God needs a man to fulfill His eternal purpose to mingle with man and to defeat and destroy His enemy. To meet this need, God created the first man, Adam. However, because Adam fell, God needed a second man. The Bible reveals that the second man is Christ (1 Cor. 15:47). Christ came to be the second man. Christ’s headship could not be completed until He became a man in His incarnation. Christ became a man and lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years. Then when He went to the cross, He went in humanity to accomplish redemption. Without humanity, that is, without blood and flesh, Christ could never have accomplished redemption (Heb. 9:22). He accomplished redemption on the cross in the flesh through the shedding of His blood (1 Pet. 1:18-19; Eph. 1:7). Not only so, the Bible also tells us that on the cross in the flesh Christ destroyed Satan, the one who has the might of death (Heb. 2:14). Through Christ’s incarnation He became a man, and by His death on the cross He defeated Satan and destroyed God’s enemy.
Christ not only destroyed God’s enemy, but He also brought God into man by His incarnation (John 1:1, 14). Christ brought divinity into humanity. Before Christ became a man, God was God and man was man, and God and man were never one. However, by Christ’s incarnation God was brought into man. When Christ became a man, there was a man on the earth who was the very mingling of God and man. He was a man without, but He was God within. Jesus was a God-man. On one hand, He was God; on the other hand, He was a man. Thus, by His incarnation He brought God and man together. Now we have seen the importance of Christ being a man in order to fulfill God’s eternal purpose.
After Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, He ascended to the third heaven. In Christ’s ascension God inaugurated Him into the headship of the universe. Acts 2:36 says, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you have crucified.” This verse indicates that in Christ’s ascension God completed the headship of Christ. In the heavens today there is a man, a man of Nazareth, a man by the name of Jesus. This man is not an ordinary man; He is an extraordinary man. He is God who became a man and died on the cross to accomplish God’s eternal purpose and destroy His enemy. He has two natures—the divine nature and the human nature. He is now in the heavens not only as God but also as man. In His ascension this man Jesus was made Head over all things to the church (Eph. 1:22). The Head of the whole universe today is Jesus. Jesus is not only the Head of the universe, but He is also the Head of each one of us. First Corinthians 11:3 says, “Christ is the head of every man.” In the universe today the headship belongs uniquely to Christ.
Thus far we have seen that the headship of Christ was not completed in the Old Testament because at that time He was not a man and had not accomplished redemption or defeated God’s enemy to fulfill God’s eternal purpose. Hence, there was no possibility to have a completed headship set up in the universe. However, after Christ’s incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, in His ascension He was inaugurated into a complete headship and was made Head over all things in the universe, including every man. Christ is not only the universal Head but also the unique Head.
God does not desire that there be any head other than Christ. In the Old Testament God allowed His people to have kings, but only one at a time. When David was king, there was not another king. When Solomon became king, there was not another king. In the Old Testament the king was the head of God’s people because the headship of Christ was not yet completed. However, in the New Testament age and in the church today the Head is Christ. In the churches there are elders and apostles, but these are not the head of the church. This is the reason that in the New Testament age God does not have single leaders among His people as He did in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament there was always only one king at a time, but in the New Testament there were twelve apostles at the same time. God did not have twelve kings at the same time in the Old Testament because the king was head during the time when the headship of Christ was not fully established. However, because in the New Testament the headship of Christ was fully established, there could not be only one unique apostle, for this apostle would surely be the head, and this head would be an insult to the headship of Christ. In the New Testament age God has ordained that His people not have any head besides Christ. Christ is the unique Head.