… kyrios is a title which in several passages, particularly in Paul, carries heavy overtones of divinity. As is well known, Paul refers several OT passages which speak of kyrios Yahweh to kyrios Christ — notably Rom. 10: 13, “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord (Yahweh, Christ) will be saved”(Joel 2:32), and Phil. 2:10, where Second Isaiah’s fiercely monotheistic assertion of universal worship to Yahweh becomes an assertion of universal worship to Christ (Isa. 45:21-23).75 However, the problem which this causes for monotheism is eased as soon as we realize that for Paul the kyrios title functions most often as a way of distinguishing Christ from the one God. This we see clearly in the repeated phrase “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 15:6; 2 Cor. 1:3, 11:31; Eph. 1:3, 17; Col. 1:3); also in 1 Cor. 8:6,where Christ is professed as one Lord alongside the Shema’s profession of the one God; and most notably in 1 Cor. 15:24-28, where Christ’s lordship in terms both of Ps. 110:1 and Ps. 8:6 climaxes in the Son’s own subjection to God the Father, “that God may be all in all. ” Even the Philippians hymn must be mentioned here; for in my judgment it is an expression of Adam christology, so that Phil. 2:10 is best seen as a confession of Christ’s lordship as (last)Adam, where, Paul makes it plain, all creation acknowledges Christ’s lordship “to the glory of God the Father” (2:11).
It would seem then that Adam and kyrios christology as statements of Christ’s cosmic lordship are best understood, not as any sort of threat to the unity of God or as a diffusion of the one God’s sovereignty over creation, but rather in terms of God’s purpose to share his authority as Creator with humanity, the crown of his creation, the image of God destined from the first to share in his fuller glory. In short, the exalted Christ is Lord over all (perhaps even “god overall” — Rom. 9:5) not so much as a right of godhood, more as an authority given by God to the firstborn of a new race of resurrected humanity, not only as representing God before humankind but also as representing humankind before God.
James Dunn, “Was Christianity a Monotheistic Faith from the Beginning?” in his The Christ and the Spirit, Volume 1: Christology, 315-344, pp. 337-8, bold emphases added.
you may also find the following , from Harper’s Bible Dictionary, informative.
Harper’s Bible dictionary (1st ed., p. 573). Achtemeier, P. J., Harper & Row and Society of Biblical Literature. (1985). San Francisco: Harper & Row.
LORD
“Lord, a title of dignity and honor acknowledging the power and authority of the one so addressed. In the ot ‘Lord’ is used to translate various titles for God (e.g., Adonai, El Shaddai). It can also be used in a secular sense for a master or owner. In Aramaic these words are translated by m?r?, with possessive suffixes (‘my’ or ‘our’ Lord), and in Greek by kyrios. In the Septuagint the sacred name ‘Yahweh’ was left untranslated in Hebrew characters but was read [verbally] kyrios.
In Jesus’ time the Aramaic word mari, ‘my Lord,’ was coming into use as a title of respect (not of divinity) in addressing human beings with authority, e.g., a rabbi, and it would appear that Jesus was so addressed (e.g., Matt. 7:21). Jesus insists that recognition of his authority requires obedience to the demands of God enunciated by him. Mark 7:28 suggests that a Greek-speaking woman could address Jesus as kyrie, ‘Lord’ or ‘Sir.’ Thus, Jesus during his earthly life could be addressed as ‘Lord’ in recognition of his authority as a teacher (rabbi) and as a charismatic prophet.
After Easter one of the most important of texts to be applied to the Risen One was Psalm 110:1. Here the word ‘Lord’ is used both for God and for the messianic king (Acts 2:34). The application of this text to Jesus meant that the title mari, ‘my Lord,’ addressed to him during his earthly life in recognition of his unusual authority was upgraded as a messianic address. Thus, we get the liturgical acclamation in Aramaic marana tha, ‘our Lord, come’ (1 Cor. 16:22; Rev. 22:20).
Scholars once thought that use of the term ‘Lord’ (m?r?) in the absolute sense was not possible in Aramaic, but new evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls shows that it was possible to refer to God as ‘Lord’ or ‘the Lord,’ not only as ‘my Lord’ or ‘our Lord.’ Consequently, it is possible that the formula from early Christian preaching, ‘God has made him both Lord and Christ’ (Acts 2:36), goes back to the earliest Aramaic-speaking church. The title ‘Lord,’ while not connoting divinity in the metaphysical sense, means that at his exaltation Jesus entered upon a new function as the representative of God’s Lordship in the world and over the church (Phil. 2:11). It is henceforth through the exalted Jesus that God exercises Lordship or kingly rule. The two ‘Lords’ God and Jesus are distinguished from each other but not separated. We may assume that the Christology of Acts 2:36 was shared by both the Aramaic and Greek-speaking sections of the earliest Jerusalem community.”
Kind Regards,
Comments are closed.