The Lord Jesus Christ

When we speak of Jesus as the ‘Lord’, we do more than honour Him.  To call Jesus ‘Lord’ is also to acknowledge that He exercises divine roles and authority.  One of these is that the Lord is the Creator.  Another is that the Lord is exclusively the Lord Jesus Christ.  Also, the Almighty is the Lord mighty to save us.  We therefore acknowledge that Jesus is God, participating in divine identity with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  I would like to show how the first Christians related certain Old Testament passages to their confession that Jesus is Lord and then show how this interpretation came from Jesus Himself.  In the use of the Old Testament, we can find implications about Jesus’ Lordship that the title alone does not reveal.

Think about the full meaning of saying, ‘Jesus is Lord’.  This seems to have been a succinct way confession in the early Church that indicated someone was a Christian.  In 1 Corinthians 12.3, Paul says,

Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.

In Romans 10, Paul elaborates on this confession.  He says,

if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved (v. 9).

Paul is making two claims about being a Christian here, and we see these two things in the verse that he quotes in v. 13 from Joel 2.32, which says,

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved….

First, the LORD in this verse is God Himself.  In fact, the Hebrew word is Yahweh, the personal name of God revealed to Moses.  He is not any deity but the God known only to His people.  Paul, though, quotes this verse with reference to Jesus.  In fact, he says in Romans 10.12:

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him.

Only God is creator.  Only God is the ruler of all.  Only God bestows riches on all.  This God, Paul claims, is the Lord Jesus Christ.  Thus, to be a Christian is to confess that Jesus is God.

Second, the quotation from Joel 2.32 says that the Lord is our Saviour.  Joel says, ‘everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved’.  Who can save but God?  Thus, to be a Christian is to confess not only that Jesus is God but that He has brought salvation.  Those who call on His name will be saved.  There is salvation in no other name.

Two other Old Testament passages are significant for Paul’s understanding that Jesus is ‘Lord’.  The first is from Deuteronomy 6.4, where we find the most significant Jewish confession in the Old Testament.  It was said daily at the beginning of the prayer called the Shema: ‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one’.  In 1 Corinthians 8.5-6, Paul says:

For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.

Paul wraps Jesus into the identity of the One God.  He rejects any idea of two gods, a father god and a lord Jesus.  The Shema is the confession that there is One God, the Creator.  Paul does not say that there is a Creator God and a Lord God.  The unity of the Father and Jesus is in their being the One God.

Another Old Testament passage of great significance for Paul is Isaiah 45.23, which Paul references in his creedal confession about Jesus in Philippians 2.6-11.  The Isaiah passage contrasts the idols of other nations with the true God of Israel.  It also claims that God is the Saviour.  Isaiah 45.22-23 says,

  “Turn to me and be saved,
    all the ends of the earth!
    For I am God, and there is no other.
²³   By myself I have sworn;
    from my mouth has gone out in righteousness
    a word that shall not return:
  ‘To me every knee shall bow,
    every tongue shall swear allegiance.’

Notice in this passage that the idols that are nothing at all cannot save any people.  Thus, the bowing of the knee and the swearing of allegiance to God is to put trust in Him that He will save.  In the next verse, we have the name of God, translated as ‘LORD’ in the Greek translation of the passage.  Thus, Paul says of Jesus:

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2.9-11).

When Peter stood up before the rulers, scribes, and priests of Jerusalem to testify before them about what the early Christians believed, he said,

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4.12).

Peter’s words also echo the same understanding of Paul in reference to Isaiah 45.22-23.  Remember, Isaiah 45.22 says:

Turn to me and be saved,

            all the ends of the earth!

            For I am God, and there is no other.’

Peter was explaining Jesus to them in reference to Psalm 118.22.  Jesus was the rejected stone that became the chief cornerstone in this psalm.  The whole psalm is a celebration of the salvation of the Lord.  The next verse, v. 23, says, ‘This is the LORD’s doing’.  Earlier, in v. 14, the psalmist says, ‘The LORD is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.’  To call Jesus, ‘Lord’, is to identify Him as ruler and as the God of our salvation.

In addition to the confession that Jesus is Lord in Paul and in Peter, we might also recall the climactic confession of Thomas in John’s Gospel.  Thomas would not believe that Jesus had been raised from the dead until He saw Him and touched the wounds of the crucifixion on His body.  Then Jesus appeared to Him, and Thomas saw His wounds, Thomas responded to Jesus with the confession: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20.28).

What we have seen so far is that the early Church confessed Jesus to be Lord.  We have seen that this was a claim that He is God.  To be ‘Lord’ is to be the Creator.  To be ‘Lord’ is to be so exclusively and therefore in participation with the Father’s singular identity.  To be ‘Lord’ is to be the Saviour.  We have seen how the early Church used several Scripture passages to come to this understanding about Jesus.  He alone is Lord.  Yet where did this confession come from?

According to the Synoptic Gospels, the confession came from Jesus Himself.  He, too, used a passage from the Old Testament to explain that He is Lord.  The passage is from Psalm 110.1:

The LORD says to my Lord:
    ‘Sit at my right hand,
  until I make your enemies your footstool.’

Jesus quotes the passage after a long and contentious argument between Himself and the religious leaders in Jerusalem.  When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, signalling His being a kingly figure, the Son of David, a debate arose over Jesus’ authority.  Just who was He to do so?  The priests and elders, the scribes, Pharisees, Herodians, and Sadducees all tried to overturn His authority by posing challenging questions to Him.  This whole debate had to do with His claim to have messianic authority.  Once Jesus vanquishes all the bellicose interrogations of the religious leaders, they have no further ammunition.  They had failed to unseat the authority of the would-be messianic king.  Yet that was not a sufficient understanding of Jesus’ identity.  Jesus then raises the matter to a higher level.  His authority is greater than one like King David.  He is not only the Messiah but also the Lord.  After all the questions, Jesus poses a question to the Pharisees: whose son is the Christ, the Messiah? (Matthew 22.42).  When they cannot say, Jesus quotes Psalm 110.1, attributed to King David.  He then asks, ‘If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?’ (v. 45).

Through Psalm 110, Jesus introduces a higher title and confession that He is the Messiah.  He is also the ‘Lord’, a title everyone knows applies to God Himself.  Jews read Psalm 110 as a psalm about the Messianic ruler to come.  Yet, as Jesus interprets the psalm, this Messiah is David’s Lord, for He is God Himself.  Thus, when John encounters Jesus in his vision in Revelation 1, Jesus says to him, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega ,,, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty’ (v. 8).

Conclusion

I have spoken of the confession that Jesus is Lord as a confession that He is God.  He not only participates in the Divine Identity but exclusively inhabits the Divine Identity over against all other claims of lordship.  He is Creator and Saviour.  He has all authority over all nations.  To call Him Lord is to ascribe this worth to Him—to worship Him. 

Jesus’ Lordship also pertains to us.  In confessing Jesus is Lord, we submit ourselves to Him, giving Him our exclusive devotion and worship.  (There is no legitimate ‘interfaith service’ for the believer.)  Our entire existence is in His service.  As Paul says in Colossians, ‘And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him’ (3.17).