the savour of the sacrifice offered is employed throughout the Old Testament

to indicate the `savour' or `odour' of sacrifice.  We should, therefore, not

be surprised to find that Noah was a `priest'.  Yet he is never so called.

He can be, however, designated as Adam was before him Head of the race of

which those delivered from the flood were the progenitors.

Abraham was the father of `kings' (Gen. 17:6), and even of The King,

the Lord Himself, Who was according to the flesh both son of Abraham and son

of David, yet Abraham himself is never called a king.  Abraham not only built

an altar, at the beginning of his pilgrimage upon which the only sacrifices

permitted would have been those taken from the herd and the flock, he came

nearer to the heart of all true sacrifice when he was called upon to offer

his only begotten son Isaac, yet Abraham is never called a priest.  Like Adam

and Noah, Abraham is more than king, more than priest, he is the father of

Israel, to which he stands without contradiction as Head.  Even when we leave

the chosen people, and turn our attention to the first great king whose reign

commenced the times of the Gentiles -- Nebuchadnezzar, he too is spoken of by

Daniel as `This Head of gold' (Dan. 2:38).  Each one of the great outstanding

figures that have foreshadowed the pleroma, or fulness, were `Heads' and in

this they foreshadowed all that the office of King, Priest and Prophet alone

could set forth.  Even though Christ be never called either Prophet, Priest

or King in the epistles of the Mystery, the Church of the One Body loses

nothing if Christ is its Head; He is more than King and Priest and Prophet to

the Church, for headship covers all.

With this preparation, let us turn to the epistles of the Fulness, the

Prison Epistles of Paul, and observe the way in which this title `head' is

employed.  The Greek word kephale is used of Christ in the Prison Epistles

seven times, and the verb anakephalaioomai once.  Let us look at the usage of

this verb, which means `to head up'.  It occurs in Ephesians 1:10 where it is

translated `to gather together in one' in the A.V., `to sum up' in the R.V.

and in Weymouth's translation `of restoring the whole creation to find its

one Head in Christ', and by J.N. Darby `to head up all things in Christ'.  It

is in connection with the `pleroma' of the seasons that this figure of

`heading up' is used, no other term being so appropriate or so complete.

When the `fulness' arrives, Christ will be infinitely more than King, or

Priest, He will be `Head'.  The references to Christ as `Head' in the Prison

Epistles are limited to the epistles to the Ephesians and to the Colossians

(Eph. 1:22; 4:15; 5:23; Col. 1:18; 2:10; 2:19).

These six references to kephale, expand the promise of Ephesians 1:10,

the Church of the present dispensation being the most complete foreshadowing

of the goal of the ages that the Scriptures contain.  To turn back to the

types and shadows employed in earlier Scriptures is to turn

by comparison from substance to shadow, although the `substance' here in its

turn must necessarily be but a `shadow' of the reality yet to come.  The

first passage brings us back from the day when all things in heaven and earth

shall be headed up in Christ, to the present period when in a day of

rejection, confusion and darkness, an elect company find that Christ is to

them what He will be universally in the future.

A

Eph. 1:22.  Head over all things to the Church which is His Body.  In

the context Christ is seen raised and seated `far above all

principality and power'.  The word pleroma being used as a title of the