Lord and Christ: Two Titles -One Supreme Authority
Notes
Transcript
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.
This tremendous declarative statement, spoken with thunderous clarity at the close of Peter’s Pentecost sermon, is not a gentle suggestion but a divine decree!!!
We are met with two titles:
Lord and Christ
I want to examine these briefly tonight with the Lord’s help.
Point 1: Jesus as Lord (Kyrios): Master and Sovereign
The word we translate “Lord” In the Greek is the word “Kyrios” means master, ruler, owner.
In early Classical Greek, while kurios was applied to the gods, there was no general belief of a Creator God.
The word, therefore, was used in a broad way of someone who had power or authority.
It was different in Eastern thought, however. To the Oriental mind, the gods were “the lords of reality.”
By Jesus’ day, Eastern kings, such as Herod the Great (c. 73–74 BC), Agrippa I (10 BC–44 AD), and Agrippa II (27–c. 100 AD) came to be called lord.
Most Roman emperors resisted such temptation, but others, such as Caligula (37–41 AD) and Nero (54–68) found it appealing. It was this very attitude of implied divinity that caused both Jews and Christians to refuse to use the term lord of the emperor.
Who Is Jesus? Jesus as Lord
The title Lord is so central to the life of the New Testament Christian community that the English word church derives from it. The Greek word for church is ekklesia, which is brought over into English in the word ecclesiastical. The English word church is similar in sound and form to other languages’ word for church: kirk in Scotland, and kirche (Key-er-sha) in Germany all derive from the same root. That source is the Greek word kuriache ( "Koo-ree-AH-keh") , which means “those who belong to the kurios.” Thus, church in its literal origin means “the people who belong to the Lord.”
It was a title reserved for kings, for emperors—and yes, even for deities.
When the early church declared Jesus as Kyrios, they were saying something revolutionary: Jesus is not just a prophet; He is not just a healer; He is GOD enthroned! Watson, J. D. "Doc". A Word for the Day: Key Words from the New Testament . AMG Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Who Is Jesus? Jesus as Lord
Christians were [eventually] considered enemies of the established order of Rome and guilty of treason for their refusal to subscribe to the cult of emperor worship. The test for loyalty to the empire was the public recitation of the words “Kaiser kurios” (“Caesar is lord”). Christians refused to recite this oath, even when it cost them their lives. When they were called on to utter it, they would substitute “Iesous (YAY-soos) ho Kurios” (“Jesus is Lord”). Christians were willing to pay their taxes, to give honor to Caesar where honor was due, to render to Caesar those things that were Caesar’s. However, the exalted title Lord belonged to Jesus alone, and Christians paid with their lives to maintain that assertion.
when used of Jesus in a confessional way, it without question refers to His divinity. The confession Kurios Iēsous (Lord Jesus) is rooted in the pre-Pauline Greek Christian community and is probably the oldest of all Christian creeds. Early Christians unarguably recognized Jesus as God, as Paul wrote to the Philippians: “And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (2:11). Even more significant, when Thomas saw the risen Jesus, he called Him, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28).
Watson, J. D. "Doc". A Word for the Day: Key Words from the New Testament . AMG Publishers. Kindle Edition.
This was a direct challenge to Caesar himself, who claimed to be lord over all. But Peter said: Not Caesar. Not Herod. Not the high priest. But JESUS is Lord!
The truth is, you cannot call Him “Lord” and then live as though you are your own master! You cannot sing “Jesus is Lord” on Sunday, and then bow before money, pleasure, or politics on Monday!
Oh, let the world be reminded: Jesus does not share His throne! He rules with all authority in heaven and on earth! (Matthew 28:18)
Point 2: Jesus as Messiah (Christos): The Anointed King and Savior
Now turn with me from the Greek world to the Hebrew hope—Messiah! Christos! This is not a last name—it is a divine calling! The Messiah was the one anointed by God, foretold by prophets, longed for by Israel through centuries of oppression.
Isaiah called Him Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Micah said He would be born in Bethlehem.
Zechariah said He would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey.
David, through the Psalms, called Him Lord even though He was his descendant!
And what did Jesus do? He fulfilled every prophecy! He healed the sick, raised the dead, bore our sins upon the cross, and walked out of the tomb three days later with the keys of death and hell in His hand!
The Messiah was not just a political deliverer—He was the Lamb of God, come to take away the sin of the world!
Point 3: The Intertwined Nature of His Authority
These were put together by Peter for a reason and he makes the claim that God hath made that same Jesus, ...both Lord and Christ
“God has made”
“God has made”
This doesn't suggest that Jesus became something He was not ontologically, but rather that God publicly declared and exalted Jesus in His resurrection and ascension. It's not about changing Jesus' nature, but declaring His status before all creation:
To call Jesus Messiah without calling Him Lord is to want salvation without submission.
To call Him Lord without trusting Him as Messiah is to fear Him without faith.
You cannot have one without the other!
His kingship is not of this world—it is divine, it is eternal, and it is absolute.
His salvation is not just from Roman rule—it is from sin, death, and the grave itself!
He is Lord BECAUSE He is the risen Messiah, and He is Messiah BECAUSE He is the sovereign Lord.
Hallelujah!
So HE IS BOTH LORD AND CHRIST.
The Lordship of Christ extends over every realm of life.
Christ’s Lordship Over Creation (Colossians 1:16)
All things were created through Him and for Him.
His authority over nature and history.
Christ’s Lordship Over the Church (Ephesians 5:23)
The Church belongs to Christ as His bride.
Our submission and obedience to His leadership.
Christ’s Lordship Over the Future (Revelation 11:15)
The ultimate reign of Christ.
Hope for believers in His eternal kingdom.
He has the power to do what He wants to do Because HE IS LORD
George Wood, tells about when I was a boy, my sister left our home in Pitcairn, Pennsylvania, and traveled to Central Bible College. She had a lifelong problem with her eyesight. She had 20 percent vision in one eye and 50 percent vision in the other, and wore thick, Coke-bottle glasses.
During a fall revival at Central Bible College, she had been praying at the altar and saw a vision of Jesus on the cross. She felt a voice, saying to her, "Doris, take off your glasses." In those years, if you wore glasses, you were prayed for on a regular basis—that you would be healed. My sister had had enough of that, so she said, "No."
Again she felt the voice say to her, "Doris, take off your glasses."
Again her response was, "No."
A third time, while she was having the vision of Jesus on the cross, she felt this voice say to her, "Doris, take off your glasses."
She sensed it might be the Lord, so she prayed, "Lord, if I take these glasses off, I don't want to ever put them on again."
The vision disappeared, she opened her eyes, and she had perfect sight. It's been 50 years. She has never put on a pair of glasses to this day.
Give Them Christ: Preaching His Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension and Return Christ’s Lordship and the Resurrection
What’s more, because Lord has become such a familiar, commonly used title for Jesus, we need to spell out its significance so that our hearers grasp the full force of it. In The Theology of the Resurrection (1933), Walter Kunneth, a theologian who was a leader of the Confessing Church in Germany that stood against Hitler, suggests that in the New Testament the title has a twofold meaning
Christ’s lordship and the resurrection. From the very beginning, they staked their belief in Christ’s lordship on his resurrection from the dead. That God had raised him was the surest proof he had been exalted and installed as Lord. As Peter declares in his Pentecost-day sermon, “God raised Jesus from the dead, and we are all witnesses of this. Now he is exalted to the place of highest honor in heaven, at God’s right hand.… So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!” (Acts 2:32–33, 36; see also 5:30–31).
Paul makes the same point throughout his letters. In Ephesians, for example, he extols God’s mighty power that “raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms” (Eph 1:20). Similarly in Philippians, citing what many believe was an early Christian hymn, he declares that “God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9–11).
Notice too, in his letter to the Romans, how he repeatedly makes the connection between Christ’s lordship and his resurrection:
He was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom 1:4)
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. (Rom 10:9)
In many different languages, Christians throughout the world today sing a simple little chorus: “He is Lord, He is Lord! He has risen from the dead, and he is Lord. Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord.” Whenever they do, whether they realize it or not, they are making the connection too. In our preaching we need to remind congregations of that. The exalted Lord is the Risen One. And he is exalted because he is risen. Take away his resurrection and you take away his lordship.
What’s more, because Lord has become such a familiar, commonly used title for Jesus, we need to spell out its significance so that our hearers grasp the full force of it. In The Theology of the Resurrection (1933), Walter Kunneth, a theologian who was a leader of the Confessing Church in Germany that stood against Hitler, suggests that in the New Testament the title has a twofold meaning.
First, Lord (Kurios) indicates “the unconditional claim of God in the face of the whole universe.”17 Such a claim, Kunneth explains, includes cosmic lordship. As the one through whom all things were made (Jn 1:3; Col 1:16) and are held together (Col 1:17), he has absolute power over all created things. Furthermore, it includes moral lordship over the conscience of every human being. He has the right to place moral demands on us. It also includes community lordship. He is the King of Israel (Jn 1:49) and the head of the church (Col 1:18) and exercises divine lordship over the community of believers.18 Lordship, therefore, extends over every sphere of creation, every knee and tongue, every height and depth. No cosmic, societal, communal or personal space stands outside of it. He is Lord of all, period. Consequently, as Abraham Kuyper declares, “There is not one square inch of the entire creation about which Jesus Christ does not cry out, ‘This is mine! This belongs to me!’ ”19
Second, lordship signifies, in addition to God’s unconditional claim, God’s absolute claim on us. He is Lord in all things and in every situation. That means there can be no other lords. He will tolerate no rivals. Thus all other forms of lordship are either derived (ordained and empowered by him) or presumptuous (the result of rebellion). As Kunneth puts it, “He who is Kyrios is absolute Lord. His lordship is valid for every sphere and all ages; nothing can evade its claim.”20
Jesus is God. Given the twofold significance of the title Lord, when transferred and conferred upon the Risen Jesus, it means that he now stands in the very place of God. What God does in exercising unconditional and absolute lordship, now Jesus does. The lordship he exercises is therefore a divine lordship, and he exercises such lordship because he is, in fact, divine. In Karl Barth’s words, “ ‘Jesus is the Lord’ means ‘Jesus is God.’ ‘The Lord is Jesus’ means ‘God is Jesus.’ ”21
He is fully divine—declared to be Son of God by his resurrection from the dead (Rom 1:4)—therefore his lordship is fully divine. It is therefore extensive—over all creation, all persons, all things, all times and places. But it is also intensive—as full and as perfect and as ultimate as God’s lordship itself. Christ’s lordship is God’s lordship, and God’s lordship is Christ’s. One is never different from or higher than the other.
In discussing whether Christians should eat food offered to idols, Paul reminds the Corinthians of this. Others worship many gods, he says, and acknowledge many lords. “But we know that there is only one God, the Father, who created everything, and we live for him. And there is only one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom God made everything and through whom we have been given life” (1 Cor 8:6).
Lordship and divinity, like two columns of a magnificent arch, are therefore inseparable and dependent on each other. And the keystone of the arch is the resurrection of Christ. Take that away and both columns—in fact, the entire structure—tumbles down. Notice how Paul brings all three together at the beginning of his letter to the Romans. The gospel he has been commissioned to preach, he says, is about God’s Son, Jesus, who was “shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 1:4).1
17 17 Walter Kunneth, The Theology of the Resurrection, trans. James Leitch (St. Louis, Mo.: Concordia Press, 1965), p. 131.
18 18 Ibid.
19 19 Quoted in Richard J. Mouw, Uncommon Decency (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), pp. 146–47.
20 20 Kunneth, Theology of the Resurrection, p. 131.
21 21 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 2/2, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1957), p. 248.
1 Seamands, S. (2012). Give Them Christ: Preaching His Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension and Return (pp. 109–112). IVP Books: An imprint of InterVarsity Press.
Implications of Christ’s lordship1
1 Seamands, S. (2012). Give Them Christ: Preaching His Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension and Return (p. 114). IVP Books: An imprint of InterVarsity Press.
Because he is Lord and God, he has the right to make claims on our personal lives.1
1 Seamands, S. (2012). Give Them Christ: Preaching His Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension and Return (p. 114). IVP Books: An imprint of InterVarsity Press.
Because Jesus is Lord and God, he is also Lord of the church. Every local congregation belongs to him. We don’t tell him what to do—he tells us! He is the One we worship, the One who sets our agenda, the One who stands in judgment over us. As he addressed the seven churches (Rev 2–3)—praising, encouraging, revealing, admonishing, warning, judging, calling, promising—so he addresses us. He is Lord of the church.1
1 Seamands, S. (2012). Give Them Christ: Preaching His Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension and Return (p. 114). IVP Books: An imprint of InterVarsity Press.
Jesus is also Lord over governments and states, over nations, societies, and cultures—including ours.1
1 Seamands, S. (2012). Give Them Christ: Preaching His Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension and Return (p. 114). IVP Books: An imprint of InterVarsity Press.
Governments, and especially tyrants—from Herod to Hitler—instinctively know this. They are always threatened by the resurrection because it means their greatest weapon, fear of death and destruction, is no longer omnipotent1
1 Seamands, S. (2012). Give Them Christ: Preaching His Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension and Return (p. 115). IVP Books: An imprint of InterVarsity Press.
According to Karl Barth,24 this is what is really behind all denials of the resurrection. Ultimately, they are denials of Christ’s lordship and attempts to evade his lordship over us. We stubbornly refuse to answer to anyone but ourselves. By denying his resurrection and therefore his lordship, we deny his right to reign over us1
24 24 Barth, Church Dogmatics 4/1, pp. 310–44.
1 Seamands, S. (2012). Give Them Christ: Preaching His Incarnation, Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension and Return (p. 115). IVP Books: An imprint of InterVarsity Press.
NotebookLM
He is Lord
He is Lord
Point 1: The Resurrection Proves His Lordship
From the outset, belief in Christ's lordship hinged on His resurrection, the definitive proof of His exaltation as Lord (Acts 2:32–33, 36; 5:30–31). Paul consistently connects Christ's lordship to His resurrection in his letters (Ephesians 1:20; Philippians 2:9-11; Romans 1:4; Romans 10:9). The hymn "He is Lord" underscores this connection, proclaiming Jesus as Lord because He has risen from the dead. Preaching should emphasize this link: the resurrected Christ is the exalted Lord. His resurrection validates His lordship.
Point 2: Understanding the Title "Lord"
The title "Lord" (Kurios) carries a two-fold meaning, signifying God's absolute claim and God's unconditional claim. Firstly, it represents God's absolute claim over everything. This encompasses:
Cosmic Lordship: As creator and sustainer, He holds power over all creation (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16, 17). Moral Lordship: He governs the conscience of every person, setting moral standards. Community Lordship: As King of Israel and head of the Church, He rules over believers (John 1:49; Colossians 1:18). Secondly, it signifies God's unconditional claim on us, demanding our allegiance in all aspects of life. He tolerates no rivals; any other lordship stems either from Him or rebellion against Him.
Point 3: The Divinity of Christ's Lordship
The title "Lord," when attributed to Jesus, signifies His position as God, exercising both unconditional and absolute lordship. His lordship is divine because He is divine, declared the Son of God through His resurrection (Romans 1:4). This lordship extends over all creation—all people, all things, always and everywhere. It is absolute, mirroring the fullness and perfection of God's own lordship. Christ's lordship and God's lordship are inseparable and equal; one is not above or different from the other (1 Corinthians 8:6). The resurrection is paramount; without it, Christ's divinity and lordship crumble. Paul emphasizes this in Romans, stating the gospel centers on Jesus, the Son of God, revealed as such by His resurrection, making Him Lord (Romans 1:4).
Point 4: Implications of Christ's Lordship
Christ's lordship as Lord and God grants Him the right to direct our lives. He is Lord of the Church, holding authority over every congregation. He dictates our actions, not the other way around (Revelation 2-3). His dominion extends over governments, nations, societies, and cultures. Rulers, especially tyrants, recognize this and fear the resurrection, as it dismantles their most potent weapon: fear of death. Denying the resurrection is ultimately a denial of Christ's lordship, a rejection of His authority over us.
Point 5: The Light That Overcomes Darkness
John emphasizes Jesus's eternal existence, linking Him to creation in John 1:1, mirroring Genesis 1:1. Jesus, the Word of God, embodies God's creative power, shaping all things into being. God's first act in creation involved dispelling darkness with light, signifying His power over it. John uses a shift in verb tense in John 1:5, moving from past to present tense to illustrate that the battle between light and darkness is ongoing. The darkness God addressed in creation persists, highlighting that though defeated, it's not eradicated. Darkness manifests in various forms throughout history, from slavery to systemic oppression, from addiction to violence, from natural disasters to global crises. Despite this, darkness can never triumph over the light of Christ. His light provides strength, peace, and joy, even amidst hardship, enabling us to act in seemingly irrational ways fueled by faith, hope, and love. Darkness cannot comprehend this light, nor can it steal it. What God provides in Christ is permanent and eternally accessible. Ultimately, darkness cannot overcome the light. The light of Christ will always prevail, granting us victory through Him.
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