Dwight Fletcher | The call to the battleground

“ And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body ...” Ephesians 1:22. Everything in creation, whether on earth or in the spiritual realm, comes under the sovereignty of Jesus Christ.

In the beginning, God had placed all things under man’s authority, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground”. Genesis 1:26-28. This authority was lost when man believed the word of a snake over the word of God. But Jesus reclaimed it and God placed everything under His feet.

The power that comes with this authority does not have to be demonstrated the same way all the time. The dominion given to man was surrendered to Satan through the deception of Adam and Eve, but Jesus regained it, not only for His own benefit but also for us, the Church. God appointed Jesus to be head over everything for the Church.

Those who are in Christ, therefore, have Him operating on their behalf. The victory won at the Cross is for anyone who has accepted Christ as Lord and Saviour. Some of the benefits that Christ paid for include:

• Jesus has removed the fear of death from our lives and has given us a peace that passes all understanding and joy when we submit to Him.

• Through salvation we are now “… holy and blameless in God’s sight”. (Ephesians 1:4) just as if we had never sinned.

• We have been “…adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ” Ephesians 1:5. The scripture indicates in this passage that, in Christ, when we are born again, we assume the position of adult sons and now have access to the same provisions and resources that Christ had access to.

Romans 8:29 tells us: “For those whom God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers”. We have often, and rightfully so, looked at this passage to mean that we should walk as Christ did in holiness and submission to God, but there is more.

Luke 4:18-19 says “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” This is how Jesus walked, and we should be walking in the power of the Holy Spirit in order to do that which Christ did. He supports us and we can walk in power as Jesus did.

We are the body of Christ and the use of this analogy of the relationship between us and Christ was obviously done on purpose by Paul. He wants us to understand that the same closeness that exists between our heads and the parts of our bodies exists between Christ and us. In the same way that the head operates through the body (physically), so Christ, the head of the Church, operates through us in all things.

One commentator said that God will do nothing in the earth except through us, because we are His body, the ‘fullness of Him who fills everything in every way’. When we operate under the instruction and the power of the Head, a full representation of Christ is seen and will manifest in our nation.