THE VISION, PRACTICE, AND BUILDING UP OF THE CHURCH AS THE BODY OF CHRIST
Message Three
God's Purpose for the Church (3) To Head Up All Things in Christ
Scripture Reading: Eph. 1:10; 4:15-16; Col. 2:19
I. "Unto the economy of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth, in Him"— Eph. 1:10:
A. The economy, or dispensation, that God, according to His desire, planned and purposed in Himself is to head up all things in Christ at the fullness of the times.
B. This is accomplished through the dispensing of the abundant life supply of the Triune God as the life factor into all the members of the church so that they may rise up from the death situation and be attached to the Body.
C. The times refers to the ages, and the fullness of the times will be when the new heaven and new earth appear after all the dispensations of God in all the ages have been completed. (A dispensation is the act or instance of dispensing. It refers to God's dispensing of Himself into His chosen people. We need the element of God with His life and nature to be wrought into our being. This is the meaning of dispensation.):
1. Altogether there are four ages: the age of sin (Adam), the age of the law (Moses), the age of grace (Christ), and the age of the kingdom (the millennium).
2. God dispensed Himself into Abel, Enosh, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with Joseph, Moses, and, of course, with the Lord Jesus.
3. This dispensing continues in the New Testament Epistles; God's dispensation is even greater than it was at the time of the apostle Paul; today there is a deeper, higher, and wider dispensation of the grace of God—cf. Eph. 3:2; 1 Pet. 4:10.
4. This dispensation will continue through the millennium until the fullness of the times; the ultimate, the consummate, dispensation will be the dispensing of the Triune God into the whole city of the New Jerusalem—Rev. 22:1-2.
5. We enjoy a miniature of this consummate dispensation in the church life today; as we enjoy the Spirit as the living water and eat Christ as the tree of life in the church life, we are awaiting the consummate dispensation, in which we shall be fully saturated with the Triune God.
6. Where life is, there is light also (John 1:4; 8:12); because the New Jerusalem is saturated with light, it has no need of the light of the sun; the glory of the Triune God will be our shining and controlling light (Rev. 21:23).
7. In the New Jerusalem there will be no night, no death, and no darkness; instead, there will be life and light, causing everything to rise up and be in good order.
8. In the New Jerusalem as the center of the new heaven and new earth, all things will be headed up in Christ (v. 24); this will be the fulfillment of the heading up of all things in Christ spoken of in Ephesians 1:10.
D. God made Christ the Head over all things (v. 22); through all the dispensations of God in all the ages, all things will be headed up in Christ in the new heaven and new earth; that will be God's eternal administration and economy.
E. Thus, the heading up of all things in verse 10 is the issue of all the things covered in verses 3 through 9—God has chosen us, predestinated us, redeemed us, forgiven us, and graced us for the purpose of heading up all things in Christ.
F. Verse 22 reveals further that this heading up is to the church so that the Body of Christ may share in all that is of Christ as the Head, having been rescued from the heap of the universal collapse in death and darkness, which was caused by the rebellion of the angels and the rebellion of man; to be rescued from the collapse is to be headed up.
G. The believers participate in this heading up by being willing to be headed up in the church life, by growing in life and by living under Christ's light—John 1:4; 8:12; Eph. 5:8-9; Rev. 21:23-25.
H. The picture in Ezekiel 37 of the dead, dry, and scattered bones shows that the unique way to have the Body, the church, and the house of God in the genuine oneness is the way of life:
1. When the breath entered into the dead ones, it became life to them, and they lived and stood up in oneness to become an exceedingly great army.
2. The dead bones were enlivened and became one as the issue of the dispensing of life and the growth in life—vv. 1-14.
I. The heading up of all things in Christ takes place through the dispensing of the abundant life supply of the Triune God into us; the more the factor of life is ministered to us, the more we rise up and become attached; God's way to head us up is to work Himself as the factor of life into us that we may rise up and be attached to one another.
J. When everything is headed up in Christ, there will be absolute peace and harmony (Isa. 2:4; 11:6; 55:12; Psa. 96:12-13), a full rescue out of the collapse; this will begin from the restoration of all things (Acts 3:21).
II. We need to grow up into Christ, the Head, in all things—Eph. 4:15:
A. The organic building up of the Body is the growth of the Body, which is the growth of God, the increase of God as life, in all the members—2:21-22; 4:16; Col. 2:19; cf. John 3:30.
B. To grow in life is to have more of God in us; our problem is that we are short of God—cf. Job 1:1-5; 42:1-6.
C. The growing members are the building members—Eph. 4:16.
D. In order to grow up into the Head, we must hold to truth in love—v. 15:
1. Truth here means things that are true—Rom. 3:4:
a. We need to hold to God's eternal economy—1 Tim. 1:3-4:
1) This is the economy of the mystery hidden in God—Eph. 3:9.
2) This economy is to have the church as the organic Body of Christ to consummate in the New Jerusalem for the manifestation of Christ as God's multifarious wisdom—vv. 10-11; 1:22-23; 1 Cor. 1:30.
b. We need to hold to the all-inclusive Christ—John 14:6; Eph. 1:23:
1) His measure is immeasurable—3:18.
2) His riches are unsearchable—v. 8.
3) His love is knowledge-surpassing—v. 19.
c. We need to hold to the church as the Body of Christ—1 Tim. 3:15:
1) The Body of Christ is the corporate Christ—Acts 9:4; 1 Cor. 12:12.
2) The Body of Christ is the fullness, the expression, of Christ and of God—Eph. 1:23; 3:19.
2. We hold to truth in the element and sphere of the divine love—4:15.
3. We grow up into the Head in all things—in all things means in everything, big or small, in our daily life and in our work—cf. Zech. 4:6, 10.
4. We grow up into the Head through acknowledging the authority of the head-ship of Christ—cf. Josh. 9:14:
a. As the Head of everyone—1 Cor. 11:3.
b. As the Head of the church—Eph. 5:23.
c. As the Head of all things—1:22, 10.
5. We grow up into the Head by allowing Christ to increase and grow in all the inward parts of our being:
a. In order to grow in life, we must know, we must use, and we must exercise our mingled spirit:
1) Ephesians 1:17 shows that we need to pray for a spirit of wisdom and revelation to fully know Christ and God's economy.
2) Ephesians 2:22 says that all the believers are being built together into a dwelling place of God in spirit.
3) Ephesians 3:5 says that the mystery of Christ has been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in spirit.
4) Ephesians 3:16 shows that we need to pray to be strengthened into the inner man, which is our regenerated spirit with God's life as its life.
5) Ephesians 4:23 tells us to be renewed in the spirit of our mind.
6) Ephesians 5:18 tells us to be filled in spirit.
7) Ephesians 6:18 tells us to pray at every time in spirit.
b. In order to grow in life, we must feed on the milk and food of the holy Word, as the embodiment of Christ, the living Word of God—1 Pet. 2:2; Heb. 5:13-14.
III. As we grow up into the Head in life, our function will come out from the Head for the building up of the Body—Eph. 4:16:
A. When we allow Christ to be the Head in everything and when we grow up into Him in all things, we will be supplied with the riches of His life, receiving some-thing from Him to transfuse into other members of the Body—1 Cor. 14:4b; John 7:37-39:
1. To build up the Body of Christ is to minister Christ as the life-giving Spirit into the saints for their growth into Christ—2 Cor. 3:6, 8.
2. We must help the saints learn to enjoy the Lord and be nourished by the Lord so that they can grow—Phil. 1:25; 2 Cor. 1:24.
B. All the Body causes the growth of the Body of Christ—Eph. 4:16:
1. This growth is through every joint of the rich supply—all the particular gifts in the Body of Christ—vv. 11-12.
2. This growth is through the operation in the measure of each one part— every member in the Body of Christ—vv. 7-8.
C. The building up of the Body of Christ is in love and by love—1 Cor. 8:1b:
1. Love is the most excellent way to be anything and to do anything for the building up of the Body of Christ—12:31b—13:13.
2. The goal of the book of Ephesians is to bring us into love as God's inner substance (1 John 4:8, 16) so that we may enjoy God as love and enjoy His presence in the sweetness of the divine love, and thereby love others as Christ did—Eph. 5:25; 6:24; 1:4; 3:17; 4:2, 15-16; 5:2.