Jesus is Lord
In the New Testament Jesus of Nazareth is pro-
claimed Lord. "Jesus is Lord" is the funda-
mental Christian confession of faith.
The confession "Jesus is Lord" at once defines
both his person and his relationship to the
Christian believer. This appellation was so
widely used among early Christians that it be-
came the instantly recognized and universally
acknowledged description of Jesus in every
geographical location where Christianity
spread. The confession "Jesus is Lord" occupies
a prominent place in the churches of the New
Testament era, and indeed was probably the prevailing confession of faith within first-
century Christianity. The heart of the early Christian confession is the Lordship of Christ.
The Word Lord in English
In the English language, a Lord is a per-
son who has righteously power and
authority.
It implies exercising power responsibly.
Lordship, in fact, must include power to
exercise control as well as possession of
power within the boundaries of a well-
defined system such as law, according to
justice. A despot (a person who wields
power oppressively, a tyrant) is only a
caricature of the legal term “Lord” or
“ruler.”
The etymology of the English word lord
goes back to Old English hlaf-weard (loaf-
guardian) – reflecting the Germanic tribal
custom of a superior providing food for his
followers.
In feudalism, a Lord (in Italian signore,
in French seigneur) has aristocratic rank
and has control over a portion of land and
the produce and labour of the serfs living
thereon. The serf would swear the oath of
fealty to the Lord, or "keeper of the
loaves". Such lords normally inherit their
position and expect allegiance similar to
that owed to a monarch. The word "Lord"
can have different meanings depending on
the context of use.
Women will usually (but not universally)
take the title 'Lady' instead of Lord. It may
also come from words meaning "loaf-
kneader".
Jesus is Lord, 1
Lord in the Bible
The English word "Lord", in the Hebrew
Bible, usually translates adon [‫]אדו‬. It is
used more than 300 times in the Old Tes-
tament for a human's rule over another
person. This is to be distinguished from
baal [‫( ]על‬lord, husband, master) in that
adon represents a personal relationship of
the subjection of one person to another,
while baal designates the owner of things,
including slaves and women. At times per-
sons would address someone of equal so-
cial status as “lord” out of respect.
In the New Testament the Greek word ku-
rios [κύριος] can designate both one who
exercises rule over persons as well as the
owner of goods. It is also used in respect-
ful address to a father (Matthew 21:29-
30) or to a ruler (Acts 25:26).
In the era of the Roman caesars
(emperors), the title kurios symbolized the
emperor's position as absolute monarch. It
did not mean necessarily that the emperor
was a god, but such a concept was con-
veniently promoted.
Christians would respect the political au-
thority, but would
object its divine
character. They
proclaimed that
only Jesus was the
divine Lord, and
the Lord of lords.
“Let each of you look not only to his own
interests, but also to the interests of others. The Theological Meaning
Have this mind among yourselves, which is of the Confession
yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in
the form of God, did not count equality with When the early Christians referred to or
God a thing to be grasped, but made himself confessed Jesus Christ as "Lord". The root
nothing, taking the form of a servant, being meaning of the Greek term kyrios was
born in the likeness of men. And being found "legitimate authority," and this meaning
in human form, he humbled himself by be- carried into New Testament usage.
coming obedient to the point of death, even
death on a cross. Therefore God has highly Jesus Is Divine
exalted him and bestowed on him the name
that is above every name, so that at the na-
First, this confession meant that Jesus is di-
me of Jesus every knee should bow, in hea-
vine or Jesus is God. The term kyrios, ap-
ven and on earth and under the earth, and
plied to Jesus in the New Testament, was
every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is
the word used in the Septuagint (the Greek
Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
translation of the Old Testament) to repre-
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always
sent the Hebrew name of God, YHWH or Je-
obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence
hovah. It is striking that this term is used
but much more in my absence, work out
without hesitation or qualification in the New
your own salvation with fear and trembling,
Testament to refer to Jesus as well as to
for it is God who works in you, both to will
God. For example, the angelic announce-
and to work for his good pleasure.
ment of Jesus' birth refers to him as "Christ
“ (Philippians 2:4-13).
the Lord" (Luke 2:14), and Paul can apply
Old Testament passages which speak of God
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of to Jesus (e.g., Rom. 10:13). The ascription
Nazareth, a man attested to you by God of Lordship to Jesus implies acknowledg-
with mighty works and wonders and signs ment of his essential deity.
that God did through him in your midst, as
you yourselves know-- this Jesus, delivered Jesus Is Exalted Savior
up according to the definite plan and fore-
knowledge of God, you crucified and killed
Second, confession of Jesus' Lordship meant
by the hands of lawless men. God raised
acknowledging him as exalted Saviour. The
him up, loosing the pangs of death, because
New Testament uses the title "Lord" to refer
it was not possible for him to be held by it
to a new and distinctive phase of Jesus' min-
(…) Brothers, I may say to you with confi-
istry, one marked by exaltation (beginning
dence about the patriarch David that he
with his resurrection) and entry into the ex-
both died and was buried, and his tomb is
ercise of kingly prerogatives in contrast to
with us to this day. Being therefore a pro-
his earlier (pre-resurrection) state of hu-
phet, and knowing that God had sworn with
miliation. A crucial passage here is Acts
an oath to him that he would set one of his
2:36. In this first public proclamation of the
descendants on his throne, he foresaw and
gospel following Jesus' ascension, the Apos-
spoke about the resurrection of the Christ,
tle Peter drew attention to Jesus' death, res-
that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor
urrection, and exaltation to the right hand of
did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God
God (Acts 2:22-35), and then declared that
raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.
"God has made Him both Lord and Christ"
Being therefore exalted at the right hand of
(v. 36). Jesus entered a new phase of his
God, and having received from the Father
messianic ministry, a new function of his to-
the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has pou-
tal messianic mission. In his exaltation Je-
red out this that you yourselves are seeing
sus becomes the Messiah in a new
and hearing. For David did not ascend into
sense: he has begun his messianic reign as
the heavens, but he himself says, "'The Lord
the Davidic king. It refers to the installation
said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I
of the God-man Jesus in the position of di-
make your enemies your footstool.' Let all
vinely-exalted Redeemer and his entrance
the house of Israel therefore know for cer-
into the exercise of such authority as that
tain that God has made him both Lord
position entails (such as bestowing the Holy
and Christ, this Jesus whom you cruci-
Spirit, v. 33). Lordship here is an ascription
fied." (Acts 2:22-36)
of sovereignty in vivid contrast to the cruci-

Jesus is Lord, 2
fied Jesus. Certainly Peter's call for repen-
tance (v. 38) demanded of his Jewish hear-
ers no less than an acknowledgment that the
Crucified One had now been raised from the
dead and exalted to God's right hand.
Other passages which similarly express or
imply a contrast between Jesus' exalted
state and his previous condition of humilia-
tion include Romans 1:4, which declares
"Jesus Christ our Lord" to be appointed "Son
of God in power" through his resurrection
from the dead, and Matthew 28:18, where
Jesus claims for himself "all authority in
heaven and on earth" in his resurrected
state.
Jesus Is Supreme Authority
Matthew 28:18, with its claim of universal
authority for Jesus, leads to a third aspect of
the confession "Jesus is Lord." It involves
the recognition that Jesus is the supreme
authority in the universe, under God the Fa-
ther. An important passage in this regard is
the much-discussed Philippians 2:9-11. Here
Paul draws a sharp contrast between Jesus'
state of humiliation and death (Phil. 2:6-8)
and the subsequent state of exaltation into
which he entered (vv. 9-11). After his hu-
miliation God "highly exalted" Jesus and
"bestowed on Him the name which is above
every name," that at his name "every knee
should bow" and "every tongue should con-
fess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of
God the Father." A persuasive case can be
made that the name which the Father be-
stowed on Jesus at his exaltation is the title
"Lord," the name contained in the universal
confession of verse 11 ("Jesus Christ is
Lord"). This confession will eventually be of-
fered by every personal being in the uni-
verse, which suggests that for some it will
not be a confession arising from faith but an
acknowledgment compelled by undeniable
fact: Jesus has been made absolute sover-
eign of the universe, God's mediatorial agent
in exercising his own divine rule. That con-
fession which believers now make by the aid
of the Holy Spirit, "Jesus is Lord" (cf. I Cor.
12:3), shall one day be on the lips of all,
even those who now reject his Lordship.
Jesus Is My Rightful Sovereign
Fourth, the confession of the Lordship of Je-
sus includes the willing acknowledgment
that Jesus Christ is the rightful sover-
Jesus is Lord, 3
eign of the Christian believer. The con-
fession moves beyond the recognition of ob-
jective facts to the subjective application of
those facts. In the very act of making this
confession--if it expresses a genuine exer-
cise of faith--the Christian assumes his
rightful place before him who is the divine
and exalted Saviour and sovereign of the
universe. Since the concept of Lordship sig-
nifies legitimate authority, then accepting
Jesus as Lord means making him the
authority by which we conduct our
lives.
This is the acknowledgment in principle of
the Lord Jesus' rightful authority and sover-
eignty over the Christian believer. The work-
ing out of the implications of Jesus' Lordship
in practice will require the lifetime process
known as sanctification in order to be ac-
complished, and this in no way serves as the
ground of the believer's justification before
God. The confession of Jesus' Lordship
is simply the equivalent of repentance:
it constitutes the giving up or relinquishing
of one's rebellion against God and the as-
sumption of one's rightful place before him
who is Creator and Ruler of the universe.
The establishment of Jesus' Lordship over
believers seems to have been one of the
purposes of God in the death and resurrec-
tion of Christ, according to Paul's statement
in Romans 14:9. Paul there declares, "For to
this end Christ died and lived again, that He
might be Lord both of the dead and of the
living." Paul's statement in this context
should be understood as applying to Chris-
tian believers, and that the Lordship to
which Paul refers was not Christ's inherent
Lordship of creatorhood but the acquired
sovereignty of redemption. It is a sover-
eignty which believers are bound to recog-
nize and honour, for, as verse eight de-
clares, "whether we live or die, we are the
Lord's."
The Significance of the Confes-
sion for the Church
If the confession "Jesus is Lord" bore such
full and weighty content within the context
of primitive Christianity, then the question
next arises, what was the practical sig-
nificance of this confession for the life
of the church? What place did it occupy
in the lives of early Christian believers and
worshipping communities? The New Testa-
ment makes several points clear.
The Central Confession
First, "Jesus is Lord" was the central confes-
sion of early Christianity. Thus Paul writes in
Romans 10:9, "if you confess with your
mouth 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in
your heart that God raised him from the
dead, you will be saved" (NIV). The con-
fession and belief referred to, of course, im-
ply trust in Jesus as the crucified and risen
Saviour and constitute an explicit acknowl-
edgment of him as the exalted Lord. Again
in 1 Corinthians 12:3, Paul writes, "no one
can say, 'Jesus is Lord' except by the
Holy Spirit." Here he assumes that "Jesus
is Lord" is the basic confession of the Chris-
tian fellowship. A passage already examined,
Philippians 2:9-11, incorporates this confes-
sion as that which will be offered by the
whole universe: "Jesus Christ is Lord." The
confession "Jesus is Lord" occupied a promi-
nent place indeed as the central Christian
confession of the New Testament era: it was
that affirmation to which every Christian
gave assent and which distinguished the
Christian community from the unbelieving
world.
A Personal Confession
Second, the confession of Jesus' Lordship
was a personal confession. It was an ex-
pression of the individual believer's convic-
tions and trust. The Apostle Paul makes
this confession pointedly personal when he
writes, "If you confess with your mouth,
'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that
God raised him from the dead, you will be
saved" (Rom. 10:9, NIV). The personal na-
ture of the confession was also perfectly
captured by the believing Thomas when he
exclaimed upon seeing the risen Saviour:
"My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28). The
Christian confession of the Lordship of Jesus
means the recognition of what God has done
in exalting Jesus, and personal submission
to and acceptance of his Lordship. No one
could be considered a Christian or admitted
to the Christian community while rejecting
the Lordship of Jesus.
A Corporate Confession
Third, "Jesus is Lord" was a corporate con-
Jesus is Lord, 4
fession of the Christian community. In
the New Testament frequently Jesus is re-
ferred to as "the Lord" or "our Lord", sug-
gesting that he is the commonly acknowl-
edged Lord of the entire Christian commu-
nity. Observe how Paul opens his letters to
the Roman and Corinthian Christians. In Ro-
mans, his greeting includes an extended de-
scription of the gospel, which concerns
"Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 1:4), and he
wishes them grace and peace "from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (Rom.
1:7), literally reads "Jesus Christ the Lord of
us." Paul assumes that all Christians in fact
acknowledge Jesus as Lord. In I Corinthians
1:2 Paul extends greetings to "those who
have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints
by calling, with all who in every place call
upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
their Lord and ours." Here Paul defines
Christians as those who "call on the
name of the Lord of us Jesus Christ". In
view of the lack of practical holiness in the
Corinthian church Paul refers to the believ-
ers there as those who have acknowledged
in principle that Jesus is Lord, even if they
were imperfectly working out the implica-
tions of his Lordship in their personal lives
and in congregational matters. Christians
were those who acknowledged the Lordship
of Jesus and that this common confession
served to identify them as a people and to
distinguish them from the world. This was
their corporate identity.
An Eschatological Confession
Fourth, "Jesus is Lord" was an eschatological
confession. By means of this confession, the
early Christian community was expressing
two closely related convictions: that God had
inaugurated a new era--the kingdom of God-
-with the life, death, and exaltation of Jesus;
and that Jesus would return in glory to bring
God's kingdom to its consummation. Such
was the sentiment of the Aramaic exclama-
tion in I Corinthians 16:22, "marana tha,"
meaning "[our] Lord, come." The ascription
of Lordship to Jesus spoke with confidence of
God's final victory over sin, death, and all
that opposed God's rule.
"Jesus is Lord" Today
When we move from the New Testament
to the church of the present time, three
points of application emerge.
First, we may well ask whether the situation The lordship of Jesus has
that prevailed in the apostolic churches ethical consequences
ought not be the case today. That is, if con-
fessing Jesus' Lordship was central to the
• He makes the significance of all other
thinking and life of apostolic Christianity,
powers of only relative importance (1
should it not also be central for the twenti-
Corinthians 8:5-6; Colossians 2:15).
eth-century church? What better way to set
• The Christian believer is foundationally
forth the meaning of Christ's redemptive ac-
freed from being servant to any thing
complishment, his authority over the be-
or person in the human world (1 Corin-
liever and the church, and the expectation of
thians 7:22-23).
his final victory than to make this confession
• The believer devotes self to serve oth-
central once again? Wha does it mean
ers, even the ones in power, as his or
that Jesus is our Lord today?
her lord in voluntary service (Mark
10:42-45).
Second, in our presentation of the gospel, • Speaking the word Lord or calling out
the demands of Jesus' Lordship should to Jesus with the title “Lord” is not
have primacy. Is not the typical biblical or- enough for salvation. Such calling must
der that of repentance and faith rather than be accompanied by actions which cor-
the reverse (Acts 20:21)? When Jesus is de- respond to the teachings of the resur-
scribed as both Lord and Saviour is it not rected, Crucified One and to His exam-
always in that order (II Peter 1:11; 2:20; ple (Matthew 7:21-22; John 13:14-
3:2; 3:18; cf. also Acts 5:31, "a Prince and
a Saviour")? Does not God call on all men
everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30)? Would it
not be expected that a rebel approaching his
sovereign seeking forgiveness should be re-
quired to give up his rebellion as he casts
himself on his lord's mercy? If so, then it
may well be that this element of the mes-
“Why
Why do you call me
sage ought to have pre-eminence as we pre- 'Lord, Lord,' and not do
sent the truth to men. The gospel makes
demands as well as promises. what I tell you? “
(Luke 6:46).
Third, it is necessary that those who pro-
claim Jesus' Lordship should seek to live
out the implications of that Lordship in “You call me Teacher
their own lives. "So then, just as you re-
ceived Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live and Lord, and you are
in him" (Col. 2:6, N1V). For those who de-
clare the message, as well as for those who
right, for so I am.
hear it, the confession must become a living If I then, your Lord
reality: Jesus is Lord.
and Teacher, have wa-
More questions for us shed your feet, you also
• How can humans be convinced that the
ought to wash one ano-
crucified Jesus from Nazareth is the ther's feet.
Lord—that is, that in Him God acted in
the way that the Bible says and in the For I have given you an
•
way that the world needs?
How can people be convinced that He
example, that you also
is the Messiah of Israel and the Lord of all should do just as I have
people, who comes near to all people as
Friend and Brother? done to you. “ (John 1-
• How does the Lord of the cosmos be-
come our personal Lord in His church?
3:13-15).

Jesus is Lord, 5