We need to realize that the Proper Church Life is a Life of being Headed up in Christ

The church is life is a life of being headed up in Christ, for we all need to be delivered from the heap of collapse caused by man’s fall, and to be headed up in Christ.

God’s eternal purpose is for Him to gain a corporate expression in man, so that God in Christ through the church would head up all things in the universe. So God made man in His image and according to His likeness, and He made man to be head over all creation.

However, Satan – God’s enemy, the one who rebelled against God – came in to deceive and entice man, and man fell; therefore, due to Satan’s rebellion and man’s disobedience and fall, now the entire universe has become a universal heap of collapse.

Satan’s goal is to corrupt God’s creation and to cause confusion. He didn’t only deceive man to disobey God by taking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; he subtly injected his nature into man, causing man to be subject to sin, death, and darkness.

Because man was the head of all creation, now all creation is subject to death and darkness, and all creation is under slavery of corruption and death, groaning to be delivered from it. There’s rebellion against God everywhere on earth, and there’s no order anywhere.

Man rebels against God, man fights against man, there are problems in the family life, the church life, the work life, the society, and in the government; no one wants to submit to others, and no one submits to God or is headed up in Christ.

When Satan injected himself into man, he became death and darkness to man; sin brings in death, death brings in darkness, and darkness brings in confusion.

We need to realize that we don’t merely sin from time to time: we have Satan’s sinful nature in us, and it is by default that we sin, we are in darkness, and we are subject to death.

The entire universe is a heap of collapse caused by Satan injecting himself as the factor of death into God’s creation (see Heb. 2:14; Rom. 8:20-21). Oh Lord Jesus!

But praise the Lord, God is working to liberate His creation from bondage and to bring it into liberty by heading up all things in Christ! First, He brings the church – His chosen people – under Christ as the head; then, through the church, He will head up the entire universe.

We all need to be delivered from the heap of collapse and be headed up in Christ; the church life – the genuine church life – is a life of being headed up in Christ.

We All need to be Delivered from the Heap of Collapse and be Headed up in Christ

Our need today is not only to be saved and washed from our sins, to be victorious over sin and the world, and to be delivered from the flesh; our need is to be delivered from the universal heap of collapse and be headed up in Christ (Col. 1:12-13).

God has allotted Christ to be our all-inclusive portion in the light together with all the saints, for He has delivered us out of the authority of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.

We need to not only be cleansed by the blood of the Lamb and forgiven of our sins, but be delivered from the heap of collapse to be headed up in Christ.

The Bible reveals that the collapse of the universe caused by the rebellion of Satan and the fall of man gives God an excellent opportunity to manifest His wisdom (see Eph. 1:8; 3:10; Rom. 11:33).

Although Satan did his best to cause the universal collapse, causing the entire human race and the whole creation to be a heap, God has not given up His purpose, but He is manifesting His multifarious wisdom through the church!

Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God! Satan corrupted man, but God came in Christ as the second Man to become the Leader, Savior, Lord, and Christ – and this One is the Head over the whole universe!

God uses the situation of death and collapse in the universe as an excellent opportunity to manifest His wisdom, and through the church – His chosen people who take the lead to be headed up in Christ – He will express His manifold wisdom to all.

The collapse of the universe caused by Satan’s injection of the factor of death into man serves as a very dark black background to make God’s wisdom all the more glorious.

According to the Bible, God’s salvation is to save us not only from our fallen, sinful condition, but also from the heap of collapse (Eph. 2:1-8, 21-22). As we enjoy the dispensing of the Triune God, we are being slowly headed up; we are not only being saved, but we are also being headed up.

Eph. 2:1-8 tells us that, even when we were dead in our sins and offenses, Christ came to make us alive together with Him, raising us with Him, and seating us with Him in the heavens. We are there with Him, for we are His Body.

When Christ was made alive, we as His Body were also made alive with Him; when He was raised, we as His Body were raised with Him, and when He was seated on the throne, we as His Body with Himself as the Head were seated with Him.

We are in Christ – we are the Body of the glorious Head – and we were raised, made alive, and seated together with Him, because we are His Body.

This is the essence of God’s salvation: He saves not only from sins and the world, but He made us His Body, and as His Body He enlivened us, raised us up, and seated us together with Him!

We are not only sinners saved by grace and redeemed by His blood; we are together with Him, and we are being saved from the heap of collapse!

Lord Jesus, we need to be delivered from the heap of collapse and be headed up in Christ! We look to You, Lord, to be headed up in You, and we want to cooperate with You for the heading up of all things in Christ! How we praise You, Lord, that You use even the collapse of the universe caused by Satan’s rebellion and man’s fall to manifest Your multifarious wisdom through the church! Hallelujah, we were raised together with Christ, we were made alive together with Him, and we were seated together with Him in the heavens, for we are the Body of Christ, and Christ is our Head!

We need to realize that the Proper Church Life is a Life of being Headed up in Christ

What is the church life? The church life is not a social life, a society of believers who love the Lord and His word; the church life is the practical expression of the Body life, the life of the Body of Christ. The church life is the life of a corporate person – the Body of Christ – under the headship of Christ.

The reality of the Body of Christ is a corporate living of the perfected God-men, who don’t live by their natural life but by being conformed to His death by the power of His resurrection, and they live by another life – the divine life of God.

We need to realize that the church life is a life of being headed up in Christ (Eph. 4:15; 1 Cor. 11:3).

What does it mean to be headed up in Christ? Does it mean merely that there’s order in the church life, everything is properly set up, and there are elders, deacons, etc? No, such outward things are merely something hierarchical through organisation, and God hates anything of hierarchy and of human organization.

When we talk about heading up in Christ we don’t talk about hierarchical structure, order in the church, and merely obeying Christ and submitting to Him. When we speak of being headed up in Christ we need to realize that there’s an intimate relationship between the Head and the Body, which involves more than submission, proper order, or obedience.

We are the Body of Christ – we are connected to the Head organically, and there’s a continual transmission going on from the Head to the Body.

All the movement of the members of the Body is under the direct transmission of the Head; everything that happens in the church life should be under the transmission of Christ, the Head.

It is easy to tell others what to do, or to do what we are told by others; but what we need to do is go to the Lord and pray – He’s the unique Head, and there are no “sub-heads”. We have to live the church life under the headship of Christ.

In our physical body it is the head who supports and upholds the body, not the body the head; if one’s head is cut off, the body collapses, but if there’s proper heading up, the whole body is headed up and functions properly.

All around us at school, at work, in the government, in society, and even in the family life, there’s nothing but a state of collapse – nothing and no one is headed up. But in the proper church life we are being headed up in Christ, and this heading up of the church under Christ is for God to head up all things in the universe through the church.

The reason we enjoy the oneness in the church life in the Lord’s recovery is not because we strive to be one or that we have a good organization but because we all enjoy the divine transmission, and therefore we are headed up in Christ, being one in Him.

God will subject all things under Christ by heading up all things in Christ through the church (1 Cor. 15:20-28). How can God head up all things in Christ? It is first by heading up the church, His Body, His chosen people.

Christ the Head can’t head up all things in Himself without the Body; He has been raised up, He has been given to be the Head over all things to the church, and when He gains the church as a properly headed up Body, He can head up all things in the universe.

If our human body is properly headed up, it can do many things and carry many things. The Head being the Head over all things can only be realized when the Body is properly headed up by Him. Without the church, Christ cannot head up all things; He needs the church so that through the church He might head up all things.

Lord Jesus, cause us to realize that the proper church life is a life of being headed up in Christ! Save us from focusing merely on outward organization or order in the church; may we simply take the lead to be headed up in Christ, so that through the church God would head up all things in Christ! Keep us under Your divine transmission, enjoying all Your rich supply and being headed up in You. Oh Lord, may You gain a properly headed up Body so that through the church You may head up all things in Christ!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 76, 70, 811 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Genuine Church Life (2017 Thanksgiving Conference), week 2, The Church Life — a Life of Being Headed Up in Christ.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Through 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)
  # On Christ we here would focus, / No other center make; / With Christ in sweet communion / His riches to partake. / He is our Head and content, / His Body we express; / Whatever we do while meeting / Himself must manifest. (Hymns #867)
  # We, once dead in our offences, / Walking in the worldly course, / Lusts of flesh and mind fulfilling, / Satan and his hosts their source, / God with Christ has resurrected, / Seated in the heavenlies; / We, His masterpiece, created / In Christ Jesus, Him to please. (Hymns #823)