Christ is The Head of The Church

Introduction to Colossians and the Heresy of 'Two'

0:03 Let me please to the letter of Paul to the Church of the Colossians, Colossians chapter 1, and I shall read verses 9 through 23, Colossians 1, verses 9 through 23, in order that we might read with greater understanding just a word of explanation as to why Paul wrote to this church, perhaps would be in order. He had received news of those that were plaguing this church, as most of those churches were plagued with one form of heresy or another, and though it may be a bit of an oversimplification, the basic heresy that was being spread there at Colossia was the heresy of two. As one man has said, the fatal number in Christian theology is two. Paul had come preaching his gospel of Christ alone. As the way to God, in Christ, all the fullness of God dwelling in Christ, all the blessings of God stored up, Christ alone, there is one mediator.

1:27 And these Gnostic heretics came along and would add to Paul's preaching of Christ and say there must be other intermediaries, other things, beings, creatures, by which we approach God and by which we are saved. By which God comes to us. And so he writes to them with a view to correcting this heresy that cut at the heart of the gospel, even as the Galatian heresy cut at the heart of the gospel. Now then, against that perhaps oversimplified background, I now read from verse 9.

Reading of Colossians 1:9-23 and the Sermon's Focus

2:04 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, that is, heard of your faith and love, do not cease to pray and make request for you that ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to walk worthily of the Lord unto all pleasing, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all power, according to the might of his glory, unto all patience and long-suffering with joy, giving thanks unto the Father, who made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who delivered us out of the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love, in whom we have our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible, and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things have been created through him and unto him. And he is before all things, and in him all things consist or adhere or hang together.

3:30 And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the preeminence, for it was the good pleasure of the Father that in him should all the fullness dwell. And through him to reconcile all things unto himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross, through him, I say, whether things upon the earth or things in the heavens, and you, being in time past alienated and enemies in your mind, in your evil works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and without blemish and unreprovable before him. If so be that ye continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye heard, which was preached in all creation under heaven, whereof I, Paul, was made a minister.

4:37 In the midst of this tremendous statement on the supremacy of Christ, for this is Paul's, basic way of attacking this heresy, he brings the Colossians back to the fact of who Christ is and what Christ has done on behalf of his people in fulfillment of the purpose of the Father. Now in the midst of this treatment of the supremacy of Christ, we have the statement of verse 18, which will be the particular focus of our study this morning, and he is the head of the body, the church. To state that we live in an age of unbounded lawlessness is to speak of truism or to utter a cliché, which perhaps is quite overworked, but the truth of which is acknowledged, I'm sure, by everyone gathered here in this building this morning. And in every age, whatever the prevailing sins of that age may be, the church is never immune from the influence, of the spirit of that age. And just as the Colossians were infected with the terrible heresy of the Gnostics, some of the religious philosophers of their day, and Paul had to write to correct the infiltration of that heresy,

The Reality of Christ's Headship Asserted: His Unique Person

6:01 so we need in our day to be immunized against the inroads of the trends of our own generation, which are contradictory to the spirit and to the truth of the gospel. Now I say that the spirit of lawlessness, the rejection of constituted authority, is one of the prevailing sins of our particular generation. It is a sin of any generation, but it is not always the prevailing sin of that generation. And it's because of this spirit of anarchy, this spirit against constituted authority, that we who profess to be the people of God need constitutionally, to remind ourselves that there is a structure of authority within the church, and no matter how much the spirit of lawlessness abounds, we are called upon to live, to think, to work, to worship, within the framework of that authority which God himself has constituted. And so with that as sort of an introduction as to why I'm focusing our attention upon verse 18, we want to, we want to break down the statement of the apostle in this text concerning Christ as the head of the body, the church. And as we do, we shall consider first of all the reality of Christ's headship asserted, secondly,

7:30 the nature of Christ's headship explained, and then the implications of Christ's headship applied. First of all then, the reality of Christ's headship asserted. The apostle says that he is the head of the body. And in the assertion of Christ's headship, the first thing to which he addresses our attention is the uniqueness of the person who is the head of the church.

8:01 And because the apostle is careful to do this, I wish to be careful in doing it as well. To whom is Paul referring when he says he is the head of the body? Well, he's referring to the one who is described beginning with verse 15, who is the image of the invisible God, all the way down to the last part of verse 18 where he's described as the one who is the beginning, the firstborn from among the dead. In other words, Paul did not think of this person who was head of the church in any way divorced from the disciples, description of who he was in himself as given to us in verses 15 through the latter part of verse 18. And in thinking this way, the apostle was simply reflecting the mentality of his Lord. You remember in that well-known passage in Matthew 16, our Lord asked a question concerning his person. He said to his disciples, Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?

9:12 And you remember, the response, Peter speaking on behalf of the apostolate. Some say that you're Elias. Some say that you're one of the prophets. But who do you say that I am?

9:23 And you remember the answer of Peter. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Our Lord's response to that confession was this, Flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven, thou art Peter, and upon this rock, upon this confession of your understanding of the Lord, and the understanding of who I am, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. In that statement, our Lord indicates that His church, the church which He will build, the church which He will preserve, the church which He will see rising to His purposes of conquest, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it, is the church, which is built upon the foundation of the reality of who He is in Himself. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, upon this rock, I will build my church. Hence, it should not be surprising that the first and most fierce heresies that attacked the church after the death of the apostles, and some of it even during their lifetime, were heresies concerning who Jesus Christ was, and is.

10:45 And it was these heresies that brought to the fore the keenest minds and the most devoted spirits of the early post-apostolic period. And out of the wrestlings came the great confessional statements of the person of Christ, the Athanasius Creed, the confession of the Council of Nicaea, and later on, the further church councils, all of which were occupied with this fundamental, issue, who is Jesus Christ? Now, why was the devil so adamant in trying to undercut this foundational principle? For the simple reason that he knew well what Jesus said.

11:28 I will build my church upon the foundation of my person. Who I am is pivotal to what I do in the building and preserving of my church. And so, when the apostle Paul would assert the headship of Christ over his church, he is careful to buttress that assertion on the left hand and on the right with these statements of the uniqueness of the person who is the head. Look at some of the lines of thought that he draws out for us.

12:00 Verse 15. Who is the image of the invisible God? Here is an explicit statement of the essential deity of Jesus Christ. He is the image, of the invisible God.

12:15 Whatever the invisible God is in himself, Jesus Christ is visibly represented to us. He goes on to assert that he is the creator. He is the firstborn, the rightful heir of the whole creation. Why?

12:33 For in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and invisible, whether thrones, dominions, principalities, powers, all things have been created through him and unto him. And he is before all things and in him all things consist. What is he saying about this unique person who is the head of the church? He says he is God.

12:57 He says he is the creator. He says he is the end of that creation. He goes on to say that he is the present preserver and the cohesive element of that creation. That which baffles the atomic scientists as they try to understand what it is that keeps all of this energy bound up within the structure of the atom and keeps all of that within its framework. Here is the answer. And so you see the whole matter of trying to divorce the Christian faith from the biblical doctrine of creation shows a mentality that is unbiblical. Once you destroy this concept that the head of the church is God himself, the head of the church is creator of the world in the universe. He is sustainer and governor of that universe. It will not be long

13:50 before the very words Savior and church have no biblical meaning whatsoever. There is tremendous pressure being brought to bear upon the visible church of Christ today in the area of the doctrine of creation. People who say, look, we don't want to mess around with the doctrine of salvation. We're perfectly willing for Christ to be head of his church, but they want a head of the church who's not creator of the universe.

14:18 You can't have one without the other. The apostle Paul here asserts that that unique person who is the head of the church is God. He is creator. He is sustainer of his universe. Listen to me, young people. When you're tempted to be bullied into adopting an unbiblical theory, and that's all it can be, of origins, that is how this world came to be, remember to flirt with such unbiblical theories is to flirt with the salvation of your own soul. For if Christ is lost as creator, he's lost as Savior. Never forget it. The whole idea that we can relegate origins to the scientist and salvation of the soul and forgiveness of sin to the theologian and to the Bible is a dichotomy unrecognized in the Word of God. For the Bible, that comes saying God's soul of the world begins with the statement, in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And if we'll not have him as creator, we'll not have him as Savior. And so in asserting the headship of Christ over his church, the apostle begins with the statement of the uniqueness of the person who is head.

15:44 But then he proceeds to describe him not only as creator, not only as God, not only as the cohesive element of the universe, he describes him in these terms in verse 18, who is the beginning, the first born from the dead. He describes him as the one who went down into the jaws of death, who in his death swallowed up death, who in his resurrection burst the power and the bands of death, and in so doing pledged the release of all of his own from that very power of death. He's the first born from the dead, and there will follow all those who died in him and with him, and who were risen with him, and will one day be manifested in glory with him. I say to think of the headship of Christ over the church, it is fundamental to start where Paul started by thinking of the uniqueness of that person who is the head, Jesus Christ the Lord as set before us in this passage. Now in the second place, under this general heading of the reality of Christ's headship over the church asserted, think with me not only of the uniqueness of the person who is head, but the uniqueness of that church over

The Reality of Christ's Headship Asserted: The Unique Church

17:12 which he is head. Notice how he describes it. He is the head of the body, the church. Now all other human societies are groups of people tied together, perhaps on the one hand with a common leader, or the adoption of common goals, common beliefs, common concerns, common ambitions, but this is what makes the church a completely unique society.

17:41 The church is a society. It's a visible entity. We are a society here this morning. We are gathered together in one place.

17:49 It's a place at an appointed time with specific business in which we are engaging. But what makes the church utterly unique? That church over which Christ is head, what makes it so unique? Well, Paul describes it in these words. He is the head of the body. And what is the unique aspect of the body that the apostle is emphasizing here? Well, it is this fact that the body shares a common life. Sure, we have common goals, common beliefs, common concerns, but you can have that in the Elks Club. You can have that in the local society for the prevention of cruelty to animals.

18:34 But what you do not have in any other human society is a common life. A life given by the very head of that society. And so the church is called here his body of which he himself is the head. And so Christ has constituted his church, his own body. I say it reverently, an extension and an integral part of his own life. And he brings all into that church by imparting not just his ideas to their minds, not just his goals to their hearts, not just his rule and his law to their wills, but he imparts his very life to their hearts. Hence, later on in this very epistle, Paul can say in these words, chapter 3 and verse 4, when Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested. By virtue of what he is, he is able to impart his own

19:45 life to men, and in so doing, incorporate them into his own body. And that's what makes the church so unique. It is the fellowship of those who share in the life of Jesus Christ. Now do you see how these things begin to tie together?

20:06 To start thinking about the headship of Christ over his church without buffeting it by these two concepts, the uniqueness of the one who is the head and the uniqueness of that over which he presides as head, is to completely muddle the whole issue. How can people understand the function of the church who neither know experientially who Christ is or what the church is?

20:38 And so we must start where the apostle starts in the text that is before us. It is only as the doctrine of the uniqueness of his person is known and loved by the spirit through the word, or by the word through the spirit, flesh and blood, if not revealed it, and as the doctrine of the uniqueness of the church as a fellowship of those incorporated into the life of Christ, only as those things are maintained, understood, held to, loved, embraced, and if necessary confessed unto blood, that the headship of Christ will be a living, burning reality in that which claims to be his church. Well, we move from a consideration of this matter of his headship, the reality of his headship asserted against the backdrop of who he is, of what the church is, to consider now the actual statement, the reality of that headship over the church. He is the head. Notice how he states it as a fact explicitly. He is the head of the body, the church, and the emphasis in the original is upon the he. As we've

21:56 explained before in the language in which Paul wrote, your subject is bound up in the very way you write the verb. And if you want to emphasize it, you use an extra word in front of it. And here you have it, and he is the head of the church. The statement he delighted to make in other places, Ephesians 4.15, holding fast to him who is the head, even Christ. Colossians 2.19, not holding fast the head, referring, of course, to Christ. It's a fact implied in other places. In chapter 5 of Ephesians, as Christ is the head of the church and the Savior of the body, so the husband is the head of the wife and is to show the same concern for his wife as Christ shows for his body. Christ is not asking to be head. The Apostle Paul is not pleading that men will make him head. He is stating a fact.

22:59 He is the head of the body, his church. Now this helps us, you see, to understand what a church is. A church is not something that goes down to the group of people who go down to the local office and apply for recognition by the state as a tax-exempt religious body and then draft a constitution and gather together and have stated times of worship and have officers and all the rest. No, no. You may have all of that and have no church. The church is found where there is a body of people to whom Christ has become head. The Christ of biblical revelation has communicated his own life to a people and has brought them into loving subjection to himself. There is a church and he is the head of the church, his body.

The Nature of Christ's Headship Explained: Organic and Administrative

24:00 Now having looked at the general theme of the reality of Christ's headship asserted, consider in the second place the nature of Christ's headship explained. When Paul says he is the head of the body of the church, what was the precise nature of that headship? May I suggest two lines of thought. It is a headship that is organic on the one hand and administrative on the other. Now those are big words for you kids, but stick with me. Alright? He is the organic head. When we say something is organic, we mean there is a life union.

24:38 Your head has a life union with the rest of your body. If you don't believe it, you better not do this. You better not do this. Don't take me seriously. If you could and then remedy it, I'd say try it. But you can't. It's irreversible. If you tried this, the results are irreversible. You get up with a headache some morning and say, I feel miserable with this headache. I think I'll just lay my head on my dresser and go off to school without it. Well, there are times when your teacher probably thinks you did come off without your head when she looks at your work. But you see, you can't do that. The head is organically tied to the rest of the body. There is a living relationship. These microphones are not organically tied to this wood. It's inorganic material.

25:22 I can take them and place them somewhere else and they'll function just as well. But you can't take your head from off your shoulders and stick it on top of that humidifier and have it function. You see, there's a life union. And that's the concept that the apostle is emphasizing here. That Jesus Christ is the organic head of his body so that we may say in a real sense, my body is me. If you kids are out playing and your neighbor, one of the neighbor kids gets upset with you and comes around and whacks you good on the arm and puts a big black and blue mark, you come home and you say, Ma, Johnny down the street hit me. Well, he didn't hit you. He hit your arm.

26:04 Yeah, but you say, my arm's me. Right. Why? Because you understand what it means that your body is an organic whole. And if someone hits your arm, they're hitting you. If they kick you in the shin, step on your toes, spit in your eye, they're doing that to you. And you come home and say, so-and-so did this to me. Why? Because your body is you. And so when the scripture says Christ is the head of the body, it brings us into that mysterious and yet wonderful biblical doctrine that we are organically joined to the Lord Jesus Christ so that the body of Christ, the church, is a living organism. And just as the center of my physical life is here in the head where the signals go out in this amazing computer-like mechanism of the human mind, and all the information is fed in by the various senses of sight and sound and smell, and in terms of the state of my mind and my spirit, my desires and ambitions, all of those things fed into

27:07 this computer, and out come signals and impulses, and decisions are made, and actions are initiated. Where do they all begin? There in the head.

27:18 And the body then in the head is one organic whole. Me accomplish this particular goal, or that particular task. And the Apostle Paul is emphasizing to the Colossians that Christ in all the fullness of His glory and all the magnificence of His person, He is the organic head of His body, and in Him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells. Why do you Colossians need to introduce some other influence to the body for its health? The Gnostics come along and say, if you're to be a healthy church, a healthy body, you need this influence and that influence. He says, no, no, Christ is the head. What Christ? The Christ who is God.

28:02 The Christ in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells. You're complete in that Christ. Don't look elsewhere. He is the organic head of the body.

28:13 But there's a second line of emphasis here. He is the administrative head of the body. That is, the head gives the orders. The hand doesn't tell the head what to do, but the head tells the hand what to do.

28:30 My finger doesn't give orders to my head. My head gives orders to the finger. Now, it may send signals to my head, and if I touch something hot, it may send the signal saying, please take me away before I get burned. But my head can overrule those signals and say, no, I want to be a martyr. I can keep my hand right on the stove until I smell the burning flesh. My head can overrule my hand. My hand can't overrule my head. It can send signals, but the boss is here. Now, that's the concept that Paul underscores in Ephesians 4, Ephesians 5. He says, Wives, be subject to your husbands as the church is subject to Christ. For as Christ is head of the church, so the husband is the head of the wife. It's in the concept, you see, of the administrative head. Now,

29:26 it's in this second area that I wish to do some application and draw out some implications further on in our study this morning. But we must come to understand this principle and it must become a living conviction to us that though Jesus Christ is not visibly present when we gather as the Trinity Baptist Church, though he is not physically, visibly present, his headship is to be just as real and experienced to us, just as vital as in our thinking, as though he himself should rise up and stand in the midst to preside over every stated gathering of this assembly. Whether it's for worship, whether it's for prayer, whether it's for business, Jesus Christ is not only the organic head from which we derive our life, he is the administrative head who rules in the midst of his people. Now, having asserted then very briefly the reality of his headship, the nature of his headship, what are the practical implications of the headship? The headship of Christ over his church. And it is to this that I'll address myself most fully this morning. And I

Implications of Christ's Headship: Individual Application

30:44 would break down the applications of this basic biblical doctrine into two categories. The applications to us individually and the applications to us corporately as a church. Individually it tells us something about what a Christian is. Are you a Christian?

31:05 Well, you say, what do you mean by that question? Well, I mean, is Christ your organic and your administrative head? You see, there's no salvation outside of the church of which Paul is speaking here. And that church was not some visible local community of believers, but that church over which Christ is head, is his body, all his redeemed, known only to God.

31:31 But listen, everyone's part of that church for which he gave himself. Ephesians 5, Christ loved the church and gave himself for the church. He is the organic and administrative head of everyone in that church. So what is a Christian? A Christian is one who has had the very life of Christ communicated to him and who has been brought under the rule and the government of Jesus Christ. And if that's not true of you, you're not a Christian. It's just that simple. Isn't it amazing how woolly people's thinking can become in this subject of what is a Christian?

32:10 You're not a Christian if you simply subscribe to what the Bible says about Christ. Paul goes on to describe believers in chapter 3 as those who have the life of Christ. There's an organic unity. 1 Corinthians 6 He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit with the Lord. When Christ who is our life, I am the vine, ye are the branches. Without me ye can do nothing. The concept of a shared life. Now I'm not talking about this in the sentimental non-theological categories of deeper life teaching.

32:48 I'm talking about it within the full vigorous framework of Trinitarian theology. Christ is at the right hand of the Father in a place of glory and majesty. But wonder of wonders, the spirit that he sends into my heart according to the scriptures is the spirit of Christ bringing to me the very life of Christ so that I may say, with the Apostle Paul, I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. How?

33:19 In the presence and person of the Holy Spirit. In the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I know something of what it is to be a constant source of amazement to myself. That's a Christian.

33:39 A man who looks in the mirror and says, that's you, but it isn't you. A man who says, yes, that's the person that I've looked at for years, but it's not the person. And he sees desires and ambitions and abilities to face sin and face need and problems. And the whole spectrum of his life is such, though he sees failure and he sees shortcoming, he says, there's no explanation for the way I now live, but that Christ lives in me. He's become my organic head, and the very life of the head now flows through this member of the body. And then he can also say, Jesus Christ has become my administrative head. I've been brought by his grace to capitulate to his government. I see that I was not made to rule my own life.

34:34 I see that the essence of sin is going into the God business. I see that Jesus Christ is infinitely worthy. To rule my life, and when the Holy Ghost shows you who Jesus is, the reflex response of the heart will be like that of Paul. Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And he becomes head. Own this king and sovereign in the life. That's a Christian. I ask you, is Jesus Christ your head? Paul said he is the head of the body of the church, and if you're in that church that he's redeemed, the evidence will be he is your head. I press it upon your conscience. Is he your head?

35:18 Organically? Administratively?

35:23 It has a second implication or application to us individually, and I want to state it this way. The measure of my growth in grace, if Christ is my head, is the actual subjection of my life in all of its areas to the word of Jesus Christ. That's the measure of my growth. That is headship is being expressed in ever-widening circles in my day-by-day experience. It's what Jesus had in mind when he said, make disciples, baptize them, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you so that ever-increasing aspects of my home life, my personal life, the use of my time and my money and my energies are being brought under the regulative principle of the word of God. That's Christian growth. It's not the ability to have higher flights of ecstasy in my devotions. It's not the ability to have more tingles up and down my spine when I sit with God's people. No, no. The measure of my

36:32 growth is to what extent is there an unchecked line of communication between the head to every member of my body so that when the Lord Jesus is the head, through his written word applied to my conscience by the Spirit speaks and gives directive to me to what extent am I running in the way of his commandments. But it's my concern to bring home the application more particularly this morning to our life corporately as a church.

Implications of Christ's Headship: Corporate Application to the Church

37:10 During these summer months, as most of you know, I break off our regular course of exposition because we have such a transient congregation with everyone going on vacations and visitors amongst us. But knowing that Labor Day is sort of the pivotal point in getting back to normalcy and as my mind has been going into the fall months and thinking of the normal, more regular schedule of church life and activity, this is the concept that has come home to my own heart with freshness and I trust the Spirit of God will bring it home to all of our hearts. As we face a new, new church year in that sense, measuring it from September on through to about the month of June, perhaps an artificial distinction but one that's been forced upon me through pastoral experience over the past ten years, what should be the thing that governs all of our thinking as we face these coming months, the tremendous opportunities, the responsibilities of witness that we have, of concern for one another, of outreach, of expansion of the kingdom of Christ, I say this concept needs to be indelibly impressed upon our hearts. He, the Lord Jesus Christ in all the glory of His person, He is the head of the body, the church, and that has two great implications to

38:36 us in our corporate life together. If He is the organic head of the church, then any reliance upon human strength and wisdom for the life and ministry of the church is a denial of His organic headship. All the life is to flow down from the head.

38:59 And oh, then the curse expressed in the words of Jeremiah the prophet, chapter 17, cursed be he that trusteth in man and maketh flesh his arm in whose heart departeth from the Lord. And if there's anything I fear with the gracious growth and increase that God has given to us, it's that we might move away from the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus. And that was the thing Paul had to come back to with these Colossians. These people came along saying, look, Christ and the preachment of Christ as being everything was alright to start with, but you've got to go on now.

39:42 And we'll tell you how to go on. And they introduced something other than Christ. And Paul says that was spoiling you through vain philosophy and the deceit of men.

39:57 A person who grows in grace does not grow away from the fundamental concept that Christ is all. He grows into an ever deepening conviction of the truth of that concept.

40:11 And so if our growth as a church is growth given by the Spirit, and if it is to be sustained by the Spirit, then this concept must become real to us as His people, He is the head of the body, the organic head, the source of all wisdom and of all life. Paul emphasizes that later on again in this epistle. He says that in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge. Let no man spoil you, he says, with persuasiveness of speech. Chapter 2 verses 3 and 4.

40:53 And there are a thousand experts, waiting on every corner to say, quote, if the church would accomplish its mission, this is the path she should walk. This is the path she should go. And so often the advice is nothing but human wisdom, gilded over with some fool's gold of religious and Christian terminology. But it's rotten to the core because it does not flow out of the wisdom that is in Christ.

41:26 That's why Paul could say with great spiritual perception the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. And so if Christ is the organic head of the church, then as we face a new year of responsibility and privilege and demand and perplexing circumstances, and we'll face them, oh that we come to a new understanding that Christ is all. And in him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge. And then in the second place, if Christ is the administrative head of the church, then any intrusion of human authority into the life of the church is an insult to his headship. You know, there were men, women, boys and girls who died for this principle. They were called the Covenanters in Scotland. And you know why they died? They didn't die

42:30 because people were forcing them to deny the deity of Christ. They didn't die because people were saying, look, we want you to deny the blood atonement. We want you to deny regeneration by the Spirit. No, no. The issue was just this. We, as the government of Great Britain,

42:53 want to usurp the right of giving directives to the churches of Scotland. And these people said, no! The church is part of Christ's right, and we will now allow no earthly potentate to usurp the crown rights of King Jesus. And little children, ages 10 and 11 and 12, died rather than deny the kingship of Christ over the church. Would to God we had that kind of conviction in our day. Intrusion of human authority into the life of the church is an insult to Christ the head. How does that human authority express itself? When human ideas are given as doctrine instead of the pure word of the living God. What should I preach

43:48 in the coming months? What should you receive as truth? What should we confess to the world? The answer is the whole counsel of God in all of its breadth and length and depth and height. Nothing less but not one isle to more. To the law and to the testimony, if they speak, if not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. And when human ideas are substituted for the pure word of God, when human evasions, when men feel that they must be wiser than God and say, well, this truth of the Bible, it seems to be a truth but that's very offensive and therefore we'll wiggle it down and reshape it and reform it to make it more palatable to men. No, no. That's

44:39 an intrusion upon the headship of Christ. The head of the church is given a deposit of truth and our responsibility is to press on into ever deeper understanding of that deposit then by His grace to embody it in life and then in love to proclaim it to the world. When human plans enter in to give directives to the church, this is a usurping of the headship of Christ. How shall we reach the lost? What shall we do to evangelize? The philosophy in our day is just do something somehow, some way, but do something as though Christ were pleased by these spiritual sacrifices for which there is no warrant in the word of God. In terms of the activities, in terms of how we shall worship Him, I'm often asked about the form of worship in our own assembly. This happened a couple of weeks ago when I was down in Pensacola at the Theological Institute there.

45:46 And when people say, well, why don't you say, have a choir or why don't you this? My answer is, will you show me from the word of God the warrant for the public worship of God being conducted in such a manner? You see, this immediately puts the issue where it ought to be. Has King Jesus given directive that He be worshipped? And this is not a polemic against choirs. I believe they have a legitimate place in edification, to people. The question is, is this warranted in the public worship of God? Is there warrant for this particular thing or that particular thing? Well, you see, if we believe Christ is head, we cannot be content that even now, as we meet this morning, that everything about our worship is pleasing to Him. We must be willing to bring it all again and again to the touchstone of the word of God and say, Lord Jesus, head of the church, are we pleasing you? Give us light! Give us insight!

46:49 Give us understanding to know your mind and to know your will. Ah, but someone says, has He not given authority to those who are elders? Hebrews 13, 17, obey them that have the rule over you. Yes, but an elder is only an elder when he's acting under the authority of that same word given by the same Christ. And he's to be followed and obeyed only to the extent that he administers the word of Christ. And so, as I've said so often and I'll say again, and I hope it rings in your ears if you look at me laid out somewhere someday, you're no friend of your own soul or no friend to me if you believe or accept anything because it comes over this pulpit with enthusiasm and with apparent conviction. You have the responsibility to search the scriptures constantly to make your own conscience sensitive to the whole teaching of the word of God. And I cannot forget what I saw in the past weeks. And most of you

47:50 who were here last Sunday night will know something of what I mean by that. And the reason whole churches and thousands upon thousands of people sit in spiritual darkness today is because somebody became lazy and began to think of the headship of Christ as an abstract concept. Christ stands His head here this morning and He binds your conscience only to that which He's revealed in His word. And if anything comes over this pulpit that's not true to the word, Christ doesn't bind your conscience to it.

48:25 The preacher may try to, but Christ hasn't bound your conscience.

48:32 And if there's to be preserved for an unborn generation a place where there'll be the pure preaching and pure worship and service that is acceptable to God, all dear beloved people of this assembly pray that God will make real to your heart and a fresh way that Jesus Christ is head of the church.

48:59 One of the beautiful things about this concept being understood, it's illustrated again and again in the book of the Acts, is that Christ then in a marvelous way, ways that we cannot put in a test tube and trace out in mathematical precision, communicates His mind, not just to the leaders but to the whole body of His people. We know something of that experience. Many of us have testified that our congregational meetings have been as a pure spiritual experience as our times of prayer and worship, and it ought to be and it will continue to be if the headship of Christ is ever before us so that when we come to discuss business, perhaps this will be the year that God will be pleased to release land to us and we'll enter the matter of discussing building and future plans and what we should do and how much we should spend and what direction we should move. Tremendous decisions, but I don't dread them. I anticipate them with joy if, if the prevailing spiritual mood of this assembly, starting with its elders down to the newest babe in Christ, if the prevailing mood is one in which Colossians 118 has been inscribed upon our hearts, he is the head of the body, the church and we come together to

50:27 wait upon him, that he'd reveal his mind and his will to us through the word and by the spirit. What a thrilling thing to see God take 85 people from such diverse backgrounds and diverse tastes and opinions and natural inclinations and bring us to one line so that we can say it seemed good unto us and to the holy house. Oh, is it too much to expect that we can see? And know that again, as we've known it so often in the past, it will be our experience if we constantly acknowledge that he is the head of his church.

Preserving Christ's Headship and Concluding Prayer

51:07 May I suggest in closing that the concept of Christ being the administrative head of the church does not begin to be relinquished on its own. What happens is this. We first of all begin to think lower thoughts of Christ's person than we ought to think.

51:29 Then we're softened up, as it were, to relinquish his headship. That's why when Paul is trying to bring the Colossians to a fresh realization of Christ's headship, where does he start? He starts with the glory of his person. Who is the image of the invisible God? Who is the creator? Who is the end of creation? Who is the one in whom all things hold together? He says you must keep before you this biblical vision of the glory of Christ in his person.

52:04 Then it's relatively easy to acknowledge him as head, for if he's all that in himself, what else can we do but acknowledge that all our life comes from him, and all our direction must come from him as well. But you begin to think of him as something less than that, or begin to hold those concepts in a mere theological abstraction. Oh yes, Christ is God, Christ is creator instead of a burning inward worshipful reality.

52:34 And then it's easy to begin to deny his headship in the experience of your own individual life, and in the experience of our corporate life. So let us pray that the Holy Spirit, whose delightful ministry it is to take the things of Christ and reveal them unto us, that he will give us from week to week new and ravishing sights of the glory of Christ. And then, as a result of those new insights of the glory of his person and the perfection of his work, his headship shall become an increasingly practical reality to us individually and to us as a body of his people. He is the head of his church. The reality of his headship is asserted. The nature of that headship we've sought to explain. It is organic and it is administrative. The implications

53:33 we've tried to lay before you. May God help us to receive his word in faith and work it out in obedience as he applies it to our hearts by the Spirit. Let us pray. Our Father, we do thank you this morning for him whom you have constituted head of the church. We do not understand how we have been incorporated into him. And yet we read in your word that we were chosen in him. That we died in him. That we rose in him.

54:19 And that we have even been raised together with him. And that when he shall be manifested so we too shall be manifested with him in glory. Oh, we thank you for all that you have treasured up for your own in Christ Jesus. We acknowledge this day with shame that we have at times insulted him in his place of headship.

54:47 Lord Jesus, forgive us when we have mistaken our own notions and our own carnal ambitions for the expressions of your mind and will. We pray that you will forgive us and that by your own Spirit working in our hearts these coming weeks and months may be constant evidence that you are indeed the head of this particular manifestation of your true church. Lord, we cry to you that you will work in us to preserve us from anything and everything that would lower our estimation of Christ that would then soften us up for some strategic blow from the enemy to move us. In a direction of self-will and self-confidence. Oh God, preserve us, we pray. We acknowledge the folly of our hearts and the waywardness of our feet.

55:52 Come to us in preserving grace, we pray. And then we would ask for those to whom you are not head, those sitting here this morning who have, as it were, the bit in their own teeth, determined to move in a course of self-will. Who are monuments of the power of the devil to blind and to deceive. Lord, have mercy upon such today and grant that they may be brought to see the folly of the course in which they walk. And they may be brought to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as their only Savior and Lord.

56:35 Hear us, our Father, in this our prayer and seal to our hearts your word. Dismiss us from this place with your own blessing resting upon us and enable us to sanctify this day to our prophet and to your praise through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.