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[Editorial Note: Throughout the month of April, we’ll replace our normal Key Connections with one Key Connection from the Puritan era. Today, we have an excerpt from Edward Reynolds’s An Explication of the Hundred and Tenth Psalm (pp. 14-15). This is an edited and condensed excerpt, and you can find the original here.]
The apostle [Luke] saith, “that God has made [Jesus] both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36). And by the accomplishment of his office, in dying, rising, and reviving, he became Lord both of the dead and living (Romans 14:9).
And thus [Jesus] is Lord in two respects:
1.) In power and strength
Power to forgive sins; power to quicken whom he will; power to cleanse, justify, and sanctify; power to succour in [give assistance or aid to] temptations; power to raise from the dead; power to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him; power to hold fast his sheep; power to cast out the accuser of the brethren; power to put down down all his enemies, and to subdue all things unto himself.
2.) In authority
To judge, to anoint, to employ, to command whom and what he will. He only is Lord over our persons, over our faith, over our consciences! To him only we must say, “Lord save us, lest we perish!” And, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?”
Christ was such a Lord to his own forefathers.
He was the substance of the ceremonies, the doctrine of the prophets, the accomplishment of the promises, they joy and salvation of the patriarchs and princes, the desire and expectation of all flesh.
The gospel is to us a history and narration, and therefore delivered by the hand of witnesses. [But] to them [the gospel was] a promise and prediction, and therefore delivered by the hand of prophets.
As the same sun enlightens the stars above and the earth beneath, so the same Christ was the righteousness and salvation both of his forefathers and of his seed.
If Christ then be our Lord…
…we must trust in him, and depend upon him for all our present [existence] and our future expectations. For he never faileth those that wait upon him.
“Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” (Romans 10:11)
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Davis Wetherell
Davis Wetherell (MA in English, Marquette University) is a writer and editor. He recently managed article content for Open the Bible. He has taught college classes on literature, rhetoric, and composition. Davis has a heart for writers and loves to serve them. Check out his blog.
