What Does It Mean to Call Jesus Lord

A commentator noted that I was not all that helpful in my post yesterday, since I hadn’t made any effort to say just what it would mean to have Jesus as the center of a doctrine, nor what it means to call Jesus Lord. In response, I obviously had to create a new, more ambitious title!

As a first note, in moving forward, I think it would be helpful to read an earlier post that I wrote about community: Philippians 2:1-11, Romans 12, and the Nature of Christian Community. The question this raises goes beyond what was asked to look at just why we care.

In other words, let’s say I find a doctrine “not Christian.” What does that mean for my actions? For the most part, it makes a difference largely to whether I keep it in my personal theology. In dealing with others, the question is one of what we should debate.

As an example, I am quite willing to discuss creation and evolution as a matter of Christian doctrine. What do we believe about God as creator that is an essential part of our Christian theology? Here I would distinguish something that might make that doctrine not Christian at all, as in a believe in a creator other than God. This might take some mind twisting work with definitions to accomplish, since the word “God” tends to follow the concept “creator” around in dialog, but something that drastic would result in me saying, “That’s not a Christian doctrine.”

Let me note carefully that I would not be saying the person holding it was not a good person. That’s a whole other discussion tied up with quite different theological questions.

What is more likely is that I will identify differences as not relevant to whether the doctrine is Christian or not. In the case of creation, while the issue of whether there was a real Adam is significant (though often solved in various ways), the issue of the length of a Genesis day, or whether the length is even relevant, is not. I can still believe in Jesus while not believing in 24 hour days.

This doesn’t mean that there cannot be debates about which view of the details is correct. It simply puts those issues on a lower level.

To get past this point and use “Jesus is Lord” as a testing point for an application of doctrine requires a great deal more thinking. I’m not going to provide any of my own answers to this today, but I will simply warn you of this: You are unlikely to be satisfied, at least if you like simple and clear answers that let you classify worship experiences and activities as “of the Holy Spirit” or “not of the Holy Spirit.” Part of my view of what “Jesus is Lord” means tends to deny such simple answers. I’ll discuss that in a future post.

The reason I referenced my article on community is this: I believe the church is to be a community, and so one way of phrasing the test would be: Does this tend to build community, and is it the right kind of community?

This past Tuesday night we ended up discussing this same issue, referring back to Isaiah 42:6:

I, YHWH, have called you in righteousness.
I have taken you by the hand and kept you.
I have placed you as a covenant to people,
a light to the nations.

Now this was written to the Jews when they were in exile in Babylon, and was part of promising their return. I believe, however, that it says something about how God works in general. God blesses, not so that the person(s) blessed can be special, but rather so that they can be a blessing. The blessing is not meant to stop here, wherever “here” may be.

Christians often think this is a New Testament concept, but it is very old. You can find it in Genesis 12:2, said to Abraham. The New Testament is remarkable in its lack of newness. This is an established way in which God works.

So this points to the type of community the church is to be. We form and strengthen community so that we can bless those who are outside. We are not the community of those who are more right, or more in favor with God, or better behaved. We are a community of God’s grace, and we’re not even special as recipients of God’s grace, we are rather sharers of God’s grace. If you want to be special, superior to others, God’s kingdom is likely not your best place.

I will expand on this later in a future post. Right now, let me simply say that announcing that “Jesus is Lord,” so that you can immediately afterward gloat about your superiority to someone else, you likely have not truly proclaimed Jesus as truly Lord.