LORD AND SAVIOUR

Paul wrote, ‘that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from among the dead, thou shalt be saved’, Rom. 10. 9 JND. Many believers can testify to the importance of that verse in their own salvation. Through it, they came to know Jesus as Saviour. They found, in Him, the forgiveness they needed for their sins, cleansing from the defilement caused by sin, and deliverance from the wrath their sin deserved. If, at salvation, we came to know deliverance from the penalty of sin, we came to appreciate, too, that, one day, we will be delivered from the presence of sin.

To ‘confess … Jesus as Lord’ has a far greater significance than many appreciate, at least when they are first saved. The word Lord, or kurios, defines a title of wide significance. It can mean: owner, Luke 19. 33; master, Eph. 6. 5; or be a title of respect, Matt. 22. 43; John 13. 13. As believers, we have come under new ownership, 1 Cor. 6. 19-20. We have a new Master who determines the direction of our lives and the manner, and sphere, of our service, Mark 5. 19. We have a new view of, and respect for, the One whose name we once used in blasphemy, 1 Cor. 12. 3. We should have made a complete and irrevocable break with our past life, 2 Cor. 6.17.

In our reading today, we have a sad catalogue of failure that characterizes the false teachers of whom Peter wrote in warning. They had once known of the Lord and Saviour. That knowledge had brought them a measure of blessing in temporary escape from ‘the pollutions of the world’, v. 20. In their identification with the people of God, they had come to know of ‘the way of righteousness’, v. 21. However, all the sham has now been stripped away and their true character manifest. How near they had come to blessing, and yet how far they had now drifted! ‘It is illustrative of the futility of reformation without regeneration’, D. Edmond Hiebert.

What a challenge to all our hearts! Have we confessed ‘Jesus as Lord’, Rom. 10. 9? Does our Christian life reflect the change brought about by the Lordship of Christ?