As believers in Christ, we need to take the lead to be headed up in Christ, being rescued out of the heap of universal collapse by the factor of life to be brought under Christ as the Head and be in absolute peace and harmony.
God’s will is to head up all things in Christ; for this He predestinated us, He redeemed us, He saved us, He is sanctifying us, and He is doing everything in our being and in our environment.
God is continually dispensing Himself into man with the intent that He would head up all things in Christ.
In ourselves – when we remain in ourselves or even try to obey God with our whole strength and will, we fail; we cannot obey God, we cannot submit to Him, and there’s no way for us to do this in ourselves.
But praise the Lord for the dispensing of the abundant life supply of the Triune God as the life factor into us which causes us to rise up from any death situation and be attached to the Body!
As long as we remain open as vessels to the Lord and receive His dispensing, we are spontaneously headed up in Christ.
Satan came and injected his element of death into us, and we became deadened; our spirit was deadened, our soul has the poison of Satan to be the self independent from God, and our body has been transmuted to become the flesh, eventually dying of physical death.
But when God dispenses Himself into us in our spirit, life is imparted into us; the factor of life causes us to be headed up and be attached to the Body under the one Head.
Day by day we need to be under God’s dispensing, allowing Him to work Himself into us through our willing cooperation.
We can do this by opening to Him all throughout the day, offering Him prayers of cooperation, and musing on His word in a prayerful way.
From the beginning to the end of the Bible we see that God intends to dispense Himself into us, and it is by His dispensing that we can have faith, we can respond to Him, and we can cooperate with Him.
We can even say that today God’s dispensation is even greater than it was at the time of the apostle Paul; today we have a deeper, higher, and wider dispensation of the grace of God.
In the church life we enjoy a miniature of the New Jerusalem in our experience: here we drink the Spirit as the river of water of life, we eat Christ as the tree of life, and we are under God’s shining in Christ, being headed up in Christ in all things.
Eventually, at the times of the ages, God will head up all things in Christ through the church, and that will be God’s eternal administration and economy.
The Heading up of all things in Christ is the Result of God’s Work in us and will bring in Peace and Harmony
In Eph. 1:10 we see the heading up of all things in Christ this verse, however, doesn’t stand alone – it is a continuation of verses 3-9.
The heading up of all things is the issue of God’s selection, predestination, the praise of the glory of God’s grace, being graced in the Beloved, having redemption and forgiveness, and having God’s grace abound in us in all wisdom and prudence.
The mystery of God’s will according to the good pleasure which He purposed in Himself is that God predestinated us, He accomplished redemption for us, He graced us and caused grace to abound to us, and He does all things to work on us so that we may be headed up in Christ.
God chose us so that He may head us up in Christ.
God predestinated us unto sonship so that He may head up all things in Christ. God accomplished redemption through the blood of Christ so that He may head up all things in Christ.
God graced us and He causes grace to abound to us in all wisdom and prudence so that He may head up all things in Christ.
Our being chosen and predestinated, our being redeemed and forgiven, and our enjoying grace abundantly are not in themselves the goal; the goal is the heading up of all things in Christ.
Eph. 1:22-23 reveal further that this heading up is “to the church” so that the Body of Christ may share in all that is of Christ as the Head, having been rescued from the heap of the universal collapse in death and darkness, which was caused by the rebellion of angels and the rebellion of man.
To be rescued from the collapse is to be headed up. God gave Christ to be Head over all things to the church; this word “to” is very important, for it implies that there’s a transmission taking place.
What is transmitted into us is the fourfold power of the Triune God, which power was also mentioned in Eph. 1:19, the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.
When we exercise our spirit, we exercise our spirit of faith (2 Cor. 4:13) to believe into Him; in this way, the surpassing greatness of the Triune God’s power can be dispensed into us and transmitted into our being.
There are four aspects of this power transmitted into us.
This power raised Christ from the dead; it is a resurrecting power (Eph. 1:20). The power that raised Jesus up from the dead is being transmitted into us, and we are raised up together with Him.
This power is the power that seated Christ at the right hand of God; the ascending power is being transmitted into us. For us to enjoy this transmission, we need to remain in our spirit. Such a power eventually reaches our mortal body to give life to our body (Rom. 8:11).
The third aspect of this power is that it subjects all things under the feet of Christ. When we exercise our spirit, we can enjoy the transmission of Christ’s subjecting power into our whole being to spontaneously cause us to subject ourselves to Him.
The fourth aspect is the heading up power; God gave Christ to be Head over all things, and when we exercise our spirit, we are headed up in Christ.
When everything is headed up in Christ, there will be absolute peace and harmony (Isa. 2:4; 11:6; 55:12; Psa. 96:12-13), a full rescue out of the collapse; this will begin from the restoration of all things (Acts 3:21).
Today we want to be the overcoming ones, the constituents of the overcoming bride of Christ, those taking Christ as their Head, so that eventually all things would be restored and there would be absolute peace and harmony.
We do this by taking Christ as the holding center of our universe; all things subsist in Him in the physical universe, but we also need to take Him as the holding center of our personal universe.
Thank You Father for choosing us and predestinating us unto sonship so that we may be headed up in Christ! Thank You for accomplishing redemption for us through the blood of Christ and gracing us so that we may be headed up in Christ. Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit to enjoy the transmission of the fourfold power from the Head to be raised up, ascended with Christ, have all things under our feet, and be headed up in Christ! We give ourselves to You, Lord, so that everything in our being and in the church would be headed up in Christ!
God Heads us up by Working Himself into us as the Factor of Life so that we may Rise up and be Attached to the Body
What Satan did when he injected his poison into man at the fall of man is to cause a universal collapse; man as the head of creation fell, so the whole creation collapsed, and it’s all a heap of collapse now.
The collapse comes from the factor of death injected by Satan into man and into all the creation; however, when man returns to God and receives the factor of life, all things are being headed up in Christ.
When the factor of death comes in, all the parts of our being become detached from one another; this is similar to the illustration of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37.
Ezekiel looked and there was a valley full of bones, and they were dead and very dry.
But when he, at the Lord’s command, prophesied over the bones, the factor of life came into them, the breath of life entered into them, and they became living, rose up, and were attached (Ezek. 37:4-10).
These dead and dry bones were headed up by the prophesying of the word of God which brought in the breath of life, the factor of life, to cause them to be attached.
Formerly they were piled up in a heap, being detached but when the breath of life entered into them, they rose up, were attached to one another, and were headed up, becoming a great army.
This applies to our experience today; many times “we bring our dead bones to the meeting” and, when we hear the Lord’s speaking through the saints, the breath of life comes in, the factor of life operates in us, and we rise up and are attached to the Body to be part of God’s army.
We all can testify that we used to be detached in a heap, before our salvation; but one day the factor of life came into us, we rose up, we were attached to the Body, and we are being headed up in Christ.
The more we enjoy the factor of life coming from the Lord’s speaking, His constant dispensing, the more we are headed up in Christ.
But sometimes, the power of death works around us and even in us, injecting the factor of death into us and into the church; thus, death comes in, and the poison of death spreads to others also.
Once again, then, we become part of the heap of collapse, and we are not being headed up.
But praise the Lord, whenever we hear God’s speaking through His word and through the saints, the factor of life enters into us once more, we become reattached, and we experience being headed up in Christ.
May we not leave our assembly together with the saints even though we may feel as if we’re like “dead and very dry bones”; we should just “bring our bones to the meeting” and there will be the breath of life breathed into us!
When the Lord’s speaking reaches us, He causes the breath of life to enter into us and we will live!
The Lord became the Spirit, the holy breath; He came to His disciples in the evening of the day of His resurrection and breathed into them saying, Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22).
Even today, the Lord wants to breathe Himself into us as the factor of life, the holy breath, for us to rise up from any dead situation, be attached to the Body, and be headed up in Christ in all things.
When we are under the hearing of faith, when the word of God reaches us and the breath of life comes into us, the factor of life operates in our being to head us up!
Lord Jesus, we open to the breathing of the divine breath into us so that the factor of life would operate in us and cause us to rise up from any death situation and be attached to the Body! Amen, Lord, head us up by Your speaking, the breathing of the holy breath that brings in the factor of life into our being! May we reject death, hate death, and stay away from the poison of death, and may we remain under the impartation of life in the church life to be headed up in Christ together with all the saints!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 72-73, 84-85 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Will of God (2020 spring ITERO), week 2, Knowing and Participating in God’s Great and Lofty Will to Head Up All Things in Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Lord, breathe Thy breath of life upon me, / I’m as a bone disjoined and dry; / O may Thou quicken and restore me / And with Thy Body unify. (Hymns #843)
– In His Christ to head up all things / Is our God’s economy; / Taking Christ as Head and Center, / All is one in harmony. / Christ has come, Himself imparting / Into man as life to save, / That the pow’r of death and darkness / May no more all things enslave. (Hymns #981)
– Lord, speak Thy Word, upon us breathe, / Thy people all to make alive, / A mighty host, the foe to drive; / Lord, speak and breathe upon us! / Lord, speak Thy Word, upon us breathe, / That all Thy people may be one, / Led by the headship of the Son; / Lord, speak and breathe upon us! (Hymns #844)
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