JESUS IS LORD
"Everyone who CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED"
The dispute on the Lordship of Jesus is coming back to the scene, I don’t understand how someone is willing to preach the Gospel and not present Jesus as Lord, and through this article, you’re going to understand that this is at the core of this controversy, the reason people believe they can have Jesus as their Savior and never surrender to Him as Lord is because some preachers have not been faithful to the message of the Gospel when preaching and evangelizing people.
JUSTIFICATION COMES THROUGH THE LORD JESUS…
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).
Jesus' Lordship is “sine qua non" when it comes to salvation, one day every knee will bow down and declare Jesus as Lord, and everyone will recognize His Lordship, blessed are those who through history and right now declared that in love, even those who deny it will bow before Him and declare “Jesus is Lord", but for some of them it will be too late, if you have not done that yet, pray to God and beg Him to give you the conviction of Jesus' Lordship and surrender to Him.
“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 acknowledges that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father". (Philippians 2:9–11)
We must preach Jesus Christ as He is presented in the pages of the Scriptures, God who became men, the One Who died for our sins and was raised from the dead, He is Lord above all. All the discussions around Jesus' Lordship don’t fit in the Revelation we have in the New Testament, the idea that you can have Jesus as Savior and never surrender and submit to Him as Lord is umbilical and false. The reason many people believe that is because they are not under a sound preaching of Who is Jesus, He is Lord overall.
ROMANS 10:8-13.
“But what does it say? “the word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” That is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: IF YOU DECLARE WITH YOUR MOUTH, “JESUS IS LORD,” and BELIEVE IN YOUR HEART THAT GOD RAISED HIM FROM THE DEAD, YOU WILL BE SAVED. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same LORD IS LORD of all and richly blesses all who call on HIM, for, “everyone who CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.” HOW, THEN, CAN THEY CALL ON THE ONE THEY HAVE NOT BELIEVED IN? And HOW CAN THEY BELIEVE IN THE ONE OF WHOM THEY HAVE NOT HEARD? And HOW CAN THEY HEAR WITHOUT SOMEONE PREACHING TO THEM?
See? The problem is not that we expect people to surrender to Christ as somehow a good work toward salvation, it’s not, on the contrary, the problem is that Jesus is not being preached as He is, as LORD. The apostle Paul declares the content of the Gospel he preaches, "That is THE MESSAGE CONCERNING FAITH THAT WE PROCLAIM, JESUS is LORD, and you must hear that Jesus is Lord, we must preach that Jesus is Lord, the unbeliever must get the Gospel right, and Paul is more than crystal clear, that is the message concerning faith we proclaimed, true faith in Jesus Christ is faith in Him as Lord.
So, why do so many people don’t believe that they have to believe in Jesus as Lord and surrender to Him at the moment of conversion? It’s because they didn’t hear that in evangelism, "HOW, THEN, CAN THEY CALL ON THE ONE THEY HAVE NOT BELIEVED IN? And HOW CAN THEY BELIEVE IN THE ONE OF WHOM THEY HAVE NOT HEARD?", Paul gives us clear advice on how to do evangelism, we must preach and teach Jesus as Lord, because He is Lord, there is no such a thing as making Jesus Lord, He is Lord. HOW CAN THEY HEAR WITHOUT SOMEONE PREACHING TO THEM? It’s amazing how direct and clean this passage is, the reason they (unbelievers) don’t hear that is because those who preach failed to present the Gospel, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:4 that "FOR IF SOMEONE COMES TO YOU and PREACHES A JESUS OTHER THAN THE JESUS WE PREACHED, or if you receive a different spirit from the Spirit you received, OR A DIFFERENT GOSPEL FROM THE ONE YOU ACCEPTED, YOU PUT UP WITH IT EASILY ENOUGH."
The Gospel Paul preached was the Gospel of the LORD Jesus Christ, If you believe in a jesus Who is not Lord it’s a false jesus, so make sure you are under a sound Preaching of the Gospel.
Finally, it has serious consequences, because Paul clearly says that everyone who calls upon the name of the LORD will be saved, if they don’t call in the name of the LORD they will not be saved, how can they call if they don’t hear it, how will they hear without someone preaching it.
So, if you’re a pastor, preacher, or teacher, make sure you preach the Gospel right, make sure you present Jesus Christ as He is revealed in the pages of Scriptures, and make sure you preach the Gospel aligned with the message of the apostle Paul who declares, the message we preach is Jesus is LORD, either you are saved and Jesus is your LORD and you’re His servant, His slave, or you’re not saved at all, there is no salvation apart of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Salvation is by grace and grace alone, free grace if you will, but this grace when active in our lives is a result of being under the sound Preaching of the Gospel, and this grace gives us repentance and understanding that we are sinners and Jesus is God and Lord.
We’re saved by grace and grace alone, but this grace doesn’t stay alone, (James 2:18) “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead", it’s accompanied by good works (Ephesians 2:9-10) “For it is by grace you’ve been saved, through faith, and it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do". As we already established, nor repentance neither good works are a prerequisite for salvation, it all comes with the gift of faith God so graciously gives us, but repentance and submission to Jesus as Lord are sine qua non for salvation, the sinner is unable to do this, it’s a gift of God. Submission to Jesus as Lord is the same as obedience, the idea of the carnal believer has no grounds in the Scriptures, (1 John 3:9), “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God “. It doesn’t mean that a saved person doesn’t sin anymore, it means that it’s not going to be a lifestyle, a constant practice,there will be repentance and confession of sins till they day we die. (1 John 2:1, 3–4), “I write this to you so that you do not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have One Who speaks to the Father in our defense, Jesus Christ, the Righteous One(…) we know that we have come to know Him (Jesus) if we obey His commands. The man who says, “I know Him, but does not what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in Him", one more time, do not deceive yourself, if you do not surrender to Jesus' Lordship but believe you’re saved, you’re deceiving yourself, and if you say that you know Jesus but not submit and obey Him you’re a liar. Jesus doesn’t ask you anything, He commands you what you have to do and you obey, obviously none of us can perfectly obey, so when we fail we must repent and confess, we have One Who defends us in the presence of God our Father. (Timothy 2:19), “God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: 'The Lord Knows those who are His, and everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness '”. In order to be saved we must confess Jesus as Lord, and if we confess Him as Lord we must turn away from our past sinful life, we’ve just got on the battlefield against our sinful nature, and this fight will last till the day we die. There is a “cheap grace" being preached to quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a grace where sinners profess to be saved but nothing changes in their lives, true grace is free since it doesn’t require the sinner any good works, but it is not cheap, it costs the life of God’s Son, and He as Lord commands us to live godly lives, all we need to do it has been given us, (2 Peter 1:3), “His devine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him Who called us by His own glory and goodness". Don’t rest your assurance on a decision you must have made one day in the past, rest in the fact that if you’re saved it’s because God chose you before the foundation of the world, and He brought you to life by the Word of the Truth, the Gospel, the Holy Spirit did His work in convincing you of your sins and dependency on God’s mercy and grace, that’s our assurance of salvation. The grace of God gives us life, faith to believe, repentance and drawing us to confess not only our sins, but His Lordship. All of it comes at once, and it is a gift from God.
Faith is a gift of God for salvation, and this perfect gift comes with repentance and a sound view and understanding of Who Jesus is, we do not defend that neither repentance nor believing in Jesus as LORD precedes faith, in the contrary, these are at the core of the faith God so graciously and mercifully gives us as a gift. (1 Corinthians 12:3), “no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit". That’s why we must preach the Gospel right, so people will receive it right and believe it right. With that said, grace comes upon us when a godly man preaches the true Gospel of the LORD Jesus, GRACE is God giving us man faithful to the Gospel to present it by the book, according to the Scriptures, according to the message of Jesus' Lordship. Amen.
By: Gezer Carlos Freitas, Theologian from Charles Spurgeon School of Theology.
Steve J Lawson on “Jesus is Lord"👇
https://www.youtube.com/live/_rOm4QuYzVg?si=7dXk86iMLOEqaQNV
Reading recommendation 👇
In The Fullness Of Time
https://medium.com/@gezercarlos/in-the-fullness-of-time-b8a133448042
The Spirit Wrestles Against The Flesh
https://medium.com/@gezercarlos/the-spirit-wrestle-against-the-flesh-ecdfeb18f388