Jesus is Lord

For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. – Philippians 2:9-11

In Praying the Names of God in 52 Weeks, Ann Spangler notes that Christianity’s earliest confession is profound in its simplicity. Just three powerful words: Jesus is Lord. In Greek, it’s only two. Iesous Kyrios. (The present tense “is” is understood making Jesus Lord a complete thought.) You can’t get simpler than that!

If you grew up with a creedal tradition, you probably recited “Jesus is Lord” hundreds of times even before you knew how to spell it. It was so woven into the fabric of your life, you might have begun to overlook its significance. Let’s take a closer look at what lord means. The Greek word Kyrios means lord – master, sovereign, someone who has total control. It’s not some honorific  like the title given to a second son of a duke in a regency novel. It’s got teeth. Slaves call their masters Lord.

One of Paul’s favorite terms for himself is bond-servant, doulos in Greek. He uses it in his letters to the Romans, the Galatians, the Colossians, and Titus. A bond-servant is a slave who voluntarily chooses to bind himself to his master for life.  In calling himself Christ’s doulos, he’s saying he has surrendered control of his life to the Sovereign Lord.

Who is the perfect example of a doulos? Jesus! If we back up a few verses in Philippians 2, we see Jesus’s obedience to the Father.

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. – Philippians 2:5-8

Jesus, our Sovereign Lord, took on the form of a bond-servant, a slave, in his obedience to his Father.