One Lord
W. Carl Ketcherside
Jesus is the centerpiece of the human race and the leader of all human progress. I am well within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built, all the parliaments that have ever sat, and all the kings that have ever ruled, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth like this one solitary personality. - S. A. Stuber in "Treasury of the Christian Faith"
One of the most thrilling chapters in the compilation we call the New Testament is Revelation 19. Every verse pulsates and throbs with dynamic action. But no part is more majestic than the review of the celestial horse guard of glory. John was permitted to witness the parade of the white horses and even his verbal description is enough to make goose pimples rise on your flesh. From the moment he writes, "And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse," the Bible lover knows he is in for a great experience.
Riding at the head of the heavenly cavalry was one whose eyes penetrated the universe like a flame-thrower. Balanced on his head were diadems indicative of cosmic conquest. His flowing cloak was dyed red with the blood in which it had been dipped. His words issued from his mouth, scintillating and piercing, like a sharp sword. Those words cut to the heart of the false pride and political ambition out of which the nations of the earth spring. Those nations were to be governed by a power so firm and unrelenting it was best described by an iron scepter.
The conquering hero of heaven would judge and make war in righteousness. Universal justice and equity would prevail. The evil and iniquitous were to be cast into the winepress of the world, the winepress of fierceness and the wrath of Almighty God. The face of God is against them that do evil. Sin cannot stand in the presence of one who is ultimately good, who is The Good as well as The God of all creation. It will be consumed in a flash like a moth flying headlong into livid flame.
The leader was called Faithful and True, symbolic of fidelity and integrity like pure gold, purged by the refiner's fire of all dross and weakness. In the final analysis faith and truth are not mere characteristics of men, or even of angels. The ultimate faith is a person. And the ultimate truth is a person. Let aspiring philosophers, mentally masticating their meaty morsels of thought, learnedly announce there is no absolute truth. I know better. Absolute truth and absolute faith are found in a person. I know who he is. And because I know I have eternal life, the life of God. And I have it now!
His name is called The Word of God. He is called Faithful and True, but his name is called The Word of God. Absolute faith and absolute truth are identified with the living Word. The living Word is not something said by God but the one who says it. And that which is said or written, although it is the word of God and the word from God, can never equal or exhaust the living Word. Not biography can ever capture a person. No painting can ever portray a person. A biography and painting can present a likeness, one with the pen and the other with the brush, but there is as much difference between a portrait and a person as there is between an architect's drawing and a building teeming with living workers. There is a greater difference because both the drawing and the structure are human. The living Word is divine.
Read it again! His name is called the Word of God! God is theos. Word is logos. His name is called theos-logos, the theology of heaven. Theology is a person. He is the man on the white horse "and the armies of heaven followed him." That is why I am no longer concerned with the distillate of men's minds, caught and bottled and labeled and put in rows on seminary shelves. It is silly to talk about the theology of God, the theology of the Spirit, or the theology of salvation. It is sillier yet to listen to the professional jargon couched in such terms as the pneumatic theology, eschatological theology, or soteriological theology. In reality there are no such things!
Not satisfied with fragmenting man and compartmentalizing him until he can no longer meet the demands of the culture in which he exists, we must now put theology on the dissecting table and use the scalpel and saw until faith and truth are no longer integrated. When the "rationalists" get through kicking around their views and ideas in a modernistic seminary classroom they are so confused they could not tell anyone how to be saved if they thought there was such a thing as salvation, and in their muddled, mixed-up minds a lot of them think there is not!
Well, I think there is! And I know theology. My theology is Christ Jesus! Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God! Anyone who believes that with all his heart and mind, his being and intellect, believes all that is essential to be inducted into that glorious dimension of peace and power called eternal life. His name is called Theology! The naked aborigine in the Amazonian jungle who trusts with childlike simplicity in Jesus Christ as the very source of life is a far more profound "theologian" in the sight of God than the immaculately-attired professor who grinds away at the dry powdery grist of "systematic theology" while often casting doubts upon the reality of revelation.
Theology is not a course I have studied. Theology is my elder brother. Theology was made flesh and brought his own tent with him and lived among us. Theology died for my sins and rose again for my justification. And his biography, written by four of his good friends who were his companions during his Earth-visit, even though penned under the guidance of the Spirit that is divine, does not exhaust his being or personality. They could not even record all that he did in a little more than three years on this planet. They said that if they had written it all down the world would probably not have contained the books. Think of what he has done since before the world began, and of what he is still doing!
The reporter of the heavenly scene not stop until he wrote, "On his robe and on his leg was written, King of kings and Lord of lords." Faithful, True, The Word of God, King of kings, Lord of lords. There is one Lord and he is Lord of all. That is what Peter said in Acts 10.36. I believe it. I accept it unconditionally and without reservation. You need not sweeten it up or decorate it. Never mind the contingencies. I will take it like it is. God raised him up and made him both Lord and Christ. I believe it assuredly.
Jesus Christ is Lord! That is the confession every tongue must make. It will be on the tongues of angels, of men and of demons. Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father. I have already confessed it. I have pledged my allegiance to him. I am sure that Peter meant he was Lord of all men, Jews and Greeks, bond and free, rich and poor. But he is also Lord of all things. And I know that Lord means ruler or master. It has to do with authority and power. It refers to one who governs or controls.
That is what I want Jesus to do. I want him to be lord of my whole life. If I try to be lord of my own life, that will make two lords, and there is but one Lord. I want him to be Lord of every fact of my existence and of all that I do. I want him to Lord of my lawnmower and leaf rake. I want him to govern my ground and my garden. I want him to control my car and my cash. I don't ever want to just go and sing a few songs to him one day per week and then dismiss him for the rest of my time. I do not want to make a flunky or celestial errand boy out of him when I want something or need something. He is Lord of all and I intend to allow him to be.
"Take my life, and let it be, consecrated Lord to thee!" Not just part of it. Not just a remnant of it. All of it. When I read the Bible, I want to see Jesus at work in time and space. When I read the newspaper I want to see him at work in history. When I read the star-spangled canopy of the heavens at night I want to see Jesus at work sustaining the universe. All things were created by the power of God's word, all things are maintained by the word of God's power.
Jesus is Lord of light, life and love. He is the companion of my walk, the coordinator of my work and the center of my worship. It is said that upon a steep and forbidding precipice in the Alps there is a marble cross. On its outstretched arms are engraved the words, "Jesus Only." The daughter of a prominent family slipped from the steep slope and plunged to her death in a yawning crevice opening up beneath the place. Her parents, stricken with uncontrollable grief tried everything to assuage their sorrow. They traveled to distant places seeking comfort in new scenes. It was all to no effect. Then they decided to cast themselves wholly on the Lord and they found inner calm and peace. They erected the white cross with the inscription "Jesus Only." I have a cross with those words erected in my heart as I write this.
The purpose of the apostle in this context (Ephesians 4.5) is to direct our minds to the unity of the Spirit and to define the context or composition of that unity. At the heart of it is the fact that there is one Lord. He is the magnetic center toward which all of us are drawn. Unity is not understanding everything alike. There are varied views in Christ Jesus. There always have been and always will be. Unity is not agreement upon opinions and interpretations. It never has been and never can be. It is not esteeming days alike. It is not having the same view as to eating of meats.
The unity of the Spirit is togetherness in Christ. We are one in him and not one in opinion. We will still be searching the written word long after we have become one in the living Word. Faith can embrace the Lord of life while the intellect grapples with problems of understanding. Eternal life is not knowing all about the Bible, but knowing God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. Salvation is being made whole in Him and being one with all others in that wholeness. Isn't that great?
