King or Lord

An interesting feature of the New Testament is that the gospels have many references to the kingdom of God, whereas Paul does not speak of the kingdom much at all. In Ephesians 1:10, Paul explains that God’s God's ultimate is,

to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

This is the lordship of Jesus.

Jesus spoke of the Kingdom of God because he is humble. He was not going to go round preaching, “The Kingdom of Jesus” is coming. He could not preach that “I am the Lord”.

Paul did not face this constraint and wanted to honour Jesus. He understood that Jesus is the king of the Kingdom of God. By the time Paul was speaking and writing, Jesus had ascended into heaven and was seated at the right hand of God. By declaring that Jesus is Lord, Paul was acknowledging that the Kingdom of God is now the kingdom of Jesus.

Many Jews would have been happy if Jesus had become King of Judea, but Paul did not want any confusion about this issue. In Roman times, local kings like Agrippa and Herod were minor political hacks, whereas Caesar was Lord of the entire empire. When Paul described Jesus as Lord, he was putting him in a place far above these local kings, and far above Caesar.

Jesus is President - Can you say it.

We like to sing and proclaim that Jesus is Lord, but our words may not mean anything. We no longer have Lords in our society, so we do not know the meaning of the word Lord.

When pledging allegiance to our political leaders, we call them president or prime minister. We pledge allegiance to the kingdom of God by saying Jesus is Lord or King. The truth is that we have pledged allegiance to two masters. We justify this divided loyalty by calling one king or lord and the other president or prime minister.

If my nation has a king and I have pledged allegiance to him, it would be quite hard to call Jesus king, because it will be obvious that I have divided loyalty. If I believe Jesus is king, it would be hard to pledge allegiance to a human king, because I cannot serve two kings. However, we just dont get this dilhemma, because we do not have human kings.

King Herod understood that a people cannot have two kings. When he heard that a king had been born, he knew he had to kill him. Israel could not have two kings. Herod knew that if a new king came to power, one of them would have to go. Herod decided to get in first.

In America, where people have no experience of kingship or lordship, “Jesus is President” might be a better paraphrase of “Jesus is Lord”. However, it would be hard to pledge that "Jesus is President" as it would exposes a divided loyalty. A pledge of "No President but Jesus" would be a subversive statement, because a republic cannot have two presidents.

Could you say, Jesus is President. Jesus is Lord is much easier, because it does not mean as much.