1 Corinthians 11:3
But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ;
and the head of the woman is the man;
and the head of Christ is God.
1 Corinthians 14:33, 40
For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace.
As in all the churches of the saints.
But let all things be done decently and in order.
1 Corinthians 15:20-28
But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of them that are asleep.
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; then they that are Christ’s, at His coming.
Then cometh the end, when He shall deliver up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when He shall have abolished all rule and all authority and power.
For He must reign, till He hath put all His enemies under His feet.
The last enemy that shall be abolished is death.
For, He put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He saith, All things are put in subjection, it is evident that He is excepted who did subject all things unto Him.
And when all things have been subjected unto Him, then the Son also Himself shall be subjected to Him that did subject all things unto Him, that God may be all in all.
Dear Heavenly Father, we do rejoice in Thy presence, knowing that Thou hast given us Thy beloved Son. It is in Him that we have access to Thee, and we are acceptable in the Beloved.
We do praise and thank Thee that we can really come into Thy presence with holy boldness, to lift up our hands, to behold the glory of the Lord in the face of Jesus Christ.
We ask Thee to bless Thy Word. We pray that Thy Word will become life and spirit to us. We pray that Thy Holy Spirit will not only breathe upon Thy Word once again, but also breathe into our hearts, that we may not only be hearers of Thy Word, but also doers of Thy Word.
And to Thee be all the glory, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
The burden for this time we are together is divine life and divine order.
In the recovery work of God, divine life is the very basis of all recovery. And we do believe that, as we approach the end, it is the will of God that He wants to draw our attention more and more to His divine life.
We do thank God for the divine life that has been offered to us in Christ Jesus. We thank Him that in Him was life, and the life was the light of men. We do thank Him that, as we believe in Him, He comes into us to be our very life.
And this is the life that we must learn to live with and to live by. Now, unfortunately, we find in our own experience that, even though we have been given that divine life, and we know that it is only by that divine life that God’s purpose can be fulfilled, we have it but do not recognize it. We have it, but we do not know how to use it—how to live daily by that life.
This is not only something in which we fail in our personal life; we find that we fail in our life together. So I think it is time that we should pay more attention to this divine life.
There is Christ in you, the hope of glory. And we know this life by its qualities. How do we know that this is life?
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. So when life is really there, you find that the light of life will shine upon our path. It will expose our real situation before God. It will slay us; but, thank God, it will heal and save us.
With this light comes righteousness. We know that God is righteous, and He expects all who have His life to live righteously. Following that is love, because God is love. He wants us to love Him with all our hearts, and to love one another as He has loved us.
Now, brothers and sisters, this morning we would like to go into this matter of divine order. Please remember that we cannot talk about divine order without knowing divine life. So always keep divine life in view when we are talking about divine order.
Most people think that life and order do not agree. To us, life means freedom. We can do anything that we want to do without being bound by rules and regulations. So, to most people, life is freedom without order.
Now, if it is order, we think that it is always connected with law and order. You cannot have order if there is no law. Order is the enforcement of law. It smells of legalism, anti-freedom. We do not want that.
Largely, in a very true sense, man’s order is organized. It is something put upon us from outside. It is something forced upon us. It is artificial. It is man-made, and it is something unpleasant.
But, dear brothers and sisters, we have to remember that there is an order in the universe. It is divine order. Divine order is very different from man’s order. It is not something organizational; it is organic.
Divine order is according to divine life. Where there is divine life, there is divine order. Order is one of the fundamental principles that God has put in the universe.
Our God is the God of order, not of disorder. We find even in the physical universe how He has put order in this universe.
All the stars in the heavens travel with such speed, and yet you find they travel according to their orbits. There is an order—a physical order—put there.
You know, the prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah 40:26, said:
Lift up your eyes on high,
and see who hath created these,
that bringeth out their host by number;
He calleth them all by name;
by the greatness of His might,
and for that He is strong in power,
not one is lacking.
There is an order there. Now, you can look into a leaf, a flower, a snowflake, and you will find, in the minutest things in this world, there is a definite order. Because our God is the God of order, not of disorder.
This is not only true in the physical universe. Even in the unseen world, in the spiritual world, there is an order there. God has His angels, but among the angels there are archangels. There are seraphim and cherubim.
They represent the kingdom of God. God is the supreme ruler, and under Him there are all these countless numbers of angels. They serve the purpose of God, each in his place. There is an order there.
As a matter of fact, brothers and sisters, the more you know God, the more you realize that our God is a God of order. God’s order is something of such tremendous value that it must be obeyed. If God’s order is not obeyed, the consequence—the result; I do not like to use the word punishment—will come very swiftly.
Now, in this universe, whether it is the seen or the unseen, God, of course, is first in order. He is the Creator of all things. He is the source and fountain of life. Because of this, He is the first in the universe.
He is the beginning. He is the Alpha. He is the highest. He is the One, all by Himself—incomparable, and cannot be challenged.
And you know, this is the very meaning of holy. That is the reason why you find in the Word of God how the living creatures, the cherubim, the elders, the angels, and the whole universe worship God and say:
Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty.
He is the thrice-holy God. Now, what do you mean by holy? Holy simply means that He is unique. He is supreme. He is all by Himself, one of His kind. You cannot put anything on equal footing with Him. He is different.
He is the first—the first in the universe to be worshipped and to be served. This is our God.
When we think of order, we know that divine order is related to divine purpose. God, because He is the source of life, is first in order. But our God has an eternal purpose.
He purposed in Himself, even before the foundation of the world, according to His good pleasure. He did not consult with you and me; we were not there. He did not confer with anybody. Nobody was there. The universe was not there.
But even before the foundation of the world, in eternity past, before time, God purposed in Himself out of His good pleasure, because that pleased Him.
And what is that purpose? He loves His only Son so much that He wants to give everything to His Son and make His Son first in all things.
According to the purpose of God, He wants His beloved Son to be the first in all things—that is to say, to have the preeminence in all things. He is the first. Everything is to be put under His feet. That is the divine order that God has set up in His purpose and in the universe.
You know, when God’s order is obeyed, there is peace; there is harmony. But when God’s order is challenged or rejected, immediately you find there will be chaos and ruin.
The universe was created for a reason. The universe was created for God’s Son, to manifest His Son as the first in all things.
When the universe was first created, with all these angelic hosts, there was harmony and there was peace. We do not know how long this continued, but unfortunately, one day something happened in this universe that God had created.
An archangel, Lucifer—probably the first-created angel—was placed in a very high position. He was called the anointed cherub. He was one of the cherubim by the throne of God.
You have to see the picture of the mercy seat of the ark. On the ark, the cover of the ark was the mercy seat. There were two cherubim serving as the arms and the back of that mercy seat, and the glory of God rested upon it.
That was a picture built according to the heavenly pattern. In the heavens, you find the throne of God. God sits upon His throne, and there are cherubim serving as His arms, or His back. In other words, there are cherubim close to Him to execute His will.
Evidently, that archangel Lucifer was one of the cherubim anointed to be so close to the throne. God gave him great talents, gave him government, and delegated great authority to this cherub.
In the beginning, we can imagine that these cherubim, like the other angels, served God faithfully. They recognized God as the first in order, and they were there serving God with all the other hosts.
But one day, pride entered into the heart of this archangel, Lucifer. Because of his beauty, because of his talent, because of his dominion, there arose in his heart an ambition to be equal with God.
And what does that mean? Who is equal with God? There is One who is equal with God. In Philippians 2, we find that God’s only begotten Son, who was in the form of God, was equal with God—not something that He had to grasp at, because it was His.
But here you find an archangel who wanted to be equal with God. In other words, he wanted to take the place of God’s beloved Son.
He challenged God’s order. He did not obey God’s order. That was rebellion. Because of this, judgment fell upon him very swiftly. God will not allow anyone to challenge His order, because order represents His government.
Immediately, you find that archangel was cast out from the garden of God in heaven. He turned himself into what we know today as Satan, the adversary of God.
Because of this, the world that God created in the beginning entered into emptiness and ruin, and darkness fell upon this earth. When divine order was disobeyed, judgment fell very quickly.
We do not know how long this chaos and ruin continued, but we thank God that we do know that one day God decided to renew this earth, to make it habitable. That is what we find in Genesis 1.
In six days, God restored the earth, the universe that we know, into a habitable place. Why? Because He wanted to create man. Before He created man, He made the place habitable first. That is the love of God.
On the sixth day, you find that God created man. We mentioned yesterday that man is a masterpiece of God. God created man in His own image. Not even the angels were created in the image of God.
But man was created in God’s image. Why? Because God’s purpose concerning man is so noble, so glorious. He wanted man to be the helpmeet of His beloved Son, to share the responsibility and the glory of His own Son.
As we mentioned yesterday, in order to do that, you have to receive the tree of life—His divine life. But anyway, God created man in His image, and God gave dominion to man. He delegated authority to man over the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, and the fishes of the sea.
Man was created above all the other created things, but under the Creator. Above all, but under One. Now, that is man’s position.
In order to remind man that he was still under Someone, God gave him a command. God said, “Of all the trees in the garden you may freely eat, including the tree of life. But there is one tree of which you shall not eat: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For in the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die.”
One reason why God gave man such a command, or restraint, or limitation, was to remind man that, even though he was created in God’s image and given dominion over all things, he was still under God. He was not the first.
As long as he accepted God as the first, as long as he submitted himself under the authority of God, he could rule over all these things. That was the condition.
When God created man, He looked at man and said, “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make him a helpmeet.”
It is a very interesting thing to know that, after God had this idea, God brought all the animals before Adam. Adam looked at these animals and gave each its name, but he could not find his counterpart.
From the lowest level of animal life to the highest, he could not find his like. By the rule of elimination, God eliminated all these creatures. There was no hope of finding a counterpart among all the created beings.
So God put him to sleep, and God took something out of his side. Our Bible says a rib, but in the original it is something out of him. God took something out of Adam and used it as material to build a woman.
The word used there is build—an architectural word. God used material coming out of Adam to build a woman. Then He woke up Adam and brought that woman to him. Adam looked at her and immediately saw his life: “This is me.” And they became one.
Here you see something. In the creation of man, God put first an order in man: with man, God must be first. He must keep that order. As long as he kept that order, he was safe, and he would eventually fulfil God’s purpose. But if he did not, then there would be chaos.
At the same time, in the creation of man and woman, God put another order in the relationship of man and woman—an order in the family. The Bible says Adam was created first, and then Eve. She was made out of Adam to be his helpmeet, to help him serve God’s purpose.
Therefore, there is an order with man and woman. Man is supposed to be the head of the family, and woman is to be the body of the family. With the head and the body together, a work can be done.
You know, if you only have the head without a body, what can you do? You are dead. Or if you have a body without a head, there is nothing you can do; you are dead. But when you have the head and the body together, something can be done. Much can be done. That is God’s purpose. Order has something to do with work.
So, in the creation of man, God put two orders: first, man’s relationship with God; second, the relationship between man and woman. As long as these two orders were kept, there was peace.
We do not know how long that continued. Some people think that it did not continue very long. Some even try to compute how many hours, and can tell us at what hour Eve was tempted to eat that forbidden fruit. People even say that the forbidden fruit was an apple because man has Adam’s apple.
Now, the Bible does not say anything about it. But anyway, we know one thing: one day the tempter slipped into the garden and tempted Eve.
We do not know why Adam and Eve were not together. Somehow, she wandered away from Adam. She was attracted by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It must have looked very beautiful, very attractive. She was thinking about that tree.
So the tempter came and tempted her: “Is it true that God forbade you to eat any fruit in the garden?”
You know what that means. During those days, fruit was the food of man. God gave fruit to man to eat, to sustain life. If God forbade them to eat all the fruits, it meant that God was cruel—He wanted to starve them to death. God was a cruel God, not a loving Father, not a loving God.
Of course, she knew a little better than that, but she was not too happy about it. She said, “God allows us to eat every fruit except this tree. You cannot touch it. Not only can you not eat it; you cannot touch it.”
Satan had his chance. The ground was given to Satan. So Satan said, “Well, is it then true? God was jealous of you. He did not want you to know good and evil, that you might be like Him. That is why He did not want you to eat that tree. Take it. Then you will be like God. You do not need God any more.”
And Eve was tempted. She ate the fruit, and she gave it to her husband, Adam.
You know, a divine order was violated. Eve was built to be the helpmeet of Adam. She should have taken Adam as her head. But here you find Eve took the initiative. She made a decision, she ate it, she came to her husband, and her husband followed her.
In other words, a divine order that God had put in the family was violated.
But you know, sin came into this world by one man, not one woman. Historically, it came by one woman; but spiritually, it came by one man, because God held Adam responsible.
Eve was deceived, but Adam sinned deliberately. He knew that God had forbidden them to eat it. But when Eve gave him that fruit, somehow he thought Eve was more important than God. He did not want to lose Eve. So he ate it deliberately.
That is the reason why the Bible says sin entered into this world through one man. God held Adam responsible because he was the head of the family.
Dear brothers and sisters, the two divine orders that God had set in man were violated. Not only was the order in the family violated, but the order between God and man was violated. Man did not obey God. Man wanted to be equal with God. Man despised the command of God.
That is the reason why judgment came immediately. God’s order cannot be violated. Immediately, they were driven out of the garden of Eden, and the earth began to grow thistles and thorns. Everything changed.
Sometimes people think, “Well, Adam did not really commit a terrible crime. He ate only maybe half an apple. Why should God be so serious about it?” Brothers and sisters, it is not a matter of that. It is a matter of the divine order that God had set in man and in the universe being violated.
God’s government was violated. How could God rule the universe if He allowed His government, His order, to be challenged and violated?
To borrow a term—not found in Scripture, but a term from dispensational teaching—we find that after man sinned, they entered into the period that we call conscience. From then on, man lived by his conscience.
But unfortunately, they always carried an evil conscience. The conscience is supposed to excuse, and sometimes accuse. But after man fell into sin, the conscience always accused and never excused. You may excuse yourself, but your conscience never excuses you.
Man began to carry an evil conscience. Living under an evil conscience, gradually conscience became seared, cauterized. Their conscience began to harden, and even when people were doing violence, their conscience was dead.
That is the reason why, in Genesis 6, God looked upon man and saw that the whole world was corrupted—the violence, the corruption, even the imagination of their minds was all evil. God said, “I have to do something.”
So God sent a flood upon this world and destroyed mankind. But in His grace, He kept Noah and his family alive in the ark.
When Noah and his family came out from the ark, God made a covenant with Noah. God knew that conscience did not work. So, just to help keep some order in the world, God gave government to mankind.
When you read Genesis 9, you find God said, “You can eat everything, all these living creatures.” Before that, in the garden of Eden, man ate fruit only. After the garden of Eden, they ate fruit and vegetables. Now God said, “You need some meat.”
You know, the more deteriorated your physical body, the more animal protein you need—probably. Now, maybe I am wrong; the doctors are here.
So God allowed man to eat meat. But God said, “You cannot eat any creature with blood in it, because life is in the blood.” God would not allow people to eat life.
God set up a government and said, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man.” Brothers and sisters, what is this? This is government.
God gave government to man because conscience was no longer effective. Conscience ended in the flood. So God gave government to man. That is the beginning of government in this world.
And what is human government? Human government is an attempt to keep some order. Without government, there would be anarchy. So with government, some order could be kept.
But what happened with government? How did it end up? It ended up with the tower of Babel. One man called Nimrod became ambitious. He was a great hunter, and he became the first empire builder. He built Nineveh, he built Babylon, and he led the people to build a tower of Babel.
They said, “We will make a name for ourselves,” and they wanted to reach heaven. In other words, human government ended in rebellion against God’s government.
That is what human government is. It is supposed to keep order, but it itself becomes an enemy to God’s order. The kingdom of this world is an enemy to the kingdom of God, until one day when Christ shall return. Then the kingdom of this world shall become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ.
So government fails. Why? Because government is something put on from outside. It is not something of life.
After that, God still wanted to help man keep some order. So you find, with the children of Israel, God redeemed them, delivered them out of Egypt, brought them to Mount Sinai, and there He gave them the law.
Why was the law given? The law was given to keep some order—to help them keep some order. It was to regulate their relationship with God, in the first four commandments, and their relationship with one another, in the following six commandments.
These two tables of law God gave to man, trying to help them keep some order. That is where law and order came in.
But law was added because of transgressions. If there is no law, there is no transgression. Because there is law, you find there is transgression. If there were no such law, there would be no trespass; but when it is there, you are tempted to do the very thing you are forbidden to do.
Why? Well, the law ended in Babylonian captivity. It failed, because law is something engraved, inscribed on stones. It is not of life.
This fallen life of ours is against all government and all law. That is human nature. We do not want anything to restrict us. We want liberty. “Give me liberty, or give me death.” And surely, you have death.
Now, brothers and sisters, remember this, because this is very important. God tested man with government; it did not work. With law, it did not work. In other words, all these outward helps do not help.
Why? Because the problem is within us—in our fallen life, in our fallen nature. We do not like divine order. We do not like government to govern us. We do not like law, something put upon us. We want to be free to do whatever we want to do. That is human nature.
That is the reason why government and law never really work.
But, dear brothers and sisters, in this whole world divine order was rejected until one day, in the fullness of time, God sent His own Son into this world.
Do you know that when our Lord Jesus came into this world, He came to demonstrate divine order? In this world of disorder, there came a Man who represented the divine order.
You look at the life of our Lord Jesus, and you find that divine order was the principle of His life.
He was equal with God, and yet throughout His life, especially if you read the Gospel according to John, again and again He said, “I can do nothing of Myself. I do it because I saw My Father do it. It is not My doing; it is My Father doing it in Me. I cannot say anything by Myself. I say it because I have heard it said. It is My Father who says it.”
Throughout His life, He was tempted from all sides to violate the divine order. You remember: after He was baptized, He was led into the wilderness, and Satan came and tempted Him.
What is behind temptation? Behind temptation is very simple: if you obey God’s divine order, you suffer. Do something on your own, and you will be satisfied.
Our Lord was fasting for forty days and forty nights, and He was hungry. Satan came and said, “Well, You are the Son of God. God has not provided bread for You. You can turn these stones into bread and satisfy Yourself.”
But the Lord said:
Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
In other words: divine order. If God had not commanded, I would not do it. Even to death, I would not.
Throughout His life, you find that He was tempted to do something of His own, but He refused. He humbled Himself under the mighty hand of God, obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.
For the first time in human history, we find one Person who obeyed God’s order perfectly. No wonder the heavens opened and said:
This is My beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased.
But, brothers and sisters, our Lord Jesus learned obedience through the things which He suffered. You know, as God, can you imagine that God knows what obedience is by experience?
God, being God, never obeys anybody. He should not. He could not. If He should obey anybody, He would no longer be God. He is sovereign.
So you find the Son of God, when He came into this world to be a Man, had to learn obedience. It was not something He was born with.
Brothers and sisters, obedience is not something that you are born with. Rebellion is what you are born with. If you can obey, it is a miracle. But today, with the redemption of the Lord, it is the norm.
When our Lord Jesus came into this earth and became a Man, even though He was without sin, He had to learn obedience. He did not know what obedience was by experience, but He had to learn it.
In His thirty-three years on earth, He learned obedience in the hard way. He suffered for it. He suffered starvation to learn obedience. He suffered misunderstanding to learn obedience.
He suffered persecution, the reproach of men, and rejection by men because of obedience. If He would just stand up and take the kingdom, He would be welcomed. But He would not do that. He suffered from that.
Through the things which He suffered, He learned obedience—obedience to God, to keep the divine order in His life. Therefore, there was peace. There was peace between Him and God. There was harmony, not a single discord.
But, dear brothers and sisters, He did not come just to demonstrate divine order. He came to bring divine order within our reach. That is the reason why He had to go to the cross.
He was obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. There, on the cross, He released that obedient life to you and me.
So, brothers and sisters, remember this: the life that you have received from God, the eternal life that is in you today, is a life that has been tested and proven to be obedient and to keep the divine order.
In Hebrews 5, we are told that because He learned obedience from the things which He suffered, therefore, having been perfected, He became to all who obey Him the Author of eternal salvation.
Brothers and sisters, whoever obeys Him, He is the Author of eternal salvation. In other words, we have His life in us, and this life knows divine order. It demands that we keep the divine order.
But because there is flesh in us, there will be struggle. We have to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. But when we obey Him, He becomes the Author, the Originator, the Giver, the Maker of our eternal salvation, that we too may return to the order that God has foreordained for mankind.
Here you find the Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 11, talking about divine order. Now, brothers and sisters, we cannot talk about divine order with the world, because the world does not know what divine order is. Even if they knew, they could not keep it.
But among the redeemed of the Lord, we who have received His life in us, dear brothers and sisters, we need to talk about divine order. Yes, I know people do not like to talk about order. I do not like to talk about it either.
I am afraid that, because of this, among God’s people we do not know divine order. We violate divine order; we suffer because we do not understand it.
If divine order is not recovered in the church, among the redeemed of the Lord, brothers and sisters, how can you expect divine order to be brought into this chaotic world?
So here you find Paul talking about divine order. It is very, very important to understand this, because if you know this, you will not only not be unhappy with divine order; you will rejoice in divine order.
The Word says:
I would have you know
that the head of every man is Christ;
and the head of the woman is the man;
and the head of Christ is God.
This divine order is first demonstrated in the relationship between Christ and God. We have already mentioned that in Philippians 2, He who is in the very form of God is equal with God, and that is not something to be grasped at.
In other words, between the Father and the Son there is equality. In essence, they are the same. The Father is not different from the Son, and the Son is not lesser than the Father. In essence and substance, they are the same. They are equal—equal in life from eternity.
But for the sake of the work to be done, you find that the life within the Father and the life within the Son bring forth an order.
That is why we say that you will never understand divine order if you do not know divine life. It is not something put on from outside; it comes out of life.
If we may say, in the Godhead there was a council in eternity past. They began to talk about a project, a plan, something to be done to fulfil God’s eternal purpose.
When they were talking about it, you find life within the Son saying, “I am willing to take a lower place. I am willing to take You, Father, as My head. I am willing to be Your body. I am willing to come to the world and suffer even unto death, if Your purpose can be fulfilled.”
When the Son of God volunteered to take a lower place, it was not a matter of inequality. As a matter of fact, it was a beautiful, wonderful expression of divine life.
Nothing was coerced, nothing was forced, nothing was asked; but the Son voluntarily said, “I am willing to do this. I will take You, Father, as My head. I will not be the head. I will not give command any more. I will learn obedience. Even though I must suffer for it, I will learn it.”
How beautiful it is.
And do you know? It was not easy for the Father to volunteer and say, “Well, I am willing to be the head, to take all the responsibility upon Myself. I am willing to take that responsibility with such seriousness, to the extent of giving up My beloved Son so that the purpose can be fulfilled.”
Sometimes we think it is hard for the Son, but we must remember that it is equally hard for the Father. We think that to lead is easy and to obey is hard. But, brothers and sisters, it is the same.
To be the head is a tremendous responsibility. It is a great sacrifice, because He had to spare not His own Son. The Father was willing to do that, and the Son was willing to take His place. That is what happened.
Here you have the beautiful picture of Christ’s life upon this earth: how He always took the Father as His head. He was always the body that executed all the will of the head.
What would the head be if there were no body to execute all that it had planned? What perfect harmony and cooperation there was between the Father and the Son. Brothers and sisters, that is the divine order. That is the example of divine order.
After God has shown us this divine order, then He comes down to say, “Christ is the head of every man.”
You know, brothers and sisters, how can Christ be the head of every man if He does not know how to make God His head? Because He made God His head, therefore He is qualified. He has proven Himself fully qualified to be the head of every man.
If you have never been under authority, then when you are given authority, you will abuse it. But if you have been under authority, then when you are given authority, you will use authority to build up, not to destroy.
Christ is the head of every redeemed one of the Lord. Now, brothers and sisters, theoretically we all know that.
That is the reason why, in Romans 12, we have to present our bodies a living sacrifice. Why should we present our bodies a living sacrifice? That Christ may truly be head over us.
If you do not present your body a living sacrifice, if you do not consecrate your all to Him, you are still your own head. But when you present your body a living sacrifice, it means that you take Him as your head from now on.
In all things, you will hold fast to the Head. You allow Him to give the word, and you will learn to obey. That is the meaning of it.
There is no problem with Christ as the Head. He knows how to be your Head. He has given His life for you.
But the problem is that we do not know how to be His body. We do not know how to hold fast to Him as Head in all things.
Again, you find that it is a matter of life. Does not the divine life in you demand that you submit to Christ? Does not the divine life in you cry out for Christ to be your Head?
If you allow Him to be your Head, what joy, what peace! But when you do not allow Him to be Head and try to be your own head, what conflict, what struggle, what sorrow!
Let it not be just a matter of authority; it must be a reality to you. First, present your body a living sacrifice daily.
Early in the morning, when you wake up, tell the Lord you are His. Ask Him to be your Head—to rule, control, and manage your day. In all things, look up to Him. Let Him guide you and lead you.
He is there to complete and perfect you. There is no joy and blessing greater than having Christ as your Head.
This is a divine order that has to be recovered—not only recovered in us individually, but recovered in the church.
Ephesians says that God has made Christ Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. Only when God’s people together hold fast the Head is the body united together and ministers to one another for the increase of the body, with the increase of God in love.
Is that order recovered in you? Is that order recovered in the church?
How do we know life reigns? Where you see that order, there is life. When life is weakening, that order is also fading.
Then you find it follows with this: man is the head of woman. Now I am touching on some soft spot, but actually, if you see it, it is the most beautiful thing.
Unfortunately, all we know is that man is the head of woman, without knowing that Christ is the head of every man, or without knowing that God is the head of Christ. Now, that is our problem.
If you see divine order from the relationship of God and Christ, and from your relationship with Christ, then, brothers and sisters, what is the problem?
In God’s divine order, God in the family puts man as the head, and the woman as the body. Again, it is not a matter of inequality.
In spiritual life, in the grace of God, He is not partial to man or woman. He gives His grace as generously and as freely to women as well as to men, because in Christ there is neither male nor female.
Our spiritual life is equal. As a matter of fact, you find that oftentimes sisters are more spiritual than brothers.