Jesus Christ Our Lord

“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; And declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: By whom we have received grace and apostleship, for obedience to the faith among all nations, for his name: Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ: To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 1:1-7)

The Complete and Sufficient Savior

The religious landscape presents us with a peculiar paradox: while the name of Jesus Christ is invoked with increasing frequency, the substance of what that name represents grows ever more attenuated. We live in an age where theological precision has been sacrificed upon the altar of ecumenical sentimentality, where the sharp edges of biblical truth have been smoothed away to accommodate the tender sensibilities of a generation that prefers comfort to conviction. Yet in the midst of this doctrinal fog, one phrase emerges with crystalline clarity from the pages of God’s word—”Jesus Christ our Lord“—a phrase that carries within its compact compass the entirety of the Gospel and the fullness of salvation itself.

The Foundation

When the Apostle Paul introduced himself to the Romans as one “separated unto the gospel of God…concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord,” he was laying the cornerstone upon which all Christian doctrine must rest. The Gospel, Paul insists with unwavering clarity, is not about a philosophy, not about a moral system, not even about religious experience—it is concerning a Person, and that Person must be understood in His complete identity as “Jesus Christ our Lord.“

This insistence upon completeness is not religious formalism but pastoral necessity. In our contemporary religious context, we witness the tragic spectacle of churches that cannot adequately defend their faith against the visiting Jehovah’s Witness or the earnest Mormon missionary. Christians are approached with a superficial harmony of shared religious terminology meant to conceal fundamental disagreements about the very nature of God, salvation, and Scripture itself—a deception more dangerous than outright denial because it masquerades as unity while propagating error. This confusion arises in part because Christians have lost sight of the significance of names and titles. They treat “Jesus,” “Christ,” and “Lord” as interchangeable pleasantries rather than as distinct declarations of doctrinal significance, each carrying its own weight of meaning and necessity.

The Architecture of Revelation

Scripture never employs names arbitrarily. When the angel announced to Mary that her child should be called Jesus, when the disciples proclaimed Him as the Christ, when Thomas fell before Him crying “My Lord and my God“—each of these moments represents a deliberate unveiling of truth. The phrase “Jesus Christ our Lord” is not a string of synonyms but a doctrinal architecture, each component supporting and completing the others in perfect unity.

Jesus—this name, given at His incarnation, details His humanity. Here is One who “was made of the seed of David according to the flesh“, who was “tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin“. The significance of His human lineage through David establishes His messianic credentials, while His sinless nature demonstrates that humanity as God intended it to be. Yet His human nature was conceived not through ordinary generation but through Holy Spirit intervention. The virgin birth stands as the first great demonstration that this Child, though fully human, was no ordinary man. God, who “spake, and it was” at creation’s dawn, simply “spake” life into Mary’s womb—not through biological impossibility requiring human agency, but through the same omnipotent power that brought the universe into existence from nothing. The virgin birth thus becomes not only a miracle of conception, but also a doctrinal necessity: it preserves both the genuine humanity required for our salvation and the divine nature essential for its accomplishment.

Christ—this title connects Him directly to the Messianic promises of the Old Testament. When the woman at the well declared, “I know that Messiah’s cometh, which is called Christ,” she understood what many contemporary Christians have forgotten: that the New Testament Christ is the Old Testament Messiah, the promised King of Israel whose throne rights can be traced through both Joseph (through Solomon) and Mary (through Nathan) back to King David himself. From a dispensational perspective, Christ is technically the King of the Jews, not our King—though this in no way diminishes His authority over the Church.

Lord—this title penetrates to His essential divinity. When Scripture says Jesus to be Lord, it makes the stupendous claim that this carpenter from Nazareth possesses all the attributes and prerogatives of the eternal God. This is not lordship earned through moral achievement but that which belongs to God alone.

The Trinity

The doctrine of the Trinity finds its most explicit biblical expression in 1 John 5:7: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one“. This verse, which modern translations have shamefully excised from their texts, provides the doctrinal framework necessary for understanding how Jesus Christ can be simultaneously the eternal Word and the incarnate Lord.

The corruption of this verse in modern translations represents more than textual criticism—it constitutes doctrinal vandalism. The Alexandrian manuscripts, emanating from that ancient center of heretical speculation, have given us mutilated texts that rob the church of its clearest Trinitarian declaration. These corrupted texts emerge from Egypt—not as a matter of historical accident, but as a providential warning. When Bible refers to Egypt as “the house of bondage,” it speaks not only of physical enslavement but of spiritual corruption. Should it surprise us that manuscripts preserved in such soil would carry the very characteristics the metaphor suggests?

The distinction between verse 7 (“these three are one“) and verse 8 (“these three agree in one“) demolishes the arguments of those who would reduce the Trinity to simple cooperation. Being one and agreeing in one represent fundamentally different realities. The Trinity is not three gods working together but three Persons sharing one divine essence—a truth that requires all three to constitute the complete God.

The Folly of Lordship Salvation

In our contemporary religious landscape, a pernicious doctrine known as Lordship Salvation has gained widespread acceptance, even among otherwise orthodox believers. This teaching, with its superficially appealing slogan “if He’s not Lord of all, He ain’t Lord at all,” actually corrupts the Gospel by introducing works-righteousness through the backdoor of sanctification.

The fundamental error of Lordship Salvation lies in confusing the objective truth of Christ’s lordship with the subjective experience of submitting to that lordship. Christ is Lord whether sinners acknowledge it or not. His lordship is not contingent upon human recognition or submission. The question is not whether we make Him Lord—He already is Lord—but whether we trust in Him as the complete Savior who is both Lord and Christ.

The practical consequences of this error are devastating. Lordship Salvation necessarily produces works-based assurance, creating the tragic spectacle of believers with multiple professions of faith, constantly questioning their salvation based upon their performance. This doctrine reduces salvation to a daily referendum on personal performance: “My good behavior today suggests I am truly saved—but tomorrow’s inevitable failures will resurrect all my doubts.” The believer becomes not a child resting in his Father’s love, but a defendant constantly re-arguing his case before the bar of God’s justice.” This tortured uncertainty is the inevitable fruit of any system that makes salvation partially dependent upon works.

Scripture knows nothing of this introspective anxiety. Romans 6 addresses believers as those who have already been “made free from sin” while simultaneously exhorting them to “yield your members servants to righteousness“. The exhortation to holy living presupposes salvation; it does not constitute salvation. The Apostle Paul himself, the Hebrew of the Hebrews, confessed his need for continual growth and dependence upon [[Jesus]] Christ.

The Vital Connection to Eternal Life

Throughout the epistle to the Romans, Paul consistently connects the phrase “Jesus Christ our Lord” with the theme of eternal life. This connection is not accidental but represents the very logic of salvation. In Romans 5:21, Paul declares that “grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.” In Romans 6:23, he proclaims that “the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.“

This insistence upon the complete title serves as Scripture’s own refutation of those who would reduce Christ to something less than the full revelation of His Person. The Muslim who speaks reverently of Jesus but denies His deity possesses a Christ insufficient for salvation. The modernist who acknowledges Jesus as a moral teacher but rejects His messianic claims trusts in a Christ who cannot save. The cultist who confesses Christ’s lordship while denying His essential deity worships a Christ who is no Christ at all.

Only Jesus Christ our Lord possesses the authority and power necessary for salvation. Any attempt to reconstruct Him according to human specification produces not a Savior but a religious fantasy—a comforting delusion that lacks both God’s nature and authority essential for redemption.

The Complete and Sufficient Savior

The phrase “Jesus Christ our Lord” presents us with a Savior who is complete in every aspect necessary for our salvation. His humanity (Jesus) enables Him to serve as our sympathetic High Priest and to fulfill the law in our place. His messianic identity (Christ) connects our salvation to the grand sweep of redemptive history and the covenant promises. His deity (Lord) ensures that His sacrifice possesses infinite value and that His promises are backed by God’s power.

The Gospel operates through this complete Christ. Romans 1:16 – “the power of God unto salvation,” but this power is accessible only through the complete revelation of who Christ is. Without the Gospel, God has no power to save—not because God lacks power, but because He has chosen to save through this specific means that ensures his grace, mercy, righteousness, and judgment are all in harmony.

The wages of sin, Paul reminds us, are actively earned through rebellion against God. Every human being has spent a lifetime accumulating just punishment for sin. But the gift of God—eternal life—comes through Jesus Christ our Lord. Gift, not wages. Grace, not works. Complete dependence upon the complete Savior.

The Practical Implications

Some may wonder whether such precision serves any practical purpose in daily Christian living. The answer is emphatically yes. Ideas have consequences, and doctrinal imprecision inevitably leads to spiritual confusion and pastoral disaster. When believers properly understand the complete identity of Jesus Christ our Lord, certain vital truths emerge:

First, they gain assurance that rests upon the objective work of Christ rather than upon their subjective performance. The saved person may struggle with sin, may fail in daily obedience, may experience seasons of spiritual dryness—but their salvation depends entirely upon the finished work of the complete Savior.

Second, they discover the proper motivation for holy living. Sanctification flows from salvation, not toward it. The believer seeks to “yield his members servants to righteousness unto holiness” not to earn or prove salvation but in grateful response to the salvation already received.

Third, they develop the doctrinal precision necessary to resist false doctrine and engage in meaningful evangelism. They can effectively answer the Jehovah’s Witness who denies Christ’s deity, the Mormon who preaches another Jesus, or the Muslim who reduces Christ to a prophet.

The Inescapable Christ

In an age when religious authorities seem determined to accommodate every wind of doctrine in pursuit of broader appeal, the phrase “Jesus Christ our Lord” stands as an immovable witness to the unchanging truth of biblical Christianity. This is not a Christ diminished by compromise or diluted by ecumenical considerations. This is the Christ of Scripture—the complete and sufficient Savior who is “the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.“

The question that confronts every reader is not whether Christ is Lord—Scripture settles that matter definitively. The question is whether we will trust in Him as the complete Savior who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Upon that decision hangs not only our temporal joy but our eternal destiny. For “there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved“—and that name, in its glorious completeness, is Jesus Christ our Lord.

Pastor Thomas Irvin
George County Baptist Church
Lucedale, Mississippi