Who Is the Head of the Church?

God “hath put all things under his feet, and gave him [Christ] to be the head over all things to the church.”* (Ephesians 1:22)

“But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.”* (Ephesians 4:15-16)

“For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.”* (Ephesians 5:23-24)

“And 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)

“Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.”* (Colossians 2:18-19)

The head of an institution is its lawmaker.

“For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us.”* (Isaiah 33:22)

“There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy.”* (James 4:12)

All organisms that make their own laws, creeds, disciplines, and systems of co-operation, do not hold the Head—Christ. Their law-making synods and general conferences ignore the divine Lawgiver, usurp the place of Christ, and sit in the stead of God, and are not Christ’s church, which is subject to Him.

Again, there is one head; hence, there can be but one body.