Humanity is the center of God’s creation. The heading up of all things in Christ takes place as the Triune God works Himself into man as the center of His creation. According to 1:22, God has subjected all things under the feet of the resurrected and ascended Christ and “gave Him to be Head over all things to the church.” The little word “to” is very important because it implies a kind of transmission. Whatever Christ, the Head, has attained and obtained is now being transmitted to His Body, the church. By means of this transmission, the church shares with Christ all His attainments. The church shares in His resurrection from among the dead, His being seated in His transcendency, the subjection of all things under His feet, and His headship over all things. As the element of Christ is transmitted into the church, all that He has accomplished, attained, and obtained is transfused into the church as well. Through this marvelous transmission we become the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all. Then, as His Body, we shall become the means by which God will head up all things in Christ. The crucial factor here is the divine transmission, the transfusion of Christ into our being.
In Ephesians 3 we see experientially that the very Christ who is Head over all things is actually transmitted into us. According to verse 17, Christ is making His home in our hearts. For Christ to make His home in our hearts means that He is transmitted into us in a full way. We may say that our heart is the battery and that Christ is the heavenly electricity that is being transmitted into the heart of the battery. In this way, the battery is charged with all that Christ is and with all that He has obtained and attained. By means of such an inward transmission or transfusion, Christ makes His home in our hearts. Hence it is the heavenly transmission that brings Christ into our hearts. Then, just as blood circulates from the heart throughout our physical body, so the Christ who has been transmitted into our heart spiritually will spread into every part of our inner being. Through this transmission and the spread of Christ within us God is heading up all things in Christ through the church.
Many Christians are amazed when they behold the oneness of the saints in the church life. They are surprised that those with different racial, cultural, and national backgrounds can be truly one. In their amazement at such a oneness, some have thought that we must have set up an organization to maintain this oneness. However, we do not have such an organization, and there is no possibility that any organization could produce such a oneness. We are not one by means of organization; we are one in the divine transmission. If the heavenly transmission of Christ into our inner being should cease, our oneness will be terminated. We can be one simply because we are being headed up in Christ through the transmission of Christ into our being. This is what enables us to live together in oneness in the church life.
We believe that in the years to come God will head us up even more. As a result, the condition of the church will become much better than it is today. Eventually, in the dispensation of the fullness of times, the whole universe will be headed up in Christ through the church. We have often spoken of the building up of the church. But the emphasis in this message is on being headed up in Christ through the divine transmission. The more Christ is transmitted into us, the more the process of heading up will advance. I have the full assurance that if the Lord delays His coming back, many more Christians will be headed up in Christ through His Body. The worldly people will be surprised at such a heading up, for the more they try to unite through such organizations as the United Nations, the more divided they are. The day is coming when the earth will see not only the uniting, nor even just the building up, but the heading up of all things in Christ. Christ is Head over all things to the church, and now He is in the process of heading up all things through the church. This is what the Lord is doing among us today.