He is the Head of the Body . . . Really?

Last updated on: March 13, 2021 at 5:00 am by Frank Viola

He is the Head of the Body . . . Really? 2021-01-06T13:07:37-04:00 Frank Viola

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As the Head, Jesus Continues His Earthly Ministry

Luke began the book of Acts with this remark:

The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up to heaven. (1:1–2)

Notice the word began. The “first account” Luke was referring to is the gospel of Luke. The implication of this sentence is that Luke’s new volume, Acts, is a record of what Jesus continued to do and teach from His ascension onward.

Consequently, the theme of Acts is Christ’s continuing presence, already found in the name Emmanuel (“God with us”), as a present reality.

No longer visibly present to the human eye, Jesus is still at work in His people by the Spirit. The story of Acts is the story of Christ’s work on earth through His servants as they are energized and directed by the Spirit of Christ.

When Jesus Christ ascended into heaven, He chose to express Himself through a body of believers to continue His life and ministry on earth. That ministry is spelled out in Luke 4:18–19 (NIV):

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

We meet it again in Acts 10:38 (NIV): “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and … he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.”

Throughout His ministry, Jesus showed what the kingdom of God was all about by loving outcasts, befriending the oppressed, healing the sick, cleansing the lepers, caring for the

poor, driving out demons, forgiving sins, and so forth. If you peel back His miracles, the common denominator underneath them all is that He was alleviating human suffering and showing what the future kingdom of God looks like.

When Jesus did His miracles, He was indicating that He was reversing the effects of the curse.

In Jesus’ ministry, a bit of the future had penetrated the present. Jesus embodied the future kingdom of God, where human suffering will be eradicated, and there will be peace, justice, freedom, and joy.

The church, which is His body in the world, carries on this ministry. It stands on the earth as a sign of the coming kingdom.

The church lives and acts in the reality that Jesus Christ is the Lord of the world today. It lives in the presence of the future—in the already-but-not-yet of the kingdom of God.

For this reason, the church is commissioned to proclaim and embody the kingdom now—to bring a bit of the new creation into the old creation, to bring a piece of heaven into the earth—demonstrating to the world what it will look like when God is calling the shots. In the life of the church, God’s future has already begun.

This dimension of the church’s mission has to do with how she displays the Christ who indwells her to those outside of her.

It has to do with how she expresses Christ to the world. Jesus fulfilled the mission of Israel in His earthly ministry (Gen. 18:18). But since His resurrection, He has commissioned the church to continue that mission. Hence, the church exists to fulfill Israel’s original calling to be a blessing to all the nations (Gen. 22:18), to bring good news (the gospel) to the poor (Isa. 52:7), and to be a light to the world (49:6).

The church stands in the earth as the new Israel (Gal. 6:16). And she shows forth that the Jesus who walked this earth is the same Christ who has taken up residence within her members.

Adapted from Jesus Now.

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