The Image of God—A.W. Tozer

Read carefully. A reading from “Why We Must Think Rightly About God,” from The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer:

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.
The history of mankind will probably show that no people [group] has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.

For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God, just as her most significant message is what she says about Him or leaves unsaid, for her silence is often more eloquent than her speech. She can never escape the self-disclosure of her witness concerning God.

Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, “What comes into your mind when you think about God?” we might predict with certainty the spiritual future of that man. Were we able to know exactly what our most influential religious leaders think of God today, we might be able with some precision to foretell where the Church will stand tomorrow…

That our ideas of God correspond as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance to us. Compared with our actual thoughts about Him, our creedal statements are of little consequence. Our real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require an intelligent and vigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is. Only after an ordeal of painful self-probing are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God.” —A.W. Tozer

Is Jesus Lord?

Is Jesus Lord?

No.

Sufficiently upset, or delighted to hear me say that? Humor me. I haven’t done extensive study on lordship in the early church’s context, but I think I understand enough to claim that most of us have no concept of what it means for Jesus to be Lord.

When we read or hear the words, “Jesus is Lord,” most of us, I imagine, jump straight to the translation conclusion, “Jesus is God.” And, sure, okay, but there’s a little bit more to it than that. The word “Lord” is based on the Greek word kyrio, meaning “Lord, or lord, or master, or sir.” The word is used around 717 times in the New Testament alone, and the same root word kyrio is translated in all four ways, as well as our word for “owner.” It is used a lot, and it is used, it seems, with varying degrees of contextual hierarchy. So the word kyrio could be translated as “sir” every time, or “Lord” every time, but that would not make much sense contextually. In order to figure out whether by the word kyrio the author intended “Lord,” “master,” or “sir,” you would have to understand the context of who is being talked to, with, or about. “Lord” is the most reverent, “sir” was not as reverent.

The early church used as one of it’s primary mantras, “Jesus is Lord.” This only makes serious sense in light of the fact that one of the primary mantras of the Roman Empire was “Caesar is Lord.” And when one of Caesar’s messengers (apostolo=“apostle”) would roll into town, he came proclaiming the “gospel of Caesar.” When Julius Caesar was assassinated he was elevated to the status of a god. Before his death he adopted his distant nephew Octavian as his son. When Octavian officially took the newly minted throne of Rome he changed his name to Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus, or appropriately in English, Commander of the world, Son of God, Messiah. In Rome, Caesar was Lord, God, Ruler, Master. The will and worship of Caesar ruled the day to day lives of the people. Caesar alone was worthy of praise, because it’s treason otherwise. There was a particular way of living under the lordship of Caesar, the Commander of the world, the son of god, messiah and Majestic Ruler, just as there is a certain way of living in the United States under the banner of the Gospel of Democracy and Capitalism. It’s a culture, a worldview.

So for the early church to boldly proclaim that indeed “Jesus is Lord,” was to effectively counter proclaim “Caesar is not Lord.” If Jesus is the ultimate Lord, Caesar cannot be. “Jesus is Lord” is a subversive, political counter claim against the way of living under Caesar, introducing thus a backwards orientation of a new world order. Peace is not brought through Imperial discipline, but rather by the One slain under Imperial discipline. Order is not kept in loving your friends and hating your enemies, but in loving your enemies until they become your friends. Love itself is the ruling ethic, not misguided concepts of virtue. For early followers of Christ, the notion that “Jesus is Lord” gave them a completely different worldview. Allegiance and service is fully granted to Jesus, his Holy Spirit among them, and the God of Israel who anointed him, not because of the threat of punishment, but because his love for them (as displayed during his life and on the cross) and among them (through the power of his Holy Spirit) had so, they believed, brought the course of human history to its climax and was dramatically shifting the world from one of kingdoms and nations ruled by violence and oppression to a kingdom ruled by love: the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God for them was an “already/not yet,” not simply some future ethereal reality that we’ll all sort of eventually reach. The kingdom is a reality in the present! Inaugurated by the true Son of the true God, Jesus the Messiah, and carried forth by his church to this day. Jesus is the Lord of this kingdom. But we (very much including the church) often fail miserably to recognize him as such. What has happened to our concepts of love, and community, and service, and worship, and mastery, and governance, and observance, and faith, and righteousness, and justice that have allowed us to view ourselves as Lord in place of Jesus, and view the Holy Spirit of God as simply our individual helper buddy with whom we never speak? What would it mean for us to again know and recognize that “Jesus is Lord?” Ponder it, as I am, and perhaps discussion for another time.