Nancy and I “met the Lord” in 1971 in a small evangelical church that emphasized living according to the Scriptures. Some might say we got “saved.” Others would say we were “born again.” These other terms are Scriptural, for sure, but not perhaps as descriptive as they should be. Words carry meaning and paint pictures. Words shape understanding. Words are important.
To say that we got “saved” is to describe a rescue mission, and it was that. To say that we were “born again” describes a life-giving event that occurred, and it was that as well. But to say that we “met the Lord” tells you that we had an encounter with a living being and began a relationship with someone Who we will obey as Lord. It helped us to understand from the beginning that salvation is based in relationship, and relationship is based in trust (faith or belief).
Our pastors described the salvation experience as “meeting the Lord,” and it shaped our understanding of what happened, what commitment we were making, and what it meant going forward.
To say that we got “saved” or were “born again” are good terms, but they seem like a once and done event to me. I got “saved,” I was “born again.” I got married. I had my appendix out. These are all events. To say that “I met the Lord” describes a process, an ongoing relationship, not just an event. It creates in me a different and more scriptural image and begets a different set of actions and expectations. Jesus never talked about His miraculous birth even though He certainly had one. He talked about His relationship with the Father who was His Lord.
Because we spoke of our salvation experience as “meeting the Lord, our view of the Bible was different. We did not see the Bible just as a holy book with a significant historical record of 6000 years of the history between God and man. We saw the Bible as the Manufacturer’s Handbook filled with ongoing instructions on how to live.
The Bible was not here to tell us how it was in the past. It was not just a record of events telling us about when this or that person was “saved” or “born again.” It was given to us to “inform us” on a daily and ongoing basis about that relationship we had begun with the living, saving God.
When I was young, whenever someone bought a washing machine, they found inside a box of laundry soap and a manufacturer’s handbook. If you read the manufacturers handbook and followed the instructions, the machine gave you a lifetime of good service. The manufacturer’s handbook taught you how the manufacturer intended you to use the machine.
In the old days before we were brilliant and had lost the awe of what the manufacturer had designed, we read every page. We told our neighbors what we had learned. We listened to the salesman who sold it to us and the repairman who came from time to time. We did not assume we knew it all. After all, automatic washing machines were non-existent when our parents were young. They only became prevalent in our lifetime.
The same was true of the manuals that came with our new car with “automatic” transmissions, power windows, air conditioners and radios. We read to understand
because we were humbled by what the manufacturer had designed.
Today we pride ourselves that we never read instructions. We know what this machine is all about. We think its usage is intuitive. Besides, real men use trial and error. Only nerds read manuals. We figure it out as we go and “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” We would be embarrassed to be seen reading a manufacturer’s manual. It would imply that we did not understand everything. We’d rather stumble around and look like we know what we are doing, even if we find out later that you cannot wash a carburetor in a Maytag and you cannot dry off the cat in a microwave.
We enter into a conspiracy with the repairman. “Don’t tell anyone what I did.” Or we bluster about the idiocy of the manufacturer who failed to design the toaster in such a way that it could be used to heat up the bath water. “What an idiot He is!!!”I would have designed it better!”
When we “met the Lord,” we were given the good news that the Manufacturer of all mankind and the world in which we lived had given to us a cleansing agent (the blood of Jesus) and a Manufacturer’s Manual of Instructions called the Bible. It was designed to tell us how to relate to the Manufacturer and His creation on going.
Since our former life outside of God had pretty well demonstrated that trial and error did not work for us, we gladly and gratefully took hold of the Manufacturer’s Handbook and devoured its contents. We read for historical perspective, but much more for instructions on how to live and how to relate to the Lord we just “met.”
We soon began to see that our new relationship with God was not just a “tweaking” of the old one. We learned as we read that man was totally lost and very broken, not just “a bit off course.” The Bible revealed to us that we were so far from the Manufacturer’s design that we were lucky to be functioning at all. We saw in the lives of the biblical saints that they, too, had needed restoration at the core. We saw in the life of Jesus just how far we had run away from God.
We began to see that we had been driving the vehicle that was our life with no clue about how to operate it. We, the ignorant, had become our own instructor. We, the broken, had become our own repairman without any training or “know how.” We, the desperately ill, had been self-medicating and had been performing our own surgeries. And we, the rebellious, had tried to be our own boss, with results that were verifiably disastrous.
The Manufacturer’s Handbook showed us why we needed a savior, but more importantly, it showed us we needed a Lord!
Words have meaning and shape the way we see reality. I might call you hard-working and you would have one image, but if I called you driven, you would have another. How about protective versus controlling? How about concerned versus anxious? Words affect understanding and shape ongoing behavior and action. That is why it was so vital that our little church told Nancy and I that we were “meeting the Lord,” not just getting “saved or becoming “born again.” It shaped our understanding and our ongoing actions. We thank God for it daily.
The Hebrew word for the Messiah, Ha’mashiach (Ha ma SHEE auck), is freighted with meaning that was fully apparent to the Jews. They understood that the coming Messiah was going to be their King, and that He was going to rule over them as their Lord. In the process, He was going to save them from their troubles.
Ha’mashiach flows out of their understanding of “Kinsman-Redeemer.” As tribal people, they were used to the concept of pater familia, Latin for head of the family. The Italians called him “the Don” or the “Capa” or sometimes the “Papa” from which we get the word pope.
The Israelites called him the Kinsman-Redeemer; i.e., the head of the tribe. His job was not only to protect the tribe and to deliver it from danger, but to rule over it and guide it to green pastures and good water. There is no doubt that he was the boss, the lord of the tribe. That is why Joseph’s brothers wanted to kill him. They did not want to have to obey him.
If you lost your farm due to bad farming or a crooked poker game, you went to the Kinsman-Redeemer to rescue you, and if he had the means, he would do so. (If your Kinsman-Redeemer was poor or powerless, you were out of luck.) He would buy back (redeem) the farm and give it back to you, but he would also govern your use of it.
Abraham was acting as Kinsman-Redeemer when he took his 318 hired men and rescued Lot and his family from a far superior force in Genesis 14. Lot had chosen not to live under Abraham’s governance, and it got him into trouble. Even after the rescue, Lot failed to embrace Abraham as his lord and it cost him everything. What a pity and what a typical bonehead move by a human.
Jesus was acting as our Kinsman-Redeemer when He came down to die for us, to save us from a far superior enemy as recorded in the New Testament. We had declined to be governed by God and we were in trouble; i.e., captured, enslaved and “cruisin for a bruisin’”as my aunt, the nun and teacher, used to tell her sixth grade class of boys.
Even after Jesus’ successful rescue operation, many of us still refuse to live under His governance and it will cost us in this life and the next. Even many Christians who acknowledge the rescue mission do not acknowledge His right to govern us, and it costs them daily even in the kingdom. After all, Jesus IS Lord. One day (as Paul told the Philippians) every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord,
whether it is in Heaven, on the earth or under the earth. Everyone from saint to Satan will acknowledge that Jesus is Lord
Phil 2:9-11 Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. NASB
Paul tells the Romans that we will all give an account to God as to why we failed to recognize and accept Jesus as our Lord.
Rom 14:11-12 For it is written, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall give praise to God.” 12 So then each one of us shall give account of himself to God. NASB
But Paul is not making this up. He is quoting Isaiah who is quoting God. Embedded in the concept of the savior is the concept of governance, the idea of a king or a lord.
Isa 45:21-25 “…Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the LORD? And there is no other God besides Me, a righteous God and a Savior. There is none except Me. 22 “Turn to Me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. 23 “I have sworn by Myself. The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance. 24 “They will say of Me, ‘Only in the LORD are righteousness and strength.’ Men will come to Him, and all who were angry at Him shall be put to shame. 25 “In the LORD all the offspring of Israel will be justified, and will glory.” NASB
Anyone who understood the Hebrew term HaMashiach (Messiah) understood that the Savior was also their Lord or His salvation would not ultimately help them. Paul would tell us and Moses, Isaiah and all the prophets would agree, that if Jesus is not our Lord, He cannot ultimately be our Savior.
From the cross, Jesus offers forgiveness and reconciliation to all men, but only those who accept His Lordship can benefit from His offer. Many, if not most, reject the Lordship of Jesus and, therefore, His salvation. All salvation is based in relationship and all relationship is based in trust.
Several important things happened when Paul began to teach the Gentiles about Jesus, and it happened because of the nuances and meanings of words. The Gentiles did not have the historical and cultural understanding embedded in the Israelite experience with God, so they did not understand what many Jewish words and terms meant.
Kinsman-Redeemer, which conveyed to the Jews both salvation and governance was shortened to Redeemer and its meaning was truncated to savior or rescuer. More problematic was the Greek word Christos, the direct translation for the Hebrew word, HaMashiach. Both words meant the Anointed One.
The Jews knew that the Anointed One would come as a savior and king. Jesus taught extensively about the Kingdom of Heaven, which one enters as soon as he or she is “born again.” The Jews to whom Jesus taught understood very well that the “Anointed One (Messiah),” would come as a king. That understanding fueled their many attempts to compel Jesus to kick the Romans out and set up His kingdom here on earth, something He will do when he comes again.
That understanding was the basis for the accusation that Jesus and his followers were treasonous, a charge that was used to get Jesus crucified. It was a charge that led to persecution, confiscation and martyrdom for Christians for 100 years after the Resurrection. And the apostle Paul only acerbated the problem by his teaching.
In the first century world, the words “par Christos” were etched into expensive salve jars and perfume bottles. They meant “for anointing” or “for external application only.” In other words, “don’t eat or drink this!” Do not take this internally! (This occurred long before any FDA warnings were mandated ?.)
The last thing that Paul wanted was for people to think that Jesus was “for external application only.” The Jews had suffered for 2500 years from the habit of applying God to their lives externally only. Jesus had emphasized that in order to enter into the kingdom (to be “saved”), one had to eat His flesh and drink His blood. An internalized commitment was absolutely required. “A man is not defiled by what goes into his mouth,” Jesus said. “He is defiled but that which comes out of him that reveals his inner corruption or lack of spiritual life.”
So Paul had a problem explaining Christos to the Gentiles. What he did to solve that problem is very important to understand. Paul took a Roman coin and showed it to Gentiles. On one side was a picture of Caesar. On the other side were the words “Dominus et Soter,” Latin for “Lord and Savior.” This, Paul told them, is the full meaning of the term Messiah and what God meant by the Hebrew term Ha’mashiach or Christos as translated into the Greek.
In order to receive the Anointed One, the Redeemer, one must embrace Him as Lord and Savior. It is our failure to understand this that accounts for most of our immature Christianity in the western world.
Down through history, most of the world understood what it meant to have a monarch. He or she was your protector, but also your governor, your ruler, your lord. Protection and lordship were seen as tied together. Kings, queens, popes, bishops, etc. were seen to rule by divine right. Obedience to the king was required by God as a matter of course. Paul reinforced this idea often in his writings.
Rom 13:1-2 Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2 Therefore he who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. NASB
All of the men who wrote the New Testament called themselves “bond servants” of Christ, including His two brothers, James and Jude. In Isaiah 40, God announced to His people that since no man could save His people, He, the Lord would save them personally. They understood that God was going to act as their Kinsman-Redeemer.
It was the beginning of their understanding of the incarnation, that God would become a man, born as a baby among them. Why? Because in order for God to be our Redeemer,
he had to be capable of saving us, and only He who was without sin could do that. That is why Jesus had to be born of the Spirit.
More importantly, in order to be our Kinsman-Redeemer, He had to be “kin.” He had to be one of us. He had to be human. That is why Jesus had to be born of a woman.
While this was clearly understood by the Jews and later by the Gentiles because they grew up in a world where everyone expected to submit a lord, a king, a ruler who would tell them what them must do, it is largely lost on we who will submit to no one. We pride ourselves that no one tells us what to do. We hire and fire our leaders. If we do not like our boss, we go get another one.
Our culture, our poetry, our music and our history tout our rugged individualism and our independence. We do not instinctively gravitate to the idea of a Lord, even to the Lordship of God. We evaluate God. We critique Him. We judge Him, but “I’ll be damned if I am going to obey Him or submit to Him!” (Actually, we will be damned if we do not obey Him.)
The man or woman who wants Jesus to be their Savior MUST accept Him as their Lord or their relationship is inauthentic and invalid. Otherwise they will show up at the throne of judgment to discover the most shocking words anyone can ever hear. They will hear God tell them that all their religion was worthless because they had no relationship with their Lord.
Matt 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord ,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. 22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord , did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness (rebellion).’ NASB
Matt 25:11-13 “And later the other virgins also came, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open up for us.’ 12 “But he answered and said, ‘Truly I say to you, I do not know you.’ NASB
Luke 6:46-49 “And why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? 47 “Everyone who comes to Me, and hears My words, and acts upon them, I will show you whom he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation upon the rock; and when a flood rose, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 “But the one who has heard, and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house upon the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.” NASB
King Saul, the first King of Israel, learned this the hard way and it cost him everything.
1 Sam 15:22-23 And Samuel said, “Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. 23 “For rebellion is as the sin of divination (witchcraft), and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also rejected you from being king.” NASB
King Saul thought he could just give God “things” and attend “church” regularly. He thought he had the option to obey God or not obey God as it suited him. Samuel told him (and us) that to obey God is better than to offer sacrifice. Obedience is better than religious behavior. In fact, disobedience was equal to witchcraft in the eyes of God. Ouch! Say “Amen” or “Oh, me” because it is true.
If Jesus is not in reality our Lord, we are seen by God as insubordinate and idolatrous. Our religion, including the fact that we invited Jesus to be only our Savior, is invalid.
James 2:16-26 Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. 18 But someone may well say, “You have faith, and I have works; show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.” 19 You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. 20 But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless? 21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? 22 You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; 23 and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” and he was called the friend of God. 24 You see that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone. 25 And in the same way was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works, when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. NASB
James said that faith without obedience is worthless. He also said holding correct doctrine without obedience is worthless. The demons all have right doctrine, but it does not save them. Demons know that Jesus is the incarnate Son of God. They frequently said so when they encountered Jesus. They know that Jesus died as a substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. They watched it happen.
They also watched Him rise from the dead, take the Old Testament saints to Heaven, sit down at the right hand of God and become the ruler of the universe. James says they know all of that, and they tremble in fear. Their knowledge or mental assent of the “four spiritual laws” does not save them and it will not save us if we do not obey Jesus as our Lord. Chief among the “works” required of us is our obedience to God.
So Nancy and I are grateful that the people who led us to Christ and His salvation taught us from the beginning that “Jesus is Lord.” They never proclaimed that “Jesus is Savior,”
although we clearly understood that our eternal salvation came from Jesus and His death on the cross. Their emphasis was always on the Lordship of Christ. Our western theology of salvation is too oriented around an event in our life and not enough around a relationship in our life.
Too many of us in an effort to “win people to Christ” have weakened the presentation of the scripture. We are afraid that if we are too strong on the lordship of Jesus, people will reject the offer of salvation. Or maybe we just do not understand the inherent connection between salvation and lordship. Maybe our teachers were afraid to offend and failed to fully describe the commitment required to be “saved.”
Or maybe they did not know either, because in order to grow our churches over the last 60-70 years, we have too often watered down the Gospel and its requirement to submit ourselves to the King.
Nicodemus understood about obedience to God. He was a Pharisee and they majored in obedience. What he did not understand was spiritual rebirth. Jesus was amazed that he did not understand that, because Nicodemus was a teacher. So he made it clear, “You must be “born again.”
We have the opposite problem. We have been overly schooled in the idea that we must be “born again,” but many of us fail to understand the requirement to obey God as a part of our salvation experience.
An over-emphasis of Jesus as our Savior with a diminishment or exclusion of Jesus as our Lord produces egotistical “Christians.” It’s all about me and what God can and will do for me. We support God as long as He keeps things going our way. If things go south, if tribulation comes, we judge God and critique His performance. “Bad God! Bad God! I lost my job. I lost my nest egg. I developed a dread disease. You are supposed to “save me” from stuff like that.
If our relationship with God is based in Lordship, our response is altogether different. “Times are tough, Lord, but You are still God! You are still on the throne! I owe you my allegiance in good times and bad. You bought me with a price; i.e., the blood of your Son. Bad times will pass, but You will always be ruler over the universe. I trust you. I bow down to you. I honor and praise you. You have me in the palm of your hand. I am safe! If You do not deliver me from the furnace, You will meet me in it.” You will work out all things in my life, good things or difficult things, for my benefit.
Job understood what his wife did not when things got really bad. “Curse God and die,” she told him, but Job had a Lord, not just a Savior. “Shall we receive good things at the hand of the Lord and not accept the difficult stuff also? Though He slay me, I will still hope in Him. I will place my trust in Him. I will serve Him. He is God!” Job understood what Jesus taught us 2500 years later.
John 14:15-24 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. 16 “And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you. 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 “After a little while the world will behold Me no more; but you will behold Me; because I live, you shall live also. 20 “In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. 21 “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him, and make Our abode with him. 24 “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. NASB
We who are truly “born again,” who have been authentically “saved,” have entered into a relationship with a Lord, a King who will rule and reign in our lives. We have embraced His commandments. We have offered Him our obedience and submission. To put it in modern terms, we have taken on a boss. We look for His instructions. We do His bidding.
We serve is His army. We give Him His share of the harvest. We wear His livery (His identifying colors and symbols) to let everyone know to whom we belong.
We represent Him to outsiders, sometimes well and sometimes not so well, and they get their impression about Him from our behaviors and actions. He abides in us and we have spiritual life, because we obey Him. Jesus is our Savior, but more importantly, Jesus is our Lord.