Ephesians

4. One Lord

The next three elements gather about the second Person of the Trinity, the Son—one Lord. I think it is significant that the apostle does not say “one Savior,” though it is true there is only one Savior. Everywhere in Scripture it is only when we acknowledge Jesus as Lord that He becomes our Savior. So the issue Paul centers on is that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Lord means “ultimate authority.” As Paul puts it in the letter to the Philippians, “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11). He is the supreme Person of the universe. There is no other Lord; there will never be another Lord.

Peter puts it bluntly: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). That is why the early Christians could not say, “Caesar is Lord,” as the persecutors of the early church tried to get them to do. Torture and the threat of death could not wring those words from the lips of a Christian, because there is no other Lord. There is only one Lord, the man Christ Jesus, who lived and loved and died among us, who rose again and lives today, the Lord of the universe. That is why John says that anyone who denies this is not a Christian, he has the “spirit of the antichrist” (1 John 4:3). Paul says a man can only say, “Jesus is Lord,” by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3).