From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: We come in a study of the epistle to the Romans tonight to the 10th chapter and to verses 9 and 10 in particular. Verses 9 and 10 in the 10th chapter of Paul's epistle to the Romans. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Now this obviously follows from what's been going before. You remember that last Friday night we were looking at this comparison that the apostle has been holding before us between an attempt to gain righteousness by the law and righteousness which is obtained by faith. He personalizes it and puts it in the form of two preachers. Let me read again from verse 5 so that you have the context in your mind.

For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, like this: That the man which doeth those things shall live by them. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise: Say not in thy heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above) or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead).

But what saith it? What it says is, the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith which we preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Very well, we've seen that the apostle compares and contrasts the two ways, in order to show that the way by means of keeping the law is a hopeless way because it is an impossible way that nobody can do it. But that the latter is something which is plain, it's clear, and it is essentially simple. Now those are the things which we've seen so far. So his fundamental statement is that salvation is entirely by faith and the word which we preach—in other words, the gospel which we preach—is a proclamation of the fact and to the effect that justification is by faith only.

Now this of course has been the great theme of the entire epistle. The apostle announced it way back at the beginning in chapter 1 and in verse 17. He's not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, he says, for this reason: that it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. Not the power of man, but the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

For therein, in this gospel, this word which he'd been preaching, this gospel, this proclamation, this announcement, for he says, therein is the righteousness of God. A righteousness from God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, the just shall live by faith. Well, now he's really simply saying that all over again. This is the word of faith which we preach. In other words, what we preach, he says, is a word about justification by faith and by faith only.

Now then, having stated that in general as a principle in that way, he comes now to state it in detail in these two verses that we are now going to examine: verses 9 and 10. The word of faith which we preach, that's the gospel. It is a word about faith. It is a word that tells us that the only way to be righteous before God is to believe this way that God himself has provided in Christ to make men righteous, to reconcile them with himself.

It is the power of God, it is a righteousness from God. That's the general statement. But the apostle, as I say, is anxious here to make this thing plain and clear once and for all. He's doing it in terms of this extraordinary tragedy of the Jews as a nation and as a people. So he takes nothing for granted and he works it out in detail. These two verses therefore, 9 and 10, are an exposition of this word of faith which we preach.

That's the thing, this word that is nigh us, even in our mouth and in our heart. Here it is. This is exactly what it states, he says, in detail. So we can translate that first word "that" in verse 9 better perhaps by "because". This is the word of faith that we preach because if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Very well, we are here once more face to face with one of these great statements of the Christian gospel, the Christian message. Here it is put before us both from the theoretical and from the practical standpoint. And as we look at it, we shall be testing our own profession. This great statement that we're looking at is at one and the same time not only a statement of what gospel preaching is—we're not only reminded of what we are to believe—but therefore it becomes a very thorough-going test as to whether we do believe truly and as to whether we really are in the faith or not.

That is the value of these great statements of the gospel which the apostle gives us here and there in his epistles: that it's not only a great statement, but at once it becomes something that tests us and enables us to know whether we're truly in the faith or not. Well, now what is this? Well, I will call it this: it is a definition of saving faith. That's what he's talking about here.

If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Very well, this is saving faith. As I'm saying, there is nothing more important than that we should be absolutely clear as to what saving faith really is. Now, this matter can be divided up quite simply. We've got to consider, first of all, the content of saving faith, and then we've got to consider the character of saving faith, because the apostle deals with both aspects of the matter here quite plainly and quite clearly.

So now we start immediately therefore by taking up this whole question of the content of saving faith. Now there is a mechanical point which we must deal with in a brief moment. We needn't stay with it, but people have sometimes been stumbled by this. You notice that in these two verses, verses 9 and 10, he reverses the order. He says in verse 9 that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, that comes first, and believe in thine heart, that comes second.

But in verse 10 he says, for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness—the heart is now first instead of second—and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. There really should be no difficulty about this at all. It all depends upon the way in which you look at it. Here is a man standing before you and he's making a statement. I'm doing so, for instance, in this pulpit.

I am making statements with my mouth, and the first thing you hear is my statement. So that if you look at it from the standpoint of a man making a statement about himself as a Christian, you start with the statement which he makes, and you realize that he is making that statement as an expression of something which is deep down in his heart. But if you look at it from the standpoint of how the man has ever become able or capable of doing this thing at all, well, then you have to reverse the order.

How is a man able to speak like this? Well, it's because of something that he believes. So the believing is the thing that really comes first. It is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaketh. So there's really no difficulty here at all. In verse 9 he is looking at it in terms of a man making a profession, making a confession, making a statement.

And you get, first of all, the statement from the mouth, but as he says, that obviously comes from the heart. And then in order to underline it and to re-emphasize it and to make it plain, he says, "Of course, for we all know, we all realize that it is in the heart that a man first of all believes, and then with his mouth he gives expression to what he believes." There should be no stumbling therefore over this.

You don't believe in your heart as the result of something you say. You speak because of what you believe, or as we've got it in a Psalm which puts it perfectly—Psalm 66, I believe it is, and it is quoted in the New Testament—"I believed, therefore have I spoken." That's it. You believe first, therefore you speak afterwards. But if you're just meeting a man casually, the first thing that happens is you hear him speak, so you put that first and then you realize that it's the outcome of something else.

Now, we have to make this point because people have actually come to me and questioned me about this before now, and I'm just dealing with it in order that we may dismiss it in that way. There's no contradiction; the same thing looked at from two different aspects. Very well, let's come to what really is of vital importance: the content of saving faith.

And here we are given a very wonderful summary of it. And I venture to suggest to you that there is nothing perhaps more important at the present time for any of us than just this matter. There is certainly nothing in the realm of the church that is more important at the present time than this very thing that the apostle puts before us. And as it is of great importance in the church, it becomes equally of great importance in the world, because the world outside knows nothing.

It listens to the preaching of the church, and if it is confused, as it is, it is because the church that it's listening to is confused. So from every standpoint, this is indeed a most important and a crucial statement. Now you notice that I put as my first heading the content of saving faith. What is this content? Now it's here, as I say, this whole thing becomes so important at the present time.

What is the thing that the Christian believes and that makes him a Christian? Well, you notice that it isn't some vague general ideas and notions about life and as to how life should be lived. It is a notion about life and as to how life is to be lived, but that isn't the thing the apostle puts before us. That is the outcome of something else, of course.

Now here is a point at which so many go astray. They think that you can have the implications of the gospel without knowing what the gospel itself is. There are many people, for instance, very concerned at the present time about the moral state and condition of this country, and they feel very strongly and very rightly that something must be done about it. But the whole question is this: What is to be done about it?

The fact that you're concerned about the moral state of this country tonight doesn't mean of necessity that you're a Christian. You can be very concerned about this and not be a Christian at all. The Christian concern about this and the Christian proposals with respect to it are special and peculiar. Now, one of our troubles today is that people imagine that any interest in moral conditions means that a man is a Christian.

You've even heard this sort of thing said over this matter that's been creating such agitation this week: the choice of the new prime minister. People have even used this very argument: "That man," they say, "he's concerned about moral conditions and he's speaking about it, he's a Christian." All right, well, he is, but of necessity it doesn't follow that he is simply because he's concerned about the moral conditions of society.

Very well, it isn't that. You see, this content of the faith is not just some general idea about life and as to how it should be lived and ideals and things of that kind. It includes that, but that isn't the thing the apostle says. When he's giving us a summary of the content of the Christian faith, that isn't how he puts it. And you and I must never put it like that.

Or secondly, it isn't even the practice of morals. That doesn't make a man a Christian. I needn't stay with this; we've already been dealing with that in a sense in expounding verse 5. That is the attempt to justify oneself by works; that isn't it either. No, but there is a third negative that we have to stress particularly in this connection.

What is the content of the Christian faith? What is it that decides whether a man is a Christian or not? Now here is, I think, the most urgent question in the church at the present time, because it is the one that is being debated so much. And if you are going to believe this new teaching that passes as new Christian teaching, this new statement of Christian teaching for the mid-20th century man who has come of age and grown up and so on, and who must have a new statement of the faith, well, then it comes to this: What makes a man a Christian is experience.

It is nothing but experience. Now, let me use an illustration. I use it because it'll probably help many of you to see this point particularly clearly. Some of you may have seen a discussion of this very matter on the television the other night. Now the man who put this point absolutely perfectly, it seems to me, was a man who told us that he was not a Christian believer at all, he's a philosopher, Mr. Bernard Williams.

But he put this thing with unusual clarity. They were discussing this new South Bank teaching, or whatever it's called—this idea that you've got to have a new theology almost in every age of this notorious book and so on. Now, this non-Christian philosopher so rightly put it like this. He said, "But the trouble with this man, this bishop in this book, is this: He doesn't recognize such a thing as objective truth at all. To him, nothing matters but experience."

And this is what they're teaching. They say you mustn't think of God as personal, you mustn't think of God as up there or out there. Well, what is God? Well, they say, God is wherever you find love or wherever you find a deep view of life. Whenever you find in your experience that you come up against something that speaks to you in the depth and makes you think of life and yourself and everything in deep terms, that is God.

Or they say, if you go about the world—you don't go to church for this, this is the teaching, you don't go to church to find God—you go out into life and you go out amongst people who don't believe anything at all, but you suddenly find that they're kind to one another, that they're gentle to one another, that they're ready to help one another. Now, that, he says, is God because that's the expression of love.

And that expression of love is God. And the man who appreciates this and who's concerned about it, that man is a Christian. So you see that what decides ultimately whether a man is a Christian or not is nothing but experience. There's no objective truth outside him at all; they're not interested in that. It is purely a question of your own experience, your sensibilities, your feelings, that which happens to you.

Of course, there's nothing new about all this; it's all very old. But I have to refer to it because it's given such publicity and some people are foolish enough to think that it is new and to think that it's wonderful, that the modern man no longer can believe what has always been believed and so on. So it's all turned into some subjective experience.

And this experience of yours is your contact with God. That is God: depth, love, which you find like this in ordinary life amongst men and women who may never darken the doors of a place of worship and who don't claim to believe anything in particular. But that's the thing, they say; that is the essence of Christianity. Well, now, let us apply all that to what we've got here and you see the contrast.

The content of Christian faith, here it is: "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead." That's it, that's the content. "Thou shalt be saved." Now you see this modern idea of bringing Christianity up to date, we are just compelled to say it, is not only not Christianity at all, it is a complete denial of it.

It is a denial of the very essence of the Christian faith as it is defined here by this great apostle and as it has been defined in the creeds and the confessions of the Christian church throughout the centuries, apart from certain heretics who were condemned by the church in the past and turned out of the church. And it is because the church doesn't do that today she's in such a powerless and helpless and useless condition.

Here it is. It isn't our opinion; it is the plain, unvarnished, explicit statement of the great apostle. So I'm putting it like this: Whatever else the content of the Christian faith may be, it is some objective truth. That's the starting point. This is the thing that he puts before us, this is the thing that he emphasizes. What is Christianity about? It is about Jesus, a person who belongs to history. That's what it's about.

"If thou shalt confess with thy mouth that Jesus is Lord, and that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." It is about this person. So if you describe your Christianity without mentioning this person, you are not describing Christianity, whatever else you're describing. The thing is almost incredible, isn't it? But here we see the wiles of the devil, that people can talk about Christianity and not mention the name of our Lord at all.

They'll talk about Christianity, but they don't talk about Christ. They don't talk about Jesus. They don't talk about these essentials. But this, says Paul, is the very word which we preach. This is the essence of Christian faith; this is the content of our whole position. So it is about this person, who he is, what happened to him, and the meaning of all these things. That's the content.

Christian faith is centered on this person; it wouldn't be called Christian otherwise. That's why it's called Christian. And yet people use this term Christian and they never talk about him at all; they don't even mention him. The Lord Jesus Christ is not incidental to the Christian faith. He's not merely a helper of Christian faith. He is essential to the Christian faith; there is no Christian faith without him.

Take him out, you've got nothing left. It all depends upon him and upon him alone. He is the foundation, he's everything. He's the beginning and the end, the Alpha, the Omega, the first, the last. Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. There is no other. This person, Jesus. Now that's what the apostle is telling us here.

And you notice that he puts particularly two things before us. It's all about this person, Jesus of Nazareth. And he says there are two things about him. The first thing is that he is Lord, and the second is that God raised him from the dead. Now, those are the two absolute essentials to the Christian faith. There is no salvation unless we are clear about these two things.

And of course, when you read your book of the Acts of the Apostles, you find that those are the very two things that the apostles preached at the beginning. What was apostolic preaching? Well, you will find this: It was Jesus and the resurrection, the two things we've got here. You remember that was the thing that happened when Paul was preaching at Athens.

The same thing was true; the apostles were always getting into difficulty and being thrown into prisons because of these two things. There, we are told that at Athens he preached this: Jesus and the resurrection. These people came together and said, "What is this? This is a strange thing." He seemed, they said, to be a setter-forth of strange gods because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection.

The apostle Paul in Athens. The very thing he says here. He says the word of faith which we preach is about Jesus and the resurrection. And the first statement is that Jesus is Lord. Now then, what does this mean? Well, we must be careful to observe that this is not just a statement, it's not some kind of cliché. It's not just some kind of password. It is that, but it's infinitely more than that.

It's a tremendous statement, it's a staggering statement. You see, the apostle knows that in this statement, in the two particularly taken together, you've got the whole of the Christian faith. Jesus is Lord. What does it mean? Well, the word translated "Lord" is the word that was used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament for the Hebrew word Jehovah, the highest title ever applied to God.

Jehovah, "I am that I am". You remember we are told at the beginning of the book of Exodus that God hadn't manifested himself to the people by this name before. He'd used other names, but here he specially commits himself to the children of Israel in terms of this name Jehovah, the covenant-keeping God. "I am that I am" in relation to the children of Israel.

Now, the Jews, as you remember, regarded that term, that title of God, Jehovah, as so wonderful, so glorious, that they were afraid to use it. And they avoided using it in different ways. But when they came, people came to translate the Hebrew scriptures into Greek—in that Septuagint translation—they translated this word by this other word that is here translated "Lord".

So that this statement, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus," it means: if thou shalt confess with thy mouth that Jesus is Jehovah. Jesus is the Lord God Jehovah. Which means of course, as we know from the rest of the New Testament, that he is asserting in the strongest manner possible the unique deity of our blessed Lord and Savior.

Very well, let's analyze it and consider what it means. This is a tremendous statement. The man who says and confesses with his mouth that Jesus is Lord, Jehovah, God, and believes that Christ has been, this Jehovah has been raised from the dead, he is the man who is saved, says the apostle. What is he saying there? Well, here are the points, you see, by which we test ourselves.

To say that Jesus is Lord is to make a statement about his person. You are here stating as to what you believe concerning who he is. You say, my faith rests upon Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, but I say that he is God, he is Jehovah. This is the Christian confession. Now, the apostle, of course, has told us this at the very beginning of this epistle. You remember how he put it?

He says he's a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God. What is this gospel of God? Concerning his Son, the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead. And you remember he said the same thing again in chapter 9 in verse 5.

He's reminding these Romans and reminding especially the Jews of the Israelites, to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises, whose are the fathers and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. And you remember when dealing with that, we pointed out that that is simply a statement that he, this one who was born after the flesh of the Israelites, is God over all, blessed forever.

Now, this is the great statement of course of the whole of the New Testament. And the New Testament was really written in order to establish and to assert this point. I think that oftentimes we fail to understand many of the things that we are told in the New Testament because we forget the background. Why do you think the New Testament was ever written?

Why were the gospels ever written? Why were these epistles ever written? Now the answer is this: They were written to establish and to confirm the faith of the believers. Here was the difficulty, as it's always been. The apostles had gone round preaching the gospel and people had believed and churches had been formed. But false teachers began to arise. And they began to say things in the name of Christianity and of the church which were not true.

There were false gospels which were being written—apocryphal gospels—claiming to be quite authentic, setting out ostensibly to teach the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ but saying fantastic things, things which were not true. And the result was that the believers were disturbed and confused. Not only that, the message of the church was becoming confused as she stood before the world making her statements.

And these documents that we have and which we call the New Testament were primarily written to correct that. To show that these apocryphal gospels and others were false and that they mustn't be believed, and that these false teachers were false apostles who were teaching a lie and were misrepresenting the truth concerning our Lord and concerning his great salvation.

And therefore, you see, they go out of their way to make these great statements. So you've got your gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." That's the thing that he's got to emphasize and to prove: that Jesus was not only a man, but that he's God. He's the Word with God, always was with God, looking into the face of God through all eternity. That's the position, he says.

He writes in order to make certain to them and to remind them that Jesus is the Son of God and that believing in him they might have life through his name. It's an absolute necessity. Of course, they had at the same time to prove that he was also man truly, so John writes his first epistle to do that. Every one of these things has got a motive.

They're all written in order to state the truth and especially to do so in terms of false teaching or something that was being propagated that was not really in accordance with the facts as such. So they make these tremendous statements about the person of our Lord. Now, you'll find them scattered about everywhere. It's obvious in the case of the gospels, but it's equally clear in many of these epistles. Listen to the apostle, this apostle Paul, doing it in 2 Corinthians 4:4 for instance.

He says in verse 3, "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost; in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them." You see, he's the image of God, he says. And so in the sixth verse: "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Same thing. But of course one of the most wonderful statements of all of all this is to be found in the epistle to the Colossians, and in the first chapter in particular. Now this is so important, and you see it's so important today. This idea that the New Testament's out of date is just sheer rubbish. What's the main problem in the Christian church today? I would say it is the Colossian heresy.

What's that? Well, you see, these false teachers had been going round and they'd been saying, "Oh yes, Jesus was very wonderful, he's a great help in coming to God; he's not the only one. There are all sorts of angels and dignitaries and powers that come between us and God and help us to get to God." Not only that, they taught a kind of mysticism exactly as it's being taught today.

And thus there was a danger that the people in Colossae should be in a great muddle with regard to the gospel that they believed. So the apostle writes to them and he puts it like this to them. He thanks God for them "for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel"—which should be translated like this: "for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof you've heard before in the word of the true gospel."

He's throwing down the gauntlet. He says there is a true gospel but there are false gospels. He says, "I know you've been troubled by these people." He mentions them in particular in the second chapter where he warns them in particular against the danger of being misled. "Beware," he says in verse 8, "lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."

Now, that's the very thing that's being done today. It's all being done in terms of philosophy. All these popular notorious books, it's nothing but philosophy. It's men saying, "Well now, of course we're in the 20th century and we are in the age of the atom and the splitting of the atom, and we now think in scientific terms and categories, and people no longer believe in the supernatural and they no longer believe in the miraculous, and this whole notion of personality even is vague to them now."

"We must no longer speak like that; we must restate the Christian faith and we must state it in terms that the modern man can follow." Now that's pure philosophy. They are now going to tell us what God is and what the whole of truth is, and they do it, as I say, purely in terms of their own subjective experiences. This is the very thing about which Paul was warning the people at Colossae: "Beware lest any man spoil you, spoil your faith, spoil the happiness of your Christian life through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."

Very well, then, that's his object. And this is what he proceeds to say about our Lord. Listen, in whom—verse 14 of chapter 1—"in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins." Well, who is this? Listen: "Who is the image"—the exact likeness—"of the invisible God." That's who he is, this Jesus.

He is the firstborn of every creature, for by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible. You see, it's all about this person. It isn't what you feel, it isn't that nice feeling you get, it isn't that sense of love that you get or kindness or goodness. It isn't your objection to the immorality of others and the desire to do good. No, no. It's this person.

By him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created by him and for him, and he is before all things and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence, for it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.

What does that mean? Well, before I come to give you the interpretation of that, I would remind you to carry in your minds again at exactly the same time what we read at the beginning in the first three verses of the epistle to the Hebrews: "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners"—by the way, why did this man ever write this letter to the Hebrews? Before you ever read a book of the Bible, ask a question: Why did the man ever write it? Well, how can you find out? You can find out by reading what is written.

Listen to this man: "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high."

And you remember he goes on to contrast him and to show his superiority to the angels. Why did he do it, I ask? Well, you see, he's already given the answer; he plunges straight into it. He was writing to Hebrew Christians, people who were beginning to become shaky in their faith. People who went round and said to them, "Look here, you were fools, you left your old religion, the religion of your fathers, the religion that had stood the test of centuries. You left all that and believed this new teaching about this person, Jesus." And they were being shaken.

And this man writes to say, "Do you realize what you're doing? Your whole trouble is due to the fact that you don't realize as you should who this person is." So he makes his declaration at the beginning. He says he's God's Son, is the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person. That's precisely why he wrote it.

They were in trouble, those Hebrew Christians; they were unhappy and doubting whether they were saved or not and feeling like quitting because they were being persecuted and amazed at the state of the world and wondering whether Christianity was true. Why? Because they were not clear about this person. This is the great essential; there is no Christianity without him.

Now what does all this mean, I say? Well, these are the statements, let me try and summarize them for you. We are told here by the apostle that he is the firstborn of every creature, which means this: that he has the primacy over all created things. Or a better translation would be: born before all created things. In other words, he wasn't created, he was born before anything was created. The one, if you like, who has priority to and over all creation. Or if you prefer it, the firstborn before every creature.

Now, it must mean that for this reason: because he goes on to say in the 16th verse, "By him were all things created." So he was not created. He is the firstborn before all creation. He was born, the only one who is born of God, God's only begotten Son. Then it is through him that everything was created, exactly as we get in the first chapter of the gospel according to Saint John.

The word implies priority and sovereignty. He existed before all created things, and all was therefore created by him and through him. And then this tremendous statement in the 19th verse: "It pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell." The sum total of all the divine attributes and powers is in him. All the fullness. You get it in the second chapter in verse 9: "In him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Jesus is Lord, this Jesus, all the fullness of the Godhead is in him bodily. It's all there.

That's what we have believed. That's what we believe. This is the confession we make with our mouths. The person. But you notice this lordship includes other things also. There he is in his essence: the eternal Son of God, brightness of his image, brightness of his glory, the express image of his person. But look at his relation to the universe. This helps you to understand his lordship.

By him were all things created. There it is, it's in John 1, it's again in that second verse of the first chapter of Hebrews. Everything, listen to this: "By him were all things created, that are in heaven, that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created by him." There is nothing in existence that was not created by him.

Now, that's the statement that is made constantly in the New Testament; it is a part of his lordship. He is Lord of the universe. Without him was not anything made that was made. And you remember how that man in the first chapter of Hebrews is so concerned to show that even the angels in all their glory are but created beings whom he has created, and he's above them all and over them all; they're but his ministering spirits.

The apostle puts it here still more plainly. He says, "I don't care whether they're in heaven, whether they're in earth, whether they're visible or invisible, seen or unseen, spiritual or material, thrones, dominions, principalities, powers; everything has been created by him." And still more interesting, "and for him." They were not only created for him, says Colossians 1:16, they were created for him.

If you like, you can put it like this: This universe, the whole cosmos, is the Father's gift to his Son. It was created for him, for his pleasure, that he might be Lord over it all. Jesus is Lord. The universe, the whole cosmos, was made for him, as a father gives his child, his son, a gift, so God has made the universe as a gift for his only begotten Son.

But then this other statement—this is all a part of the definition of his lordship—"by him all things consist." Which means this: that he holds everything together. Now Hebrews 1:3 is a good commentary on this, where he puts it, you remember, by putting it like this: "upholding all things by the word of his power." Here it is, all things consist. It's a most interesting term.

What does it mean? Well, it means that everything coheres, if you like, everything hangs together. It is a way of expressing unity and solidarity. It's expressive of order and of arrangement. What makes this universe a cosmos rather than a chaos is that the Lord Jesus Christ is holding it all together. Now we notice the order and the arrangement in nature, don't we? Cause and effect.

The astounding thing is that everything does hold together. And what we are told is that it is he who holds everything together. If he stopped doing so, everything would disintegrate. It would be an end, it would be chaos. He, Jesus, this is Jesus of Nazareth. You see, he is Lord, and a part of his lordship is this: that he is the principal, as it were, it is his power that holds everything together; everything would disintegrate and collapse if he didn't hold it together.

And another word which we must use is this: He is the heir of all things. Now there it's in Hebrews 1 again, he puts it like this: "hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things." This is a part of his lordship, you see. The young heir, the one who's going to enter into an inheritance. Well, he's the heir of the whole universe. Jesus is Lord. Yes, and that means, remember, that this whole universe belongs to him; the Father has given it him.

And the last thing I want to emphasize tonight is this, as an expression of this lordship. There, you see, are things that were always true of him. He always was the brightness of his glory and the express image of God's person. He always existed with him, co-equal, co-eternal. And his relationship to the universe and the cosmos has always been what I've described. Made for him, made by him, held together by him.

This is always true of him. But this is something very special. But it is a very important aspect of his lordship. It is through him and by means of him that God is going to restore this whole cosmos to the condition in which it was originally when God made it, and from which it has fallen as the result of man's sin. Now this is Ephesians 1:10.

Or let me read verse 9 first: "having made known unto us the mystery of his will—this is God, having made known unto us the mystery of his will—according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself, listen, that in the dispensation of the fullness of time, he, God, might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him."

So that whatever way you look at the universe and the cosmos, including man, it all speaks of the lordship of Jesus. It is through him and by means of him that God is going to again head up everything in a great eternal unity. The effect of sin has been disintegration: differences, quarrels, wars, bloodshed, rivalries, all that we see so plainly in this modern world. That's a part of the disintegration caused by sin.

Now then, God made the universe perfect; it was paradise. There were none of these warring elements; everything was one. It was a glorious unity, and everything ministered to the glory of God. And the whole message of the gospel—the word of faith which we preach—says this primarily: that God is going to restore again this great unity to the whole cosmos. And he has done it and is going to do it finally and fully through this person, Jesus.

So that he is to be the Lord over all in this absolute sense again, and then will hand this glorified, unified cosmos back in its utter perfection to God the Father who made it for him and gave it to him and made it in him and through him. Well, my friends, my time has gone, but I'm not apologizing. What a subject! Jesus is Lord! That's what you and I believe; that's what we are here for; that's what we proclaim to the world.

There's no Christianity apart from this person. But this is only the beginning. I've simply stated it in its ultimate sense. We shall go on, God willing, to work it out still more fully and in yet greater detail next Friday night. Let us pray. O Lord our God, how can we thank thee sufficiently that thou hast ever awakened us to an interest in these glorious and wonderful things?

While we live in a world, O God, that has been talking about the eminence of men and getting excited about it, we thank thee that our concern is that he, thy dear Son, might have in all things the preeminence. O Lord, how we see everything else dwarfed into insignificance by the side of this. And how can we thank thee enough that thou hast awakened us to a realization of the vanity and the emptiness of everything else and the transcendent glory of this?

O God, receive our unworthy praise that thou hast ever looked upon us and called us and given us thy Spirit and enabled us to say that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. And now may the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now, this night, throughout the remainder of this short and uncertain earthly life and pilgrimage, and until we shall see him face to face without a veil in all his resplendent eternal glory. Amen.