and ye know all things.1 I have not written unto you because ye know not the truth, but because ye know it.... The anointing which ye received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you; but as his anointing teacheth you concerning all things... and even as it taught you, ye abide in him. This is perhaps the locus classicus on the Inner Light, but it does not stand alone. Throughout the New Testament it is assumed that every believer is in his own measure taught of God.3 Moses, when some feared that his office was being invaded by an outburst of prophecy in the camp, exclaimed, Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets. In the new Israel the wish of the Lawgiver finds its fulfilment. As all the members of Christ are by their union with Him made kings and priests, so a measure of His Spirit of prophecy has descended on each of them. Not all Christians, indeed, are 'prophets' in the sense of possessing a special inspiration, but all have been made to drink of one Spirit, and all living members of Christ have learned what man cannot teach. Few things are more remarkable in the writings of S. Paul than the ungrudging recognition by so great an expert in Christian truth of the right inherent in all

1

1 Or, according to another reading, ye all know.

21 John ii. 20, 27.

3 See John vi. 45 f. (citing Isa. liv. 13), vii. 17, 1 Th. iv. 9.

believers to know all that God has revealed through Christ, and his evident desire that they should rise to the fulness of their privilege. I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, he writes to the Roman Christians, whom he knew by report only, that ye yourselves are... filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another.1 I bow my knees unto the Father, he writes again to the churches of Asia, that he would grant you... that ye may be strengthened through his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, to the end that ye... may be strong to apprehend with all the saints... and to know the love of Christ. Personal gifts differ widely, but a certain capacity for spiritual truth and apprehension of it belong to all who have the Spirit of Christ; a capacity which is sometimes the more remarkable because of the intellectual poverty of those who manifest it. Many a parish priest will thankfully admit that he has learnt from poor and simple folk among his flock lessons that no book can teach. Such unconscious teachers are witnesses to the power of the Spirit of Christ, who makes the humblest believers not only receptive of spiritual knowledge, but able in their measure to impart it.

In such ways as these the Ascended Christ still fulfils the office of Prophet, and fulfils it far more 2 Eph. iii. 14 ff.

1 Rom. xv. 14.

effectually and widely than was possible in the days of His flesh. Then all things were done in parables, that seeing, men might see and not perceive, and hearing, they might hear and not understand.1 To the Church since the Pentecost is given the mystery of the kingdom of God; teaching by parables and proverbs has been exchanged for 'plainness of speech.' It is the same Christ who speaks, but He speaks now by the Spirit, and the voice of the Spirit reaches further and can teach more than the human voice of the greatest of masters. So the spiritual teaching of our race will be carried forward, till our Prophet returns, and takes up again in the ages to come that revelation of the Father in His own Person which He began when He dwelt among us in the days before the Cross.

1 Mc. iv. II f.

V.

THE HEAD.

THE Headship of the Ascended Lord is a Pauline conception which the Apostle works out at length only from one point of view. Hints are dropped that it admits of several applications. Christ is Head of every man, as the man is the head of the wife, and as God is the Head of Christ.1 He is the Head of every principality and authority (πάσης ἀρχῆς καὶ ἐξουσίας); all the authorities of the unseen world as well as of the world of men are under His control.2 He is Head over all things to the Church; He possesses an universal sovereignty which is exercised for the good of His Body. It is evident that these suggestive statements open vast fields for speculative thought. But S. Paul has not entered upon them, and, it may be, has purposely abstained from the attempt. In one direction, however, he felt himself at liberty to go further, for it concerned the highest interests of 2 Col. ii. 10; cf. 1 Pet. iii. 22.

1 I Cor. xi. 3.

3 Eph. i. 22; cf. Mt. xxviii. 18.

all Christians. The Ascended Christ is in a very special sense Head of the universal Church. Of this Headship the Apostle has much to say, and he says it in several passages which are among the most profoundly interesting in his great Epistles to the Ephesians and Colossians.1

Two lines of thought are open to us when we think of Christ as the Head of the Church. The title may represent either (1) the authority exercised by Him over the whole Christian Society, or (2) the relation in which He stands to the life of the Church, as a spiritual Body deriving its sustenance from Him.

1. The first of these aspects of our Lord's Headship is before the mind of S. Paul in a passage which deals with Christian marriage and married life.2 A husband, he teaches, is head of his wife, as also the Christ is Head of his Church. It follows that, as the Church lives in subjection (vπоτάσσera) to the Christ, so the wives should be in every respect subject to their husbands. But it also follows that the husbands should use their authority for the good of their wives, and in the spirit of love. Christ is the Saviour of the Body of which He is Head.

He loved the Church

and delivered Himself to the death of the Cross for

1 Eph. i. 22 f., iv. 15 f., v. 23 f.; Col. i. 18, ii. 19.

2 Eph. v. 22 ff. ἀνήρ ἐστιν κεφαλὴ τῆς γυναικός (cf. 1 Cor. xi. 3), ὡς καὶ ὁ χριστὸς κεφαλὴ τῆς ἐκκλησίας.