“And he is the head of the body, the church…”

                 Biology can be a fascinating field of study.  The intricacies and design of the human body, not to mention the continuously emerging understanding of its chemistry, inescapably points to the presence of a designer.  Because God who is spirit (John 4:24) made the physical world, spiritual realities and truths oversee and guide the material.  Thus the head and the body analogy picture higher things in the spiritual domain.  So when that Designer uses the analogy of a head and its body in Scripture, which he does in several places, we ought to sit up and pay attention.

As in all cases with Word View, our text has a context.  Colossians is a book that counters some false theology that had spread around Asia Minor, now present-day Turkey.  In Paul’s day this false teaching was comprised of mystical elements of Gnosticism, a religion requiring certain insider knowledge gained only by initiation rites at pagan temples.  Advocates taught that unity with God could be gained by a kind of stairway-to-heaven approach through gaining knowledge from ascended angels, developing certain attitudes and following given commands (2:16-18).  Paul counters such unbiblical and unreal notions by making one of the strongest cases for the deity of Christ in all of Scripture (1:15-17), and thus his supremacy over everything (v. 18).

In that opening salvo, we find today’s description “head of the body.”  But let’s first get the flow of the immediate context.  In verse 15 Paul says that Christ is the “image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.”  The meaning of this latter phrase does not and cannot contradict the rest of these descriptions of the Savior; it fits right along with them.  They both go hand in hand with the next verse, emphasizing the fact that Christ acted as the creator of “all things…whether [angelic] thrones or powers or [spiritual] rulers or authorities…”  In other words, the focus is on Christ being the very source of the things mystic gnosticism said followers should worship.  Worshipping angels (2:18) or any other created thing is idolatry and promotes spiritual fiction at best and deceit at worst (Romans 1:25).

Paul continues: “…all things were created by him and for him.”  “By him” means that he is the creator, but “for him” means that he is the intention and purpose of all that is made.  Who else can make such a claim?  But Paul doesn’t stop there.  “He is before all things.”  The word “before” means in the sense of time — chronologically before.  It doesn’t mean that he was before the creation in the sense of standing “in front of” something.  Here is an unmistakably clear statement of Christ’s existence prior to creation.  Paul then finishes this section by saying, “and in him all things hold together.”  In other words, the power and dynamic of his word (see Hebrews 1:3) is the ‘glue’ that maintains the structure and function of everything in the universe!  The smallest details of our bodies and the movements of the largest cosmic bodies in space all are controlled by him and him alone.  No mere man is Jesus, no angel or any created thing.  He is very God!  Jesus maintains the entire universe at will.

Upon that foundation and progression of thought we now arrive at our focus, head of the body.  At first, we all should rejoice and say, “I’m so glad that the God of the universe is my head,” not some angel or other created thing.  Respectfully speaking, we’ve got the boss and the owner, not some middle manager or foreman!  But then the second thought comes: the head is actually part of the body.  In other words, he has permanently joined himself with us … us!  If the head is severed from the body, the body dies: “He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow” (2:19).  Growth!  That’s what our head is for — our growth!  “Apart from me,” Jesus said, “you can do nothing” (John 15:5).  That the God of the universe would so tie himself to me in an intimate, life-giving, growth-causing relationship as a head is to a body completely astounds me.  We are that close and that vital to him and his work on the earth.

How is your connection to your Head today?  Are the details of your little world overwhelming you, or are you taking them to your Head, who handles the universe, and giving them to him?  Which is it: are you losing contact, or are you growing?  Since he rules over the cosmos, can’t he handle your situation?