Mateus 5

Mateus 5:33-35

Barber - When you refer to Jesus as Lord Jesus Christ, you’re not just referring to the position He holds, but you’re referring to the compassion He feels for the people whom He oversees....Whatever He does in the authoritative position that God has put Him in is for our good. Renn observes that "in the New Testament and usually refers to Jesus Christ as God incarnate. The title "Lord," when applied to the Messiah, signifies his divine nature. As the New Testament Greek equivalent of the Hebrew term YHWH, normally transliterated as Yahweh (GOD), it transfers to the person of Christ all those characteristics that the Hebrew title attributes to the person of God. In approximately five hundred places, kyrios refers to Jesus as "Lord," "the Lord Jesus," "the Lord Jesus Christ," or "Jesus Christ our Lord" (including slight variations in word order). (Expository Dictionary of Bible Words: Word Studies for Key English Bible Words Based on the Hebrew and Greek Texts) William Barclay (not always thoroughly conservative and orthodox) says kurios... is the key word of early Christianity. It has four stages of meaning. (a) It is the normal title of respect like the English sir, the French monsieur, the German herr. (b) It is the normal title of the Roman Emperors. (c) It is the normal title of the Greek gods, prefaced before the god’s name. Kurios Serapis is Lord Serapis. (d) In the Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures it is the regular translation of the divine name, Jahveh or Jehovah. So, then, if a man called Jesus kurios he was ranking him with the Emperor and with God; he was giving him the supreme place in his life; he was pledging him implicit obedience and reverent worship. To call Jesus kurios was to count him unique. First, then, a man to be a Christian must have a sense of the utter uniqueness of Jesus Christ. It (kurios) was the official title of the Roman Emperor. The demand of the persecutors always was, “Say, ‘Caesar is Lord (kurios).’” It was the word by which the sacred name Jehovah was rendered in the Greek translation of the Old Testament scriptures. When a man could say, “Jesus is Lord,” it meant that he gave to Jesus the supreme loyalty of his life and the supreme worship of his heart. It is to be noted that Paul believed that a man could say, “Jesus is Lord,” only when the Spirit enabled him to say it (1Co 12:3). The Lordship of Jesus was not so much something which he discovered for himself as something which God, in his grace, revealed to him. The phrase for Lord and God (in Re 4:11-note) is kurios kai theos and that was the official title of Domitian, the Roman Emperor. It was, indeed, because the Christians would not acknowledge that claim that they were persecuted and killed. Simply to call God Lord and God was a triumphant confession of faith, an assertion that he holds first place in all the universe. Green, et al... The term kyrios was used both in religious and secular contexts in the NT era. On the one hand, both national and mystery religions, especially in the East (i.e., Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, but also in Greece and elsewhere), frequently used the term kyrios(referring to the "male deity") or its female equivalent kyria to refer to gods and goddesses such as Isis, Serapis or Osiris. For instance, we have evidence of the use of the term in countless papyri and inscriptions of Serapis (e.g., “I thank the LordSerapis that when I was in peril on the sea, he saved me immediately” -- Letter from Apion, a soldier in the Roman navy to his father, second century AD). Or again in a letter from a son to his mother, Nilus, in the second century AD we read, “I make intercession for you day by day to the Lord Serapis”. (Ed: Paul referred to these pagan “gods and lords” in 1Co 8:5,6 asserting that there is only one true God and one true Lord Jesus Christ) It is quite clear in these contexts that the term kyrios connotes a deity who can answer prayers and deserves thanks for divine help... As Alfred Deissmann long ago argued, it is quite likely that the early church deliberately and polemically ascribed to Jesus titles that had already been applied to the emperor. The meaning of the term (kurios) within the Pauline communities, namely an absolute divine being to whom one belongs and owes absolute allegiance and submission, becomes all the more evident in light of the Pauline language of self-reference. Paul speaks of himself and others as douloi, “slaves,” (seedoulos) in order to indicate their relationship to Jesus “the Lord” (Ro 1:1-note; Ro 13:4-note). (Green, J. B., McKnight, S., & Marshall, I. H. Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press - This resource is recommended you desire a scholarly, in depth discussion of kyrios regarding its secular, Jewish and NT uses) (Bolding added) Kurios is found 722x in 665v (GNT = Greek New Testament by Kurt Aland, et al) and 748xin 687v in the Greek Textus Receptus (used to translate KJV - eg, cp Mt 13:51NAS with Mt 13:51KJV). Kurios is used some 400x in salvation passages when we are told to believe in the Lord compared some 24 uses of the word "Savior" as a reference to Jesus (Note: To be accurate, in context some of these 24 uses of Savior refer ot the Father). Kurios is used in over 9000 verses in the OT Septuagint (LXX) and about 6000 uses of kurios translate the Hebrew (YHWH) for Jehovah and about 3000 uses translate Adon/Adonai. In the book of Acts, Luke refers to Jesus only two times as Savior Lord. As noted above, in the entire NT, Jesus is referred to as Savior far less often than He is referred to as Lord. When the two titles are mentioned together, Lord always precedesSavior. It is interesting that the last book of the Bible, the Revelation, does not refer to Jesus as Saviorr, but uses "Lord" some 22 times, some references indicating God the Father (Re 4:8-note, Re 4:11-note, Re 5:9-note, Re 11:15, 16, 17-note), some God the Son (Re 1:8-note [some see this as the Father], Re 11:8) and once as a title of respect by John to an angel (Re 7:14). Tony