He put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things for the assembly,
Parallel translations
- KJV And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
- BSB And God put everything under His feet and made Him head over everything for the church,
- NKJV And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church,
- NASB And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and made Him head over all things to the church,
- NLT God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God placed everything under Christ's feet and made him head over all things for the church. It declares Christ's universal lordship exercised for his people's good.
Overview
Echoing Psalm 8 and Psalm 110, Paul declares that all things are subjected to Christ. Strikingly, God gave the cosmic Christ 'to be head over all things for the assembly' — his universal reign is exercised for the benefit of the church. Christ's supremacy and his care for his people are inseparable.
Cross-references & the web
Theme
- The Church"The church, which is his body."
Cross-references · 17
- Col 1:18He is the head of the body, the assembly, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
- Col 2:10and in him you are made full, who is the head of all principality and power;
- 1 Cor 15:25–27For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
- Ps 8:6–8You make him ruler over the works of your hands. You have put all things under his feet:
- Heb 2:8You have put all things in subjection under his feet.” For in that he subjected all things to him, he left nothing that is not subject to him. But now we don’t see all things subjected to him, yet.
- Col 2:19and not holding firmly to the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and ligaments, grows with God’s growth.
- Eph 4:15–16but speaking truth in love, we may grow up in all things into him, who is the head, Christ;
- 1 Cor 11:3But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.
- Eph 5:23For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the assembly, being himself the savior of the body.
- Acts 20:28Take heed, therefore, to yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the assembly of the Lord and God which he purchased with his own blood.
- Eph 3:21to him be the glory in the assembly and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
- Matt 16:18I also tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my assembly, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.
- Gen 3:15I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”
- 1 Tim 3:15but if I wait long, that you may know how men ought to behave themselves in God’s house, which is the assembly of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
- Ps 91:13You will tread on the lion and cobra. You will trample the young lion and the serpent underfoot.
- Col 1:8who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.
- Heb 12:22–24But you have come to Mount Zion, and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable multitudes of angels,
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Christ at the center
Every spiritual blessing is 'in Christ,' the head over all things for the church, in whom Jew and Gentile are made one new man by his blood.
How Ephesians 1:22 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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