A Brighter Day Begins with His Word.

James Hastings • SECTION 980

Section 980

← Dictionary of the Apostolic Church — Volume 1

But perhaps the most striking instance of all of how Christ comes to have the value of God in the Christian consciousness is attbrded by the fact that, repeatedly in the NT, quotations from the OT which manifestly refer to God are immediately applied to Christ. Thus, e.g., the exhortation of the Psalmist to taste and see that the Lord is good (Ps 34^) is interpreted (1 P 2^) with reference to the experience of the believer of the salvation of Christ ; and St. Paul finds an answer to the question of Is 40'^ (LXX), ' Who hath known the mind of the Lord ? ' in the triumphant declaration, 'But we have the mind of Christ' (I Co 2^^). Other instances of this practice will be found in Ro 10», 1 Co P' m'% 2 Co 316- 18 1017, 1 p 316, Such being the significance with which the title is invested, it is small wonder that St. Paul should have regarded acknowledgment of Christ's Lord- ship as the mark of the true believer (Col 2^). To confess Him as Lord with one's mouth, and to believe in one's heart that God has raised Him from the dead (observe the connexion between the Resurrection and Lordship), is to be assured of salvation (Ro 10"). In cases of ecstasy such con- fession was the infallible sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit (1 Co 12^). The proclamation of Christ's Lordship was the central theme of the Apostle's preaching (2 Co 4^), the universal re- cognition of that Lordship the consummation of the Divine purpose (Ph 2^')-

(3) The protest against Emperor-worship. — There remains to be noted one other aspect of the as- sertion of Christ's Lordship — the protest implied against the worship of the Emperor under tlie same title. Deissmann has shown (op. cit. p. 255 ft".) that already in the time of St. Paul the title was current as a form of address of the Emperor (cf. Ac 25"^), if not in Rome, at any rate in the East. Caligula had ordered his statue to be erected in the Temple at Jerusalem, and required that he should be worshipped as God. Douiitian is called in official reports 'our Lord and God.' When such was the tendency that was abroad, it is possible that even in the mouth of a man who, like St. Paul, urged subjection to the higher

LORD'S DAY

LORD'S DAY

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poAvers, the proclamation of the Lordship of Christ may have had a polemical nuance. In the middle nf the '2nd cent, we find Polycarp laying down his life rather than say Kvpios Kolaap (Mart. Polyc. viii. 2), and probably long before that time, on the lips of those who repeated it, if not by the men who first employed it, the formula 'our Lord Jesus Christ' was uttered with an emphasis on the word 07ir which suggested repudiation of the claims made on behalf of the Emperor (Weinel, Die Stellung des Urchristcntums zum Staat, p. 19). St. Paul could say of the Christian, * our state is in heaven' (Ph 3-°), and endeavour to keep his religion apart altogether from politics. But when politics invaded the sphere of religion and Csesar laid claim to the things that are Christ's, it be- came the duty of the Christian to maintain the sovereignty of his Lord. Such passages as Ph 2""", 1 Co S'''- cannot fail to have been interpreted as a protest against the growing tendency to ascribe to the Emperor the reverence which belonged to Christ alone. We hear the same protest in the claim of Jude*, 'our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ,' and in a milder form in the subtle dis- tinction made in 1 P 2", 'Fear God, honour the king,' i.e. the Emperor. In Rev. the references to the Emperor worship become more explicit (138. IS 149 2u^), and the protest against it finds freer utterance. Christ is proclaimed King of kings and Lord of lords (17" 19"*), while the sovereignty of this world becomes the sovereignty of the Lord and of His anointed one, and He shall reign for ever and ever (11'®).

Literature. — A. B. Bruce, Apologetics, 1892, bk. iii. ch. v. ; H. Lietzmann, Die Brief e des Apostels Paulus (=:HandMich zum. NT, iii. 1 [1910]), p. 53 ff. ; A. Deissmann, Die Urgeschichte des Christentums rin Lichle der SpmrUjtirschvng, 1910, Licht nomOsten, 190S ; Joh. Weiss, Ckristus, i:hi'J, Das Urchristen- tum, 1914, ch. ii. § 5, iv. § 3, vii. § 4 ; H. Weinel, Die Stellung des UrchriMentums zum Staat, 190S ; H. R. Mackintosh, The Person of Jes7is Christ, 1912, bk. iii. ch. v. ; W^. Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 1913. G. WAUCHOPE STEWART,

LORD'S DAY.— 1. Origin.— r>efore the apostolic period had wholly passed away ' the first day of the week ' had become, or was well on the way to become, the stated weekly holy-day of the Chris- tian Church, bearing the distinctive designation 'the Lord's Day' (rj KvpiaKr] rj/xipa). It is evident that this day was regarded as of special importance from the beginning, and was placed alongside of the Sabbath in the esteem of Jewish Christians. In the course of time it became a substitute for the Sabbath itself. How this was brought about cannot be exactly stated. We cannot point to any definite act of institution, any such im- pressive story and legislative sanction as the Pentateuch supplies with reference to the Jewish Sabbath. No authority of the Lord Himself can be cited for it ; there is no ' Jesus said ' to cor- respond to 'God spake all these words, saying' (Ex 20M, or 'the Lord spake unto Moses, saying' (Lv 19'-3).

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