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Articles 2018-2020
A few years ago, as I read a book about the headship of Christ, I discovered that it was almost entirely devoted to the subject of His lordship. At that point, I realized that there might be others who also think of these two terms synonymously. But if they are not, the question we face is: How are we to grasp the implications of Christ’s headship in relation to His sovereign rule as our Lord?
When the New Testament refers to Christ as the Head of His Church, it serves to identify believers as His corporate body. The implication is clear. God intends to establish coordinated oneness among His people and then corporately reveal His mind through them. The Body of Christ cannot be humanly organized into Heaven’s definition of unity. Only He can integrate a people around himself.
Christ’s lordship refers to the authoritative relationship that He has with His people. On the other hand, His headship reveals His oneness with us so as to express corporately His lordship in our individual lives. Some years ago, certain well-known brethren used the scriptural analogy of the Church as an army to communicate their perspective of how to structure it. There were to be leaders of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. The result was a hierarchical set up that in the end caused much pain in the body of Christ.
It is true that the Church is a spiritual army (Ephesians 6:12, Revelation 19:19). But that particular analogy addresses our warfare against the enemy of our souls. For insight on the subject of our corporate unity, we should study God’s house (1Peter 2:5, 1Corinthians 3:10 - 23), His family (Matthew 23:8), and the body of Christ (Ephesians 4:15 - 16). These three analogies contain valuable insight on how we are to function corporately. Misusing a biblical analogy can lead to painful results.
Too often, Christian leaders have not only intermingled the truths of Christ’s headship and lordship, they have also interchanged the idea of headship with eldership. The result has been that they then began to function as heads to their local churches. In other words, they sought to establish their mind, their vision for the group. The coordination of the people would then revolve around fulfilling their vision.
But let us be clear. Christ is the Head of His body. He intends to make His mind known through His Church both locally and to the nations. And He is determined to coordinate us to that end. And the unity He establishes among us both locally as well as globally will devastate the enemy’s strategy to keep the nations from believing that God sent Him.
I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
If Christian unity is something we can achieve through our efforts at organization, our strength to administrate, then how will the end result convince the nations that Christ came from God and that God loves us just like He loved His Son? And if coordinated Christian oneness does not express a miraculous work of God, then why would Jesus feel the need to pray for Heaven’s intervention to bring it about?
The basic building block for such unity is our submission to Christ. And elders are to assist God’s people in this matter. Rather than draw attention to themselves, they are to help believers to hear and then yield to Christ. He is the Great Coordinator, not us. When we get this particular issue wrong, we will build movements, organizations, and institutions around either ourselves or other gifted leaders.
Christ’s headship is only revealed among His people when we submit individually to His lordship. As we acknowledge Him as Lord we can then understand His role as Head of His body. The basis for entrance into God’s kingdom is the lordship of Christ.
…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
The Bible does not teach that we must confess that He is the Head of the Church in order for us to be saved. To speak of His headship without having first bowed the knee to Him as Lord would make no sense. And since our understanding of Christ’s headship is the result of embracing His lordship, we will only ever come into a coordinated oneness with others in a corporate setting when we first submit fully to Him as our Lord. Here is the goal for Christian leadership – that we serve God’s people in helping them to honor and then yield to Christ as their Lord.
Christians do confess that Christ is their Lord. But if we were to put one hundred believers (to pick an arbitrary number) into the same room and then instructed them to find the mind of Christ together in corporate worship without man’s control maintaining someone’s perspective of order, too often disorder would quickly surface. Some might want to immediately control the situation. Others might want to either articulate their particular burden or else function in their particular spiritual gift while some might simply withdraw into silence. In other words, the revelation of Christ’s headship would be markedly lacking; His body (i.e., many moving with one heart and one mind) would not be expressed.
But the inability of the believers to corporately express one heart and one mind is not the real problem. It is a symptom. Many of God’s children are simply not walking in a full submission to Christ as their Lord. If everyone truly submitted to His lordship, His headship would then be revealed through corporate oneness. Elders are to serve and train believers to lay down their own agendas for life and ministry and then become more adept at hearing His voice so that Christ’s lordship can be more accurately walked out and His headship then revealed in a coordinated unity. God intends to fully answer Jesus’ prayer in John Chapter 17. And our lives and ministries must contribute to this emerging miracle among the nations.
While Christ is the Head of His Church, no one is suggesting that believers are to walk in a mindless obedience to whatever intuitive thoughts surface in our consciousness as “the voice of the Lord.” We are to examine carefully everything coming to us from the spiritual realm and only hold on to what is good (1Thessalonians 5:21). We are to use our minds. This is an important consideration. Though the human body has no mind separate from its head, the Church is comprised of many people each with their own mind. We cannot nullify this reality or tell believers to ignore what their own conscience, informed common sense, education, and personal Bible study tells them. In fact, we train all believers to read the Bible for themselves and then to submit their own conclusions to the authority of Scripture because Jesus is their Lord. Here is how the individuality of God’s people is maintained. Each must answer personally to Christ as their Lord.
But if we teach that elders uniquely reveal Christ’s headship, the individuality of believers will be undermined. “Bodies and body parts cannot think for themselves, so just do what we say. We will hear the Lord on your behalf.” But God’s purpose is not to make known to the nations a strong gifted Christian leadership in His house. The apostolic vision is that the body of Christ will arise among the nations in a heaven-coordinated unity. And Christ’s headship will be the fruit, the result that God will reveal to the nations as evidence of His people submitting to His lordship. And the world will see that God has loved us even as He loved His Son.
It is important to keep the distinction clear between Christ’s headship and the role of Christian elders. As stated earlier, many Church leaders have taken to themselves in some measure the function that belongs only to Christ. Coordination of the local church is around them and their vision of God’s purpose for their congregations. They are functioning in some measure in a headship role in the body.
Their perspective is that the church should submit to Christian leadership like a wife submits to her husband. In other words, they have been sent to uniquely reveal the headship of Christ in the church. As a result, they become the coordinating and unifying element in the local church around which the people gather.
But God has sent His Holy Spirit to reveal the mind of Christ in His house. While He will do so through Christian leaders, He will also do so through anyone in whom He dwells. Even the youngest believer can be used of God to reveal the mind of Christ. Elders have authority in God’s house not because they hold some recognized position or office, but because they are men of character through whom the Holy Spirit has consistently revealed the mind of Christ to His people. But again – He can and will speak through anyone in whom He dwells.
The only hope we have of seeing the body of Christ come together in a unity that reveals the nature of God will not be found in submitting to the strongest leaders, the most well-known apostles, or the most gifted prophets. Rather, the Church must come to a proper understanding of how Christ’s headship is revealed. When leaders speak an anointed word to the body, Christ’s headship is revealed through them, His mind is made known. But when a young believer speaks an anointed word to the body, Christ’s headship is also revealed. Of course, elders are to oversee this process. And all are to be teachable and accountable both to the body as well as to those giving oversight. Those who have agendas must humble themselves and lay them down. God’s agenda must come into clarity and His will must be done here as it is in heaven.
The spiritual root of the authority in the spoken word is Christ’s lordship. He is the only One holding a position of authority; He is the King. Whatever, whenever, and through whomever He speaks, He does so with authority. Not so with any other person in the Church. Elders who fail to bring Christ’s thoughts to His people by simply speaking out of their own minds reveal neither Christ’s lordship nor His headship. As a result, true spiritual authority is not revealed. At such times, we must honor men of God for their work’s sake (1Thessalonians 5:12 - 13). But at the same time, we must understand the issues involved and pray for Christ’s lordship and headship to be revealed in His house. If we simply submit to men who hold a leadership position in the Church it may work new dimensions of humility in us, but it does not address the apostolic concern of men promoting what is on their minds in God’s house and thus hindering the revelation of Christ’s headship.
The truth is that eldership is of a totally different category than headship. An elder is a part of Christ’s body just like everyone else. They are not uniquely connected to the Head, and those who teach that they are establish a clergy-laity distinction.
Our priority as believers is to submit to Christ as Lord. Whenever and through whomever He speaks, we will submit. When we gather, such obedience will reveal His headship. The great coordinating power of the Holy Spirit to gather and build His house will then be released among us to the nations revealing the miracle of a functioning “Head and body” with one mind. And our corporate experience will reveal that indeed Jesus Christ is Lord.
Donald Rumble – June 2018
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