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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman Both
Lord And Christ Acts 2:36 is one of my
favourite Bible verses. "Therefore let all The very first Christian
sermon ever preached was premised on the fact that Jesus is both Lord and
Christ. I maintain that Jesus
could not be our Saviour, the Christ, unless He was first the Lord, God in
a human form. This Biblical
fact forms the foundation of the gospel we are to preach, but is it what
we're preaching? I observe that our
Evangelical gospel over the last few decades has majored on Jesus being
the Christ, our Saviour. We
preach come to Jesus and get saved, get forgiven, get heaven, get healed,
get prosperous, get peace, get joy, and so on. If
this "gospel to get" is the extent of the gospel you preach, you
preach half of the gospel. Yes, Jesus is the
Christ, who has and does, save us by giving Himself to us.
I do not debate that fact, but, Jesus is also our Lord, God
Almighty. As Lord, we are to
give ourselves to Him, and as we do, as Christ, He saves us.
That is the other half of the gospel. I was raised in the
Methodist tradition that is rooted in the doctrine of Entire
Sanctification, which in part, teaches that we receive Christ into our
lives as Saviour, after which we make Him our Lord.
Such a two stage salvation is not what Peter preached on the Day of
Pentecost. Of course,
Methodists aren't the only ones who preach some form of a two stage
conversion.
This gospel to get has
produced a multitude of selfish Christians, if in fact they are
Christians. It's basic to the
heretical Prosperity Gospel that has created a class of Christians who
believe in a hyper-faithism whereby they claim that they deserve the best
that life has to offer. At
that point, the Christian life is all about us, and where is the Lordship
of Jesus in that? Jesus is not just the
Christ who offers Himself to us. He
is the Lord, the supreme universal authority over all things material and
all things spiritual, to whom we are to offer ourselves.
It's an exchange of lives. As
Christ, Jesus gives Himself to us. As
Lord, we give ourselves to Him, resulting in our salvation.
Peter said that Jesus is
both Lord and Christ. You
cannot, nor must not, separate Him being Lord from Him being the Christ,
and if you do, you preach another gospel.
You might then ask yourself, does such another gospel actually save
anyone? I suggest you read
what Paul wrote about another gospel in Galatians 1:8. He vehemently opposed it. It's my contention that
what we call church in the western world needs to embrace the gospel that
Jesus is both Lord and Christ just as much as sinners need to embrace it.
This is my
confession. I am a Christian because
Jesus has provided me the awareness that He is the ultimate universal authoritative
Lord. That being the fact,
with His assistance, I have no other logical decision but to offer myself
to His Lordship. He then as
Christ, offers Himself to me whereby I am saved.
Is that your confession?
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