I received the gift of salvation unto eternal life a good number of years ago while living in the Reformed Theology capitol of our nation, Grand Rapids, Michigan. Reformed theology emphasizes the Biblical truths of the sovereignty and holiness of God, and salvation by grace alone through faith in Jesus Christ, alone, apart from our law keeping or good works (Romans 3:24). At that time, Reformed churches appeared to be on every corner of the city, and the famous reformed institution, Calvin College, still represented the truths of the Bible.
Unfortunately, those who discipled me my first few years as a Christian were not of the Reformed persuasion. The were disciples of what was and is referred to as the “Word of Faith” movement, better known as the “prosperity gospel”. The most influential teacher in this movement at that time was a man named Kenneth Copeland. Copeland had a daily radio and weekly TV show, wrote many books and conducted “Believers Voice of Victory” conventions nationally; frequently in the Detroit area, of which I was an enthusiastic attendee. On his TV shows and in his conventions, he typically had a huge banner behind him proclaiming JESUS IS LORD!. I believe he signed off his radio and TV sermons with that same proclamation.
Thankfully, by the sovereign grace of God, I came to understand that in the Word of Faith teachings, Jesus is ultimately not LORD; that He is not believed nor acknowledged to have absolute authority, power and control over His world, our lives, and our salvation as the Bible teaches (Daniel 4:34-35) (Proverbs 16:33) (James 4:13-16) (Psalm 3:8), but that ultimately, we do. This false gospel teaches that through our faith filled confession of the promises in God’s word, we control the circumstances of our life, command God’s blessings upon our lives, and with our words either overcome or encourage the devil’s evil and mischief in our lives. Emphasis was on our developing and expressing enough personal faith, essentially faith in our faith, to achieve our best life now, which is what made and continues to make this blasphemous movement so attractive.
Now there is no doubt that faith is an essential aspect, if not the essential aspect of our relationship with God. We are told that “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6), that we are justified or declared right with God by faith (Romans 5:1), and that those who have been justified by faith will subsequently live their day to day lives by that faith (Romans 1:16-17).
And we are told in (Ephesians 2:8-9) that this faith is not something we generate or come to within our fallen, sinful condition, but that it is a “gift of God”, not of our efforts as the Word of Faith movement proclaims, “lest any many boast”.
True faith, the faith that saves us from the wrath of God and restores us to right relationship with God, produces in us a humble, submissive, unwavering confidence in the one who is to be the object of our faith, the LORD Jesus Christ, acknowledging both His deity and His saving work for us and in us ( Acts 2:35-36) (Galatians 2:20).
The Bible makes it abundantly clear, from Genesis to Revelation, that Jesus Christ is LORD (Philippians 2:10-11) (2 Corinthians 4:5-6). He is the “LORD” that Isaiah saw sitting on His throne, exalted above all of His creation, who is “holy, holy, holy”, and who fills the earth with His glory as the LORD of Glory (Isaiah 6:1-3) (John 12:41). He is the One who introduced Himself to Moses as “I Am” or Yahweh (John 8:58), the eternal God (Isaiah 44:6), God the Son, the second person of the divine trinity, co-equal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 13:14), who with the Father and Holy Spirit has supreme authority and ultimate control over all that exists in His creation, wherein He is subject to nothing nor anyone outside of Himself, but works all things that occur in this world according to the wise counsel of His will, for His glory and the good of His redeemed people (Romans 11:33-36) (Isaiah 46:9-10) (Ephesians 1:11) (Romans 8:28) .
When the Bible calls us to confess Jesus as LORD as a condition of our salvation from the just judgment of God for our sin (Romans 10:9-10), it is calling us to acknowledge that it is a salvation unto submission; willing submission and obedience to God’s purpose for and rule over our lives, which all mankind has rejected (Psalm 2:1-3) (Romans 3:23). It is an obedience motivated by our love for God and faith in His love for us wherein we are fully persuaded that our LORD is fully inclined, fully committed and fully able of making us exceedingly, eternally and abundantly happy in Him (John 14:15-17) (Jeremiah 31:3) (Psalm 16:11).
As LORD, Jesus governs our living and our dying and everything in between (Psalm 139:16). He holds every breath we take in His hand, owns, orders and numbers our days in this world, and requires at the end of those days we give an account to Him for how we lived those days in relationship to Him and one another, with our eternal destiny hanging in the balance (Daniel 5:23) (2 Corinthians 5:10).
As LORD, Jesus rightfully commands our thoughts (Philippians 4:8-9) (Philippians 2:5), our wills (John 6:29) (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18), our beliefs (John 3:18) our emotions (Philippians 4:4-6), our affections (Matthew 22:36-40) our attitudes (Philippians 2:3-4), our behavior (Matthew 7:12), and the motivations behind our behavior (Philippians 2:3) (1 Corinthians 10:31).
Jesus, in commanding these aspects of our life, acknowledges our need for Him to enable us to do them (John 15:1-5), creating and working in us by the Holy Spirit both the desire and ability (Ezekiel 36:26-27) (Philippians 2:12-13), so that we may be Holy as He is Holy (1 Peter 1:16) (Hebrews 12:14), conformed to His image and likeness which is God’s ultimate purpose in our salvation (Romans 8:28-29) (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Most, if not all of these aspects of Jesus’s Lordship is what I find missing from the Word of Faith movement’s understanding and proclamation of Jesus as LORD. In Luke 6:46, Jesus openly questions the sincerity of many who call Him LORD, but whose distant hearts and indifferent lives give little evidence of their submission to Him (Matthew 15:8).
One of the most disconcerting statements from the lips of Jesus in the New Testament is found at the end of what is referred to as the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew Chapters 5-7. In Matthew 7:21-23 we read, “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!’
It is Jesus’ Lordship over our lives, and our glad and willing submission to it that will allow us to rest in, even rejoice in the most trying of the circumstances in this life, knowing that He is sovereignly working all things for our ultimate and eternal good (Romans 8:28); that He is able to keep us from falling away from Him in the midst of the trials and challenges to our faith in this world (Jude 24-25), so that in that day, the day we stand before Jesus for judgement, we will not hear from His lips, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!”, but instead will hear “…Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the (eternal) joy of your LORD” (Matthew 25:23).
At the end of this age and throughout the ages to come, all men and women, those in both Heaven and Hell, will acknowledge “Jesus Christ is LORD”, LORD over the eternal joy and ever-increasing, ever diverse pleasures that those in Heaven will experience with Him, and LORD over the eternal and unmitigated suffering of those confined to Hell for their defiance of Him, all to the glory of God the Father with whom Jesus sits on the throne of God, as both God and man, forever (Philippians 2:11) (Ephesians 2:4-7) (Daniel 7:13-14).
Thus, for those for those of us for whom He is truly LORD now, let us continually pray, Come quickly LORD Jesus (Revelation 22:20).
Grace and Peace ×
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