When our children were in minor hockey, I remember on more than one occasion that one of the young hockey players scored a goal in the wrong net. What likely happened was confusion because of all the voices. In his own head was the voice, “we are here to score goals and I have a break away. My coach said I should skate hard and put the puck in the net.” On the bench, the coach is now yelling for all he is worth to try to stop the player from continuing and actually scoring for the other team, but the poor kid can’t hear the coach because parents from both teams are also yelling, very loud, but conflicting messages.
It kind of reminds me of the saying, “too many cooks spoil the broth.” When we are listening to too many voices, things don’t usually turn out well.
Do you ever feel like that in your life? One voice loudly tells you to enjoy life, another is saying work hard so you can get ahead, another is asking you to serve. The voice of your history pulls you in one direction. The voice of parents and friends in another and your own desires in another. Wouldn’t it be much easier if there was one voice directing our life? Wouldn’t it make much more sense to follow a single master, and not just any master, but the right one?
I Corinthians 8:6 says, “…there is but one God, the Father from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.” This verse invites us to live with Jesus as Lord, gives us reason for doing so, direction in doing so and power to do so.
In the ancient world, people believed that there were many gods. In his book “The Forgotten Ways,” Alan Hirsch writes about the experience of a pagan person going to the river to get a bucket of water. He describes how that person would have had to pass through the field and in so doing stop to offer a gift to the god of the field. As he came to the forest at the edge of the river, he would have had to stop by the large tree in which a particularly nasty and dangerous god was believed to live. Then before he drew water, he would have to apologize and make amends for disturbing the god of the water. People have always believed in a multitude of gods. Hirsch writes, “…The names of the gods had changed from Canaanite ones…to Greco-Roman ones…and from there to romantic love, consumerism and self-help religion in our day…”
When God introduced himself to Israel, he introduced himself in a way that was completely different. The primary confession of Israel, found in Deuteronomy 6:4 was a radical departure from what they had believed in the past and what those around them believed. Moses declared the confession of God’s people when he said, “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
With this confession life changed for Israel. They did not have to appease every god along the way. Instead, they had to give singular and complete allegiance to this One God who was God indeed. He alone was the creator of all of the universe. Hirsch says, “no longer could there be different gods for the different spheres of life…Rather, Yahweh is the One God who rules over every aspect of life and the world.”
When Jesus came to this earth, He identified Himself as that one God who had now come into the world to let people get to know the God they were worshipping. The people of that day, particularly in Gentile areas like the city of Corinth, continued to live in a context in which people believed in many gods. It was with just such a problem that Paul was dealing in I Corinthians 8 where Christians were struggling with whether or not they should eat meat sacrificed to idols. The argument in this chapter is that although there are people who believe in many different gods, yet for Christians, we know that there is only one God and that God is the Lord of everything. The Lordship of Father and Son are described in this passage when it says, “there is but one God, the Father… and …one Lord, Jesus Christ.
That Lordship is further described when it says that God is the one “from whom all things came.” God is the source of our life. We did not evolve from nothing, as much of the world wants to tell us. We did not pull ourselves up by our boot straps. God has put us on this earth. God has taken the initiative to make us His people. God sent Jesus. God has forgiven our sins. God has given us eternal life. God has put His Spirit within us. God has given us the church. God has created us with the abilities, talents, DNA and history that we have. Everything we are and everything we have comes from God.
Jesus is the one “through whom all things came.” Jesus was involved in the beginning of creation and it is by Him that all things were created. Jesus is the one who sacrificed His life so that our sins could be forgiven. Jesus is the one through whom we have been given eternal life. Jesus is the one who by His Spirit indwells all those who call upon His name.
To believe that there is one Lord means that we accept the universal sovereignty of God, that we accept that God is the source of all created things, that we accept Jesus as the one who has given us life. To believe that there is one Lord means that we acknowledge that God is over all and Jesus is the one in whom all things hold together.
Today it is believers who make this confession, but one day, Philippians 2:9 reminds us, “every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”
This is what it means to say that Jesus is Lord in a theological sense, but what does it mean to say that Jesus is Lord on Monday morning when we go to work and Tuesday evening when we watch TV and Saturday afternoon when we get together with family and Sunday morning when we go to church?
This verse helps us understand when it says, “there is but one God… for whom we live.” If Jesus is Lord, there is a singular focus in our life – we live for God.
Galatians 6:14 speaks about living for God when it says, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
When we were in Rome, we visited St. Peter’s Basilica. This huge church is built in the shape of a cross. The main meeting area runs east – west with the front facing east. In the church, there are also wings of the building which go north – south. If you would look at an architectural drawing, you would notice that the building itself is in the shape of a cross, which is called a cruciform plan. This is, of course, deliberately planned and not just convenient. It is a way of saying, this church is centered on the death of Jesus Christ.
To say that Jesus is Lord is to recognize that this fundamental shift has taken place in our world. If we accept that Jesus is Lord, we have done a radical about face. It is no longer the things of the world which are most dear to us. The death of Jesus and the fact that Jesus was willing to leave heaven in order to redeem us means that we are now engaged in a radically new way of thinking and living. We no longer identify first with the world, but first with Jesus.
Declaring that Jesus is Lord also means that we live a life of obedience. Jesus challenged those who were following Him with the words in Luke 6:46, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” Our life can never be only about what we think, but our life must be about what we think and the direction we take in life and the passion which consumes us and the obedience which marks our life.
Paul repeatedly calls for obedience from those who would declare Jesus as Lord. In Romans 13:12-14 we read, “let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”
In I Thessalonians 4:1-8 we read further, “Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.”
Alan Hirsch describes another way of looking at what it means that Jesus is Lord. He writes, “Christian belief does not consist in merely saying ‘There is One God.’ The devil knows that. Christians respond to God by faith in his deeds, trust in his power, hope in his promise, and passionate abandonment of self to do his will.”
These four things are an excellent way of thinking about what it means to believe that Jesus is Lord.
If we believe that Jesus is Lord, we will have faith in His deeds. We will be able to recognize that God is at work in our world. We will see all the ways in which God has been working His plan from the beginning. It will allow us to trust not only that David killed Goliath by the power of God, but that the power of God redeemed our ancestors from the grips of communism.
If we believe that Jesus is Lord, we will have “trust in His power.” This means that we will live by the understanding that God not only revealed His plan to the prophets of the Old Testament, but continues to speak to His people today and still leads them to do His work in the power of His Spirit.
If we believe that Jesus is Lord, we will have “hope in His promise.” We will be able to join the heroes of faith listed in the Hebrews 12 in recognizing that although we may not see the fulfillment of our desires or even the completion of God’s project, we will trust that God is at work and that God is building His church and that God will bring those whom He has chosen to eternal life.
If we believe that Jesus is Lord, we will live by the “passionate abandonment of self to do His will.” We will give our hearts and minds to be transformed by His mighty power so that we will obey His will not because our church says we must, but because it is our heart’s desire to do so and we will be willing like so many in the past to give up the pleasures of this world, the comforts of life and the distractions of wealth to serve Him in the way in which He is calling us to serve.
Included in such a life is a wholeness of living that does not make a separation between the secular and the sacred. So often our lives manifest a disconnect between what we do on Sunday and what we do on Monday. What does it mean that Jesus is Lord when your customer doesn’t pay his bills? What does it mean that Jesus is Lord when your brother in Christ comes into conflict with you? What does it mean that Jesus is Lord when you are on the volleyball court?
We have often wondered at the great variety of laws which God gave to the people of Israel when he established His covenant with them in the Old Testament. He gave laws about food and clothing and worship and relationships all in one chapter. This confuses us because we have separated life into compartments. But if we believe that Jesus is Lord, we will understand that it is quite logical to think about what it means to follow God in every aspect of our life – worship and shopping and work and play. Alan Hirsch says, “…there is no such thing as sacred and secular in biblical worldview. It can conceive of no part of the world that does not come under the claim of Yahweh’s lordship.”
To claim Jesus as Lord means that it is God “for whom we live.”
It is interesting that the text also speaks not only about God as the one “for whom we live,” but of Jesus as the one “through whom we live.” What does this add to our understanding that Jesus is Lord?
There is a profound concept in II Corinthians 4:5 where we read, “For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord...” And then in verse 10 Paul goes on to say, “We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.”
What symbol best displays who we are? In Regina, if you saw someone walking around the streets with a cut up watermelon on their head, that would not be strange at all. You would know immediately what that symbol meant – it would identify them as a Saskatchewan Rough Rider fan. What symbol defines who we are? Is it a throne, a crown, a hammer, a star or is it a cross? Unfortunately, for many people, a cross is simply a decoration. When we remember that it is a symbol of execution and that Jesus gave His life in this way, as Christians, we would have to say that a cross is the symbol that identifies who we are. When we say that, we are talking about more than just a decoration we wear and even more than that we are connected with Jesus. We are saying that all of who we are, our total being is connected intimately with the death of Jesus on the cross. To “carry around in our body the death of Jesus” means that the death of Jesus is the event which most clearly and powerfully defines who we are. It means that we are who we are not because of our good deeds and not because of our affiliation with this or any other church, but because of our utter dependence on Jesus. That is why the defining symbol for who we are is not a throne, because we are not on the throne. It is not a crown because we have not yet received a crown. It is not a hammer, which could symbolize our deeds. It is the cross. To carry around in our body the cross of Jesus Christ says that we are bought with a price. It means that we depend on the death of Jesus for our forgiveness. It means that we are willing to die for the one who died for us.
But, when we are willing to so closely identify our essential being with the death of Jesus, something powerful happens and that is that we find the life of Jesus revealed in our body. You cannot experience resurrection unless you die.
Another way of saying this is that as long as we are marked by the identity of our success or our allegiance to the church or our diligence in obedience, we will never discover the power of Jesus. It is when we are willing to die to our self and live our life in Jesus that we will discover the power of the life of Jesus in us. What is most impressive about Christians is not their own abilities and talents, but the power of Jesus in their lives. Roland Allen in the book, “The Compulsion of the Spirit” puts it this way “…What is necessary is faith. What is needed is the kind of faith which uniting a man to Christ, sets him on fire.”
A few years ago our car engine broke down. We were in BC, away from home at the time, so I had to inquire where I could take it to repair it and then I had to get it to the garage. I called a tow truck, but before it came I noticed that the garage we had been told to go to was just around the corner and down the street and it was all down hill. So I pushed the car and once it got rolling, it was quite easy to move it forward. However, it was very difficult to turn the steering wheel. Because it had power steering and the power steering does not operate if the engine is not on, I could barely get it around the corner. The next problem, because I was going down hill, was stopping it with brakes that also didn’t work well without the engine running.
It is not at all possible to attain eternal life apart from the death of Jesus and so the only way that we can get to heaven is by “carrying around in our bodies the death of Jesus.”
However, it is possible for people to turn their lives around by their own strength, but it is like trying to turn a car with power steering, without the engine on. When we “carry around in our bodies the death of Jesus” the power of Jesus’ resurrection becomes active in our life to enable us to experience the life of Jesus.
What we will discover when we live in that way is that this is not loss but gain. We talked earlier about the world being crucified to us and that sounds like loss. We talked just now about carrying around in our body the death of Jesus and that sounds like loss. But Paul found out and we will find out when we are identified with Jesus in this way that we will experience gain and not loss. Paul says in Philippians 3:8, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”
When we live with Jesus as Lord, we will discover life indeed. We will discover a power to live the Christian life that we have not experienced before. It is possible to live a safe and comfortable Christian life, but is that really life? If our whole life is about protecting ourselves from the dangers in the world, we will never find the power of God to transform the world around us. If our Christian life is about being comfortable in this life and knowing that we are OK for the life to come, we will settle into a life that is easy, but will we ever find the power of Jesus active in our lives? If we are following Jesus because it is easy for us to follow Jesus because our whole family and all our relatives and friends are following Jesus and it is nice and comfortable, we will exist, but will we really live? Will we ever discover the power of Jesus entering into our lives and using us to make a difference in the world around us?
The life we will discover when Jesus is Lord may involve sacrifices like selling all and giving to the poor or stepping out of our comfort zone and serving at Union Gospel Mission or volunteering at Café 75 or Inner City Youth Alive. But when Jesus is Lord, we will also find that this is not loss, but gain. We will rejoice to really know the life of Jesus.
Tim Kimmel says, “Trying to distill God down to an elementary equation, a network of nonthreatening friends, predictable behavior patterns, or an ‘insiders’ language is all it takes to remove the one thing we need to keep our spiritual passion alive – God Himself.”
When I Corinthians 8:6 says that Jesus is Lord these are the things which are implied when it says that we live through Him.
The book Why Christian Kids Rebel by Tim Kimmel examines some of the reasons why kids who go to church regularly rebel against what they are taught. The rebellion he speaks of happens on both sides as represented by the parable of the Prodigal son – the rebellion of the younger son who left and squandered everything and the rebellion of the older son who remained at home, but had no true relationship with the Father. The main reason he gives is that kids sometimes see in their parents a faith that is not real. He talks about compulsory, cliché, comfortable, cocoon and compromised Christianity. In each case children see in their parents something that is less than the real thing and less than a faith life which truly manifests the presence and power of God. The solution he offers is to live with Jesus as Lord and that seems to me to be a powerful motivation to have Jesus as Lord in our lives.
In the book, The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsh writes about why churches at some times in history have grown so incredibly. One of the main reasons he gives is that these churches follow Jesus as Lord. The world around them sees in them the power of God to such a degree that they take notice. That seems to me to be a powerful motivation to have Jesus as Lord in our lives.
God is the Lord of all. He is the Lord of our lives. Because He is, we are called to live for Him and to live through Him. Jesus is Lord and one day all will confess that He is Lord. Jesus is Lord! Is Jesus Lord? Romans 10:9 says, “if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord you will be saved.”
2 comments:
Greetings George Toews
Jesus is indeed Lord
In fact,
(Phil 2:11) And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus Christ is Lord
to the glory of the ONE GOD, the Father!
Why is Jesus Christ, Lord?
(Acts 2:32-36) This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. 33 Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.
34 For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself,
The Lord [YAHWEH] said unto my Lord [adoni],
Sit thou on my right hand, 35 Until I make thy foes thy footstool. 36 Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly,
that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified,
both Lord and Christ.
The ONE GOD hath made Jesus of Nazareth, "Lord" in fulfillment of Psalm 110.1!
Therefore, Jesus is the 2nd "Lord" mentioned in Psalm 110.1.
The Hebrew word used to denote his lordship, adoni;
is never ever used in ref. to Deity.
This Hebrew word rather, is used in regards to 'lords/masters' who are NOT Deity i.e. human lords (and occasionally angelic lords)
This is the case in all the 195 occurrences of the Hebrew word, adoni.
Therefore, both scripturally & hebraically,
the early church understood in confessing that "Jesus is Lord",
that Jesus was the one man whom the ONE GOD ALMIGHTY had ordained to be set at His right hand, and be made "Lord of all"
[Acts 10.36];
second only to Almighty GOD;
in fulfillment of Psalm 110.1,
the most quoted OT verse in the NT.
Therefore, Jesus is the one "Lord" of
1 Cor 8.6; next to the ONE GOD,
the Father, viz. YAHWEH.
Jesus Christ therefore,
is the Lord Messiah;
[Col 3.24, Luke 2.11]
he is NOT the LORD GOD.
So, Jesus being called "Lord" does not identify Jesus as the ONE GOD;
but rather most certainly distinguishes him from the ONE GOD, and identifies Jesus as
the one human lord
at YAHWEH's right hand.
On this wondrous subject, George,
I recommend this video:
The Human Jesus
Take a couple of hours to watch it; and prayerfully it will aid you in your quest for truth.
Let me close with this quote by James D.G. Dunn in regards to
1 Cor 8.6 & the title "Lord" :-
Unity & Diversity in the New Testament, SCM Press Ltd, 1977, page 53:
“Should we then say that Jesus was confessed as God from the earliest days in Hellenistic Christianity?
That would be to claim too much.
(1) The emergence of a confession of Jesus in terms of divinity was largely facilitated by the emergence of Psalm 110:1 from very early on (most clearly in Mark 12:36; Acts 2:34f.; I Cor. 15:25; Heb. 1:13).
The Lord says to my lord:
‘Sit at my right hand,
till I make your enemies your footstool’.
Its importance here lies in the double use of kyrios. The one is clearly Yahweh, but who is the other?
Clearly not Yahweh, but an exalted being whom the Psalmist calls kyrios.
(2) Paul calls Jesus kyrios, but he seems to have marked reservations about actually calling him ‘God.’ ...
Similarly he refrains from praying to Jesus. More typical of his attitude is that he prays to God through Christ
(Rom. 1:8; 7:25; II Cor. 1:20; Col. 3:17).
(3) ‘Jesus is Lord’ is only part of a fuller confession for Paul. For at the same time as he affirms ‘Jesus is Lord’, he also affirms ‘God is one’ (I Cor. 8:5-6; Eph. 4:5-6). Here Christianity shows itself as a developed form of Judaism, with its monotheistic confession as one of the most important parts of its Jewish inheritance; for in Judaism the most fundamental confession is
‘God is one.’ ‘There is only one God’
(Deut. 6:4). Hence also Rom. 3:30; Gal. 3:20, I Tim. 2:5 (cf. James 2:19). Within Palestine and the Jewish mission such an affirmation would have been unnecessary — Jews and Christians shared a belief in God’s oneness. But in the Gentile mission this Jewish presupposition within Christianity would have emerged into prominence, in face of the wider belief in ‘gods many.’
The point for us to note is that Paul can hail Jesus as Lord not in order to identify him with God, but rather, if anything, to distinguish him from the One God
(cf. particularly I Cor. 15:24-28; ...).”
Yours In Messiah
Adam Pastor
Jesus is Lord and He is God. A study of the gospel of John makes this very clear. John 1:1 - "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." The rest of John, particularly chapters 1-11 give an expanding revelation of this truth so that in John 8:58 Jesus makes a very clear declaration of Deity. "...before Abraham was born, I am." Although the trinity is a mystery, removing deity from Jesus is neither Biblically accurate nor does it solve the mystery.
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