Legitimate Authority

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Philemon 1:3 NASB

Lord – It’s hard to miss that fact that Paul distinguished between God the Father (patḗr) and Yeshua the kýrios (lord).  That distinction creates an issue for Trinitarian doctrine, but not nearly as significant as Paul’s statement that Yeshua is ánthrōpos (a man).[1]  But for the moment, let’s set those issues aside and concentrate on the ancient world’s view of “lord” (without the capital letter since that isn’t indicated in the original text and is clearly a theological assumption).

Note the comments of Foerster in TDNT:

Historically the concept of lordship combines the two elements of power and authority. A true realization of the unity of the two arises only in encounter with God, who creates us with absolute power but is also the absolute authority before which it is freedom rather than bondage to bow. In the biblical revelation the humanity that rejects subordination to its Creator meets the one who with the authority of God’s ministering and forgiving love woos its obedience and reconstructs and reestablishes the relations of lordship.^[2]

Foerster’s comment implies that we begin with the Hebrew concept of God in the Tanakh.  This is all the more important when we realize that kýrios is not the typical Greek term for ruler in the ancient world.

The noun kýrios, rare at first, takes on two fixed senses: first, the owner, e.g., of slaves, a house, or a subject people, and second, the legal guardian of a wife or girl. Both senses carry the implication of what is legitimate. In Attic, however, despótēs is a much more common word. In the Koine the two become almost interchangeable, although kýrios has a stronger element of legality and suggests more the power of disposal than of possession. The closer we come to NT times, the more emphatic the legal element becomes and the more kýrios tends to replace despótēs.^[3]

In the early period neither kings nor gods are called kýrioi; the first use of kýrios for God is to be found in the LXX.^[4]

This final remark is quite significant.  Kýrios enters the Hebraic world in the LXX as a Greek term for the one sovereign God of Israel.  The LXX doesn’t anticipate the Godhead.  It speaks only of YHVH, and uses kýrios as a designation of His power and authority.  Does this imply that when the term is used of Yeshua, as it is here, we are to read this as the equivalent of YHVH?  I don’t think so, especially since the apostolic authors speak of the lordship of Yeshua as something granted to him, and Paul specifically uses the term ánthrōpos to designate Yeshua’s ontological status.  What we have here is a recognition of the legitimate authority of Yeshua, in the same way that the Greek term is used of other powerful figures.

The suggestion of legitimate authority is underscored by Paul’s use of the term doúlos.

In the Near East the gods are the lords of reality. They control destiny, and individuals, created by them, are responsible to, and may be punished by them. Rightly, then, they may be called lords. It is they who give the laws which rulers declare to their subjects and which subjects must simply obey.^[5]

[kýrios] denotes a personal relationship, e.g., in petitionary prayer, votive dedication, or thanksgiving. kýriosdenotes an order under which people stand and which is connected with the idea of dominion over nature and destiny. Correlative to kýrios is the term doúlos (“slave”), which implies personal authority as well as relationship^[6]

Paul’s common self-designation as doúlos is a recognition of the authority of the kýrios, Yeshua.  Therefore, it is not surprising that Paul would use kýrios as a term for legitimate authority, not necessarily as a capitalized Greek substitution for the Hebrew God, YHVH.  This reading is supported by other Pauline material:

In Phil. 2:6ff. the name kýrios is given to Jesus as the response of God to his obedient suffering. It implies a position equal to that of God. That the risen Jesus is Lord is stated also in Rom. 10:9; Acts 2:36^[7]  (my emphasis)

In summary, “The word kýrios is thus seen to be a proper one for the comprehensive lordship of Jesus. In him God acts as the kýrios does in the OT.”^[8]

Now that we have some background, we may appreciate Paul’s vocabulary at bit more.

Topical Index: Lord, lord, kýrios, doúlos, authority, Philemon 1:3

[1] For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, 1 Timothy 2:5

^[2] Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (p. 486). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.

^[3] Ibid., p. 487.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] Ibid.

^[6] Ibid., p. 488.

^[7] Ibid., p. 492.

^[8] Ibid., p. 493.