Part 4 is devoted to the most significant of the christological motifs in Paul’s letters and thus to the absolute heart of his Christology: Jesus as Kyrios (Lord). Although this title occurs less frequently than the title-turned-name Christos (Christ), there is good reason for this. In Paul’s letters the name-turned-title Kyrios functions only as a title, whereas Christos frequently functions as both name and title. Even so, the Kyrios title predominates in Paul’s earliest two letters (1 and 2 Thessalonians) as well as in the final one in the church corpus (Philippians) and in the Pastoral Letters (2 Timothy). Indeed, it plays a major role in all but two of his letters (2 Corinthians and Galatians).
Moreover, as noted in part 3, even though Christos is Paul’s most frequent referent to Jesus, a little over half of these references stand alone as either subject or object in a sentence, whereas two-thirds of Paul’s references to Jesus as “Lord” stand alone. These numbers themselves tell part of the story. For Paul, “Jesus” was a name. “Christ,” however, began as a title (Jesus the Christ = the Messiah), though eventually it too became very close to functioning as a name. Hence, even if unconsciously in most instances, the Apostle regularly refers to our Lord in terms of the name Jesus and the title Lord and with the function of Christ (= Messiah).
Especially noteworthy is that in the sixty-five instances where all three names/titles appear together, the title “the Lord” appears only in the first or last position—that is, either “the Lord, Jesus Christ [or ‘Christ Jesus’]” or “Jesus Christ [or ‘Christ Jesus’], the Lord.” This provides evidence that for Paul, Kyrios functioned exclusively as a title, even though its origins were in the divine name. For this reason, I have altered the NIV translation slightly by inserting a comma to set off “the Lord” from “Jesus Christ” or “Christ Jesus.”
The significance of this name-turned-title for Paul can hardly be overstated. It is the way he begins every letter (“the Lord, Jesus Christ,” i.e., “the Lord, namely, Jesus the Messiah”) and is always used in conjunction with either “God the Father” or “God our Father.” It is the language of the earliest Christian communities, who in Aramaic prayed Marana tha (“Come, Lord”; 1 Cor. 16:22). Moreover, it is the language Paul uses of his Damascus road experience: “Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” (1 Cor. 9:1). Finally, it is the primary confession of those who become believers and thus followers of the risen one: “the Lord is Jesus [Christ]” (1 Cor. 12:3; Rom. 10:9; Phil. 2:11).
In this final part of the book, we first examine the ways Paul adapts the divine name from the Old Testament and transfers it to a title for Christ (chap. 8). We then discuss how Paul transfers the divine roles of Israel’s Lord (Yahweh) to Christ, including his many intertextual echoes from Old Testament passages (chap. 9). And finally we unpack the many passages where Paul transfers the divine prerogatives of Israel’s God to the Lord, Jesus Christ (chap. 10).