The Scriptural vision of redemption is a vision which always includes both head and body. This is one of the most beautiful threads that unfolds throughout the story of the Bible.
“Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a shelter from the storm, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.” (Isaiah 32:1–2, ESV)
The seed of David, firmly set on Zion where David placed the footstool of God (2 Samuel 6), is promised the inheritance of the nations (Psalm 2:7-8). Thus, it is on Zion that the nations are said to stream to learn the instruction of God in Isaiah 2:1-5. St. Paul therefore describes Jesus in Romans 1:3-4 as “descended from David according to the flesh” and active in bringing about the obedience of faith among all the nations through the apostolic ministry (Romans 1:5). Descended from David according to the flesh, He is declared to be the Son of God in power according to the resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4). This hearkens back to 2 Samuel 7:12-14, where God promises to “be a father” to the Son of David whom He will “raise up” and establish for eternity on the throne of the kingdom. As the world belongs to God as His creation, the world is the inheritance of the children of God. As God has promised to take the seed of David into His house as His own children, the seed of David is the heir of the whole cosmos. Moreover, as Isaiah 55:3-5 makes clear, we are all the heirs of David in our being incorporated into Jesus Christ. God says through Isaiah that He will make with the whole nation an everlasting covenant- the very same that was made in His “steadfast, sure love for David.” This is why St. Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:18 quotes the covenant with David, but with reference to the whole family of God: “I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”
Observe, then, the beautiful vision set forth in Isaiah 32. Isaiah 16:5 promises the Messianicd king: “a throne will be established in steadfast love, and on it will sit in faithfulness in the tent of David, one who judges and seeks justice and is swift to do righteousness.” Isaiah 32 takes this language about the singular messianic seed and distributes it between the King and the Princes. In other words, it is not that the princes who extend the kingdom add something which was lacking in the glory of the King. It is rather that they, as members of His Body, are the very instruments in which the King works for the reparation of the world. Christ and the Church are one Christ- the totus Christus, head and body. This dynamic is inherent to the very order of the trinitarian life. All life comes from God and thus reflects the One from whom it comes. And as God is the God who is always giving of Himself in the beatitude of the triune life, so also is the splendor of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of the Eternal Father, given to the world in and through those whom He takes into His family through the Spirit. As I have often pointed out, it is for this reason that the hope of the cosmos is to be found in the revelation of the sons of God in the plural (Romans 8:20-21). The hope for which the creation hopes is the glory of God unveiled in every thread of the cosmos (Romans 8:23). And this mystery is reiterated in St. Paul’s other writings: “To them God chose to make known how great among the nations are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you [pl.], the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27). It is in this very context that the Apostle Paul refers to his filling up what is “lacking” in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His Body, the Church (Colossians 1:24-25).
Many readers of Scripture, jealous for the glory and splendor of Jesus Christ, implicitly assume that the Church must only and always be the recipient of God’s blessing in Christ. This is the assumption which seems to undergird many a Protestant critique of the reverence paid to saints. As salvation is of the LORD, the critic suggests, how are we to dare attribute such a great work to any human creature? Yet this is not how Scripture reasons. The life of God in Christ always does its work. It always is bursting outwards and extending the splendor of the triune God to others. And that dynamic does not cease when we are taken up into Christ. If it is authentically the case that Jesus Christ is in us- that “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20), then how could it be otherwise?