"Jesus is Lord" means Jesus is NOT God
In Romans 10:9 the Apostle Paul states that part of salvation depends on a person confessing with their mouth that “Jesus is Lord”, or the “Lord Jesus”. We will come back to the translation issue later. This episode aims to show that, contrary to traditional Christianity’s belief, to claim that “Jesus is Lord” (or the “Lord Jesus”) is NOT a claim that “Jesus is God”. Rather, when the Apostle Paul, like other writers of the New Testament, uses the title “Lord” for Jesus, he differentiates Jesus from God.
In One God Report podcast #3 called “LORD or Lord: Does Calling Jesus Lord mean that Jesus is God?” we discussed the nuances and confusion concerning the title, “Lord.” Hebrew has two different words that have been translated into the same English word “Lord” (and the same Greek word kyrios). First, there is God’s personal name YHVH יהוה, usually translated into English in the Tanach with all capital letters (LORD). And then there is an entirely different Hebrew word adon אדון, which is an honorific title like the English words “sir” or “master”, but also translated often into English as “L/lord”. The adon Lord is correctly applied in the Bible to many people who are not God. Abraham, Saul, Ahab, David, Solomon, Pilate – to name a few – each is “L/lord” in the Bible.
What
the deity of Christ interpretation has done to the declaration “Jesus is Lord” is
confuse these two very different “Lords”: Paul is not saying that Jesus is YHVH,
the LORD God, but that Jesus is Adon, the Lord Messiah (cf. Psa. 110:1
and 1 Sam. 25:26 for good examples of the two different “Lords”).
God,
God the Father, God our Father, the Father
Before
we look at the title “the Lord Jesus”, a couple comments about the titles “God”
and “the Father”, since “God” and “Father” are titles which are often seen in the
same sentence with the “Lord Jesus”.
I suggest
that Trinitarians have misunderstood the titles “God the Father” and “God our
Father” and simply “the Father.” These titles
of God as Father, so prevalent in the New Testament, are meant to emphasize
that God - all of God - is our Father. Trinitarian-deity-of-Christ interpreters
on the other hand, have misconstrued the title “Father” associated with “God” to
mean just one person of a multi-person god. To the Trinitarian-deity-of-Christ
believer, the Father is not the only God, the Father is only one person with
others who are also God.
But I
believe an honest reading of the Bible shows that “Father” is simply another title
for God, all of God and not just one person of three who are God. And,
that when we see “God” or “Father” appearing in verses in the New Testament
with “Lord Jesus Christ” - the “Lord Jesus Christ” is being differentiated from
God, not declared to be God. The Lord Jesus Christ is not on the “God side” of the
equation. He is someone different from God. “The Lord Jesus Christ” is the
human person who has a God, who was raised from the dead and exalted by His
God, the Father.
Lord
in the Epistles of Paul
So let’s
get back to the title “Lord”. Is the title “Lord” used of Jesus to mean Jesus
is God, or is it used of Jesus as someone who is distinct from God?
I will
focus this study on the Apostle Paul’s epistles. Here is what Bible scholar
James Dunn wrote about how Paul uses the title “Lord” in Paul’s epistles: “kyrios
(Lord) is not so much a way of identifying Jesus with God, but if anything more
of a way of distinguishing Jesus from God.”[1]
So the
question is, who is right? Is the title “Lord” applied to Jesus in order to equate Jesus
with God, or is the title “Lord” applied to Jesus as someone who is distinct
from God? If we read through the Apostle Paul’s epistles, I think we can see
that for Paul, God is the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ is someone who is
distinct from God.
The Apostle Paul applies the title “Lord” to Jesus some 230 times in his
epistles. Paul uses the title “Lord” exclusively for Jesus, and never
for the Father (see footnote #1 for one exception), and never for the spirit. To Paul, God is the Father and
the Father is God, the only God (1 Cor. 8:6, Eph. 4:6, 1 Tim. 2:5). The few times that the Apostle Paul uses the
title Lord for God in his epistles is when he directly quotes an Old Testament
passage that contains the personal name of the God of Israel (YHVH). But this
is not so often, probably less than 10 times.[2]
When Paul himself wrote, he never used the title Lord for God.
Agreement
with Peter, Acts 2:22 and 2:36
We will
look at a few examples from Paul’s letters, but let’s start by noting Paul’s agreement
with Peter who also uses the title “Lord” for Jesus, not to claim that Jesus is YHVH,
the LORD God, but in describing Jesus as Lord Messiah, someone distinct from
God.
The Apostle
Peter declared to his fellow Israelites on the first Pentecost/Shavuot after
Jesus was raised from the dead, that Jesus of Nazareth was a man through whom
God worked (Acts 2:22), and then Peter said, in Acts 2:36, “Let all the house
of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord
and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Does it
make sense to understand “Lord” in Peter’s declaration as YHVH, the LORD God.
God made the man Jesus (Acts 2:22) the LORD God. That’s silly. The LORD God, YHVH,
the God of Israel, does not have a God who made him LORD. Rather, Peter knew
that God, a single individual distinct from Jesus, made the man Jesus, Lord and
Messiah.
Jesus
as Lord in Paul’s Epistles: Romans 10:9
To Paul’s
epistles. We jump to Romans 10:9 to see here, too, that the Lord Jesus is
someone different than God:
Romans
10:9, “because, 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” (1 Cor. 12:3 is the only other place in the New Testament that is
sometimes translated “Jesus is Lord. See note #3 below).
Let’s
first note that there is a translation issue in this verse. The New Testament
Greek does not have the word “is” of the “Jesus is Lord” translation (κύριον Ἰησοῦν). One can see this by
comparing other English translations. For example, NAS “if you confess with
your mouth Jesus as Lord” (note “as” in italics).
Actually,
the more literal translations (Young’s Literal, Smith’s Literal) and Catholic
translations are probably best here: “if you confess with your mouth the Lord
Jesus.” Not inserting “is” into the phrase weakens the Trinitarian-deity-of-Christ
interpretation because they want to take it as a declaration that Jesus IS God.[3]
Trinitarian-deity-of-Christ
believers think this verse means that one has to declare that Jesus is God
to be saved. But beyond the translation issue, the deity-of-Christ understanding
is a corruption, something the verse does not say. In this verse Jesus is a
Lord who has a God, the God who raised him from the dead. Like Peter’s
declaration in Acts 2:36, Romans 10:9 makes no sense if “Lord” here means YHVH
God. It would in fact be a blasphemous to insist that YHVH has a God who raised
YHVH from the dead.
As
another example from Romans where Paul uses the title Lord for Jesus that
distinguishes Jesus from God, Romans 15:6, “that together you may with one
voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Again,
the Lord Jesus Christ has a God. The Lord Jesus is distinct from His God. The
God of the Lord Jesus is also known as the Father.
1
Corinthians 8:6, One God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ
I’ve come
back to this issue of “Is Jesus God because he is Lord” because I kept hearing
and seeing deity-of-Christ scholars and apologists claim that in 1 Corinthians
8:6, Paul was “inserting Jesus into the Shema” of Deuteronomy 6:4.
A
personal note. The first time I read 1 Corinthians 8:6 without my Trinitarian-deity-of-Christ
glasses on, I said to myself. “That’s it. The Trinity is dead. This verse was
and is a sword that pierces the heart of the three-headed Trinity dragon. Paul
states that for Christians “the one God is the Father.” But in Trinitarian-deity-of-Christ
theology the one God is not the Father - the one God is the Trinity. How come I had never paid attention to Paul’s
declaration that for us Christians “the one God is the Father”?
Like
they say, one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist. I shook my head
in wonder and disbelief, and still shake my head, when deity-of-Christ theologians
claim that 1 Corinthians 8:6 is evidence that – you guessed it, the Father is not
the one God, and that Paul is saying that there are two who are God! What? It
says in black and white: “as for us there is one God, the Father.”
I think
it is because this verse is so non-trinitarian, so non-deity of
Christ, that Trinitarian-deity-of-Christ apologists have to cover it with all
kinds of speculative smoke screens. They
play on the ambiguity of the title “Lord” and talk about how Paul is “splitting
the Shema”, or “inserting Jesus into the Shema”, or “including Jesus in the
divine identity” or “identifying Jesus as the Lord whom the Shema affirms to be
one”.[4]
1 Corinthians 8:6, “yet for us there is one God, the
Father, from whom are all things and we are for him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through
whom are all things and we are through him.”
Even
though the verse states explicitly: “as for us, there is one God, the Father” the
deity-of-Christ folks twist and turn Paul in this verse to say that there are two
who are God, and that Jesus is literally YHVH the LORD of Deuteronomy 6:4.
Among
other ways, one way we can see that Paul is not saying that Jesus is the LORD Yahweh
in 1 Cor. 8:6 is to see how Paul differentiates between God and the Lord Jesus
in the over 200 times that Paul calls Jesus Lord. That would be good biblical exegesis
– “how does Paul use the title Lord for Jesus”. We are doing that a bit in this
podcast.
And even
if we just look at a couple verses from a chapter or two next to from 1 Corinthians
8 where Paul uses the title “Lord” for Jesus, we can see if it makes sense if Paul
is calling Jesus LORD YHVH God.
1
Corinthians 6:14, “And God raised the Lord and will also raise us
up by his power.”
“God raised
the LORD YHVH” What? LORD YHVH was dead and a God distinct from LORD YHVH
raised him from the dead? 1 Cor. 6:14, like literally hundreds of other verses,
help us to see that Paul uses the title Lord for Jesus not to equate him with
God, but differentiating him from God. According to Paul, the one and only God
doesn’t die (1 Tim. 1:17, 6:16) and does not need to be raised from the dead by
a different God.
In 1
Cor. 6:14, not many verses from 1 Cor. 8:6, the Lord Jesus is not God. The Lord
Jesus died, and God, someone other than the Lord Jesus, raised the Lord Jesus
from the dead.
And
then we look one chapter after 1 Corinthians 8, to 1 Corinthians 9.
1
Corinthians 9:5, “Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as
do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?”
Is shouldn’t
be so difficult for deity-of-Christ expositors to look eleven verses beyond 1
Corinthians 8:6 to see that Paul is not calling Jesus LORD YHVH when he calls
Jesus, “Lord”. Who are LORD YHVH’s brothers?
A
couple other comments about 1 Cor. 8:6. Let me read it again: “yet for us there
is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we are
for him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things
and we are through him.”
Deity
of Christ believers think Paul is talking about the Genesis creation here. He
isn’t. In the context of having a certain knowledge that may allow eating meat
offered to idols or not, Paul is talking about a new creation that God brings
about through the man Jesus. Especially a new situation and new life for people.
As the Apostle Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “if anyone is in Christ - new
creation! The old has passed away; behold, the new has come!” The “all” that
come through Jesus are especially humans that are made new or renewed through Jesus.
And
then, when Trinitarian-deity-of-Christ theologians talk about 1 Cor. 8:6, they
seem to forget that they are Trinitarians, and not Binitarians (who believe
that “God is two”). According to Trinitarians, there are supposedly three who
are the one God, three who are YHVH. Why would Paul leave out the third person
in this supposed presentation of the one God?
No one in
the New Testament ever uses the title “the Lord Father” or “the Lord Spirit”. Why
would neither Paul nor anyone else in the New Testament ever refer to “the Lord
Father” or “the Lord
Spirit”?
The answer is pretty easy. It’s because when Paul calls Jesus the Lord Jesus
Christ, he means the Lord Messiah. He is not calling Jesus the LORD God.
Jesus
as Lord: 2 Corinthians 1:3 and Ephesians 1:17
A few
more examples to illustrate that when Paul uses the
title “Lord” for Jesus, he in no way intends to mean that Jesus is God. Rather,
Paul is declaring that Jesus is the Lord Messiah, someone who is distinct from
God.
2 Cor.
1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of mercies and God of all comfort…” In every single one of Paul’s epistolary
greetings, he differentiates between God and Jesus. Sometimes specifically
saying that God is the God of the Lord Jesus. Anyone who has a God is not God.
Eph
1:17, “(pray) that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father
of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge
of him…” Again, “the God of our Lord Jesus.” Is Jesus’ God our God? Yes. Jesus’
God is not different than our God, otherwise there would be two gods.
Agreement
with other New Testament Authors: James, Peter, Jude and John
And
then, in agreement with Paul, a few other examples of biblical authors who differentiate
between God – all of God, God entire - and the Lord Jesus the Messiah:
James
1:1, “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ...”
Can the
reader not see that to James, God was someone other than the Lord
Jesus Christ? The Lord Jesus Christ is not God.
2 Peter
1:2 May grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and
of Jesus our Lord.
Peter differentiates
between God and Jesus our Lord.
Jude
1:25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord,
be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and
forever. Amen.
Such
New Testament statements are typical. We come to God through our Lord Jesus.
As with
the Apostle Paul, in the Gospel of John, the title “Lord” ku,rioj is never used of God (Yahweh) except in a few places
where there is a direct quotation from an Old Testament passage containing YHVH
(John 1:23=Isa. 40:3, 12:13=Psa. 118:26, 12:38=Isa. 53:1).
The
other approximately 40 occurrences of “Lord” in John’s Gospel do not
refer to God, but are an honorific title for Jesus used as one would respectfully
address a superior. Note some examples:
The
healed blind man’s words to Jesus before he knew that Jesus was the one who
healed him:
"And
who is he, Lord, that I may believe in Him?" (John 9:36).
The healed
blind man would not call an man who he doesn’t know “LORD God”.
Mary
Magdalene’s report to the apostles, when she thought Jesus was still dead:
"They
have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have
laid him" (John 20:2, 13).
Summary
and Challenge
Peter,
James, Jude and the Gospel of John are examples of New Testament authors who agree
with the Apostle Paul. The human person Jesus of Nazareth is Lord not because
he is God, but because God has placed him in authority above everyone else, including
above angels (Eph. 1:19-21, Col. 1:15-18). “Jesus is Lord” is a declaration
that the man Jesus is the Lord Messiah, the one designated by God to sit at God’s
right hand, high above all rule and authority, not only in this age but also in
the age to come (Eph. 1:21).
Check
it for yourself. Read Paul’s letters. Note the Scriptures where Paul refers to
both God and the Lord Jesus. See if you think Paul is calling Jesus Lord in
order to equate Jesus with God, or does the title Lord differentiate Jesus from
God?
If you believe
Paul is calling Jesus the Lord to declare that Jesus is God in 1 Corinthians
8:6, may I ask who are the brothers of the Lord God that Paul referred to just
a few verses later 1 Corinthians 9:5?
“As for
us, there is one God, the Father”.
#JesusisLord,
#deityofchrist, #richardbauckham, #1Corinthians8:6, #Romans10:9, #Jesusinshema,
#billschlegel, #onegodreport
[1] Dunn,
James. The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998,
p. 254. See also Zarley, Kermit. The Restitution: Biblical Proof that Jesus
is Not God. 2023, p. 394. The
[2] E.g.,
Rom. 9:29, 10:13; 1 Cor. 1:31, 10:26; 2 Cor. 10:17
[3] The translation
issue is exactly the same for 1 Cor. 12:3, the only other time in the New Testament
that is typically translated “Jesus is Lord”.
The phrase is simply κύριος Ἰησοῦς,
which could be translated simply as “Lord Jesus” and not necessarily as “Jesus is
Lord”.
[4] Some
of the “famous” names associated with these claims are Richard Bauckham, N.T.
Wright and Gordon Fee. It is easy to find such quotes from these folks on the internet,
like here: https://www.postost.net/2015/11/jesus-included-divine-identity-1-corinthians-86
and here: https://seminaryramblings.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/the-shema-and-1-cor-86/
Comments
“Lord” is kyrios in the Greek in Romans 10:9. In the context Paul draws from Joel 2:32 in Romans 10:13 (ESV) For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord [kyrios] will be saved.” Paul is quoting Joel 2:32 while referencing Jesus Christ, but “Lord” in Joel 2:32 is YHWH, thus indicating that Jesus is YHWH.
Joel 2:32 (ESV) And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD [YHWH] shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls.
Thanks for the comment.
To me, there are lots of problems with claiming that a few "Yahweh texts" applied to Jesus or his ministry were used by authors of the NT to show that Jesus is literally "YHVH in flesh".
The problems are numerous enough and significant enough that I won't cover them all in this response. I'll hope to put together a podcast/article sometime soon - so "stay tuned".
In the meantime, here are a couple things:
The Hebraic understanding of agency easily explains such passages. The Messiah was understood to come as Yahweh’s representative IN THE NAME of Yahweh (Psa. 118:26; Matt. 21:9, 23:39; John 5:42, 10:45). Jesus said his works were not his own, but that he did works “in my Father’s name” (John 10:25, cf. Acts 2:22). That is, Jesus did miracles according to the will, authority and power given to him by God, whom Jesus calls the Father. The Father’s personal name, as shown in the Tanach, is Yahweh (Deut. 32:6, Isa. 64:8, Mal. 1:6).
The Bible says YHVH is one. If the Father is YHVH, and Jesus is YHVH, how many YHVH's are there?
It seems to me that such an "exegetical attempt" is really kind of a clever, back-door attempt to find some biblical evidence that YHVH is more than one, and that "Jesus is YHVH God".
The efforts of modern scholars by more circuitous ways like the “Yahweh texts” to suggest that the apostles quoted the Old Testament as a way to declare the deity of Christ, is evidence that the New Testament authors DO NOT appeal to the Old Testament for evidence of the deity of Christ.
If the New Testament authors did make an appeal to the Old Testament to show the deity of Christ, we could simply open the Bible to explicit statements declaring “the Old Testament declared that Messiah is God YHVH in a human nature, indeed, one member of a tri-personal godhead, incarnate.”
In Romans 10:13 where Paul quotes a “Yahweh text”, Joel 2:32. It is clear in the context that Paul is not blurring the distinction between Yahweh and Jesus, or making Jesus Yahweh. Four verses earlier, in Romans 10:9, Paul stated that God raised Jesus from the dead. To Paul, in the Book of Romans, God is “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15:6).
To assert that Paul wanted to claim the deity of Christ by quoting an Old Testament passage contradicts Paul’s own testimony in Acts 26:22-23. In fact, saying that Paul found the deity of Christ in the Old Testament accuses Paul of being a liar.
Enough for now. If you'd like to hear more - before I put together a podcast :) - check out this podcast. https://biblicalunitarianpodcast.podbean.com/e/182-paul-s-use-of-ot-yahweh-texts-for-jesus-part-1/
Blessings in Messiah Jesus, the human person, raised from the dead and exalted by God to HIS (YHVH's) right hand.