The crucial truth that Christ is the Head of His church is powerfully pictured in the first chapter of the book of Revelation, in the vision the apostle John had of the glorified Christ. John writes, “I saw seven golden lampstands; and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of Man [Jesus Christ], clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash” (1:12–13). In Revelation 1:20, Christ explains that “the seven lampstands are the seven churches,” the recipients of his letter. So, when John saw Christ walking among the lampstands, it was to portray the reality of Christ’s abiding presence with His church. 

This vision pictures the exalted Christ standing among the seven, first-century churches that received this circular letter, sovereignly overseeing and intimately involved with each one. The same is true of Christ’s relationship with His churches today. What a comfort! Christ Himself promised His continued abiding presence with his church: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). 

The domain or realm in which Christ reigns, the focus of His attention, is not the great centers of political power—although He is sovereign over the events in every great capital of the world. Rather, His attention is focused on His church. He walks among His churches, exercising an intimate personal relationship with each one. There isn’t a single true church on this planet Christ isn’t personally shepherding. 

Revelation 1:14–16 vividly describes Christ’s present ministry with and to His church: 

His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength.  

This vision of the risen, glorified Christ explains and illustrates our Lord’s relationship to the whole church—and every local church. The series of qualities described here paint a beautiful portrait of Jesus’ relationship to His church:

• Christ’s incomparable wisdom leads His church: “His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow” (v. 14). The description of Jesus with white hair emphasizes His incomparable wisdom—the kind of wisdom that is associated with age and experience. 

• Christ’s penetrating omniscience evaluates His church: “His eyes were like a flame of fire” (v. 14). Like a torch in the ancient world, His eyes light up what He sees and reveals it to his eyes as it really is. The character of every single church is absolutely clear and transparent to the gaze of Jesus Christ—He sees everything! His penetrating omniscience sees the heart of each church with supreme clarity.

• Christ’s personal holiness purifies His church: “His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace” (v. 15; see Dan. 10:6). “Burnished bronze” describes gleaming metal still in its molten form. Metal still in a molten state is like a crucible for everything it touches. In the same way, as Christ walks among His churches, He purifies them like metal in a furnace is purified by His own personal holiness. 

• Christ’s authoritative word directs His church: “His voice was like the sound of many waters” (v. 15; see Ezek. 1:24). Like the deafening sound of the relentless crashing of the waves on the rocky shore of the island of Patmos, where John was imprisoned, Christ’s powerful voice can be easily heard, so that His sheep can hear and obey Him. Jesus speaks with commanding authority to His church through His authoritative, Spirit-inspired Word.

• Christ’s sovereign lordship controls His church: “In His right hand He held seven stars” (v. 16). According to Revelation 1:20, the “stars” are “angels,” best understood as the messengers or leaders of the seven churches to whom the letter was addressed. In the vision, Christ holds the leaders of the church in His hands. He is the Head of the church, and He exercises His headship through the leaders He has placed in each local church. He is the chief Shepherd and leads His sheep through His under shepherds.

• Christ’s devastating judgment defends His church: “Out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword” (v. 16). This doesn’t mean a literal sword comes from His mouth. John’s point is that He will defend His church. The sword pictures Christ’s destructive judgment against the enemies of His church: they are destroyed with the word of His mouth (Rev. 19:15; see 2 Thess. 2:8). 

• Christ’s matchless glory captivates and characterizes His church: “His face was like the sun shining in its strength” (v. 16). Sixty-five years earlier, in Jesus’ Transfiguration, John had seen Jesus’ face when it “shone like the sun” (Matt. 17:2). On Patmos, he witnessed it again. Today, believers have all seen Christ’s glory revealed in the gospel: “God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). We not only see Christ’s matchless glory in the gospel, but we also increasingly reflect His glory as His people: “We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).

Those New Testament texts, along with many others, prove that Christ, not the pope, is the Head of the church. First Timothy 2:5 says, “There is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Scripture nowhere speaks of a vicar or substitute for Christ on earth, or of anyone other than Christ as the Head of His church. Christ leads His church, now as then, through His Word in the power of the Holy Spirit. He leads through His Word, when it is read by individual believers, and when it is taught corporately by the gifted pastor-teachers He gives the church, whose teaching, like that of the apostles, must be carefully examined against Scripture.

Christ alone is the head of His church!

This content was edited and adapted from Tom Pennington, From Rome to Reformation: An Introduction to the Key Issues Then and Now (Southlake, TX: The Word Unleashed, 2024).