The Lordship of Christ

So we are redeemed by the Lord and brought into His Kingdom. This kingdom will be manifestly revealed in the future, but it is a pre-existing reality of Christ's Lordship in the lives of believers. To belong to the kingdom is to have Jesus Christ as your King. Christ is the absolute and unconditional Lord in the life of a Christian:

For none of us lives for himself, and no one dies for himself; but if we live, we live for the Lord; whether we die, we die to the Lord: and therefore, whether we live or die, we are always the Lord's. For for this reason Christ died, and rose again, and came to life, that He might have dominion over both the dead and the living (Romans 14:7-9).

The Lord says: Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. He who saves his life will lose it; but he who loses his life for my sake will save it (Matt. 10:37-39).

These harsh and confusing words of the Lord say the same thing: no values and attachments, including attachment to one's own life, can be more important than following Christ. Incidentally, these and similar texts expose any attempt to separate the "historical Jesus" from the "dogmatic Christ." Jesus claims a dominion equal to that of God; He declares that man's eternal salvation depends on his willingness to lose his soul (life) for Him, Jesus Christ (v. 39). Of course, this does not mean that your family will necessarily expel you and in the end you will be painfully killed; it is very likely that this will not happen, but the Lord considers it necessary to warn at once that this may happen. Earthly commanders, inviting people to join their army, speak of victories, glory and rewards, and are silent about toils, deprivations, painful wounds and death; The Lord also promises a great reward, but He does not hide what it may cost. More often, however, it is not a question of dying under torture for the name of Christ, but of daily obedience, of "faithfulness in small things"—of the not at all dramatic everyday sacrifices that following His commandments may require of us.

To confess Jesus Christ as Lord (Romans 10:9) means to recognize one's unconditional obligation to obey Him. The Bible describes a Christian as "a servant of Christ (of God)" (e.g., 1 Pet. 2:16; 2 Pet. 1:1; Rom. 6:22, 1 Cor. 6:22, Eph. 6:6; Rev. 7:3, etc.) The Lord clearly says that one should not try to "outwit" Him by claiming His promises and at the same time ignoring His commandments: "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord! Lord!" will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, "Lord! God! Have we not prophesied in Thy name? and did they not cast out demons in Thy name? And then I will declare to them, I have never known you; depart from me, you workers of iniquity.

Whosoever therefore heareth these words of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, who built his house upon a rock. And the rain fell, and the rivers overflowed, and the winds blew, and rushed upon that house, and it did not fall, because it was founded on a rock. But whosoever heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand. And the rain fell, and the rivers overflowed, and the winds blew, and fell upon that house; and he fell, and his fall was great (Matt. 7:21-27).

There is usually no doubt that a Christian must obey Christ and follow Him. The confusion arises in another question: are we saved through our obedience, or are we to be obedient because we are saved? Sometimes the biblical requirements of obedience are used to proclaim salvation by personal effort. Does Scripture provide grounds for such an interpretation? We have already considered the verses that show that in order to serve the Lord, one must first be saved (see the chapter on justification by faith). I will cite another Scripture: And that we have come to know Him, we know by keeping His commandments. Whoever says: "I have known Him," but does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and there is no truth in him (1 John 2:3-4).

The fulfillment of the commandments is a consequence, not a precondition, of knowing Christ. A warrior must obey orders, not in order to become a warrior, but because he is already a warrior; a slave serves his master, not in order to belong to him, but because he already belongs to him; a subject serves the Emperor not in order to obtain citizenship, but because he already has it. The position of a subject, slave or warrior is not determined by the quality of obedience. It is not our status that is determined by our obedience, but our obedience is determined by our status. To give you an example, because I am married, I have certain obligations to my wife: to be faithful to her, to provide for her financially, to take care of her, to treat her with love and respect. I'm not a perfect husband (there are no perfect husbands), but because I recognize myself as married, I can't shirk the commitments that come with it. The Apostle exhorts: "Therefore I, a prisoner in the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling to which you have been called" (Ephesians 4:1).

That is, we must behave in accordance with the title that we already have. What if a person does not want to be obedient to Christ? This would mean that his conversion simply did not take place. To accept Christ as our Savior is also to accept Him as Lord—one cannot be separate from the other.

The children of God obey their Father: Whosoever is born of God commits no sin, because his seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. The children of God and the children of the devil are recognized in this way: "Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither is he that loveth not his brother" (1 John 3:9-10).

Sometimes the enemy distorts the meaning of these words of Scripture in order to deprive Christians of all confidence, to plunge them into confusion, and, if possible, into despair. The enemy says: the children of God are those who obey; your obedience is very far from perfect; therefore you are not a child of God. He who is born of God does not sin (1 John 5:1), but you cannot say that you do not sin, therefore you are not regenerated. The enemy's trick is to interpret obedience in a perfectionist sense—as if one who has come to know Christ is showing absolute and perfect obedience, of which there is not the slightest lack. In this case, there is not and never has been a single person on earth who has come to know Christ, for the same Apostle says: "But if we walk in the light, even as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, then He, being faithful and just, will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, then we represent Him as a liar, and His word is not in us.

My children! This I write to you, that you may not sin; but if anyone should sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world (1 John 1:7-10; 2:1-2).

Those who John says walk in the light still need the Blood of Jesus Christ to continue to wash them from all sin, to confess their sins, and to be forgiven again and again. At the same time, the Apostle definitely considers the addressees of his epistle to be "born of God" (1 John 5:1) and "those who know God" (1 John 2:12-14). As long as we bear "this body of death" (Romans 7:24), we will still "have sin" (1 John 1:8), as a kind of occupier with whom we are waging a guerrilla war and from whom we will be finally freed only in heaven. Thus, the Apostle speaks here about imperfect obedience, but still about obedience. Imperfect obedience can be easily distinguished from resistance; sins of weakness and ignorance — from stubborn and hardened disregard for God and His moral law. Such a distinction is already made in the Old Testament: "But if one man sins through ignorance, let him offer a goat a year old as a sin offering. And the priest will cleanse the soul that has committed a sin before the Lord by mistake, and it will be cleansed, and it will be forgiven. One law shall be for you, both for the native of the children of Israel, and for the stranger who dwells among you, if any man do anything by mistake. But if any of the natives, or of the strangers, does anything with a bold hand, he blasphemes the Lord: that soul shall be cut off from his people. For he despised the word of the Lord, and broke His commandment; that soul shall be destroyed; her sin is upon her (Num. 15:27-31).