Chapter 6 — Religious Devotion to Christ
The Incarnate Christ and His Critics (Komoszewski & Bowman, 2024)
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Come, Lord Jesus.
That prayer closes the book of Revelation. But what many people don't realize is that it's also one of the oldest prayers in the church's history, older than most of the New Testament. The Aramaic word Maranatha, meaning "Our Lord, come!" appears in 1 Corinthians 16:22, written around AD 54. Paul drops it into a letter addressed to mostly Greek-speaking Gentiles as if they already know it. And they did. It was a liturgical prayer, part of the regular worship of early Christian communities.
This is stunning: a prayer addressed directly to Jesus, asking him to return. Not to the Father, asking him to send Jesus, but to Jesus himself. And this prayer was already in use within twenty years of the crucifixion, spoken by communities of Jewish and Gentile believers who had inherited the fiercest monotheism the ancient world had ever seen.
When you read that in context, you realize that Christian devotion to Jesus as Lord didn't develop slowly over centuries. It was there at the very beginning.
The Breadth of Early Devotion
Chapter 6 surveys a wide range of practices in which the early church expressed its devotion to Jesus Christ as divine Lord. These aren't isolated proof texts. They form a pattern of integrated religious behavior:
LITURGICAL PRAYERS ADDRESSED TO JESUS: Beyond Maranatha, the New Testament preserves other prayers and liturgical formulas directed at Christ. "Come, Lord Jesus" (Rev. 22:20) is one. Paul's prayers of blessing open many of his letters, invoking both "God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" as joint sources of grace and peace. He treats the two as equals, co-givers of divine blessing.
HYMNS TO CHRIST: Several passages in the New Testament appear to be fragments of early Christian hymns. Philippians 2:6-11 is probably the most famous, a soaring poem about the eternal Son who "emptied himself, taking the form of a servant," and who is now exalted to the highest place with "the name that is above every name," at which "every knee shall bow." Colossians 1:15-20 is another. These aren't dry theology; they're songs. The early church sang to Jesus the way Israel sang to God.
BAPTISM IN JESUS' NAME: To be baptized "in the name of Jesus Christ" (Acts 2:38) or "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt. 28:19) was to be formally claimed by that name and brought into covenant relationship with the one it named. In the Jewish world, invoking the divine name this way was a serious, weighty act.
THE LORD'S SUPPER: The breaking of bread in remembrance of Christ was observed "until he comes" (1 Cor. 11:26). This was communion with the living, present Lord who would one day return, not a mere memorial meal. Christ wasn't an absent founder remembered by nostalgic followers. He was the host of the table.
CONFESSIONS: "Jesus is Lord" (1 Cor. 12:3; Phil. 2:11; Rom. 10:9) was the earliest Christian confession. In Greek, the word "Lord" (kyrios) was the standard word used to translate the divine name YHWH in the Greek Old Testament. When the early Christians called Jesus "Lord," they were using the language of deity, and they knew it.
Why This Matters
Critics sometimes argue that Jesus' divinity was a late theological development, a Gentile corruption of an originally simpler Jewish faith that saw Jesus as nothing more than a great rabbi or prophet. But the evidence doesn't support this.
This chapter's devotional practices are all there in Paul's letters, the earliest Christian writings we have: prayer to Jesus, hymns to Jesus, baptism in Jesus' name, the Lord's Supper, the confession "Jesus is Lord." They show a community already living out Christ-directed devotion within the first two decades of Christianity.
And the people practicing this devotion were not confused pagans who didn't know any better. They were Jewish men and women for whom worshiping a human being would have been unthinkable, unless that human being was more than human.
A Personal Reflection
There's something that moves me about Maranatha. It's not a polished prayer. It's a cry. Come, Lord. Return. Don't be long.
That prayer has been on the lips of Christians for two thousand years, across every language and culture, spoken in cathedrals and in prisons and in homes and on deathbeds. And every time it's prayed, it carries within it an implicit confession: Jesus is the Lord whose coming we await. He's the one in whom our hope is anchored.
The first Christians didn't debate whether to pray to Jesus. They just did it, because they had met him, and because they knew, at a level beyond argument, that he was worthy of it.
May that be true of us as well.
Maranatha. Come, Lord Jesus.