Chapter 25 — "Lord" as the Divine Name of Jesus
The Incarnate Christ and His Critics (Komoszewski & Bowman, 2024)
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When the New Testament calls Jesus "Lord," what does that actually mean?
Many readers assume something like "master" or "teacher," a term of respect, similar to calling someone "sir." In some contexts, it does carry that meaning. But in the theological heart of the New Testament, "Lord" applied to Jesus carries far more weight. It's one of the strongest claims to divinity in all of Scripture.
Here's why. In Jewish practice, the divine name YHWH (Yahweh, or Jehovah) was considered too sacred to pronounce aloud. When Jewish readers came to the divine name in the text of Scripture, they substituted the word "Lord" (Hebrew: Adonai; Greek: Kyrios). Over centuries, this practice became so embedded that in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, Kyrios ("Lord") appears thousands of times where the original text has YHWH.
So when the New Testament writers called Jesus "Lord," using the very word that stood in for the divine name in every synagogue and every home where Scripture was read aloud, they weren't handing him an honorary title. They were placing him in the position of YHWH.
YHWH: the Lord
This might be the single most underappreciated piece of evidence for the deity of Christ in the New Testament. The case runs like this:
1. The Old Testament uses "Lord" (Kyrios in Greek) for YHWH thousands of times.
2. The New Testament takes Old Testament texts about YHWH and applies them to Jesus.
3. So in those texts, the New Testament is identifying Jesus with YHWH.
This pattern shows up throughout the New Testament. A few examples from the Synoptic Gospels and Acts:
In Mark 1:2-3, John the Baptist's role is described with a quotation from Isaiah 40:3: "A voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.'" In Isaiah, "the Lord" is YHWH, God preparing to visit his people. In Mark, the Lord whose way is being prepared is Jesus.
In Acts 2:21, Peter quotes Joel 2:32 on the day of Pentecost: "And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." In Joel, "the Lord" is YHWH. Peter then immediately identifies that Lord with Jesus: "Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah" (Acts 2:36).
These transfers of YHWH texts to Jesus aren't accidents. They're the deliberate theological language of people who recognized that Jesus was the Lord, YHWH, come to his people.
The Significance of "Jesus Is Lord"
"Jesus is Lord" (Kyrios Iēsous) was the foundational confession of the early church (Rom. 10:9; 1 Cor. 12:3; Phil. 2:11), probably the simplest and earliest creedal statement in Christianity.
In its cultural context, this confession was radical in two directions at once. Against Jewish monotheism, it placed Jesus in the position of YHWH, a breathtaking claim that Jewish Christians made at enormous personal cost. Against Roman imperial ideology, it was politically explosive: if Jesus is Lord (kyrios), then Caesar is not. Christians died for this confession because it had teeth.
When Paul writes that God exalted Jesus and gave him "the name that is above every name" (Phil. 2:9), he almost certainly means "Lord," Kyrios, the divine name of God. In the Old Testament passage Paul is echoing (Isaiah 45), it's YHWH who is exalted and before whom every knee bows. Paul transfers this to Jesus: every knee will bow at the name of Jesus, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil. 2:10-11).
Why Jehovah's Witnesses Miss This
Jehovah's Witnesses are firmly committed to the divine name YHWH (Jehovah). They criticize Bible translations for replacing "Jehovah" with "Lord," and argue the divine name has been suppressed, and they're not wrong that this practice has a long history. But it backfires on them. Their New World Translation restores "Jehovah" to the Old Testament while leaving "Lord" in the New Testament wherever it refers to Jesus, and that actually obscures the very connection the New Testament is making. The same word, Kyrios, links YHWH in the Old Testament with Jesus in the New. Split them apart and you break the argument.
The New Testament's point is exactly that Jesus is Jehovah, YHWH, in the flesh. "Lord" isn't a lesser title than "God." It's the divine name par excellence.
For Us Today
When we say "Jesus is Lord" in church, or in our prayers, or in our hearts, we're doing what the first Christians did. We're confessing that the one who died and rose again is the same one who parted the Red Sea, who spoke to Moses in the burning bush, who led Israel through the wilderness.
The one who said "I am who I am" (Exod. 3:14) is the same one who said "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58).
He is the Lord. He always has been.
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