that many Christians seem to accept that, at least in the end, some people will be expendable while others will not? Again, this is a projection of the basic principle of this world that people are objects to be used to get what we want rather than subjects whom we need to become fully human. The resurrection would suggest that no person is expendable, that we are connected to all people, and that it is in our connection to all people that God saves us.
I could offer many more examples.
It’s not just “sinful,” secular culture Christians are supposed to think differently than. We are, of course, but we should also assume secular ways of thinking have already influenced the way many Christians think about things so that they now pass off as Christian what is really a “human point of view.
Isaiah said that God “strongly” warned him about this. I wonder what a similar strong warning would look like in our day and age. Do we just “believe” in the resurrection as our ticket to an afterlife paradise or do we allow the resurrection to reframe how we understand reality?
[1] See Mt 16:23 vs 2 Cor 5:16
[2] 1 Cor 1:18-31
[3] Rom 12:2
[4] Col 1:26
The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is supposed to change our perceptual reality. That first Easter Sunday forced Jesus’ disciples to realize they’d been seeing things “from a human point of view,” including even their view of Jesus himself. Afterward, however, they did so no longer.[1]
For instance, the resurrection changed their understanding of wisdom and power,[2] and they came to see that their transformation would come largely from having their minds “renewed” in the knowledge of Jesus risen from the grave.[3]
In other words, Jesus’ death and resurrection were apocalyptic; revealing truth (about God, us, and life) that had long been hidden, at least from the average person.[4] Just as Jesus said from the cross, we operate in ignorance. We don’t know what we’re doing.
But we do now, or at least we should. Jesus’ resurrection, seen clearly, should open our eyes to the hidden dynamics at work on and in our lives. Quite literally the people who conspired to kill Jesus, believing he was a heretic who could not have come from God, should have realized their mistake when they encountered his risen presence.
They didn’t.
And the sad truth is that many Christians today still don’t. Instead of the resurrection changing the way Christians think about everything, many seem still largely enslaved to the “basic principles of this world,” using their faith in Jesus as ultimate justification.
When God warned the prophet Isaiah not to think like “everyone else,” the everyone else God was referring to was most likely Isaiah’s Jewish contemporaries, not all the crazy pagans from neighboring nations. To put this in more contemporary parlance, Isaiah wasn’t being warned not to think like all those secularists outside of the church but not to think like all those “religious” people inside the church who, perhaps unbeknownst to them, are really secular in their thinking.
For example, many Christians seem to uncritically accept the secular idea that justice is mostly (if not exclusively) about punishment. To bring someone to justice is to see that he receives the punishment owed him for whatever crime he committed. Rather than asking themselves is Jesus’ death and resurrection challenge that assumption, they apply the assumption to their understanding of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Jesus died to suffer the punishment that we deserved, they reason. The outcome is their pre-existing secular assumption (and preference) regarding justice is now fundamentally rooted in the character of God rather than uprooted by the character of God.
Or how about that many Christians seem to accept that, at least in the end, some people will be expendable while others will not? Again, this is a projection of the basic principle of this world that people are objects to be used to get what we want rather than subjects whom we need to become fully human. The resurrection would suggest that no person is expendable, that we are connected to all people, and that it is in our connection to all people that God saves us.
I could offer many more examples.
It’s not just “sinful,” secular culture Christians are supposed to think differently than. We are, of course, but we should also assume secular ways of thinking have already influenced the way many Christians think about things so that they now pass off as Christian what is really a “human point of view.
Isaiah said that God “strongly” warned him about this. I wonder what a similar strong warning would look like in our day and age. Do we just “believe” in the resurrection as our ticket to an afterlife paradise or do we allow the resurrection to reframe how we understand reality?
[1] See Mt 16:23 vs 2 Cor 5:16
[2] 1 Cor 1:18-31
[3] Rom 12:2
[4] Col 1:26
Recent
Archive
2026
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
Categories
no categories
No Comments