As we come to the close of this amazing first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we note once again, Paul’s Holy Spirit-inspired propensity for mentioning his Lord’s name as often as possible; for exalting and magnifying His Lordship over all things.
All things are under His feet ~ He is head over all things to the church.
Therefore I too, wish to end this portion of our study of Ephesians exalting and glorifying the Name of Christ; our Head.
“And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all.”
Let’s just take these two verses and discuss them one portion at a time, to get the fuller picture.
HE PUT ALL THINGS IN SUBJECTION UNDER HIS FEET
We cannot just jump into the middle of this phrase and do it justice, unless we take a look at our back trail and remember some of the things we’ve seen over the last few weeks. Look at this thought in it’s entirety, starting at verse 18:
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might, which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet...”
Can this theme be addressed too often? Can it be given too high a priority in our study and in our thinking?
I would have to answer those questions with the assertion that since our puny minds of flesh cannot begin to fathom the true depths of what we’re being presented with here, then no, it cannot be addressed too much or too often.
Paul returns to this theme often in his own writings. We see it in Philippians 2, and again in Colossians 1:18. And he broaches this issue again to the Corinthians, where he says,
“For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He says, ‘All things are put in subjection’, it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him.” (15:27)
The main point there being that when it says ‘all things are put in subjection under His feet’, the ‘all things’ does not include God the Father. That is another study.
Our focus today, is to ask ‘why is this message so central? So pressing in the mind of the Apostle?’
To find our answer, I think we have to take our minds for a moment away from visions of a throne room, and a risen and glorified Christ sitting at the right hand of the Father, and hosts of angels and heavenly glory, and go in just the opposite direction to see once more what He was raised from.
Here was the Prince of Glory, who came to His own creation by the lowest, humblest means. Even from the beginning, fully entrusting Himself and His safety to the hands of the Father, in being conceived in a woman, going through development in the womb, enduring the birth process, and entering this world in a place for livestock.
“Since then the children share in flesh and blood“, says the writer to the Hebrews, “He Himself likewise also partook of the same...”
Then He went through the growth process into adulthood; subjecting Himself to the authority of parents, and no doubt, other elders of the community as He was taught from the Law and the Torah.
He subjected Himself.
Then He subjected Himself to the scrutiny of the Scribes and Pharisees. He subjected Himself to the daily trials and discomforts of 1st century life in Middle Eastern terrain, with no home to call His own.
He subjected Himself finally to blasphemy, and physical torture ~ first at the hands of merciless soldiers, then the scourging, then the thorns, then the nails, then the hours...
But it goes far deeper than that.
In Galatians 3:13 Paul quotes the Old Testament when he says,
“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us - for it is written, ‘CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE’.”
He was quoting Deuteronomy 21:23. Listen to verses 22 and 23 of that chapter:
“And if a man has committed a sin worthy of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not hang all night on the tree, but you shall surely bury him on the same day (for he who is hanged is accursed of God), so that you do not defile your land which the Lord your God gives you as an inheritance.”
This is the passage the Pharisees no doubt had in mind, when they asked Pilate to hurry the process of death, so they could take Jesus and the others down from the cross and get them in the tomb before sundown.
HOW IRONIC, that they were so scrupulous in their keeping these finer points of the Law, while they were murdering their Messiah... so that they could then go with a clear conscience and celebrate the death of the Passover lamb.
But here is my point. Jesus, for us, was cursed of God. He became a curse for us, to remove the curse from us.
“He made Him who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf...”
Christ was raised by the power of God to the highest heights, because He had plunged to the lowest depths.
It wasn’t the enduring of discomfort; it wasn’t the subjection of Himself to angry hands; it wasn’t the physical agony on a Roman cross that won Him the highest of Heavenly honors!
Don’t get me wrong now; all the things that the most eloquent preachers of all time have said concerning the sufferings of Christ, and the doctrines concerning those things that explain our faith are all true and worthy to be taught, frequently, until He comes.
But the thing He came to do; the Divinely appointed task He completed to perfection for us, and in obedience to the Father, was that He became the very curse of sin, and took the entire outpouring of the fiery wrath of God to His own person, and carried that all away for us, FOREVER!
And in demonstration of His approval of that work; in declaration of the Son of God, the Father exercised His power to raise Jesus Christ from the dead and exalt Him to the highest heaven, where He made all things subject to Him, both in heaven and on the earth.
He subjected Himself to be a curse for us, and in turn the Father subjected all things under His authority.
Now I want to tell you what all that means to you today, Believer in Christ, but first we have to move on to see this phrase,
AND GAVE HIM AS HEAD OVER ALL THINGS TO THE CHURCH
When I was a boy I had a great deal of trouble with this thought. I suppose the wise thing to do would have been to go to my dad, and ask him what was meant by this very strange analogy. But as so often happens in the mind of youth, it never occurs that an elder may have the answer, or maybe we are afraid that we’ll feel foolish for asking. But for whatever reason, I did not ask.
I simply went on with this mental picture of myself dying, and becoming Christ’s fingernail, or something even less noble and attractive.
In reality though, of all the pictures the New Testament writers, and even Jesus Himself, painted for us by way of illustration, this one of the church as the body and Christ as the Head is most assuredly the most powerful.
We are called His Bride, we are called branches of the Vine, we are salt, we are light, but just think of all the implications of being a body, connected to a perfect Head.
*And yes, it IS just an analogy... you young folks out there, do not fear; you will remain, in Heaven, very much an individual... in fact, more of an individual than you will ever be in this life... though entirely absorbed at the same time, in Christ*
Staying with this analogy but being careful not to go too far with it then, think of the relationship of the head to the body.
The body receives it’s life’s source from the head. The head contains the brain and the center of the nervous system, that sends out commands to the parts of the body.
These commands include everything from telling the foot to step forward, to telling the heart to keep beating, the digestive system to keep working, the immune system to keep fighting.
The head also contains the eyes that receive information pertinent to the whole of the body, for its protection, for it’s continued function, for the continuance and completion of its work, for the enjoyment of its environment.
The head houses the hearing mechanism, and by what is received via that mode, directs the rest of the body’s response and reaction to what it hears.
The head speaks for the body “The hand hurts” “That feels good on the foot”
If you want one, simple, clear message that speaks volumes of the importance of the head to the body in very few words; consider this. If the head is separated from the body, the body is no longer any good.
Of course, neither, then, is the head. But that’s where the analogy would go too far. Christ does not need us in order to function or to have worth or to continue being who He is.
By the same token though, verse 23 of Ephesians 1 does say,
THE FULNESS OF HIM WHO FILLS ALL IN ALL
And in that sense, we as His body are the completion of His work, both in creation and in redemption. His fulness.
Let me put it this way. A head with no body is incomplete. In a sense, He, having made us His body, has completed Himself. Consider some of His titles. “Mediator” “Advocate” “Redeemer”; none of those would make sense, if they had no object, which the church is.
Another way of seeing this same truth is in the analogy of the Bride and Bridegroom. The institution of marriage itself, is established by God as a type of the relationship between Christ and the church.
Now, ~and remembering that no earthly analogy is adequate to perfectly explain spiritual things ~ I could function on my own. I can function on my own, apart from my wife. When she goes to sleep after a midnight shift, she does not first prop me in a corner like a robot who has been shut down. I go about my business normally, and when she awakes in the afternoon her first question is usually, “What did you do today?”. I am able to answer her intelligently, because I did do things.
But having said all that, I have to tell you that she completes me. I know that if I suddenly lost her, I would have to reevaluate my entire life, because I know that so very much of what I do is only because of the importance of her role to my existence.
I don’t think ministry would change, because God has called me to this and I must preach or die. But there is very little else in my life that would continue just as it is now, if she was gone. Her absence would even affect my relationship with my children to some degree, because I would suddenly be their only parent, and I would have to fill, to the extent that I could, her role in their lives.
Enough of that analogy. Let it suffice to say to you that by His choice and design, Christ has brought His church into relationship with Himself that completes Him, much in the same way my wife completes me. But don’t miss the point that it IS by His design, for our benefit; not that we have anything to give Him or to make Him more than He is.
Remember, after all, that this phrase, “...which is His body, the fulness of Him...” is followed by “...who fills all in all.”
Colossians 1:16, 17 says,
“For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things have been created by Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”
And if you go on to read verses following that, you will again see this analogy being applied, of Christ as Head over his body the Church, and that He has first place in everything.
Now going back to the thought of what all this means to you today ~
Be reminded please, that throughout this chapter Paul has been addressing the wealth of the Christian. Blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. Chosen in Him. Called Holy and Blameless. Having obtained an inheritance; the Holy Spirit indwelling being the pledge, or down payment of that inheritance.
He has prayed that the eyes of our understanding would be opened to comprehend these great things God has done for us and in us.
His calling. Again, the riches of the glory of His inheritance in us. The power of God working toward us. Being raised to life in Christ, by that same power that raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand of the Father.
All and each of these things filling the chest that is our unmatchable treasure in Him.
So what I want you see, Believer, is that the message of victory at the close of this great chapter, is that as His body, for you too, all things are put in subjection.
Can you see this great truth? What the head does, the body does. What applies to the head, applies to the body as well, by virtue of their union.
When you were sons and daughters of Adam, you were the body of Adam. With him as your head you too were guilty of sin, an heir of wrath, a body of death.
But when you became Christ’s body, all that is attributed to him is attributed to you also. He was crucified, and you were crucified in Him. He rose, and you rose with Him.
“I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me” Gal 2:20
Because of our union with Him; what other writers have referred to as our Mystical union ~ really just meaning our spiritual union with Him; we are raised up and seated with Him there. We talked about this just last week.
It is this subject the writer to the Hebrews was addressing when he (or she) wrote:
“For in subjecting all things to him” (speaking of man) “He left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him. But we do see Him” (capital ‘H’) “who has been made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor...”
People of God, you do not yet see all things subjected to you. But can you see that by virtue of your spiritual place in Him, sin is under your feet. “For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God”
And death is under your feet. “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus”
The cares and temptations of this life are under your feet. “...do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.”
And the Law is also subjected to you. “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace”.
You are wealthy, Christians! Rich beyond the wildest imaginings of men. Walk as those who have been raised from the dead and made inheritors and sharers in the wealth of Heaven; where you are seated far above sin and death and the rulers and authorities of this world, in the power that God exercised in raising His Son from the dead, and going in the strength of His might, who raised you up and seated you with Him, at the Father’s right hand.
Max Lucado, in his book, “The Applause of Heaven”, tells about flying home after having been gone for more than a week of speaking engagements. He says, “I know that my wife and our two daughters will be waiting at the airport for me. And as I walk down the long corridor and round the bend and into the terminal, I’ll see my wife and she’ll have a big smile on her face, and my two little girls will be there. Then my youngest daughter will begin to applaud because Daddy’s been gone and now Daddy’s come home.”
Then Lucado adds, “One of these days we’re going to walk down the long corridor through the pearly gates onto the streets of gold. We might see Paul over here and Peter over there and maybe Moses and Elijah.
“But finally”, he says, “we’re going to round the bend into the throne room of God, and there on the throne will be God the Father, and by His right side Jesus the Christ.
Then, we’ll hear the applause of heaven and begin to enjoy God, and God will begin to enjoy us for all eternity.”
This is what we have to look forward to, fellow believer in Christ. It’s not that far off for any of us. Compared to eternity, the longest life here is a blink.
But the message of this first chapter of Ephesians is that in God’s economy, we’ve already received it all... we’re already there... and it doesn’t get surer than that.
A 102 year old woman in Joplin Missouri was recently asked to what she attributed her long life. Her answer was short and to the point. “Not dying”.
But the short and simple truth for us, fellow citizens of Heaven, is that we can attribute our long life to His dying, and His rising, and that same resurrection power working in us, and for us, for now and eternity. For us; the body of Him, the fulness of Him, who fills all in all.
“Christ is made the sure foundation, Christ the Head and cornerstone,
Chosen of the Lord and precious, Binding all the church in one,...”
- J. M. Neale
