‘Behold, the Lamb
of God’
ide
o amnos tou theou
College Study
75th teaching
5.19.2014
“Kurioser and
Kurioser: Reclaiming Jesus as Lord”
Review:
What was our subject last week? Why would it be important
to establish that Jesus was a historical figure and actually existed? Was Jesus a real person? How do you
know? I provided a few lines of evidence, such as the Pre-Pauline Creed. What
was that creed? What are some other lines of evidence? What is multiple
attestation? What are non-biblical sources? Can you name any non-biblical
authors who wrote about Jesus Christ? How do the deaths of the disciples prove
that Jesus existed? How does the Historical Jesus set Christianity apart from
some religions and philosophies? And we finished off by discussing how Jesus,
the real Man, not rules or worldviews, but Jesus is at the center of
Christianity and thus by extension, He ought to be at the center of your
Christianity.
End
of Review
So
tonight we’re closing out the first part of our study in Christology.
Christology, of course, is the study of Christ, or the science of Christ, if
you like. It’s all about getting to know and understand Jesus Christ, who He is
and what He is, as far as our human minds can grasp. It’s a massive
undertaking.
But we’re taking this huge undertaking
in parts. The first part of the study ends tonight and includes all six of the
previous Christology studies we’ve had so far. We just finished a review of
last week’s topic, but let’s have a brief recap of the past several weeks.
Beginning with our first topic in
Christology, an introduction to Christology where we discovered that the goal
of this study is to answer the question: Who is Jesus Christ? Just as biology
aims to understand life, geology to understand the earth and psychology to
understand minds, so Christ-ology aims to understand its subject: the Christ.
We find that this is an extremely relevant question. The first century peoples
wondered who Jesus really was, thinking Him to be a prophet or a wise man,
Elijah or whoever. In our day, just the same, confusion persists around the
identity of Jesus Christ. The solution to that confusion? A sure study of
Christ Himself.
Our second topic was “How we got
Christology” wherein we tracked a few milestones in the development of this
science in aiming to understand Jesus Christ. We looked at several councils in
the early church that convened to shut down bad theology, false ideas about
Jesus that simply were not accurate depictions of His true nature and person as
seen in the New Testament documents. We also considered the work of the
monk-philosopher Thomas Aquinas who was the first to develop a complete
systematic Christology. And we briefly considered that the Protestant
Reformation also played a key role in the development of Christology, specifically
by reclaiming and rediscovering what the Bible actually reveals about Jesus
Christ and the salvation He brings.
Our third topic brought us the
structure for the following studies up until tonight as we considered the
Tetralemma, a four-part problem surrounding the identity of Christ. The
Tetralemma suggests that Jesus was a Liar, a Lunatic, a Legend or the Lord. A
three-part form, the Trilemma, was made famous by Christian author C.S. Lewis.
In introducing the Tetralemma, we considered in the same study the accusations
of Jesus being either a Liar or a Lunatic, either a deceiver or a madman.
Our fourth study was called “Christ:
Fact or Fairy Tale?” and was based off of the accusation that Jesus is merely a
Legend. We considered some modern accusations, specifically in the form of
internet documentary Zeitgeist, and
then broke down the arguments by suggesting two broad reasons for rejecting
this accusation: that it is the wrong interpretive context to interpret Jesus
of Nazareth in pagan terms, and that this accusation of Christ as myth ignores
recent scholarship that believes He was real and historical. And then of course
we zoomed in on a specific accusation from Zeitgeist:
that Jesus was borrowed from Egyptian Horus myths.
Our fifth study, last week, we already
recapped. It was on the Historical Jesus.
But these five studies, including our
study topic, form the first part of our study in Christology. We’ll call this
first part “the identity of Christ”. This introductory section of Christology
helps us form a basis for the whole study by aiming to discover who Jesus
really was. What we’ve discovered is that Jesus Christ was a real Man, whose
life, death and resurrection are detailed in first century documents collected
into the New Testament, and that He is not a liar, not a lunatic and not a
legend.
Tonight’s study is entitled: “Kurioser
and Kurioser: Reclaiming Jesus as Lord”. Tonight we complete that statement
with the final part of the Tetralemma and the only logical outcome if the three
other possible answers are false: that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Turn to Philippians 2:1-11. This is an essential passage for Christology.
It gives us a rare glimpse into the wonder of the Incarnation.
“Therefore
if there is any encouragement in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any
fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being
likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing
be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each
esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his
own interests, but also for the interests of others.”
So the apostle Paul is giving us a
great statement to live by: be likeminded. Absolutely key for the Body of
Christ, His church, is that we share the same mind, that we come together with
one goal and that we have the same love for God and for each other. But he
anticipates in his writing something that can shattered likeminded-ness. What
is it?
Selfish ambition. Self-concern. Selfishness.
These things get in the way of the unity of the church of God. Love of Self
throws a wrench into the wheels of the church and stops the whole thing from
functioning like it should.
Shakespeare said “…Fling away
ambition: by that sin fell the angels…”
And Paul speaks out against this sin
of selfish ambition, a sin which caused the collapse of angelic society and the
fall of Lucifer. If it caused such great damage to angels, what havoc can it
wreak among the members of the Church?
We need to fight against it, to
purpose in moments of pride to turn our human natures from thinking about
ourselves to thinking about others and their interests. But Paul gives us an
example, the great Exemplar Himself, the example of the life of Christ Jesus.
What sort of attitude or mindset should we have?
v.5,
“Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of
God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God…”
I used to get hung up on this somewhat
confusing verse. What is he saying? He’s saying essentially that Jesus is God.
Jesus didn’t consider it robbery to be equal with God, in other words, Jesus
wasn’t stealing any title or position that didn’t belong to Him when He
considered Himself to be equal with God. He already was God! It was His title,
position and place. It was His own, not something He stole that wasn’t His.
So Paul is putting Jesus in His
rightful place as God. Now starting from there he’s about to talk about Jesus
humbling Himself. It’s a wonder that we can find it hard to humble ourselves when we aren’t even in the
starting position that Jesus started in: as God. Sure we can think of ourselves
and talk about ourselves and treat ourselves as little gods and goddesses, but
Jesus is God and the amazing thing is that He demonstrated humility going from
the highest possible place: Deity… to the lowest possible place: rejected,
humiliated, shamed, executed, crucified. This is the best possible example of
humility. There is literally no Self-denial like the self-denial of Jesus.
v.6,
“…who, being in the form of God, did not
consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation,
taking the form of a bondservant [that is, slave], and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a
man, He humbled Himself and 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, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth,
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of
God the Father.”
Let’s open up with a question: What is
it like to have a Master?
Since the ancient world even up to our
modern times, there has been slavery, slave trade, wherein people have been
considered the property of someone else. Throughout time, slaves have had few
rights and certain cultures throughout history were kinder or more severe to
slaves, and slavery itself was sometimes legal and sometimes illegal.
In Ancient Greece, slavery was an
established, accepted and integral part of society. In the Viking era, Norse
raiders enslaved weaker peoples who could not defend themselves. The Bible
itself depicts the children of Israel as living in cruel bondage in Egypt until
the Exodus. Even in ancient Israel itself, after the Exodus, slavery was
present and the Law of Moses gave commandments on how slaves ought to be
treated and dealt with. And of course, in our American history, we all know
about the slavery which took place.
In our minds, we picture slavery,
because of its use and abuse in history, as purely negative, as forced labor,
brutal beatings and the humiliation of human life. It can be difficult then to
come at a subject which suggests thoughts of servant-master or slave-lord
relationship to us. We already have a bleak picture of slavery in our minds,
but in approaching our subject tonight we need to reevaluate our thoughts in
order to appreciate the beauty and purity of this special slave-and-Lord
relationship in our relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ and what exactly it
is like to be a servant to this Master, to have Jesus as our Master.
Does it mean forced labor? Does it
mean cold and impersonal dealings? Does it mean brutal beatings? Does it mean
being treated as an object or like currency? I suggest to you: no. There is no
other way to be happy in Jesus, as the hymn says, than to Trust and Obey. Even
the word obey leaves a nasty flavor
in our mouths, but we’re reclaiming the idea of Jesus’ Lordship and all that it
includes, realizing that we live under the most benevolent and kind of all
Masters.
Jesus is unlike any human master. Service
to Him is a joy and humbling our pride under Him a privilege. Yet many
Christians may have lost this servant-and-Lord relationship with Jesus. Oh we
may call Him “Lord”, but do we live like it? Does His Lordship affect the way
we live our lives and arrive at decisions? Does Jesus our Master have a say in
the things we do and like and devote our time to?
What is it like to have a Master?
Let’s reclaim this depiction of Christ. Let’s experience what the early church
and the apostles experienced, such as when the adventurous Paul called himself
a bondservant of Jesus Christ.
Here are our points tonight:
1. A Balanced View of Jesus
2. The Kurios
3. Having a Master
1.
A Balanced View of Jesus
In movies, there’s hardly anything
more frustrating than one-dimensional characters. These are characters who are
flat, boring, uninspired or simply there to move the plot along, simply there
to fulfill a single purpose for the sake of the story. Not even the best actors
can redeem one-dimensional characters, at best turning them only into gimmicks.
These kind of characters might as well be props or plot devices. They’re
stereotypical and predictable and mundane for it.
But what makes them make for frustrating
or boring movie-viewing is the fact that we never get a complete idea of what
makes them tick. We don’t understand why they’re there, why they act the way
they do, why they do the things they do. We don’t get any motivation for them
at all. We simply get one small glimpse of them, enough to satisfy the plot,
and that’s all.
Now I think that many might be living
out a frustrating Christianity because their view of Jesus Christ is
one-dimensional, cliché, boring, uninspired, merely one sided, whatever. They
only have a polarized perspective on what Jesus is like and who He is.
Take for example the very softened,
Americanized, “comfortable” Jesus. He seems like the kind of guy who would help
you fix your car and come over to hang out for dinner. And that is entirely
built on merely one perspective of
Jesus as the Friend of sinners. And that’s a true view, though. It’s as true a
part of His personality as any one-dimensional character in a movie is still
showing a part of their personality, but it is still just one part.
The balance comes when we recognize
that the New Testament contains a balanced picture of Jesus as a Person who is
a man, yes, but also God; as the kind of guy who did come over to people’s houses to hang out for dinner, but also
as the kind of guy who did not tolerate the corruption and defilement of God’s
Temple, His Father’s House; the kind of guy who spoke to children but also the
kind of guy who rebuked religious authority; the man who walked on water,
healed the sick and performed miracles but also a man who wept and felt real
human emotion; Jesus, Friend of Sinners, but Jesus is also the Lord of All.
Jesus is the tender Shepherd, but also the Judge of the Living and the Dead.
Jesus, meek and mild, and Jesus, crucified Redeemer.
It is the biblical, balanced view that
sees Jesus as both Lamb of God and Lion of the tribe of Judah, both gentle and
ferocious, both tender and terrifying, both mild and powerful, both loving and
commanding. Thus the Lordship of Christ helps to provide a complete and
balanced view of Jesus. He is both Lover of your soul and Lord of your life, so don’t have any one-dimensional idea of
who Jesus is.
Consider that John the apostle didn’t
really get the full picture until his old age. Think about John, self-described
as the disciple who Jesus loved. Here was a man who walked with the historical
Jesus. John heard the many sermons. John was there when Jesus performed the
miracles. John saw the crucifixion. John himself peered into the empty tomb.
John saw the risen Christ.
But the picture was literally complete
when John saw the vision of Revelation 1.
The passage reads: “Then I turned to see
the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands,
and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with
a garment down to the feet, girded about the chest with a golden band. His head
and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of
fire; His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice
as the sound of many waters; He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His
mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun
shining in its strength.”
And what was John’s reaction? How did
a man who knew the living Christ, who saw the physical Jesus walk this earth,
react to this vision?
“And
when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead.”
Shocked! And we may be too. Where’s
Jesus in this picture out of Revelation chapter one? Where’s the fuzzy image of
the warm and tender Shepherd? Where’s the demonstration of His love in the
thorns on His brow or the nails in His hands? Where’s Jesus in the glowing
eyes, the face shining like the sun, the grasping of stars and the feet like
red-hot metal?
Ah, but He’s right here. This is just
the full picture. And certainly John knew this, but to see it was something else.
Jesus is both Friend and Master, both Lover
and Lord. He cares for your every tiny concern while governing all the
immeasurable forces of an infinite universe. And that is more astounding and so
much more satisfying than any paltry, misconceived one-dimensional view of
Jesus that can only frustrate.
So if you’re living a self-concerned,
self-directed, self-guided Christianity, then you’re ignoring the Lordship of
Jesus over your life, for what servant does not submit to their master? And if
so, then you’re living with a partial and imperfect picture of Jesus.
But we need the full picture.
2. The
Kurios
In Greek, the original language of the
New Testament and the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, the word kurios is the word which means lord. Strong’s concordance defines kurios as “a person exercising absolute
ownership rights, a lord”.
Kurios
is sometimes spelled kyrios, just so
you know and don’t get confused.
Kurios
has a variety of meanings and usages. For example, the Greek word kurios doesn’t always refer to God. Sometimes
it can simply be a polite way to address somebody, as in our English equivalent
of “sir”, such as in Matthew 27:63,
“Sir [kurios], we remember, while He was still alive, how that deceiver said, ‘After
three days I will rise’.”
In another context it can simply mean
the title of owner or master. Matthew
10:24, “A disciple is not above the
teacher, nor a slave above the master [kurios].”
Kurios
can even refer to husbands: “Thus Sarah
obeyed Abraham and called him master [kurios]” (1 Peter 3:6). Indeed, custom in Greece dictated that a woman could
not enter into a contract herself but arrangements would have to be made by her
guardian or kurios: her husband,
father, brother, uncle or other relative.
So kurios
has a wide range of meanings and can refer to a polite address, to owners of
property, to husbands or to legal guardians. But most importantly, kurios is a word that is commonly
applied to God in Scripture. Though it had a variety of secular uses, it was
also considered a God-word. For example, the historian Josephus mentioned that
Greek-speaking Jews in the early centuries refused to call the Roman Emperor kurios, since they reserved that word
for God.
In the Old Testament, the word “Lord”
is translated from the Hebrew word Adonai.
When Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, was
written, they used kurios as the
equivalent of Adonai. Thus kurios is a word meaning “Lord” which
encompasses the whole Bible, used of both the God of Israel in the Old
Testament and Jesus Christ in the New, linking them together and showing them
to be the same God.
Wikipedia counted for me, saying: “Kyrios appears about 740 times in the
New Testament, usually referring to Jesus.” Kurios
identifies Christ with the attributes and character of God as revealed in the
Old Testament. Kurios helps to
provide a single narrative, a single streamlined concept of the Lordship of the
Father and the Son through the Old
and New Testaments.
So when we call Jesus Lord, here are
the terms we need to think in, the original terms that the original language
conveyed.
Like the Greek-speaking Jews, this is
a term we reserve for God alone. When we call Jesus our Lord, we’re giving Him
a title and position that nothing else occupies. We’re giving Him a position of
authority above anyone else, including your parents, your pastor, your
president and your peers, even above your own person.
I challenge you to ask yourself then:
Who dictates your life? Who calls the shots? Who makes the decisions in your
life? Yourself? Then why call Him Lord? Jesus already spoke against this kind
of dualistic Christian, a fake faith that calls
Jesus Lord while living as if our Self is our Lord. He said in Luke 6:46, “But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?”
Jesus isn’t out for titles that have no practical effect. He doesn’t want a
position and a label. He needs to actually be the Lord of your life, the only
one, the One who calls the shots. This title of Lord is one we should reserve for Him alone.
Remember, the Christian is depicted as sheep.
Sheep need to be led. Sheep don’t do very well at thinking on their own or
dictating the course of their lives. They aren’t free agents, nor particularly
heroic or inspired or intuitive. They require shepherds. You and I require a
Shepherd, not a totalitarian tyrant, but a guide and a master and teacher.
3.
Having a Master
To return to our primary question,
“What is it like to have a Master?” we need to evaluate the effect of Christ’s
Lordship in our lives, that is, to what degree we both call Him Lord and
actually allow Him to be Lord.
Paul called himself a bond-slave of
Jesus Christ. Can you call yourself that? Too often we are too busy with
wanting to be popular, too busy with entertaining ourselves, too busy trying to
find Mr. or Mrs. Right, too concerned with school or work, or too worried about
tomorrow to be servants of God and too concerned with our own interests to be
servants of others.
This is really a simple study tonight:
Jesus is Lord therefore obey Him. The
simplest of equations: Jesus + Lord = obedience to Him.
I think we can add to our list of
modern cardinal sins, the main sins that confront our generation of Christians:
alongside indifference and unbelief we can add rebellion. What is rebellion? Simply overriding authority, usurping
authority, not submitting to the Lordship of Jesus Christ but rather doing
things our own way.
But look, if we’re going to call Jesus
Lord, if we’re going to use this overused religious phrase in our prayers to
address God, then we need to back it up with practical submission and obedience
to His authority. It is oxymoronic to live a Christian life that has no Christ
in it or to call ourselves servants of a God we do not serve. This strikes at
the very heart of our identity as disciples of Christ and at His identity as
our Lord.
I’m glad it comes to this. We’ve
muddled through some academic topics for the past few weeks but this is where
the rubber meets the road. We can talk about academic stuff all we want, about
historicity and manuscripts and apologetics, but when we come to talk about the
Lordship of Jesus Christ, we’re talking about a subject that hits home, a
subject that must be not only learned mentally but also lived out practically.
Matthew
7 contains a sad indictment on those who merely label Jesus as Lord but
don’t live like He is their master. We read in v.21, “Not everyone who says
to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the
will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have
we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many
wonders in Your name? And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you;
depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”
There’s a kind of parallel passage
that sheds a little more light on what these verses are illustrating. Turn over
to Matthew 25:31-46. In this very
similar section of Scripture, again we see those who call Jesus Lord not being
able to enter into the kingdom of heaven, though they cast out demons,
prophesied and worked and did wonders in His name.
(Read Matthew 25:31-46)
Notice that both groups, both the
sheep and the goats, called Jesus the King their Lord. But it was only the
sheep, the ones who showed love for the least of Jesus’ brethren, who entered
in. The goats, who also called Jesus
Lord but who did not show love or care for the interests of others, could not
enter in.
On the one hand, the sheep obeyed
their Lord; on the other hand, the goats did not obey and merely called Him
Lord, for aren’t the greatest commandments these: “Love the Lord your God…” and “Love
your neighbor as yourself” (Mark
12:30-31)?
Guys, we cannot obey the Lord and at
the same time not love our neighbor. It’s inescapable! You cannot call someone
Lord unless you obey them. He has commanded us to love, not degrade, not tear
down, not discourage, not abuse.
John
13:34, “A new command I give you:
Love one another. As I have loved
you, that you also love one another.”
1
John 4:7-11, “Beloved, let us love
one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and
knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the
love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son
into the world, that we might love through Him. In this is love, not that we
loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our
sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
This is the commandment of our Lord.
There are so many peripheral things we could talk about in seeking to obey the
Lord. We could list out: don’t do drugs, don’t commit fornication, don’t lie or
cheat, don’t remove yourself from fellowship… but all these things fall under
one blanket statement, one command of two: Love our neighbor as ourselves.
We are under a moral obligation to
love each other as Christ has loved us. But realize, this is no cold and
mindless duty we have. How could we not love others seeing as how the King of
Love died out of love for us? This is what it is like to have a Master. Not a
cruel taskmaster who forces us into a deprived life of slavery, but the majesty
of the Master who died for His slaves, the Lord who loved us before we loved
Him, who loved us at our worst and who died for us while we were yet sinners.
And what it is like to call Him our Master is to love your neighbor.
Speak kindly. Encourage rather than
discourage. Celebrate the differences in our personalities rather than frown
upon how others are different from our own persons. Build up and equip others
by speaking the Word of God to them. Be available to others. Be open with
others, not hiding your true self from them. Help others to learn from your
mistakes.
We aren’t a group of leaderless
people, though it may feel at times as if we’re wandering aimlessly through
life. But here is the solution of the Tetralemma! He is Lord. We have our Lord,
our kurios. We simply need to reclaim
His Lordship over us and submit ourselves to Him and obey Him. May Jesus Christ
become more the Lord of our lives:
Kurioser and Kurioser.
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