Shall we turn to a number of Scriptures this evening? We are not going to have one reading, but a number of Scriptures.
Ephesians 1:22
And He put all things in subjection under His feet,
and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
which is His body.
Ephesians 5:23
The husband is the head of the wife,
as Christ also is the head of the church,
being Himself the Saviour of the body.
Colossians 1:18
And He is the head of the body, the church:
who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead;
that in all things He might have the preeminence.
1 Corinthians 11:3-5
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.Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.
But every woman praying or prophesying with her head unveiled dishonoureth her head.
John 16:13-15
Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come,
He shall guide you into all the truth:
for He shall not speak from Himself;
but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak:
and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come.He shall glorify Me:
for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.
All things whatsoever the Father hath are Mine:
therefore said I, that He taketh of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.
1 John 2:20, 27
And ye have an anointing from the Holy One,
and ye know all things.And as for you, the anointing which ye received of Him abideth in you,
and ye need not that anyone teach you;
but as His anointing teacheth you concerning all things,
and is true, and is no lie,
and even as it taught you, ye abide in Him.
Matthew 23:8-10
But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Teacher, and all ye are brethren.
And call no man your father on the earth: for one is your Father, even He who is in heaven.
Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even the Christ.
This evening we come to the second in the series. The question we have asked is: Why are you at Halford House?
For those of you who were not here last week, I am afraid we cannot go over what has been said. I can only suggest that you listen to the tape. I fear that otherwise what we have to say this evening may not make so much sense, because these times are all related. They come one out of the preceding time, and therefore it is important, if you are going to come to them, to hear the first.
Why am I at Halford House? Is it just an evangelical church? What are we here? Are we a kind of Open Brethren assembly that allows sisters to take part? Or are we a kind of evangelical church whose minister wears normal clothes and is called “Mister”? Or are we a mission to those who have some kind of trouble in the background?
Are we propagators of a special truth, or a special type of spiritual experience? We are to imagine that some leading evangelicals approach us and ask why we are here at all. Why do we not join one of the other groups—a denominational group; or, if we do not like denominationalism, an interdenominational group or a non-denominational group; or, if we do not have organisation, the Quakers or the Open Brethren?
Last week we spoke about the problem that confronts Christians today. In the New Testament, things were very simple and straightforward. When a person became a child of God, they were immediately known to be within the family of God. In every locality, the family of God—those born again by the Spirit of God through the preaching of the gospel—gathered together, and they were called the church.
There were never two churches in one locality. It was as simple as that. You were either in it or you were not in it. It was exclusive of all, however good, decent, knowledgeable, or even biblically informed they might be, who were not born of God. But it included every single one who professed an experience of God’s saving grace.
The problem we confront today is a very complex one. In any given locality there are hundreds and hundreds of churches: national and state churches, denominational and interdenominational fellowships, missions, gospel halls—the lot, of every kind.
What shall we do? All, in some measure, are organised, institutional, or set. Nearly all are built upon the unity of the faith rather than the unity of the Spirit.
We said last week that we believe the Lord will never admit defeat over His original purpose for and in His church. At the end of this age, if only in a remnant worldwide, He will once again recover something of the nature of the church and express something of His power, His life, and His glory.
We shall have to take this up in the course we are taking in addition to these meetings: the history of the church. We shall see whether we can trace, in that history, the successive movements of the Spirit of God as He has sought to recover something that has been lost.
But suffice it to say that we believe there will be an expression throughout the earth of His original thought and concept, and that His purpose in and for the church in this age will be carried by His grace to a glorious consummation.
We find it comprehended in the little phrase of Revelation 19:7:
Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad,
and let us give the glory unto Him:
for the marriage of the Lamb is come,
and His wife hath made herself ready.
She hath made herself ready. This needs the cooperation, in utter devotion and faithfulness, of every single one whose heart is set upon the Lord.
We must give our loyalty without any shadow of reserve. We must give our loyalty first and foremost to Christ. If, by giving our loyalty to Christ first and foremost, other loyalties—to people and to things—are shattered, then they must be shattered.
There is an awful lot of talk about loyalty to things. I have often had it put to me like this: “Why do you leave the sinking ship? Only rats leave the sinking ship.”
I will never leave the ship while the captain is still at the wheel. But if—something that should never happen—the captain has got away in a lifeboat, I am going with him. If the captain gives up the ship, I am not staying on that ship.
Let me put it in New Testament terms. If the candlestick is removed from the church at Ephesus, I am going with the candlestick.
Let me put it in terms our dear brother Watchman Nee once used. He said there came a time in the history of the people of God when the ark of the covenant and the tabernacle became separated. In one place there was the ark of the covenant with a few priests who worshipped the Lord; in the other place there was the tabernacle with all its furniture and accessories, with most of the people.
He asked, “Where would you have worshipped?”
Then he said that in days of decline and departure, follow the ark of the covenant and forget the tabernacle. For the ark of the covenant represents the sovereign presence of the living God.
Those of you who are always here know that we do believe in loyalty. We believe in loyalty to one another. We believe in loyalty to that which God has entrusted and given us—the faith once for all delivered to the saints. For that we must be prepared to die.
But we do not believe in any loyalty to man or to things which takes the place of, or takes precedence over, loyalty to Jesus Christ.
It is, in my estimation, nearing blasphemy to suggest that we should be loyal to other things if it means disloyalty to Jesus Christ.
Thus we have been led by the Spirit of God to take the ground of the body of Christ.
Last week, when we put up those various possible answers to the question, “Why are you at Halford House?”—friendliness and fellowship, freedom of the Spirit, good spiritual food, a greater measure of Christ, or the will of God—we said that, although some of them are good things, they were all really wrong as the basis.
In the end, we put at the bottom two words: Because I am in Christ. That is why I am there.
Because I am in Christ, I do not want Christ plus a denomination. I do not want Christ plus organisation as such. I do not want Christ plus anything. I simply want to be there because I am in Christ, and I want to open my arms to every other person who is in Christ, whoever they are.
If they are in Christ, I want to receive them as Christ has also received me.
To put it in a more technical way, we take the ground of the body of Christ. Because you and I are in Christ, we are in the body of Christ. He is the Head; we are the body. We are in the body, joined to the Head, sharing the name of the Head.
All the members of my body bear the name of Lance Lambert—no one else’s name. My name they share. That is why Scripture speaks of you and me as members of Christ, members of His body: limbs of Christ, parts of Christ.
You can see this in 1 Corinthians 12:12, Romans 12:4-5, and 1 Corinthians 6:17-18, among other places. That is what you are: you have been saved by the grace of God.
We do not believe there is any other excuse for meeting separately than that ground. To meet on any other basis is to become another division. But if we can find a ground upon which we can receive every believer as a believer, without having to ask a whole list of questions, that is a ground that ends division.
If we are to leave sectarianism, surely we must find something that is not itself going to be split, and split, and split.
It is like the old story of the Quaker meeting that broke up into two, and then the two broke up into two, and then all those parts broke up again, until finally there was only the old lady and her chauffeur. On her way to the meeting she said, “You know, all the world’s queer, save thee and me—and even thee’s a little queer.”
That is how we can end up. Once you start on the ground of making truth, or a spiritual experience other than the initial experience of new birth, the basis for fellowship, you end up by thinking everyone is peculiar.
What does it mean to take the ground of the body of Christ, or to take church ground, as we sometimes put it? This evening we are going to dwell on one point, perhaps the most fundamental of all:
The headship of Jesus Christ over His people by the Spirit.
The absolute headship of Jesus Christ over the church.
First, mark the term body. The term comes again and again in the New Testament in reference to the church.
A body is only a living, functioning, developing, growing thing when it is joined to a head. If you want to conduct an experiment, you can cut your head off and you will soon find out. Bodies die the moment they are separated from the head.
For the body to be a living, functioning, operative thing, it must be joined to the head. More than that, it must be obedient to the head. If there is the slightest trouble in the nervous system between the brain and the body, we are paralysed.
We can have the most beautiful head in the world and the finest features in the world. We can have the most beautiful body in the world and the finest physique. But if anything is wrong between the brain and the body—between the head and the body—there is paralysis.
The head and the body belong to each other. They need each other. We think of a head and a body as a person. There is not one of you here whom we think of without a head, and there is not one of you here without a body. Every person in this room has a head and a body joined together. Yes, and I hope you will use them.
Ephesians 4:15-16 says:
But speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him,
who is the head, even Christ;
from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together
through that which every joint supplieth,
according to the working in due measure of each several part,
maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.
The body develops, grows, and is built up in love. But how does that happen? It happens when each member of Christ grows up into Him as Head. The Head is the vital factor in the functioning of the body. The headship of Christ is the vital factor in the functioning of the church.
There can be no development, functioning, growth, movement, manifestation, or expression of Christ in the church until it knows the headship of Christ in experience.
It may begin very simply: bowing the knee to Jesus Christ as Lord. Not just one of us, but all of us—everyone ready to accept the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ in any issue and over any matter. Until you have that, there can be no function of the church.
Colossians 2:19 says:
And not holding fast the Head,
from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together
through the joints and bands,
increaseth with the increase of God.
Holding fast the Head—not the body. From the Head the whole body increases with the increase of God. There can be no function, no growth, no building together, and no real fellowship—the fellowship the Bible speaks of, not merely chatter—until we know the Head and hold fast the Head.
Each one must have a personal relationship, a clear-cut and open supply line, to the Lord Jesus Christ.
We do not experience the church by trying to hold fast the body. We do not come into an experience of the church by saying, “Now I must try to hold fast all these dear people. I must try to get close to them. I must try to agree with them. I must somehow move with them.”
This is probably where the Exclusive Brethren went right off the rails. Everyone held fast the body and forgot the Head. Gradually, the whole body veered away from the truth, until now they are in the saddest plight it is possible to be in.
You will never, however young you are, experience church life or fellowship by trying to hold fast the body.
The way it comes is by holding fast the Head. As we keep our link with the Lord Jesus Christ as King and Master absolutely clear, we find the body.
Is that not true? Every time you take a step in obedience, have you not found yourself closer to the church? And every time you have an issue in your life, do you not find yourself in a battle with the saints? You say, “All those people!” You can pull them up on this and on that. They are wrong here and wrong there; the meetings are too long; this is too bad, or that is too bad.
But suddenly you settle the issue with the Lord, and you feel free with all the saints. Why is that? It is holding fast the Head. You hold fast the Head, and you find the body. It is as simple as that.
What do we mean by this word headship? Why does the Bible speak of Christ as Head of the body?
We associate a person’s mind, will, and intelligence with their head, do we not? When we say that someone has a mind, we think of their head. When we say someone has a strong will, we think of their head. When we say a person is thick-headed, we mean they are not too intelligent. When we say a person is hot-headed, we mean their will and feelings carry them forward.
The Bible takes this symbol of the head and means that authority, government, leadership, and teaching are all wholly centred in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That is why we read the Scripture which says, “Be not ye called Rabbi.” Even if he is an apostle, do not call him Rabbi so-and-so. Do not call him Father so-and-so. The Lord Jesus Himself said, “Neither be ye called masters.”
He is plain Mister, in the sense that he is simply a brother in the Lord. You are all brethren. You have only one Teacher, one Master, and one Father.
We must get this quite clear: there is no other authority in the church other than Jesus Christ. There is no other government in the church other than Jesus Christ. There is no other leadership in the church other than Jesus Christ. There is no other teaching other than the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The headship of Christ also speaks of the supremacy and centrality of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is Lord of all.
The head is supreme in the body in the sense that it is the headquarters of the body. It is, as it were, the telephone exchange of the body. Everything comes into the head; everything goes from the head. The head is the operative centre.
So the Lord Jesus Christ is absolutely supreme and absolutely central. He is the heart and centre of everything.
Anything that cannot give the Lord Jesus Christ the place which God has given Him has got to go. That is the reason why, in Christian circles, the enemy has engineered us into a position where we are unable to let go of all that would have to go in order that the Lord Jesus Christ could have the place which God the Father has given Him.
Anything that cannot give the Lord Jesus Christ that place of absolute supremacy and centrality has got to go. That is the standard by which we judge everything.
For what does the Word of God say in Colossians 3:11?
Christ is all, and in all.
Christ is supreme and central. If there is anything in which He cannot have the glory and cannot have His place, it must be wrong. It belongs to another realm, another kingdom, another sphere.
Of course, in Scripture it is not only the title Head that comes under this matter of headship. There are also the titles King and Lord.
Someone may say, “But how is this practical? We cannot see Him, and with our physical ears we cannot hear Him. You say there is to be no other authority, government, leadership, or teaching but Jesus Christ. Is that not rather mystical—rather abstract and vague?”
This is just the point.
The Father has enthroned the Lord Jesus Christ at His right hand, with all power and authority, as King of kings and Lord of lords. The moment the Lord Jesus took His seat at the Father’s right hand, the Holy Spirit was released.
The Lord Jesus said, “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I go, I will send Him unto you.” The moment the Lord Jesus sat down on the throne of God, with all authority and power in heaven and on earth in His hands, the Holy Spirit was released.
What is the work of the Holy Spirit? It is to make practical, concrete, and real the position, authority, mind, will, and life of Jesus Christ to the church.
What happened on the day of Pentecost? Suddenly, one hundred and twenty units of a congregation became one hundred and twenty members of a body. How did it happen? The Holy Spirit came.
He came like the sound of a mighty rushing wind, and then like fire. It was as though one great fire fell upon the hundred and twenty; then that fire divided, and a tongue of flame settled upon each member.
One Spirit in one hundred and twenty. One life in one hundred and twenty. One Head made real to one hundred and twenty. They became one hundred and twenty members of a single body.
The next moment Peter stood up, and all eleven stood up with him. Only one of them spoke, but they felt so much with him that they all rose with him. They remained silent while Peter did the preaching, but they stood with him throughout.
What had happened to these quibbling, divided, disillusioned, disappointed disciples? These were the men who always argued about who should be first. A year earlier, some of them might have said, “Who does he think he is?” If James and John’s mother had been there, she might have started trouble: “My sons are better than that Peter any day.”
But after the day of Pentecost, something happened. They were all one. The Holy Spirit came.
Someone says, “Ah, that means power. That means fullness.” Yes, of course it means power and fullness, but those are subsidiary things. They are vital in both a personal and corporate way, but the Holy Spirit came primarily to make the position of our Lord Jesus Christ—enthroned at the right hand of God, far above all principality and power—real to the church, so that the body might become invincible.
It is in the measure in which the Holy Spirit has freedom to make real the position, authority, mind, and will of Christ that we know the life and power of God.
Every revival in the history of the church, every great movement of God that has recovered anything for God, has begun with a re-enthronement of the Lord Jesus Christ by the Spirit of God. Every backsliding, every departure, and every decline has begun with the dethronement of our Lord Jesus Christ.
That is why we read John 16 concerning the Holy Spirit:
He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it unto you.
What are the things of Christ? His possessions, His authority, His power, His incorruptible resurrection life.
The Holy Spirit came to make real the invincible, incorruptible authority, power, and position of our Lord Jesus Christ.
If we are going to see anything happen in this world in the end time, when darkness covers the earth and evil spirits create a suffocating atmosphere of vileness and wickedness, it will not be by might or by power, but by His Spirit. The house of God shall be completed, and the bride will have made herself ready.
If we want to know the mind of Christ, the will of Christ, the authority of Christ, or the position of Christ in any given situation, the Holy Spirit is here. He is not merely up there; He is here—in this room, in this place, in this company. His work is to make all that real to us.
Do not say it is mystical, vague, or abstract. The history, at least in a poor and appalling way, of this living company has been simply to discover the mind and will of God again and again.
We are, after all, the stupidest crowd that God has brought together! Someone said that when we sang the hymn with great fervour and meaning last week, “This glad shower,” it was absolutely true. We are just a terrible crowd.
But we have learned one simple lesson: that the Lord Jesus Christ is Head and Lord of us all, and that His mind can be transmitted to us by the Spirit of God. We may be the dumbest crowd in the world, but if we have an ear for the Spirit, the Lord will do everything He can to provide and to accomplish His purpose.
This clears the ground of all those substitutes—those things that become substitutes for the headship of Jesus Christ and effectively frustrate its practical outworking.
Christian circles, evangelical circles, are cluttered with things, New Testament and non-New Testament, that effectively paralyse and frustrate the outworking of the headship of Jesus Christ. With all the devotion in the world, the Lord cannot have His way. We may be devoted, but He cannot have His way.
What are those things? Human selection and appointment. When I think of what goes on behind the scenes—nomination, election, and all the things that go on—it is incredible. Councils, committees, boards, and so on.
I remember, when I was first saved, hearing Lindsay Glegg say, “You put twelve men’s heads together and you will produce one blockhead.” It is too true, is it not?
He was once asked how the work he was in was run, and what kind of committee they had. He said, “Oh, we have an extraordinary committee. It is limited to three; it is always in session; they are always one; and they get everything done: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”
The fact is that all these things may be right or wrong, New Testament or non-New Testament. But if—and I underline the if—they become substitutes for the practical outworking of the headship of Christ, they are wrong.
Congregational business meetings, presbyteries, diaconates, New Testament arrangements—if they substitute their heads for the headship of Jesus Christ, they are wrong.
The point we need to make emphatically is this: whether these things are right and scriptural or not, if they become a substitute for Christ’s headship, Christ’s government, Christ’s mind, or Christ’s will, they are not only utterly wrong; they are perniciously evil.
That may shock some, but I say it before God. Why? Because they not only frustrate Christ; they contradict God’s order and substitute man’s thoughts for God’s thought.
There is no greater pernicious evil amongst evangelicals than this utter frustrating of the will and mind of God. You can have zeal, devotion, love, and sacrifice on the part of many believers, but at the heart of it everything is paralysed.
To me, that is the devil’s main objective: by all means, even by scriptural things, to divorce the church from her Head, frustrate God’s mind, and paralyse the body.
The headship of Christ, in its practical outworking, means much prayer. That may explain to some of you who are young why we do this so much.
Much prayer—not many words, but a spirit of prayerfulness.
Why? Because that is how we find the mind of Christ. As we get on our knees, as we bow our heads to His Head, as we inquire of the Lord and seek His face for wisdom and understanding concerning His mind, He gives it.
Through His Word, by His Spirit, He gives us an understanding of what His mind is.
It means much corporate prayer. I do not mean merely a meeting where many petitions are made: “God bless so-and-so in Indonesia; God bless so-and-so in Brazil; God bless the big meeting in London tomorrow night; God bless Sister Annie’s leg and heal it.”
These things may be right, but that is not the kind of prayer I mean. I mean the kind of prayer meeting that is a throne-room meeting with God.
We are in the holiest place of all, inquiring of the Lord as to what His will and mind are. Surely, if the Lord is Head and the Holy Spirit has been given, He means us to be practical and concrete in our attitude. Surely He means us to get on our knees and say, “Lord, what shall we do about this situation?”
Not when we all put our heads together and the aggregate of what we all feel will do, but: “What does the Lord say?” Can He transmit His feeling and will through us all?
In any company that takes the ground of the body of Christ, there must be a refusal to do anything without first inquiring of the Lord. Is that not something the Lord is jealous over? If we do anything without first asking Him, we are in danger.
You can go through the whole Old Testament and find this borne out in incident after incident, and the same is true in the New Testament.
If we do things because that is the normal way, because that is the traditional or institutional thing to do, or even because we find something in the Word and think that must be the way to do it, we can make a mistake. We have made such mistakes ourselves.
We once had the whole old set-up—a really good New Testament set-up. You could not pick holes in it, but it was all wrong.
The Lord does not want us merely to have a little blueprint hung on the wall, so that every time anything goes wrong we look at the blueprint. He wants a people in touch with Him, so that He can communicate with them and put over to them what is really in His mind.
There must be a refusal to do anything without first inquiring of the Lord, and a readiness to pray and wait upon the Lord until we are certain that He is showing us all what His mind is.
Waiting—that is the headship of Christ.
If the Lord says, “Go,” we go. If He says, “Stay,” we stay. If He says, “Wait,” we wait. If He says, “Do nothing,” we do nothing. We act like that.
Do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is alive? You do—you are a Christian. Do you believe He is King of kings and Lord of lords? Do you believe that He is at the right hand of God the Father, the Majesty on high?
Then do you not think that the Holy Spirit, whom He has sent, would make real in us all together, corporately, what that will and mind are? Think it out.
Why should any man stand in the place of Christ and tell us what he thinks?
We do not mind anyone making suggestions. Everyone is free to make suggestions and give opinions, provided that everyone will bow to the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ in the final and ultimate analysis.
The headship of Christ not only means much prayer; it means that executive action can be taken in the name of our Head. That is wonderful.
Executive action can be taken in the name of Christ so that the will and Word of God are realised.
Woe betide any company that comes onto what we call the ground of the body of Christ if, in the end, they do not know how to take executive action in the name of Christ. They will be undone.
That is why the Lord said in Matthew 16:18-19:
Upon this rock I will build My church;
and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven:
and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth
shall be bound in heaven;
and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth
shall be loosed in heaven.
In other words: “Peter, if this church is to be built in spite of your un-rocklike, impetuous nature, you have the keys.” Do you think the Lord would trust such as we are with the keys of the kingdom?
But if the church is not being built upon the rock, it is because we are not using the keys. The keys are given to the church.
Consider Matthew 18:19-20:
Again I say unto you,
that if two of you shall agree on earth
as touching anything that they shall ask,
it shall be done for them of My Father who is in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered together in My name,
there am I in the midst of them.
This is executive action in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Listen also to John 14:12-14:
Verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also;
and greater works than these shall he do;
because I go unto the Father.And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name,
that will I do,
that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If ye shall ask anything in My name,
that will I do.
The Lord fed five thousand in one place and four thousand in another. He preached the Sermon on the Mount to enormous multitudes. Yet at the end of His earthly life, the real company could almost be counted: there were one hundred and twenty.
But on the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up with the eleven and preached what one great theologian called one of the most terrible sermons in history—rather disjointed—and three thousand people were saved on the spot and baptised.
Greater works than these shall ye do.
In Acts 1:1, Luke wrote:
The former treatise I made, O Theophilus,
concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach.
Have you noticed that word began? Luke is saying, in effect, “I am going to write the second part of my work. The first part, the Gospel according to Luke, was what Jesus began both to do and to teach. The second part, Acts, is what Jesus continued to do and teach.”
How did He continue to do and teach? He did it through His body.
Luke and Acts are two volumes of one work. We could entitle them The New Man, Part One and Part Two:
Executive action.
In the notes you will find two references, out of many in Acts, to executive action. One is when Peter said with John to the lame man:
Silver and gold have I none;
but what I have, that give I thee.
In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.
And he rose up and walked.
The other is when the apostles had been put in prison, came out miraculously, and returned to their own company. They found them praying. What a prayer meeting they had—and it was executive. They did not merely say, “Please, please.” They said:
Lord, stretch forth Thy hand to heal;
and that signs and wonders may be done
through the name of Thy holy Servant Jesus.
The place was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. That is evidence of executive action.
Finally, we need to see the right place of man in the headship of Jesus Christ. We have said an awful lot about what is wrong: human selection, human appointment, councils, committees, boards. Some may say, “Well, dear goodness, it is a little extreme, is it not? He has wiped the whole board clean. What are we going to have?”
I have tried to put in the ifs. I said, “If they become substitutes for the headship of Jesus Christ.”
To the church, the headship of Jesus Christ is direct to every single believer. You do not have to have a mediator, priest, or anything else. You can go directly to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Listen to those wonderful words: “Ye have an anointing.” Where is the anointing? On the Head—on the Head of Jesus Christ. You have an anointing from the Holy One. His anointing upon the Head comes to you and dwells in you.
Does that mean we can give up teaching or despise anyone who has a teaching ministry? No, of course not. But it means you do not have to be told mechanically what is right and wrong. You have the Holy Spirit within. You have an anointing within. You have a direct link with the Head.
You do not have to depend upon clergy to tell you, “This is right,” and, “That is wrong,” while you close your ears and refuse to think. That is quite wrong.
Look at the context of 1 John 2 and you will see it immediately. You know what is error. You know what is false. You know what is antichrist.
Individually, there is the direct lordship of Jesus Christ to every one of us: holding fast the Head.
Colossians 2:19 is personal. It speaks of the man with a fleshly mind in the singular: he does not hold fast the Head. Every one of us has a direct holding fast to the Head.
We must not get our direction from the church. We must get our direction from the Head and test it in the church.
That is why, if you do not ask us to bring something concerning you for prayer to the company, we do not bring it. Do not think you can be humble and modest and say, “I do not want my little matters brought to the church.” If you do not want it mentioned, we never will, because we respect your right.
But if you come and ask us, we bring it to the church. We will never say anything to you until we are sure that you have something from the Lord, because we are not here to direct you as to what you should do. We are here so that you can test whether what you have received from the Head is right—perhaps to save you from mistake or collapse.
Yet, while His headship is direct to every believer, it is not vested in every believer. There is a difference. It is direct to every believer, but it is not vested in every believer.
There are certain ones in the church, equipped, qualified, chosen by God, and appointed by God, in whom the headship of Jesus Christ is vested and expressed. They represent the government of the Lord in the church.
Consider 1 Timothy 5:17:
Let the elders that rule well
be counted worthy of double honour,
especially those who labour in the word and in teaching.
Mark the word rule, not merely advise. It is a strong word.
Then 1 Timothy 4:14:
Neglect not the gift that is in thee,
which was given thee by prophecy,
with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.
That is the eldership: the elders, the presbytery.
And 1 Peter 5:1-3:
The elders therefore among you I exhort,
who am a fellow elder,
and a witness of the sufferings of Christ,
who am also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:
tend the flock of God which is among you,
exercising the oversight,
not of constraint, but willingly, according to the will of God;
nor yet for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;
neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you,
but making yourselves ensamples to the flock.
There is ruling and supervision, but not lording it over others. Do not be pushed into it through false modesty, but willingly according to the will of God. And do not do it for cash.
Then Hebrews 13:17:
Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit to them:
for they watch in behalf of your souls,
as they that shall give account;
that they may do this with joy, and not with grief:
for this were unprofitable for you.
One day, the Lord is going to ask the elders of each company concerning everyone who was in the flock.
There are certain men chosen by God, prepared by God, and appointed by God who are called elders in the local church. You will find in the notes that bishops and elders are synonymous terms. There was always a plurality of bishops in a New Testament church.
For example, Philippians 1:1 speaks to the church at Philippi “with the bishops and deacons.” In the local church, this headship of Jesus Christ is vested in the elders, or bishops.
Among the churches, it is vested in what we call apostles or prophets. You will find references in the notes for that.
People say to me, “Surely apostles have died out. Did they not go out with the first church?” Of course, the twelve apostles were unique, and then we have Paul, who was unique. Some people say Paul should have been the twelfth in place of Judas and that it was a mistake to put Matthias in instead. Perhaps; perhaps not.
But how do you explain Revelation 2:2, where it says:
Thou didst try them that call themselves apostles,
and they are not,
and didst find them false.
Everyone knew the twelve apostles. How could people go around claiming to be apostles if there were not other apostles? How do you explain Timothy? How do you explain Silvanus?
There is such a thing as apostolic authority even today. It is simply an authority wider than the local church.
Peter was both an apostle and an elder. John called himself “the elder,” yet he was also an apostle. He was an elder in a local church and an apostle when he was out amongst the churches.
But leave that for a moment. What we can say is this: it is absolutely essential that such men have a truly spiritual character.
They must be:
There are two things essential in anyone who takes any part in the practical outworking of the headship of Jesus Christ, whether in eldership or in any other way:
If a man does not know something of the brokenness of the cross, he cannot be an elder or anything else. Otherwise, our heads are in the place of His Head. If the cross does not work, we use our heads instead of His. We cannot help it; it is natural for all of us to use our heads.
I know that goes against much of what you are told at school, but unless we know the cross, we use our heads in the wrong way. All the time we put our heads in the place of Christ’s Head. We mean well, but we cannot help it.
It is only when the cross breaks us that, though we still use our intelligence and our minds, we bow to the headship of Jesus Christ. We are His bondslaves.
Yet it is not only the cross. It would be a terrible thing merely to be negatively broken, ready to bow and submit, and yet not have the power of the Spirit of God to know the mind of God. By the Spirit we know the things of God—even the deep things of God.
Those who exercise eldership, apostolic ministry, or anything else in this way must know the Spirit of God in an increasing measure. That is why those chosen by God must be full of the Spirit.
We must finish. The Book of Acts is the perfect illustration of all that I have said about the headship of Jesus Christ from beginning to end. It is the enthroned Lord who goes right through. He is the One who deals with Ananias and Sapphira, and everyone else.
What a marvellous picture of the headship of Jesus Christ in the church. Everywhere the result is churches—churches throughout the Roman world and empire, even in Rome itself.
Rome has collapsed, but the church is still here. Is that not amazing?
There are also two testimonies in the laying on of hands. Whenever we lay hands on someone, we express the headship of Jesus Christ. When you are baptised, we put hands on you. That means that you are under the Head; you are in the body under the Head. It is a lovely picture.
When someone goes out, we lay hands on them and they go out. We are saying: “This one is part of the body under the Head. Goodbye. You are in the same body. You are not leaving the body; you are going from the body to the body. You are going with the Head.”
Even when people are sick and the elders lay hands on them, it is a testimony to the risen Head, who is anointed to do anything, even to drive out sickness if necessary.
It is all there in the Word, and you can ask the Lord about it. It is a testimony to this very thing: the headship of Jesus Christ. As one brother once said, “Once you have seen it, you would wear a million hats piled one on top of another. It is so glorious.”
Now listen to this little quotation. It is from a private letter written by the late Reverend Evan Hopkins, a founder of Keswick. Evan Hopkins was minister here in Richmond a hundred years ago.
I have a vision of the kind of meetings that will be held in the near future. God’s people will meet together, not primarily for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost on the world, as for the manifestation of His power in and through His church.
They will meet together, not so much with a view of realising their union in Christ as of seeking their unity in the Spirit.
They will come together not only in one place, but really and indeed in one accord. Then there will not only be union—that is, oneness of life—but unity, oneness of heart.
Let that point be reached, and the demonstration of Holy Ghost power will be seen. They will come together seeking the Holy Spirit, not as if He were absent, but as One verily in the midst, One who is waiting to put forth His power.
This is the vision I seem to have of what is not far distant: of the character of the meetings that will be held in connection with prayer for a worldwide revival.
The Holy Ghost, who is in the church, and who is grieved and hindered in His work because of the lack of this unity amongst believers, will then put forth His power through the church and work mightily among the unsaved.
There are only a few copies of that letter. Do you know to whom it was written? It was written to a lady who lived in a house just opposite here. It was written to her when she was in Richmond, while she was at a big conference in the north of England: Mrs. Penn-Lewis.
Is that not amazing? I often wonder whether Mrs. Penn-Lewis prayed for the old school of art when she saw the people coming up the road and coming in here. It is amazing, in one way.
Shall we pray together?
Beloved Lord, Thou knowest all the weakness in our life together as a people, and in us individually, in this matter of Thy headship. But, Lord, we do want Thee to be Lord.
We know, Lord, from the little experience that we have had, that the greatest glory, power, life, and fullness come from being in touch with Thee, doing Thy will, and being obedient to Thee.
Lord, teach us Thy way. Above all, work in us so much, Lord, that we are ready to do Thy will—ready truly to do Thy will together.
So, Lord, we thank Thee. If there is anything that has been hard to understand on the part of any, O Father, by Thy Holy Spirit reveal and illuminate. We ask it in His name. Amen.