The Lordship of Christ

Romans 14:5–9 speaks of how the lordship of Christ works in the lives of each believer and the church family. The Holy Spirit applies to each elect sinner the redemption accomplished by Jesus Christ by his obedience, life, death, and resurrection. So the Holy Spirit regenerates a sinner and causes him to confessKurios Iêsous, “Lord is Jesus.” Without this confession, no one can be saved (Rom. 10:9). So the sinner repents and believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. He is made able to do this by grace alone. If Jesus Christ is Lord and King, then the believer is his bondslave. His ears have been pierced, as we read in Deuteronomy: “If your servant says to you, “I do not want to leave you,” because he loves you and your family and is well off with you, then take an awl and push it through his ear lobe into the door and he will become your servant for life. Do the same for your maidservant” (Deut. 15:16–17).

Believers have ears that have been pierced; therefore, they hear and do the will of their Lord Jesus Christ. In Romans 1:1 Paul calls himself doulos tou Christou Iêsou(bondslave of Jesus Christ). We are slaves of Christ because we love Christ, who loved us, died for our sins, and was raised for our justification.

The Christian life is a delightful slavery. It is sheer happiness to serve our Lord, who became the suffering servant and by whose stripes we are healed (Isa. 53). The word Kurios, Lord, appears seven times in Romans 14:5–9. The teaching that one can receive Jesus as Savior only and not as Lord is the teaching of antinomianism, the teaching of cheap grace and easy believism. No one can be saved without receiving Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as Lord. The teaching that one can divide Jesus and receive him as Savior only but not as Lord is contrary to the holy Scriptures. It is of the devil. And to those who refuse to serve him as Lord, Jesus will say on the day of judgment, “Depart from me, you workers of anomia, lawlessness!” (Matt. 7:23). The proof that Christ has saved us by grace alone is that we love him and keep his holy, moral commandments.

Sabbath Day

The first point we want to make about the lordship of Christ relative to this passage is that Jesus is the Lord of the Lord’s Day, the Christian Sabbath. The church of God is a holy family consisting of strong people, weak people, and infants. There are vegetarians and non-vegetarians, those who know much about Scriptures and those who are just beginning to learn, those who have great faith and those who have little faith. But all of these saints confess and love Jesus Christ, and they all believe the apostolic teachings.

But in matters of indifference, adiaphora, there is freedom. If the weak Christian wants to eat only vegetables, let him do so until he learns the Scriptures and grows up in faith to enjoy the full Christian liberty. Let him celebrate Jewish festivals as well as fast days. The strong believer looks upon every day alike because he knows Christ has abrogated the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament.

Yet all true believers, whether strong or weak, know that God’s moral laws are still applicable to all believers. So the Ten Commandments are applicable to us, including the fourth commandment, which says, “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Exod. 20:8). We are to work six days and enjoy rest in God one day. And we must note that the Ten Commandments are for all to keep—not only for believers but also for unbelievers because they have been written by God on all human hearts (Rom. 2:15). The lordship of Christ therefore affects also the fourth commandment.

In Romans 14:5 Paul says, “One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike.” But Romans 14:5–6 is not speaking of the weekly Sabbath observance because the Sabbath ordinance is part of the moral law, not the ceremonial law, which Christ abrogated. Believers in Christ are to obey all God’s moral laws as grace enables them by the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit regenerates them and gives them a new, responsive heart. They are baptized in the Holy Spirit and given power to live a Christian life. They are filled with the Holy Spirit, taught in the Scriptures by the Holy Spirit, and daily being led by the Holy Spirit. God works in them, and by grace they work out the will of God, the moral law, in their lives. By grace they can do all the will of God. They are in Christ, and Christ is in them by the Holy Spirit. They are united with Christ, who is their life. So they bring forth fruit, more fruit, and much fruit. The Holy Spirit produces in them the fruit of the Spirit, such as love, joy, peace, and so on (Gal. 5:22–23).

A fruitless Christian is a false Christian. He is a fake, a leech, a mistletoe, a bedbug. But a true Christian keeps God’s commandments. He does not steal, lie, murder, commit adultery, and so on. Of such people the Bible says, “He who stole, let him steal no longer, but let him work with his hands that he may have something to share with those in need” (Eph. 4:28). As an unbeliever, this man stole, but as a believer, he works and gives to the needy.

So also a believer works six days and rests in God one day a week, which is the New Testament Sabbath. This day is observed on the first day of the week in celebration of Christ’s finished work of redemption. In the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 21, articles 7 and 8 we read:

VII. As it is the law of nature, that, in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in His Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, He has particularly appointed one day in seven, for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him: which, from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ, was the last day of the week: and, from the resurrection of Christ, was changed into the first day of the week, which, in Scripture, is called the Lord’s Day, and is to be continued to the end of the world, as the Christian Sabbath.

VIII. This Sabbath is to be kept holy unto the Lord when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering of their common affairs beforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all the day from their own works, words, and thoughts about their worldly employments and recreations, but also are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of His worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.

Christ rose on the first day of the week and appeared to his disciples on first day of week. He directed his followers to assemble on the first day of the week. He appeared to John on the isle of Patmos on the Lord’s Day, the first day.

So the first day of the week is the Lord’s Day, that is, it belongs to the Lord, just as the Lord’s Supper and the Lord’s tithes also belong to the Lord. Because they are the Lord’s, we are not to appropriate them for ourselves. So on the Lord’s Day, we who confess Jesus is Lord, should come together to worship and do works of necessity and mercy.

The Lord’s Day is set apart for us to look to the Lord and fellowship with God’s people. Jesus declared, “The Sabbath was made for man,” and man still needs the Sabbath. Today God’s people celebrate the Sabbath day on the first day of the week, as we read in a booklet by Iain H. Murray, Rest in God and A Calamity in Contemporary Christianity, published by Banner of Truth. Let us consider the following scriptures:

1. Acts 20:7: “On the first day of the week we came together to break bread.”
2. 1 Corinthians 16:1–2: “Now about the collection for God’s people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.”
3. Revelation 1:10: “On the Lord’s Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet.”
4. Hebrews 10:24–25: “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as the habit of some is, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

So the Lord’s Day celebration is not a matter of adiaphora, indifference, like eating meat or only eating vegetables. Romans 14:5–6 is speaking about days that had to do with Jewish festivals and fast days, not the Lord’s Day. About such days, there is freedom. To the strong, every day is alike. To the weak, to the Jewish Christians, one day is more sacred. But, Paul says, each one should be convinced in his own mind in this matter. We have freedom.

To the Lord

Second, we live our life “to the Lord” (tô Kuriô). In the Greek, it is a dative of advantage. To the Lord’s advantage we live. We do what we do because we serve our Master, Jesus Christ. Whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, we do it all for the glory of God, to the Lord. We are to do all to please God, and we do all in the name of the Lord. We give thanks to God because it is a privilege to be a slave of Jesus, who gave us true freedom.

So the one who keeps one day as special, does so “to the Lord,” to the Lord’s advantage, that is, in the Lord’s service, to the Lord’s glory and profit. The Lord commanded us, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it” (Matt. 16:24–25). A slave’s will is the will of his master. He thinks his master’s thoughts. He delights in his master’s will and does it. Jesus always pleased his Father and did his Father’s will. He lived to his Father. He said, “Not my will but thine be done,” and went to the cross.

The way of Christ is also our way. We follow him and do his will. We live for him and die for him. By his death, our Lord destroyed the sting of death by keeping the law of God in our behalf. He has given us eternal life, and we shall never perish. We are united to him who is life and who can never die again. So death cannot separate us from the living Christ. We live to glorify Christ by obeying him. Paul says we are called by the apostolic gospel “for the obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5).

He who eats meat also does so to the Lord’s advantage, and he thanks God for the gift of meat. A true believer is thankful. Unbelievers are thankless, hopeless, worthless, and godless (Rom. 1:21). They thank themselves, not God. Haven’t you heard people healed of cancer say very proudly, “I beat my cancer”? A true believer will not say that. Rather, he gives thanks to God for everything, knowing that his life, his food, his clothes, his work, and his family are all gifts from God. So the vegetarian eats to the Lord’s advantage and gives thanks to God. And throughout the gospels, we see Jesus and the apostles giving thanks for food and for all good things.

Why do we eat and drink to the Lord and thank God? Because “none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone” (v. 7). Yes, we will die. Our bodies are mortal. We live in a fallen world. Yet we do not live independent lives. Each one belongs to the Lord, and each one belongs to each other. So we are to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. At the foot of the cross, we threw away our imagined independence. We don’t live alone or die alone. We are owned by the Lord. So we are to live in the Lord’s service and glory, and we will die in the service of the Lord and for his glory. The chief end of man is to glorify God, in life and in death, and to enjoy him forever.

We live in the interest of our Lord and his church. Our thanksgiving to God sanctifies all food, and God blesses it to our good health for his work. (PGM) We live and move and work coram Deo (in God’s presence). We live God-centered and God-conscious lives. The word of Christ dwells in us richly. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ, the hope of glory, dwells in us and rules us by his Spirit through the word and through the church.

If we live, we live in the Lord’s service daily. If we die, we die in the Lord’s service and for his glory. Believers die confessing Christ, as Stephen did as he was welcomed to heaven by his living Lord. The believing thief on the cross confessed Jesus as King and died for Christ’s glory.

We not only live for the Lord’s glory, but we also die for his glory. Balaam earnestly desired to die the death of the righteous. But he refused to live for the glory of God; therefore, he died the death of the wicked. The rich man of Luke 16 lived for his own glory; when he died, he went to hell. But the beggar Lazarus lived for the Lord’s glory. When he died, heaven celebrated and God sent angels to transport his spirit to paradise to live in God’s presence in eternal joy. Remember, saints, we die in the service of our Lord and for his glory.

We Are Not Our Own

Third, we are not our own. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. We are the Lord’s sheep; he owns us. He paid the highest price, laying down his own life, to purchase us for himself. In John 10 we read five times that the good shepherd lays down his life for the glory of God and for our salvation.

Christ paid a high price for our salvation: his own blood. Paul speaks of this idea of the blood of God in his farewell address to the Ephesian elders: “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with God’s own blood” (Acts 20:28). Elsewhere we read, “In him we have redemption through his blood” (Eph. 1:7). Peter writes, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Pet. 1:18–19). Paul also says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (1 Cor. 6:19–20).

God is not the God of the dead but of the living. The dead in Christ are living with God right now. Jesus said, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Matt. 22:32). He is not the God of the dead but the God of the living. The Hebrews writer says, “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Heb. 12:22–24). Yes, there is a heaven. And the dead in Christ are there right now, worshiping with us.

Christ paid a high price to own us. We are his slaves. But we are more than his slaves. We are also his portion, his treasure, his jewels. We are his body, his church, his children. We are his friends, his family, his kingdom, and his radiant bride.

At death, our life here stops, but a more glorious life in heaven begins. At death, we commit our spirits to God, as Jesus and Stephen did. At death, we go to God to receive the triple crown: the crown of righteousness, the crown of life, and the crown of glory.

The lordship of Jesus Christ is not a limited lordship; it is unlimited and comprehensive. It reaches to our motives, our words, our deeds, our ambitions, our family, our work, our worship, our finance, and so on. Jesus does not save anyone upon whose life he also does not rule. And he has indisputable right to rule us, by the right of creation and the right of redemption.

Jesus is Lord in our lives now and he is our Lord in our death. So he says to each one of us, “Fear not! By my death I have destroyed your death. By faith in me you have crossed over from death into life” (see John 5:24; 1 John 3:14). So we always live in the sphere of life even when we die. Union with Jesus guarantees not only our spiritual resurrection, but also our glorious physical resurrection. Christ is risen, and so we too shall rise in him. So whether we die slowly by cancer or quickly by a massive heart attack, we belong to the Lord, who is the resurrection and the life, and who declared the truth: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25–26).

The will of God is that we live. So we say, “Thy will be done, no matter what that entails.” “For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him and have been called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). God will not permit anything in this world to bring about our destruction. He is Lord of all and he is our Savior. Whether we live or whether we die, we belong to the Lord. And the Lord takes good care of his property. No one shall be lost; all who are his shall be saved. We belong to the Lord and so also we belong to one another. There is no independence in the family of God. A sinner is lonely. He lives an independent, self-centered life, living for himself and pleasing himself at the expense of others. He is a stranger to the love that sacrifices for the benefit of the other, the love that is placarded by the cross of Christ. But because Christ loved us and died for us, we also love God and God’s people. This way of love gives us true happiness and inexpressible joy.

Romans 14:8 says that we belong to the Lord. Then in verse 9, Paul says, “for this very purpose Christ died and came back to life” (author’s wording). Why did he die and come back to life? The purpose is so that he may rule his kingdom, consisting of his people, his saints, his church; that he may be the Lord of (Grk., that he may rule) the dead and the living saints of God. This Lordship over his church was given Christ by his Father as a reward for his redemptive work. It is his right to save us and rule our lives. Satan rules to kill and destroy. The rule of Jesus Christ is the greatest blessing imaginable. He has come to give us life, eternal life, abundant life. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Away with the heresy that one can receive Jesus as Savior but not as Lord! Romans 14:5–9 totally refutes such error. We cannot divide Jesus Christ. He is Lord and Savior.

Before we came to know Christ, sin exercised mastery over us (Rom. 6:9,14); death exercised lordship over us; law exercised lordship over us; and the devil exercised lordship over us. But now the Lord Jesus Christ exercises Lordship over us. So we are told, “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” Now grace reigns through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Now we belong to the Lord who rules us and for whom we live and for whom we die.

This Lord Jesus by his death destroyed our death and brought life and immortality to light. He died for us. He lives for us. So we live for him and die for his glory. Dr. Douglas Moo says, “The union with the Lord Christ with all its benefits, that the believer enjoys in this life, will continue after death; indeed, an even fuller measure of blessing.”¹And I say, without interruption.

Let us, therefore, live out our confession, “Jesus Lord,” in life and death. Paul says, “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again” (2 Cor. 5:14–15). He also writes, “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age” (Titus 2:11–12). And Peter says, “Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God” (1 Pet. 4:1–2). So we live for God’s glory, living to please the Lord. We thank God for all his gifts and we do all things in his name. So we live a fearless, cheerful life to the Lord. Soli Deo Gloria!

¹ Douglas Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 845.