The third main aspect of the church in God’s economy is the heading up of all things in Christ. We have seen that the first item of the sonship is for the church positively. The second item is that the church might make known to the rulers and the authorities the multifarious wisdom of God, in defeating the enemy negatively. Now the third item is the heading up of all things in Christ universally. The church has to have the sonship, Satan has to be subdued and cast out, and the whole creation has to be brought into the proper order and oneness.
In Ephesians 1:10, the phrase gather together in one is best translated “head up.” It is God’s eternal purpose that in the economy of the fullness of the times He might head up all things in Christ. This verse must then be connected with verses 22 and 23 of the same chapter. “And He subjected all things under His feet and gave Him to be Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.” The little word to in verse 22 signifies the identification and oneness of the church with Christ. Christ is the Head over all things to the church, which is His Body.
These verses in Ephesians are closely related to Romans 8:17-21. Here we read of the manifestation of the sons of God. There are many sons of God today, but the manifestation of the sons of God has not yet come. In verses 20 and 21 of this chapter, we read that the whole creation was made subject to vanity and waits to be delivered from the slavery of corruption. All of creation was subjected to the slavery of corruption, so the whole creation is in vanity, waiting for deliverance. At the manifestation of the sons of God, creation will be delivered from the slavery of corruption in vanity into the freedom of glory. Glory in verse 21 is not an adjective but a noun, so the best translation is “the freedom of the glory,” not “the glorious freedom.” It is not the freedom of the children of God, but the glory of the children of God in which there is freedom. We have mentioned that, when our bodies are transfigured, we will be glorified, and this glorification is the manifestation. The manifestation of the sons of God is the very glory of the sons of God. We must also read Hebrews 2 along with Romans 8. Romans 8 tells us that the whole creation is waiting for the glory of the sons of God, and then Hebrews 2 says that God now is going to bring many sons into glory. When we are brought into glory, that will be the fullness of time when the whole creation will be released and delivered from the slavery of corruption in vanity. Then all creation and all things which are in heaven and on the earth will be headed up in Christ with His Body.
We must realize that the church is the only means used by God to fulfill His purpose and to settle all His problems. Christianity is so poor with its shallow concept of the church. According to the revelation of the Word, the church is much deeper and higher than this. The church is the very vessel used by God to fulfill His purpose, which is to manifest Himself through man by mingling Himself with man. This is why God created humanity. His intention was to have a corporate man as a vessel to contain Him that He may dwell in them and that He may manifest Himself through them, by mingling Himself with them.
God created the heavens and the earth as a realm within which He placed countless creatures, and at the center God created man as the vessel to contain Himself. But before God could come into man, Satan, the enemy of God, injected himself into man by tempting him to take the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When man took of that tree, the fruit went into his body. This is why we read in Romans 7 of sin being in the members. The apostle Paul says in verse 20, “But if what I do not will, this I do, it is no longer I that work it out but sin that dwells in me.” Here sin is a personified thing; it is something living because it can dwell in us and have dominion over us. This is the law of sin which is in the members of the body. Sin brings in death, death brings in darkness, and darkness brings in confusion. This influences the whole universe, because man was made the head of all things. The head has been damaged, so all of creation is damaged. Sin brings death, and death brings in darkness. We all know that where there is darkness, there is confusion. If we did not have the sunlight or the electric lights, everything would be confused. We are controlled unconsciously by light. If there were no light, there would be no order and everything would be in confusion.
The first time I came to the United States, I noticed that all the stores kept their lights on at night, even though the stores were locked. I wondered why they wasted all that electricity. Gradually, I understood that this prevented robberies at night because the stores and the streets were full of light. If all the lights from the streets and the stores were removed, the streets would be in darkness. If this happened for just one night, there would not be enough space in the newspapers to publish the stories of all the confusion that would result from the lack of light. But today everything is under control when the streets are adequately lighted. We are controlled under the power of light. When Satan injected himself into man, he brought confusion to the whole creation. By this confusion the whole creation is under the bondage of corruption in vanity. This corruption came from darkness, the darkness came from death, and death came from Satan.
So God has many problems. He has an enemy to deal with, and He has death, darkness, confusion, corruption, bondage, and vanity in His creation. Even today the whole creation is groaning because it is still in vanity and in the bondage of corruption. God must liberate His creation from bondage and bring it into the order of liberty by heading up all things under the headship of Christ.
How will God recover His creation and fulfill His original purpose in creating man? First of all, we must see that Satan brought confusion into creation by injecting himself into man as death. Satan is the sum total of death. If you were to ask me what is death, I would tell you that death is Satan. Just as God is the sum total of life, so Satan is the sum total of death. When Satan injected himself into man, death was brought into the human race. This is why God told Adam and Eve not to touch the tree of knowledge, for if they did, they would receive death. Following death there is darkness and confusion. How much confusion there is in the world today! All we have to do is to read the newspaper, and we will see the confusion in all nations. There is no harmony since all are in darkness and confusion, which comes from being under the sway of death. Through injecting death, Satan damaged God’s creation.
God’s way to recover the oneness among His creation is to impart Himself into us as life. Satan injected himself into us as death, but God imparts Himself into us as life. When life comes, there is light. John 1:4 says, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” Then in John 8 the Lord Jesus says, “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall by no means walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (v. 12). When God comes in as life, there is the light that shines within us as the light of life. This life swallows death, and this light expels the darkness. When we are in the life and under the light, then we are delivered out of confusion and brought into order, harmony, and unity. God’s way of recovery is Christ versus Satan, life versus death, light versus darkness, and order versus confusion. When we are filled with Christ, we will be full of life and completely under the light. Then we will have the harmony and the unity. If we are not filled with Christ as life, then, at least to some extent, we are in darkness. As long as there is some part under darkness, there is confusion and no order or harmony. When everyone is full of Christ as life, we all are under light, and there is no need of outward control. Spontaneously everyone is controlled by this light of life, and there is unity and harmony.
Before Satan came into God’s creation, there was unity and harmony, but Satan injected the factor of death into creation, bringing in darkness and confusion. God’s way of recovery in redemption is not the same as His way in creation. In creation God created all things by His power, but in redemption God recovers everything by life. This is why it seems that God does not do anything today. Under this confusion God is so silent, so seemingly unresponsive. It seems that there is no God, but we know that God is working in a silent and living way.
When we receive God into us as life, He comes into us as the very light, and under this light we are controlled in unity. Should we be under the control of the policeman or the government? In a sense we are, but strictly speaking, we should be controlled by the light of life. There is something living within us, shining all the time, and under this light we are fully controlled in a joyful way. If we do not follow the light, there is no joy within us. We are under this light because we have the life. Spontaneously there is oneness in us, and this oneness comes from light, and the light comes from life, and this life is God Himself. Light brings in the control, and under the control there is the order. The order is the building up of one another under the headship. By the Triune God as life, the light shines, and under this light all things will be brought into order under the headship of Christ. So eventually, all things will be headed up in Christ.
It is God’s eternal purpose that through the church, Christ should head up all things, but this can only be accomplished through the building up of the church. This is the unity, the oneness, and the harmony. This harmony can only be realized by life. Simply adopting the term, “the New Testament Church,” will not work. Even the way of the New Testament cannot build up a church. The church must be built up by experiencing Christ as life, and in this life there will be the light under which everyone will be controlled. We may work out a formula from the New Testament and say that this is the scriptural, New Testament way to have a proper church, but it will never work. The church can never be built up in this way. We may have the formula, but we do not have the life. Even if we have the proper, scriptural formula, it will never work because we do not know how to be filled with Christ, how to be dealt with by the cross, how to take Christ as life, and how to experience Him. We will only fight one another. I have seen a lot of this in the past. But suppose by the mercy of God our eyes have been opened to see that God’s economy is to work Himself into us as life. We learn to love Him and fellowship with Him and live by Him. Spontaneously within us and among us there will be the shining of the light of life. There will be no arguments or divisions or fightings or jealousies but complete oneness under the control of this light of life. This oneness is the real building, and it is the very thing for which Jesus prayed in John 17. By this building, God can head up all things in Christ.
We see this oneness graphically portrayed in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21—22). There are the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, representing the redeemed of the Old Testament age, and the names of the twelve apostles of Christ, representing the redeemed of the New Testament age—yet they all are one. All of the arguments and fightings have been swallowed up by the light of life. All death has been subdued by life, and all darkness has been expelled by light. All those who are in the New Jerusalem are completely one because they are full of life. There is the river of life flowing, with the tree of life growing in its midst, so the city is full of life. The water of life is watering and the tree of life is supplying so that the city is full of the light of life. God Himself is the light, and Christ the Lamb is the lamp. This is the New Jerusalem, which is the corporate Body of Christ.
Is there such a holy city today? No, this is something which God is working out. He has started the work, and now He is in the process of creating this universal lampstand. We know that one day the New Jerusalem will be completed with God shining through this city upon all the rest of creation. Revelation 21 says that all the nations will walk in the light of this city. This means that all creation will be controlled by its light. The New Jerusalem will be a universal lampstand holding Christ as the lamp with God in Him as the light. Then God will shine out to all creation through this universal lampstand. By this shining and enlightening, God will bring all things into order.
The New Jerusalem is the very center of the new heaven and new earth. Christ sits at the top of the city as the Head to supply His life to His members, through whom He shines out to bring all the nations into order. All things will be under the headship of Christ. God shines in Christ through the city, for the whole city will be transparent, everyone in it being transformed. There is no more clay, nothing opaque; every bit of clay has been transformed into crystal-clear precious stones. God shines in Christ through the city, and all the nations will walk in this light. Then the whole universe will be headed up in the light shown through this transparent city. Within the city there is the life, but outside the city there is only the shining. All the nations are under the shining, but they do not have the life. The life is only in the city, and this life is God Himself imparted to all of His children. By this life they are full of light, and this light will shine through them to bring all creation out of darkness, confusion, and the bondage of corruption in vanity into the order of the manifestation of the sons of God.
God’s purpose with the church is to work Himself into us as life that we may be full of light. When we are controlled by this light, then we have oneness and harmony, which will be the real building. By this building God will shine upon all creation to bring it out of confusion. This will be the fullness of time when creation will be liberated. The old serpent will be cast into the lake of fire, and even death, the last enemy to be dealt with by God, will be cast away. Then the universe will be full of light, and under this light all creation will be liberated from the bondage of corruption in vanity and brought into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God. The shining of the New Jerusalem is the glory of the manifestation of the sons of God, and all the nations will be brought into that light. By this light they will be controlled, and there will be no more confusion, vanity, bondage, or corruption.
But all of this depends on the work of God within us. God is working out such a city as a corporate vessel that He might be the life and the light to shine through this city to liberate the whole creation. How important it is that the church be built up! Without the building up of the church, God could never head up all things in Christ. It is by being life to the church, and the church being built up by this life, that the light of God shines out as the controlling factor. This will release all creation from confusion and bring it into a liberty under the shining of the sons of God. Then Christ will be the Head of all things through the church. All of God’s problems will be solved, and all creation will be brought into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God.
This will be the consummation of God’s eternal purpose for the church: when the sonship of God is fully fulfilled that God may be fully expressed, when the enemy of God is cast out that all of God’s problems may be solved, and when all things are headed up in Christ through His Body that all of the creation may be in full harmony, freed from the bondage of corruption and brought into the liberty of the sons of God. Even today we can realize this in a miniature way here on this earth. When we know how to enjoy the sonship, how to defeat the enemy, and how to be filled with Christ under His headship, there will be the light shining out from us enlightening others and giving a foretaste of the coming consummation of the New Jerusalem.
Taken from a message given by Witness Lee and first published in The Stream,
vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 2-13, July 1, 1965