Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church

He said, look at it, He gave Him as head over all things to the church.

He gave, God gave, listen to this, the one who was already head over the universe to the church to be her head. Hi, friend, this is Phil Johnson. Welcome to a special Grace To You broadcast featuring John MacArthur. We're breaking from our regular schedule for a second day to bring you an important message that John delivered some years ago at a national conference for Ligonier Ministries. If you heard yesterday's Grace To You broadcast, you know that John and I had a discussion that started in a very unusual way. We began by talking about a motion picture that is debuting this Friday titled The Essential Church. This film focuses on the pressure that governments put on churches basically to shut them down during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, it tells the story of how the church John pastors, Grace Community Church in Los Angeles, found itself in a legal battle and subject to severe penalties over the issue of holding in-person worship services during the pandemic. Now, at the heart of that situation was this question, who is the authority over the church?

Is it the government or is it God? And the message you're about to hear will provide a clear answer. So follow along now with John MacArthur as he begins a lesson originally delivered several years ago at a Ligonier conference, but the content is as timely as ever. The title, Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church. JOHN MACARTHUR This subject that's been assigned to me, Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, is a very, very serious subject. And I'm pretty confident that just off the top it might appear to you to be somewhat benign, somewhat ho-hum. Certainly we all know that. Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church.

So maybe we need to look at history a little bit and find out just how benign this is or isn't. Throughout history, I can honestly say there have been some notable servants of the Lord whose name was John. And I'm happy to bear the name, although I'm quite certain I don't belong in the ranks of many who do. One is John Huss. John Huss was and is well-known and loved by many who know Reformation history. He was a Bohemian and he was a pre-Reformation reformer. He was actually born to peasant parents in Husinec, now modern Croatia. At twenty years of age, he shortened his name to Huss, which means the goose. That nickname stuck. So firmly did it stick that a hundred years or so later, Martin Luther referred to Huss as, at his martyrdom, the goose being cooked.

The day for the cooking of the goose was actually July 6, 1415. He was taken to the cathedral in Prague. He was dressed in his priestly clothing. And then when he arrived in public view, he was stripped of all his priestly garments, one garment at a time. He was then tied to the stake, at which point his biographers say he prayed, Lord Jesus, it is for you that I patiently endure this cruel death.

Have mercy on my enemies. He was heard reciting the Psalms as the flames engulfed him. His executioners were so desirous of ridding the earth of every bit of this man that they actually scooped up his ashes and tossed them into a lake so that nothing of John Huss would ever remain.

Those who revered him, however, collected bits of dirt on the spot where he died and took them back to Bohemia for a memorial. Early in his monastic career, Martin Luther was rummaging through stacks in a library and he came across a volume of sermons by John Huss. He wrote this, "'I was overwhelmed with astonishment. I could not understand for what cause they had hurt so great a man who explained the Scriptures with so much gravity and skill.'" In fact, Luther looked to Huss as a hero because Huss taught and practiced biblical doctrines that later became crucial to the Reformation and also was hostile to the church regarding indulgences. Why did they execute? The goose was cooked primarily because he said that Jesus Christ Himself is the head of His church. And for that, they burned him at the stake. He also said, which didn't help, that the reprehensible lives of disqualified men made them unfit for positions of authority in ministry, and he took a swipe at the whole system. Huss believed Jesus was the head of the church and that reprobate men were disqualified from any role of leadership whatsoever.

The Bohemian people were furious over his execution. They repudiated the council. They repudiated the church.

The group that was so aggressive in this repudiation of the church formed what's called the Unitas Fratrum, the union of brethren, which became the foundation for the Moravians who would play an influential role in missions and particularly in the conversion of the Wesley brothers, among others. So the truth of Christ's headship, while it may seem to us somewhat benign, is in fact not so at all. In fact, the preservation of this truth has sailed down through the ages to us on a sea of blood. A century later, the young Martin Luther engaged in the same fight and his fight was for the honor of the true head of the church.

Now, you get the idea that this was a real battle, don't you? To uphold the headship of Christ over His church. Of particular interest to me, I guess maybe MacArthur will tell you why we have our own plaid is Scottish history. The drama perhaps focused in John Knox in Scotland. Knox once confronted Queen Mary on this issue and to say that he was bold would be an understatement. This is how he addressed her. He addressed her as a woman of stout stomach.

Now usually you don't point things like that out when you're talking to any woman, let alone the queen. In fact, he said, she is a woman of stout stomach, and he said this apparently in her hearing, who can't abide the presence of God's prophets. And what had raised his ire was this battle over the fact that Christ ruled the church and she did not. The opposition became so fierce that the Scottish people got together and produced a national covenant.

It was signed originally by 60,000 of them and you know what it said? Christ is the head of the church. And heads began to roll. And it was a slaughter.

I've been in the little hay market area in Edinburgh where the massacres took place. I've seen the spears around St. Giles and across the street where they put the heads of the covenanters who said Christ was the head of the church. So when you think about Christ as the head of the church, you need to think a little bit, like so many things that we have, of the price of that great reality.

A few centuries later, good old C.H.S. Spurgeon, in a message he preached called, Jesus our Lord, said this, the church of God in a very special manner calls Jesus our Lord, for there is not and be any head of the church except the Lord Jesus Christ. It is awful blasphemy for any man on earth to call himself Christ's vicar and the head of the church. It is a usurpation of the crown rights of King Jesus for any king or queen to be called the head of the church, for the true church of Jesus Christ can have no head but Jesus Christ Himself. And I'm thankful there is no head to the church of which I am a member except Jesus Christ. Then he added, nor dare I be a member of any church which would content to any headship but His.

Modern liberal, let's get up to date. Theologians deny Christ's headship. How? He's dead. If you don't believe in a resurrection, He's certainly not the head of the church. He's just a dead martyr. They deny His deity. They would deny His resurrection. Therefore, there is no current reign. Therefore, there is no authority being expressed by Him and nor is the Word of God inspired. So, they're in the same category with others who denied His headship.

Let me get a little closer to home. Seeker movement strips Him of His headship by silencing His rule, by removing His Word from its rightful place in domination of the life of the church and substituting anything and everything else. Even feminists deny Him His headship in the church. Bible translators who tamper with the original text intrude into His headship over His church. Emerging movement leaders deny Him His headship, celebrating what they perceive as the Bible's lack of clarity. That's the key to mark the emerging church. They say, yes, Christ has spoken in the Bible, but we have no idea what He meant by what He said.

That's not helpful. The head may be Christ, and He did speak, but we have no right to say for sure what He meant. And anybody who says that this is what He meant by what He says is proud, intolerant, divisive, and the emerging church will tell you they exercise the hermeneutics of humility. I'm too humble to say I know what the Bible means by what it says. You can strip the Lord of the church of His rule and the church a lot of ways, and it's not just with bloodshed. Something current, here's a quote, certitude is often idolatrous.

I have been forced to give up certitude. If there is a foundation in Christian theology, it is not found in Scripture. Theology must be a humble human effort to hear God, never about rational approaches to texts.

What is that? Shock and ambiguity often stimulate more thought than clarity. Clarity, he says, is overrated.

And we chuckle about those things because it's so absurd. But how can the Lord speak to His church if we don't know what He means by what He says? How can He speak to His church if He's dead? How can He speak to His church if you take the Bible out and put in whatever else?

Psychobabble, self-help, therapy in a zillion forms. Current evangelical trends really do attack the headship of Christ and an unwillingness, for example, to distinguish between the invisible, true church and the visible, professing church. It's so confusing now in the contemporary evangelical movement that people don't even want to find out who really belongs to the church and who is under the authority of Christ. Entrepreneurialism tends to reign where you have a thousand little Christs running their own little entrepreneurial thing and calling it a church, and it's a product of human cleverness, creativity, ingenuity with a weak gospel, indifferent to propositional truth, minimizing the Word of God. Christ rules through His revealed truth, preached, explained, applied, upheld. And at the same time today, there is a growing disdain for faithful mediators of Christ's headship.

Who are they? Faithful expositors. Those are the mediators, the human instruments, the human agents that bring to bear the rule of Christ to His church. True elders, true pastors. See, the faithful through history have always preserved by the Holy Spirit the true understanding of and devotion to the head, because it goes with being a true Christian.

This is no benign truth. When anyone serving, shepherding a church deviates one step out of the revealed will and truth of the true and only head, he has declared a mutiny, a revolution, an overthrow, and has become a rival of Christ. He is an adulterer, a seducer trying to steal the bride. I told you I was going to give you a long introduction. Non-biblical ministry, non-expository preaching, non-doctrinal teaching usurps Christ's headship, silencing His voice to His church and gives honor to proud independence and autonomy as if it is a virtue. This approach strips the church of the mind of Christ, builds indifference and ignorance toward the Scripture, prevents the preacher from being the voice of the Lord to His church, removes protection from error and sin, eliminates transcendence and clarity, cripples worship, produces compromises and cheats people of the glory of their head in all His fullness. Well, okay, here's my outline, point one.

You got to have a couple of these. Three questions. What does head mean?

What does head mean? Look at Philippians chapter 2 for a moment. Philippians chapter 2 verse 9, therefore God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those who are in heaven and earth and under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Now I want you to just think about one thing here. God gave Him a name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus, this is not the name, Jesus is not the name. The name is a name that's above every name and the name is clearly in verse 11, every tongue must confess that Jesus Christ is what?

Lord, kurios, kephale is kurios. To say He is head is to say you bow, you bow as an individual and the church bows to His sovereign rule just like everybody in the universe bows. Matthew 28 18, all authority is given to me. That's what it means to be head. It means to be in charge, governing authority, to be Lord, sovereign. Second point, who made Him head?

Who made Him head? Turn to Ephesians 1. This is so profound. Ephesians 1 verse 17, and here the apostle Paul is praying and his request is verse 17 Ephesians 1, I'm reading the NAS here by the way, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. One thing you need to know is what's important about Christ. He's praying that God will help you to have a full-orbed understanding of Christ. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of His calling and 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. This is about Christology.

Paul prays, I hope and pray to God that you'll have your Christology filled out. These are in accordance, verse 19 at the end, 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. And we're talking about this majestic, exalted, transcendent Christ far above, verse 21, 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. Now follow verse 22, 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.

Now, I want you to look very closely at this. The sovereign God who chose us called us, sovereign God who gave us an eternal inheritance, sovereign God who empowered and regenerated us for salvation, the sovereign God who sanctifies us and will one day glorify us. That God wants us to have a full understanding of the glory of Christ. He raised Him from the dead, seated Him in glory. Now let's go back to verse 21, far above, huperano, huperano.

Ano is higher up, huper, super high up, infinitely above all beings, all rule, arche could be translated firsts, primary ones, all authority, exusia, all those who have the rights, the supreme rights, all power, dunamis, all dominion, kuriates, lordships. He is not just above, He is far above, infinitely above. In fact, verse 22 adds, He put all things in subjection under His feet.

It says it again in another way to say that He's over everything and not for a while, but the end of verse 21, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. Now and forever, beloved, now and forever Jesus is Lord. Now and forever He is head of His church. Colossians 2.19 says, He is the head from whom the entire body being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments grows with the growth which is from God. He reigns universally in all of creation. Now the language here is very careful, so go back with me for a moment to verse 22.

I want you to catch this language. He put all things in subjection under His feet, now listen, and gave Him as head over all things to the church. Did you get that? He didn't say He gave Him as head to the church. He didn't say He made Him head of the church. He said, look at it, He gave Him as head over all things to the church.

Wow, autan edokan kephalen huperpanta. The verb is followed by the indirect object. He gave, God gave, listen to this, the one who was already head over the universe to the church to be her head. Colossians 1.18, He is also head of the body who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, the one who has the first place in everything. This is a way of saying He gave His beloved redeemed church, the King of the universe to rule her. What kind of an idiot comes up with his own ideas in the church?

What is that? This is the most glorious kind of language by the Holy Spirit to express the love of God for His redeemed church. Look, He didn't give us Gabriel to be the head of the church. He didn't give us Michael to be the head of the church. He didn't give us 10,000 really super angels to be the head of the church. He didn't give us 20,000 really creative angels to be the head of the church. He didn't just give us gifted preachers, teachers, theologians and evangelists to guide and lead the church.

He gave us the King of the universe to be our head and our shepherd and we are His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all, all things in all filling. He filled us up with His headship. So how does He rule in His church?

We asked, what does it mean to be head? Who gave Him that headship? How does He rule? He sovereignly saves His church. He's the Savior, verse 23 of the body. He loved the church and gave Himself up for her. He sovereignly saves His church. He sovereignly supervises His church. Verse 24, the church is subject to Christ. He sovereignly sanctifies His church. Verse 26, that He might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word. He sovereignly secures His church and will present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing. In that day, she will be holy and blameless and He sovereignly supplies all His church needs. Verse 29, He nourishes and He cherishes it.

Everything is in Him, the head. Is it any wonder Paul said to the Colossians, see that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception. According to the tradition of men, according to the elementary princes of the world, the principles of the world rather than according to Christ, for in Him all fullness of deity dwells in bodily form and in Him you have been made complete and He is the head. A final word for John Calvin. In his Ephesians commentary, page 198, I found this. Hence, should anyone call us anywhere else than to Christ, He is empty and full of wind. Let us therefore, without concern, bid Him farewell. The body, the church, will be in a right state if simply the head which furnishes the several members with everything that they have is allowed without any hindrance to have the preeminence. Thanks for being here for Grace To You with John MacArthur.

I'm Phil Johnson. We broke from our regular schedule to bring you today's lesson called Jesus Christ the Head of the Church, a fitting follow-up to yesterday's program in which John discussed the compelling new documentary film called The Essential Church. The film tells the story of the restrictions that governments placed on churches, including the church that John pastors, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it foreshadows the kind of trouble that churches can keep on expecting until the Lord returns. Now, John and I and a number of our staff have seen a preview of the movie. The storytelling is excellent.

It has very high production value and a great soundtrack, and it leaves an emotional impact. Most of all, it honors the Lord Jesus Christ, the true head of the church. The Essential Church debuts this Friday, July 28th, and I encourage you to see it if you can. For locations and showtimes, go to EssentialChurchMovie.com. Again, EssentialChurchMovie, all one word, dot com. Also, we have a new study guide that offers practical biblical help on how to handle persecution.

In fact, that's the title, How to Handle Persecution. It's based on messages that John MacArthur has taught from the book of Acts, and it's available now. To order a copy, contact us today. Our number here, 855-GRACE, and that translates to 800-554-7223.

Or you can place your order at our website, GTY.org. The book of Acts shows you how the earliest followers of Christ grew deeper in their faith as a result of suffering for their faith. And the fact is, you can learn from their examples as this new study guide, How to Handle Persecution, we'll show you.

The cost is $7 and shipping is free. Again, you can order How to Handle Persecution and maybe get a few copies for your small group by calling us here at 855-GRACE, or you can place your order on the internet, GTY.org. And to see if the Essential Church film will be playing near you and for all the details about this new motion picture, go to EssentialChurchMovie.com. The film premieres this Friday, July 28th, and you can find out about it and tell others about it at the website, again for the film, EssentialChurchMovie.com. Now for John MacArthur and our Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Back to our regular schedule tomorrow, and John's study is called, Through Suffering to Triumph. Be here for a half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.