CHRIST AS OUR HEAD
1 Corinthians 11:1-16; John 12:1-8
I would like to say a little as to the practical bearing of the headship of Christ and its effect upon us. Paul set out in 1 Corinthians 11 the public order of headship in creation, showing how it comes from God to Christ, then to man and to woman. God set out in creation, and in His wisdom ordained, a public order that would be for every man’s benefit and blessing. The believer is to know more fully that Christ is the Head of every man – that every man has a claim on Christ as his Head and can avail himself of that, for it is available to him. There is great wisdom and resource in Christ; everything we need is in Him, and every man has the opportunity to avail himself of that resource of headship in Christ. Believers come into the benefit of it especially by acknowledging and being subject to that blessed Man whom they have come to know as Head. In Romans 5, we see that there was one man, Adam, who failed, but there is another Man, Christ, and believers see that this other Man is the key to their whole Christian histories and lives. We see that there is another Man in heaven whom God has set up and established in a position not only of authority but of headship and influence. I understand it to mean that believers are in Christ as Head; we can find everything we need in Christ. All resource, all wisdom, all understanding and intelligence – everything that we need as before God we can find in that blessed One.
As we come to appreciate His headship in regard to collective experience, known in the assembly in Colossians, we see that the Lord Jesus provides stimulus and guidance and movement. So in Colossians, you see that all the fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily, and it says “ye are complete in him”, Col.2:10. That is a most remarkable statement, that the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Christ. We know that in the Godhead there is what is unknowable and inscrutable, but the fulness involves what has been made knowable of the Godhead. Everything that we can possibly know of God is not only there in Christ, but the fulness of the Godhead is available for the assembly to appropriate. It is available for us to feed on and to enjoy for our help. It is there substantially and bodily in Christ. It is remarkable that all that God is, as available to us, is in Christ bodily. The assembly is such a great vessel because it draws its resource from the Man in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells, from Christ.
How great the thought of headship is therefore, and how substantial it becomes to believers as we grow in the truth of it, to see that everything is there in Christ before God. He is there for us; He is our Head. That means that He acts and is there on our behalf. What a man Christ is! Not just a Saviour, He is our Man, a Man before God; He is all that we need as resource.
In Corinthians, we see the Spirit’s place in regard to headship. We are baptised in the power of one Spirit into one body, and the Spirit is therefore available to us as our link with the living Head, merging us into the company of those who appreciate that headship as the body of Christ. But nonetheless the Corinthians were disorderly. They were coming together to eat the Lord’s supper and Paul had to say to them that they thought that they were partaking of the Lord’s supper, but actually they were not. It was a solemn word to them, and when they received Paul’s epistle, it must have struck them. They were coming on a Lord’s day morning to take the Lord’s supper, as they thought, and Paul was saying that actually they were not, they were just eating their own supper. They were not appropriating the Lord’s supper in the way that they ought to have done, not partaking of it rightly. That is an obligation that lies on all Christians. You cannot take the Lord’s supper as you think you might, or as it suits you. It leaves a very great responsibility on believers about whether we partake of the Lord’s supper rightly. Some might want to partake of it on their terms, but the terms are laid out in Scripture and they set out all that is due to God. We ought to be very careful, and to be exercised as to how we partake of the Lord’s supper. Am I just going on with formality or am I doing it according to what Scripture lays out, according to God and in love for the Lord Jesus?
Paul in seeking to adjust the Corinthians goes back to this matter of headship and creation. He writes about how it works out in a practical way between man and woman. In the ordering of God in creation, in the public order of things, God has created man, He has made men and women. The thought of man according to God in Genesis 2 includes both man and woman, and in God’s created order of things, the man is to take a more responsible place. That will not continue into eternity; there we will all be sons of God. But the place that God has given man in the present ordering of creation is for their blessing, a place given that men and women should acknowledge, accept, and find blessing in. We can see the disruption and dislocation that has come about in the world and even in Christendom through the lack of acknowledgment of that place and position of headship that God has given to man. So these things set out God’s ordering for our blessing, but also that He should be made known, because headship has the aspect that it comes down from God through Christ and down to man, God being the great Head of all. Despite the disruption of sin, Christ is Head, and believers can get the benefit of Him through His mediatorial position. Then headship also has the sense in which the headship of Christ is involved in response towards God through the assembly. What a full position Christ has taken in relation to men and to believers. It is wonderful to see that.
The section in Corinthians is very interesting. Paul says in verse 8, “For man is not of woman, but woman of man”. He goes back to what happened in regard to Adam. Adam was formed, and woman was built from the man. Paul gives man the prominent place. “For also man was not created for the sake of the woman, but woman for the sake of the man. Therefore ought the woman to have authority on her head, on account of the angels”. I wonder how much angels know about this. We are of course speaking about angels that are not fallen, those that have been maintained in obedience to God. They know obedience – angels are implicitly obedient, and God maintains them in that; but subjection is a matter of a definite attitude of mind. Man in the position in which he has been placed knows that in a particular way; he recognises his place in this order of things. Angels are not part of that created order; they are messengers or “ministering spirits”, Heb.1:14. They are servants of God in that sense, but they are not set up as man is.
This scripture shows that the order of God in the creation of man and woman is to be known and worked out in the lives of believers. Women are to acknowledge that they are to be subject to men, and men acknowledge that they are to be subject to Christ. It would work out in the households of the saints, where these things would be known in a practical way. Angels might see that a sister, a wife, was perhaps more intelligent or more capable than her husband, but nonetheless the wife would be subject to her husband as recognising the authority that God has placed in him. Angels would see that this matter works out for the blessing of the household, and that the woman shines in her place. She would have a glory because she was subject even though she might be more capable or intelligent. What a glory that is. An angel would recognise that, seeing too that the man would appreciate all that is in the woman and take his responsibility according to the ordering of God. He would not shirk that responsibility or give it to somebody else, regarding it as the responsibility that had been given to him. The angels can see the wisdom that God has placed in the order of creation, showing how perfect God’s wisdom is, in that another family of beings, in one sense greater than us creationally, can actually learn intelligence, can learn something of God’s wisdom in the simple examples of human life in the household. That is a wonderful thing.
It shows how God can be represented in the very simple acts of human life – the husband and wife interacting, the children being subject to the parents, because in the Christian household when the children are there, the wife shares in headship. The children are subject to her as they are subject to the father, because she shares in headship. If the father is not there, she is to maintain headship in his absence. This scripture shows the dignified position of woman. It is a glory, and it is a wonderful thing that in the very simplest thing, the angels are looking on and apprehending and taking account of it. They also see that women acknowledge it and have a token of their subjection on their heads on account of the angels. It is a different word from a covering, it is a token of her acknowledgment of her place in the created sphere according to God in which she desires to glorify God by being subject to the man, recognising where God has placed authority. In the simplicity of it, dear brethren, I see something of the great divine wisdom that God has placed in the human family for the practical working out of headship.
Then Paul says, “However, neither is woman without man, nor man without woman, in the Lord”. The woman requires the man and man likewise requires the woman; they fill out their place that man on his own could never fill out. You might say that man and woman augment each other, they fulfil the whole thought of man according to God. It is wonderful to see how balanced and how beautiful Scripture is. If there is anything that consistently makes me bow in wonder about divine things, it is the beautiful balance in every scripture that there is. Every scripture is perfectly balanced in such a way that only the divine handiwork could provide.
Paul goes on to say; “Does not even nature itself teach you”. Even when we go out into the world in public, all things are to be comely. “But if any one think to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor the assemblies of God”. In our private lives, in our public lives and in our local assembly life, there is this subjection, there is a lack of contention which makes it evident that there is a divine ordering acknowledged and taken account of. These things are very simple, but they are affecting. God has created another family of beings which is learning from our family life, our simple life here as believers acknowledging fully the headship and the glory of Christ.
John gives us another example. This was a fine household in Bethany – Lazarus and Martha and Mary. It was not perfect, but it was a good household. They were committed to the testimony, to the local position. This household would be a fine household to have in any locality. At this point, the Lord had arrived at a certain end, because the previous chapter tells us the reason for Lazarus’s sickness, that the Son of God should be glorified by it. There was a purpose in Lazarus’ illness and chapter 12 sets out the end result of the exercise that God had in mind to bring about from the illness and death of Lazarus. There were difficulties and exercises; previously the Lord had been at the house and Martha was distracted with much service. She had said to Him, “Lord, dost thou not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?”, Luke 10:40. We would have to say that she was not in the gain of headship at that point. She said this to suggest to the Lord that He might sort the matter out; it was as if she did not recognise that the Head was there. But Jesus was going to resolve matters according to His own wisdom, do it in His own way and in His own time. The headship of Christ was available to meet every matter including that one.
The exercises of chapter 11 had been completed through death, you might say speaking figuratively, and they were settled there. Now headship is known and it is wonderful that past grievances and other matters are settled. Mary had always had the gain of headship in some sense; she sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to His word. She got the gain of that Man. Whatever He was saying, whatever His current word was, she received it. He might say a different word next week, and she would still be sitting there, still receiving the Lord’s word. She was one under the headship of Christ, getting the gain of everything that He said; intuitively knowing what was needed. Here they are all settled, and they made Him a supper. Another great feature of headship is that Christ is given the first place. He was there, but there was no question of anyone being ill at ease. Christ was made much of and He is to be made the most of. It was not the Lord’s supper; the Lord has provided that for us now, but at Bethany, the exercise was that the Lord should be made much of. There should be conditions in the locality, in the household, where the headship of Christ would be known. Martha served, but she took her place and nothing was out of order; there were no grievances this time and the Lord had His place at table. Lazarus had his place at table with them, and Mary took a pound of ointment of pure nard of great price and anointed the feet of Jesus, wiped His feet with her hair and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. What a blessed matter!
Mary had something that she had gathered through exercise and she anointed the feet of her Saviour. Her hair, her glory, all that you might say was hers rightfully, was used to wipe the Lord’s feet. She said, as it were, ‘All my glory is nothing before Christ’. She would give up anything that was due to her, because she wanted Christ to get everything, even her own glory. Everything was yielded to Christ. I remember when I was much younger, some of the older ones used to say, ‘There is someone who is in the good of headship’ – she had not cut her hair. Mary used all she had to minister to that blessed Man. She had everything in order, and she was suitably ready for this Man.
Judas complained about it, but what is notable is that Jesus said, “Suffer her to have kept this for the day of my preparation for burial”. A brother said at the break, that despite all these times when the Lord had told the disciples that He was going to be killed and delivered up into the hands of men, the disciples never seemed to take it in. Maybe in their fearful state, they just could not quite take in what was going to happen. But Mary, representing figuratively the spiritual substance that there is in the saints, and in the gain of headship, was the one person who recognised that this Man was going on to death. She brought in something spiritual, intelligent, an understanding of the glory of this blessed Man going into death. What a wonderful thing, what a service for this sister to take on, and she recognised what was needed at the time. Now was the time; she was not going to have another opportunity before Jesus’ death. The company was there, and they were all in the gain of it. In this spiritual atmosphere and company, she gave herself over to the Lord. She anointed Him having a pound of ointment – no flask is mentioned here, it was herself – and she gave herself over to Him; the house was filled with the odour. As in the gain of the headship of Christ, she fully expressed, in intelligence and subjection and affection for the Lord, all that was due to Him, and the whole company gained, the whole house was filled with the odour. What was before everyone was Christ, the greatness of that blessed Man, the blessed Head. Everyone there received the gain of it because of one spiritual sister who had the intelligence and affection to realise what was happening just at the time that He was going on to death.
Mary had sat and listened at His feet, had been subject to Him. It did not happen quickly, but there she was – her time had come. She had been under the headship of Christ. She had enjoyed and appreciated all that was in that blessed Man and now she affects the whole company. So Jesus defends her, and maintains her right. He says, “Suffer her to have kept this for the day of my preparation for burial; for ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always”. The Lord appreciated it, and as the odour of the ointment filled the house, they all appreciated it. She brought them all into the gain of the headship of this blessed Man, through her affection and intelligence in the things of God.
These things are open to us. I feel limited as to what we can say about them, but nearness to Christ, affection for Christ, intelligence as to Him and what He is doing, are very spiritual matters. They are needed to elevate and to magnify the greatness of this blessed Man in the hearts of us all, but they are also worked out in a very practical way in the households of the saints. The subjection of the sisters, the subjection of brothers and all that we do as we live our lives – these things are all to magnify Christ, to maintain the order that is due to God in His own creation.
May we be affected by that for His name’s sake.
Address at Maidstone
9 December 2017
N.C. McKay