The Heading up of All Things in Christ Involves the Building up of the Church

All the genuine believers in Christ love the Lord, seek to know Him and be found in Him, and they yearn to see the church built up. However, the matter of the building up of the church has been very much missed throughout history, and the Lord was not able to obtain the built up church He’s looking after until today.

Many believers do Christian activities, participate in Christian meetings and social gatherings, have some arrangements, follow some rules, and build up their own “church”, that is, their own denomination. Much of what is practiced and taught today in Christianity concerning the church is far from what the Word of God reveals.

How can the believers in Christ build up the church if the believers don’t see what the church is? At best they can build up a “megachurch”, a denominational group, or a free group, but not the church as the Body of Christ.

If there’s a lack of knowledge of the church we cannot build up the church. If the believers think that the church is a religious organization, a corporate business, or a sweet family like gathering, they will do their best to build up a religion, a business, or a church family.

What is the church according to the entire revelation in the New Testament? The church is NOT merely a congregation, a Christian family, or a gathering of believers; the church is the Body of Christ, the fulness of the One who fills all in all, the full-grown man filled with the fulness of God.

It is essential that we would have a proper adjustment concerning our knowledge and view of the church so that we may see what the church is according to God’s heart desire and have a proper building work that corresponds to the vision we see, otherwise we will build something that is not what is in God’s heart.

How do we build up the church as the Body of Christ? The book of Ephesians is full of indications on what the church is and how to build up the church, and we can clearly see in this book that the church can be built up through the inner experience of the indwelling Christ.

The Heading up of All Things in Christ Involves the Building up of the Church

In Ephesians 1:10 we see that God’s highest purpose for the church is that He would head up all things in Christ through the church.

God created the heavens, the earth, and millions of plants and animals; the center of God’s creation is man. However, before God could get into man with man’s consent, Satan tricked man and injected himself into man, thus bringing in sin, which brought in death, darkness, and confusion.

The entire universe created by God is now in a universal heap of collapse, and instead of having the reign of God in life and light we have sin, death, darkness, and confusion everywhere.

When we are regenerated by Christ, we are being rescued out of the universal collapse; we are transferred out of the authority of darkness and into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love, where Christ is our life and He is the Head.

When Christ comes into us as life, we have the divine light, and all things are brought under Christ as the Head: there is order, and there’s building up under Christ as the Head.

In the economy of the fulness of the times, God will head up all things in Christ through the church (Eph. 1:10); this involves the matter of the building up of the Body of Christ. God doesn’t want to merely “straighten up the messy situation”; He wants to head up all things in Christ.

The heading up of all things in Christ is not done by Christ alone but by Christ the Head with the Body, the built-up church. If we put together Eph. 1:10 with Eph. 1:22-23 we see that Christ’s headship is to the church, which is His Body; if we add Eph. 2:22 to this, we can see that all believers are being built up together as a dwelling place of God in spirit.

How does God head up all things in Christ? It is through His Body, the church, that Christ heads up all things, and for this the church needs to be built up in Christ. All believers in Christ are part of the heading up process of all things under Christ, and Christ with and through His Body is heading up all things.

We will never be involved in Christ’s headship: only Christ is the Head, but we are involved in the process of heading up all things in Christ, and all Christ’s authority, headship, resurrecting power, ascending power, and heading up power is to the built up church (see Matt. 28:19; Eph. 1:22-23).

In the divine life all the believers in Christ are being built up together under the headship of Christ, and through this God has the ground to make His multifarious wisdom known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies so that He may put His enemy to shame (Eph. 3:10-11).

We need to see that the building up of the church is in the divine life and under the headship of Christ to bring us all into proper order; when the church is fully built up and headed up in Christ, then through the church Christ can head up all things under Himself as the Head.

Lord Jesus, build up Your church so that through the church God may head up all things in Christ. Show us a clear vision of the church as the Body of Christ and head us up in You to bring all things into proper order. Lord, we give ourselves to You for the building up of Your church so that You may have the ground to make Your multifarious wisdom known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenlies! Gain a built-up church who will cooperate with You to head up all things in Christ and put the enemy to shame!

Christ will Head up all Things through the Body; the Head and the Body are a Great Corporate Man

The church is something very mysterious: somehow many human beings who have the human life have received another life, the divine life, and in this divine life they grow and are being built up in spirit to be the dwelling place of God and the Body of Christ.

Christ is the Head of the Body and the church is the Body of Christ; the Head and the Body are a great corporate man, and within this man is the Triune God (see Eph. 2:15; 3:16-17). All the believers in Christ have Christ in them, and this Christ spreads from their spirit – their innermost being – into their soul, and eventually, He will saturate their mortal body to fill their entire being with the divine life (see Rom. 8).

From within to without the Triune God spreads in our being to bring us on to the maturity, the fullness of the divine life. On the one hand Christ is the Head of the Body, and, on the other hand, Christ is the life of the Body; as our life, Christ saturates our spirit, transforms our soul, and transfigures our mortal body in order to bring our entire being into the proper order under His headship.

The church as the Body of Christ is one great corporate man having the Triune God within, and through the church Christ will head up all things. It is through the Body of Christ that the Head, Christ, will head up all things; this requires the building up of the church as the Body of Christ (according to the revelation in the book of Ephesians):

• The Holy Spirit seals us inwardly by “stamping” the image of Christ on us and saturating our inner being with the Spirit (Eph. 1:13).
• Christ created the new man in Himself, and this new man is Christ and is full of Christ – Christ is all and in all in the new man (Eph. 2:15).
• Christ is constantly making His home in our heart, and we all realize the unsearchable riches of Christ to become the fullness of the One who fills all in all (Eph. 3:8, 17).
• We grow and arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, and no wind of teaching can carry us away from Him as we grow into Him in all things (Eph. 4:13-15).
• We receive something from Christ as the Head and we minister it to others, and in this way the church is built up (Eph. 4:16).

We need to see that Christ will head up all things through the Body, and Christ the Head is one with His Body to be the one great corporate man with Christ as his life and person. For the heading up of all things in Christ there’s the need of the building up of the church in Christ and with Christ.

Lord Jesus, make Your home in our heart so that we may realize the unsearchable riches of Christ and become the church, the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all and in all. Spread from our spirit into every part of our soul until all our inner parts are saturated and permeated with God. Lord, build us up with the saints in Christ and with Christ. We take You as our life and person to be Your Body and the one new man with Christ as the Head. Oh Lord Jesus, build up Your church for the heading up of all things in Christ!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. James Lee’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1965, vol. 1, “The Vision, Practice, and Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ,” ch. 5, as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Vision, Practice, and Building up of the Church as the Body of Christ, week 8 / msg 8, The Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ (2) – Through the Inner Experience of the Indwelling Christ.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # 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. / Thru the Church which is His Body / Christ as Head will sum up all; / All will fitly join together, / All things either great or small. (Hymns #981)
  # As the center, as the kernel, / Of God’s plan our spirit is; / Calling on the name of Jesus / Makes our spirit one with His. / From the center to circumference / God would saturate each part; / Feeling, mind, and will renewing, / Making home in all our heart. (Hymns #1325)
  # In fulness of the seasons / God’s Christ will head up all. / Then all will own His reigning / And worship, great and small. / Such reign in life and glory / The Church e’en now foretastes / And to His rule submitting / Unto His kingdom hastes. (Hymns #941)