by Geoffrey Schmitt

Created on: February 07, 2011   Last Updated: February 18, 2011

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place 
   and gave him the name that is above every name, 
 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, 
   in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 
 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, 
   to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9-11 (NIV)

“Lord” is one of those words we use all the time. Yet, when pressed we tend to stammer before giving a meaningful definition.  In democratic countries like the United States we have no official royalty. Our “Lords” are figurative, as in a Lord of industry.  When we read our English Bibles we need to remember they are translations of other languages: Hebrew and Greek.  The King James and subsequent versions have translated several words into our English word, “Lord.” 

To better understand what the Lordship of Jesus means we have to begin with these Hebrew and Greek words. One doesn’t need to be a language scholar to accomplish the task. There are good Bible dictionaries to help us and they are online. The following information came from Eaton’s Bible Dictionary.

There are numerous uses of “Lord” in the Old Testament. Most of them are translations of the plural form of “adon”. “Andonai” means “one possessed of absolute control.”  The Eaton Dictionary further explains that “adon” can refer to a master of slaves, a ruler of people, or as the husband is lord of his wife.

 It is helpful to know that the Hebrews used “adonai” in place of “Yahweh” because that is God’s name and they believed it to be too holy to say aloud.  “Yahweh” (or as it was miss-transliterated for centuries as “Jehovah”) is the name God gave to Moses at the burning bush. It is the Hebrew verb, to be, and means “I am who I am!”  In the Gospel of John when Jesus says many times “I am the….”  He is making himself equal to God.

Other Hebrew words translated into “Lord” in English are “ba’al and “seren”. The former you will recognize as the name given to a competing God. The later was used to apply to leaders of the Philistines.

In the New Testament the word translated into our English “lord” is “ the Greek word “kurios,”

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