WEEK 3 — DAY 5
Morning Nourishment
Eph. 1:22-23 "...Him to be Head over all things to the church, which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all.
2:6 And raised us up together with Him and seated us together with Him in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus.
In His ascension Christ was made the Head of the church, His Body, to
express God in His fullness. Colossians 1:18 says, "He is the Head of
the Body, the church." According to Ephesians 1:23, His Body is the
fullness of the One who fills all in all. In Ephesians 3:19 Paul speaks
of our being "filled unto
all the fullness of God." All this fullness dwells in Christ (Col. 1:19;
2:9).Through His dwelling in us, Christ imparts His unsearchable riches
into our being, so that eventually we shall be filled unto all the
fullness of God. This makes us the expression of God, which is what the
church should be. (Lifestudy of Luke, p. 665)
Today's Reading
The Bible reveals that Christ, the Head, has ascended to the heavens.
We, of course, are on earth. Then where are the Head and the Body—in
heaven or on earth? The Head and the Body are one and form a universal
man. But is this universal man in heaven or on earth?... With material
things there are these elements [of space and time]. But with divine
things there is neither the element of space nor the element of time.
For Christ to be the Head of the church, His Body, is certainly not a
material thing; this is altogether a divine matter. With this divine
matter there is not the element of space or the element of time.
Therefore, we need to see that in the divine life and in the divine
Spirit, we, the believers, are one with Christ. The Body is one with the
Head in the divine life and in the divine Spirit....As members of the
Body in the divine life and the divine Spirit, we are not separated by
space or time.We all are now in the Body.
[In John 3:13]...the Lord says that although He came down from heaven,
He was still in heaven. This means that while He was on earth, He was
still in heaven. According to His physical body, He was on earth when He
spoke these words. But according to His divine being, which does not
involve the elements of space and time, He was in heaven.
In the church life we should not consider the Head and the Body from a
physical point of view. Rather, we need to consider the Head and the
Body from the divine viewpoint. According to the divine viewpoint, we
are one with the ascended Christ, and His ascension is also ours (Eph.
2:6). Here in the ascension we express Him in His fullness.
In His ascension Christ was also made the High Priest in the heavens.
Hebrews 4:14 says that we have a "great High Priest who has passed
through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God." The Lord came from God to
us through incarnation, and then He went back from us to God through
resurrection and ascension to be our High Priest to bear us in the
presence of God and to care for all our needs (Heb. 2:17-18; 4:15).
Therefore, Hebrews 7:26 says, "For such a High Priest was also fitting
to us, holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners and having
become higher than the heavens." In His ascension Christ passed through
the heavens; now He is not only in heaven (Heb. 9:24), but is also
higher than the heavens, far above all heavens (Eph. 4:10). In His
ascension He was inaugurated into His priestly office. When He was on
earth, He did not carry on His priestly ministry as He is now doing in
the heavens.
It is significant that in the book of Revelation Christ is unveiled
first not as the Administrator but as the Priest [1:13]....On the one
hand, Christ is the High Priest interceding in the heavens for the
churches (Heb. 7:25-26; Rom. 8:34); on the other hand, He is the High
Priest moving in the churches to care for them. In Revelation 1:13
Christ is depicted as the High Priest, as shown by His garment, a
garment reaching to the feet, that is, a priestly robe (Exo.
28:33-35)....As the High Priest, Christ is walking among the lampstands
and taking care of them, especially of their shining by trimming the
lamps. (Life-study of Luke, pp. 666-669)
Further Reading: The Wonderful Christ in the Canon of the New
Testament, ch. 10; Crystallization-study of Song of Songs, msg. 8
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