His Headship

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Finally, Scripture is everywhere express and consistent that union is not with the Eternal Son as such in His Deity, else we should be deified, and such Christianity would be Buddhism. Neither is it with our Lord in His incarnation simply and as such, else all flesh absolutely must be saved. His being God the Son was His competency to undertake the work of redemption as man for men. But even He was not Head till God (being glorified in Him, not in living obedience only, but in death for sin and our sins) glorified Him in Himself above. (Compare Ephesians 1:20-2220Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, 21Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: 22And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, (Ephesians 1:20‑22), and all the scriptures which treat of His headship.) He was born King of the Jews; only when He is risen and ascended do we hear of Him as Head. Hence Philippians 2 contrasts what He entered as man with His place of exaltation. Incarnate, He took upon Him the form of a servant, and, being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore also God has highly exalted Him. This is headship, if you will; that was humiliation, and in contrast with it. So, in Hebrews 2, His being set over the works of God’s hands (all things being put under Him) is unquestionably founded, not on His title nor on His manhood, but on His suffering unto death. Similarly, in Colossians 1:1818And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. (Colossians 1:18), Christ appears as head of the body, as the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, and this distinguished from His being the firstborn of all creation, which He was when living here below (vs. 15). Thus too the truth gives due essential prominence to the death and resurrection of Christ, while falsehood shuts it out or makes it an incident by the way, not the turning-point of God’s glory in respect of sin nor consequently of our justification.
W. Kelly
W. Kelly, a Greek scholar, occasionally uses his own translation of a verse. The rest are from the Authorized Version.