The name in the New Testament: what Kyrios carries

The New Testament does not print the Hebrew name of God. Where its writers quote an Old Testament verse containing the name, they write the Greek word Kyrios, “Lord”, as the Greek Old Testament familiar to them had done. That word therefore carries in the New Testament the weight that Jehovah carries in the Old. The striking thing is what the apostles then did with it. Again and again they took verses that speak of Jehovah and applied them directly to Jesus. Joel’s promise that whoever calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved becomes, in Romans 10, a promise about calling on Jesus. Isaiah’s oath that every knee will bow to Jehovah becomes, in Philippians 2, a picture of every knee bowing at the name of Jesus. When the first Christians confessed “Jesus is Lord”, they were not giving him an honorary title. They were saying that he shares the identity of the one God, while remaining distinct from the Father.

The Septuagint background

In the centuries before Christ, Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, beginning in Alexandria. This translation is known as the Septuagint. Some early Jewish copies of the Greek wrote the divine name in Hebrew letters within the Greek text, but the copies used by the church, and the quotations in the New Testament itself, read Kyrios. This followed the synagogue custom of saying Adonai, “my Lord”, when the name was read aloud. No surviving manuscript of the Greek New Testament contains the Hebrew name; the question of whether the originals did is discussed in Did the New Testament originally contain the name?.

For the apostles, then, Kyrios could mean “sir” or “master” in ordinary speech, but in a Scripture quotation it stood for the name of God. That double use is what makes their application of it to Jesus so significant.

Calling on the name of the Lord

The prophet Joel promised deliverance in the day of the Lord.

And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of Jehovah shall be delivered;

— Joel 2:32 (ASV)

Paul quotes this in Romans 10, and the context shows whom he means. He has just said that salvation comes by confessing “Jesus is Lord” and believing that God raised him from the dead. Then he writes:

for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

— Romans 10:13 (BSB)

The Lord on whom believers call, in Paul’s argument, is the risen Jesus. To call on his name is to do what Joel said Israel must do towards Jehovah. Paul, a devout Jew who knew the Shema by heart, does not treat this as a loose borrowing.

Every knee shall bow

In Isaiah 45 God swears by himself that he alone will receive the worship of the whole world.

By myself have I sworn, the word is gone forth from my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.

— Isaiah 45:23 (ASV)

In Philippians 2 Paul takes these words and applies them to Jesus, after describing how he humbled himself to the point of death on a cross.

Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name above all names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

— Philippians 2:9-11 (BSB)

The “name above all names” is best understood as the divine name itself, expressed in the confession “Jesus Christ is Lord”. The worship Isaiah reserved for Jehovah alone is given to Jesus, and it is given “to the glory of God the Father”. The honour of the Son does not compete with the honour of the Father.

Preparing the way and founding the earth

The same pattern runs through the Gospels and the Epistles. Isaiah 40:3 calls for a road to be prepared “the way of Jehovah”. Mark opens his Gospel by quoting it of John the Baptist, who prepared the way for Jesus.

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.’”

— Mark 1:3 (BSB)

Hebrews goes further. Psalm 102:25–27 addresses the Creator who laid the foundations of the earth and who remains when the heavens wear out. Hebrews 1 quotes it as God’s word to the Son.

And: “In the beginning, O Lord, You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will roll them up like a robe; like a garment they will be changed; but You remain the same, and Your years will never end.”

— Hebrews 1:10-12 (BSB)

Paul summarises the pattern in one sentence that reshapes the Shema, “Jehovah our God is one Jehovah”, around the Father and the Son.

yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we exist. And there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we exist.

— 1 Corinthians 8:6 (BSB)

Where Christians differ

Jehovah’s Witnesses hold that the divine name stood in the original New Testament wherever the Old Testament was quoted, and that later copyists replaced it; their translation therefore restores “Jehovah” in many places. They honour Jesus as Lord and as God’s Son, but understand him as distinct from Jehovah and subordinate to him. The historic churches read the evidence differently: the manuscripts consistently read Kyrios, and the apostles’ deliberate use of Jehovah texts for Jesus is itself part of their teaching. This site holds the Nicene faith, that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one God, and explains it further in Is Jehovah the same as Jesus?.

Among orthodox Christians there is some discussion over whether particular uses of “Lord” refer to the Father or to the Son. That is a question of reading individual verses; it does not touch the confession itself.

Reading “Lord” with fresh attention

When you meet the word “Lord” in the New Testament, ask whether an Old Testament verse lies behind it. Cross-references in most Bibles will show you. Read the verse in its Old Testament setting, in the ASV if you want to see the name, and then read how the apostle applies it. The same habit sheds light on the “I am” sayings of John, discussed in Jesus and the divine name.

For reflection

To say “Jesus is Lord” is the oldest Christian confession, and Paul says no one can say it except by the Holy Spirit. Pray it deliberately today, with Philippians 2 open before you, and join your church in worshipping the Son with the Father and the Spirit, one God, blessed for ever.

References

1. J. H. Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament (1889).
2. H. B. Swete, An Introduction to the Old Testament in Greek (1900).
3. J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians (1868).
4. B. F. Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews (1889).
5. The Nicene Creed (325, revised 381).