Independence and Lordship: A Contradiction

01/27/02

“…That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend together with all the saints…”

“Christ dwelling in the individual heart immediately leads to ‘all saints.’ The principle of the Body comes out of the establishing of the centrality and supremacy of Christ in the individual. There is a contradiction, beloved, if it is claimed by anyone that Christ is supreme in the heart and in the life and yet such a one be marked and characterized by personal and independent action and interest. If anyone is a law unto himself in spirit—although he would never say that of himself—if his life takes the feature of being something detached, something separate, something independent, something apart from the rest of the Lord’s people, a watertight compartment, there is a contradiction there. Christ is not supreme, Christ is not central. These two things cannot be reconciled, independence and the Body, independence and the supremacy of the Lord Jesus. He is supreme in the life as a Head, but never merely as the Head of an individual.” (T. Austin-Sparks)

—Dan 9:46 p.m.