><>JESUS THE CHRIST><>All praise and honor be to God.#9
The title "Lord" in the Christological sense must have been given to Jesus before the church moved out into the Gentile world. The evidence for this is the invocation "Maranatha" (KJV) or "O Lord, come!" <1 Cor. 16:22>. The apostle Paul, writing to a Gentile church in the Greek-speaking world, assumed that its members were familiar with this Aramaic phrase. It was an early Christian title for Jesus which was taken over untranslated. It bears witness to the fact that from the earliest days of the church, the one who had been exalted as Lord was expected to return as Lord.
Another key New Testament text that shows the sense in which Jesus was acknowledged as Lord is <Philippians 2:5-11>. In these verses Paul may be quoting an early confession of faith. If so, he endorsed it and made it his own. This passage tells how Jesus did not regard equality with God as something which he should exploit to his own advantage. Instead, He humbled himself to become a man, displaying "the form of God" in "the form of a servant." He became "obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,... and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" <Phil. 2:8-11>.
The "name which is above every name" is probably the title Lord, in the highest sense that it can bear. The words echo <Isaiah 45:23>, where the God of Israel swears, "To Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall take an oath [or, make confession]." In the Old Testament passage the God of Israel denies to any other being the right to receive the worship which belongs to Him alone. But in the passage from Philippians He readily shares that worship with the humiliated and exalted Jesus. More than that, He shares His own name with him. When human beings honor Jesus as Lord, God is glorified.
God-- If Jesus is called Lord in this supreme sense, it is not surprising that He occasionally is called God in the New Testament. Thomas, convinced that the risen Christ stood before him, abandoned his doubts with the confession, "My Lord and my God!" <John 20:28>.
But the classic text is <John 1:1>. John declared that the Word existed not only "in the beginning," where He was "with God," but also actually "was God." This is the Word that became incarnate as real man in Jesus Christ, without ceasing to be what He had been from eternity. The Word was God in the sense that the Father shared with Him the fullness of His own nature. The Father remained in a technical phrase of traditional theology, "the fountain of deity." But from that fountain the Son drew in unlimited measure.
The Bible thus presents Christ as altogether God and altogether man-- the perfect mediator between God and mankind because He partakes fully of the nature of both.
The Work of Christ-- The work of Christ has often been stated in relation to His threefold office as prophet, priest, and king. As prophet, He is the perfect spokesman of God to the world, fully revealing God's character and will. As priest, Jesus has offered to God by His death a sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world. Now, on the basis of that sacrifice, He exercises a ministry of intercession on behalf of His people. As king, He is "the ruler over the kings of the earth" <Rev. 1:5>-- the one to whose rule the whole world is subject.
The work of Jesus can be discussed in terms of past, present, and future.
The finished work of Christ-- By the "finished" work of Christ is meant the work of atonement or redemption for the human race which He completed by His death on the cross. This work is so perfect in itself that it requires neither repetition nor addition. Because of this work, He is called "Savior of the world" <1 John 4:14> and "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" <John 1:29>.
In the Bible sin is viewed in several ways: as an offense against God, which requires a pardon; as defilement, which requires cleansing; as slavery, which cries out for emancipation; as a debt, which must be canceled; as defeat, which must be reversed by victory; and as estrangement, which must be set right by reconciliation. However sin is viewed, it is through the work of Christ that the remedy is provided. He has procured the pardon, the cleansing the emancipation, the cancellation, the victory, and the reconciliation.
(from Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary)
To be continued. |
