(iii) HEADSHIP
E.C.Burr
I refer to this scripture, beloved brethren, in pursuance of what the Lord has already given our beloved brethren to say to us, the spiritual importance to us of which we would not diminish in our minds. The reality of the headship of Christ - "he is the head of the body" - and the reality of what the body is - "ye are Christ's body" - are things which are not only fundamental to Christianity but are among the prime recovered truths. We therefore need to ensure that we live in the gain of them. We speak a lot about the headship of Christ; our experience of it is perhaps most frequent when we are thinking least about it; in fact, I question whether we can think, or read ourselves, into the knowledge of Christ's headship. I think it comes in the experimental power of the Spirit and in our submission to it, I would almost say, unconsciously. As we make room for the Spirit we find t at the gain of the headship of Christ is ours. Beloved brethren, may it be so. I suppose we all would underline how much we feel the need of it constantly.
I refer to this scripture in John because, as the brethren know, we have been taught by Mr Raven that, where Paul speaks of the Head and the body, John speaks of the Shepherd and the flock. It is not very difficult to understand the way Mr Raven's thoughts moved in that connection because the link between the Shepherd and the flock is of the same organic kind as that between the Head and the body. In fact you have only to watch a shepherd working his flock to feel that there is. They may be a hundred, two hundred yards or more away, and yet all the time the shepherd has complete control over them by his gestures and by his whistle or whatever, but he is able to control them because of the link that there is between himself and the flock.
Now at this point of this chapter, a very precious chapter to us, I think we could say that the dispensational teaching is over. In the earlier part we have dispensational teaching, that there was the fold and there are other sheep and there is one flock; and that, of course, finds an echo for us in Paul's ministry, especially to the Ephesians. But at this point of the chapter, while the Jews are still there and are active and are hostile, I think Jesus is no longer dwelling on the dispensational transfer from the Jewish day to the Spirit's day but purely about what belongs to our day. If the Jews challenge, then He sets them aside; earlier than where I read they raise questions and He says "ye are not of my sheep" (v 26); that is, they are set aside. And immediately after where I finished reading they take up stones to stone Him and immediately Jesus enters into the challenge with them and He resists them and resists them with power. But we have this little setting here, in the midst of this circle of opposition of the Jews, where I think we have refined and precious thoughts as to the way in which, if I may apply the thought to this scripture, the headship of Christ is working. What I dwell on in particular is the Lord's leading. He says "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me". That is the great thing: He gives them eternal life and they never perish. But my prime reason for referring to this scripture is that I believe that when Jesus said "I and the Father are one" He was indicating to the disciples, to the sheep, a point to which His leading and their following would take them.
Why I refer to this, beloved, is for two reasons. The first is this, that the more profound entrance into relationships between divine Persons, mysterious as it is, into which the Lord might lead us, would be something of which we would certainly desire to know more. We certainly have not in any way exhausted the ministry that we already have as to God Himself and His declaration and revelation, but to understand this, that "I and the Father are one": what a profound thing! He says "My sheep hear my voice"; He said that, and then He said "and I know them, and they follow me". In chapter 17 He says "the glory which thou hast given me I have given them, that they may be one, as we are one" (v 22) ; and you can see thus that the Lord carries through the profound thought of unity in relation to the flock or the body, relating it to the perfection of unity between the Father and the Son and going on to say that this is the way that things would actually be amongst His own. Would not that be better understood if we understood the headship of Christ and the body more profoundly? But what I have in mind here is that the Lord is leading the disciples into more profound truth as the knowledge of His headship to the body is understood.
The second reason I refer to it flows out of that, and that is that we too much think of the headship of Christ in relation to administration. Now it has its place in administration, it is indispensable in administration; would that we knew more of it! I think we can carefully say that even in care in this city we have often proved the headship of Christ. May we prove it administratively. But, beloved, administration of that kind is not the only object of the Lord's headship; one object of the Lord's headship is that the sheep might follow Him into the knowledge of relationships between divine Persons and Their unity, and that this might subsequently come out in the disciples. You cannot wonder that in chapter 17 Jesus says to the Father "I am glorified in them" (v 10). That is what the result is, I think, a result perhaps among other things, but it is a result of the working, and the effectual working, of the headship of Christ in relation to His body, just as the shepherd with the flock. I believe it is outside the consciousness of flesh's will or man's will, or of blood, as we have in chapter 1; it rests in the Spirit and the knowledge of it rests in the Spirit, which Jesus in this chapter is very near to opening up in relation to a resurrection world; but His headship and His body and His being the Shepherd and the flock, beloved, is not just to engage us with administrative matters, indispensable though it is there; His headship is to take us into things which will actually produce in us further response in the service of God.
LONDON
6 March 1979