Jesus Christ the Lord // weeks 22 to 25

I've been away for the last few weeks, but still trucking along in my reading of the Bible in 180 days. After today, we have only three days left and we'll have read the entirety of the Word of God in six months.

In the last three weeks we have done at least one epistle a day nearly every day. Even if I wanted to catch up and backdate three or four of my missing weekly posts, I don't know how I'd choose what to write - we have taken in so much prescriptive literature in such a short period of time, so many different instructions and imperatives and suggestions to the early churches and their leaders.

But in all of it, one common thread - a thread that seems so ridiculously obvious, but at the same time so ridiculously important - has stood out to me.

Jesus Christ the Lord.

You can barely read a sentence in the Pauline epistles without coming across this title in some form. "In Christ Jesus," "through Jesus Christ," "our Lord Jesus Christ," "Jesus Christ the Lord" pepper every paragraph in abundance, and for some reason (maybe because I read so many of the epistles aloud), this time it really struck me - this is what it is all about.

This is what the story is for.

This is why we read the stories of the patriarchs in Genesis and slogged through the laws of Israel in the other books of the Torah. This is why we spent what seemed like years with the prophets, mired down in the pain and sin of God's holy people. This is why, four times and in four different ways, we read about the life and ministry of a man named Jesus.

Because Jesus Christ IS the Lord.

Jesus - Yeshua - Rescuer. Our Rescuer.

Christ - Messiah - Savior. Our Savior.

Lord - Adonai - Master. Our Master.

Paul and the other epistolic authors filled their letters with this Name because this Name changed everything.

Because He wasn't just a man, but God as well.

Because He wasn't just a prophet, but Messiah as well.

Because He wasn't just a miracle worker, but King as well.

Jesus Christ the Lord is both the beginning and the end of the story - the Creator of the perfect world and the Savior of the broken one.

This is His story.

This is who He is.

And who He is changes everything.