Jesus Is Lord (and Caesar is not)

I've been hinting at this post and openly promising it for a few weeks now. Now that I'm in Rome, the Eternal City, it's time.

"Jesus is Lord." It is the central confession of faith for St. Paul in its simplest form. Better: "Jesus is Lord and Savior." We're implicit. We're the ones who require saving. But the focus is on the Lord, Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, Son of God.

In fact, "Jesus is Lord and Savior" is a sentence that unpacks Paul's most formal way of speaking of the crucified man from Nazareth: Lord Jesus Christ. As the Messiah (Gr. = Christos), Jesus of Nazareth has banished the great enemy, the unholy triad of sin, death, and the devil, and is thus our savior and our lord. Jesus is Lord and Savior is the way of stating who he is, such that 'Lord' and 'Christ' have become so attached to 'Jesus' that for Paul (and hopefully for us), they're just as much a part of his name as the one given to him by his parents.

'Lord and Savior.' What does it conjure in your mind? Prayer partner? A friend in time of need? Someone who has saved your soul? It should. But what did 'Lord and Savior' mean in the first century? Why this phrase, Paul?

Who is Lord and Savior in the first century? You probably already know the answer if you've been reading this blog: Caesar is Lord and Savior. And this isn't a later comparison drawn up by theologians; no, 'Lord and Savior' is a phrase found in the archaeological record, from the tiniest coins to the grandest inscriptions on imperial cult temples, referring to Caesar.

The same goes for 'Son of God.' Caesar is the son of a god, for when each emperor dies, he becomes a god and takes his place among the pantheon of gods. This isn't a metaphor; the deceased Caesars were literally worshiped as gods, and the living Caesars were worshipped as sons of gods. Eventually, some of them dispensed with the niceties and had themselves divinized while still alive.

So when Paul says 'Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, the Son of God,' lets be clear: he is committing high treason against the state. If you've ever wondered why the Romans persecuted Christians, make no mistake: the Christianity preached by Paul and his fellow apostles was (and is?) deeply subversive. 'Jesus is President and Commander-in-Chief' doesn't really capture it. But imagine saying in Germany in 1938, 'Jesus Christ is the Fuhrer,' or Italy in 1934 'Jesus Christ is Il Duce,' and you might have an idea.

So whenever Paul says 'Jesus is Lord,' there's this eerie echo of the subject: 'And Caesar is not.'

That isn't to say that the Roman emperors were totalitarian despots. First off, much laud heaped upon the Caesars came freely from their subjects throughout the empire. The Sebasteon (Greek for 'Augustan') of Aphrodisias, a temple to Rome's first imperial dynasty, the Julio-Claudians, was constructed by the local population in order to celebrate the Caesars and the good they brought to the empire. The empire, after all, was borne in the crucible of a series of terrible civil wars: the first between the survivors of the First Triumvirate (Julius Caesar and Pompey Magnus), the second between the survivors of the second (Octavian, adopted son and natural nephew of Julius Caesar, and Mark Antony). When Octavian defeated Mark Antony and consolidated power as the 'first citizen' of the empire, we was proclaimed 'august' by the senate, and thus took the name Augustus; august, by the way, means venerable, and venerable means worthy of worship, and worthy of worship, of course, means divine. The ascension of Augustus meant peace, and his divine triumph was celebrated throughout all the world.

Second, and following, the site of Priene (where I visited shortly before the Seven Churches tour) contains an astonishing reference. The word euangelion, 'gospel,' is used specifically of the word that goes out from Caesar proclaiming the good news that Rome is triumphant, civilization is restored, a new Caesar as ascended to the throne, or some such. "The gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Son of God" stands over-against "the gospel of our Lord and Savior, Caesar Augustus, the son of a god."

Paul drew these terms 'Lord,' 'Savior,' 'Son of God' from two sources: they fulfilled (and filled-out) the meanings he inherited in Judaism, and they clashed like cymbals with their usage in imperial Rome. With 'gospel,' he's taking it entirely from Rome and throwing it back in the empire's face.

And yet, in Romans 13, Paul tells us to obey the authorities, for they are there to do us good and punish evildoers. In my humble opinion, Paul, recognizing the politically-charged nature of his language up until this point, which pervades the letter, wants to make absolutely clear that he is not advocating rebellion or anarchy. That is something the zealotous revolutionaries that launched the Great Jewish Revolt of AD 66 wanted, and it got the temple burned down in AD 70. Nor is he advocating radical withdrawal from society or pacifism; as a Roman citizen, Paul is glad to live under the civilization of Roman rule. And yet, and yet, he advocates submission to the authorites not because they are gods or sons of gods, but because they receive their vocation from the one true God. He is happy to live under an earthly lord and to appreciate their good news, but Caesar is not the Lord, and his good news is not the Good News.

Another word: apostle. It means emissary, or ambassador. This is not a street preacher advocating a spiritual encounter with God, or even acceptance of a truth that will save one's soul. An ambassador is a formal representative that goes around delivering proclamations in a foreign country, making known not the options or opportunities, but cold hard facts.

Can any of us imagine the Roman general (later dictator) Sulla, on his way out to Pontus and Armenia in the early first century B.C., delivering this message? "The Roman Republic is sorely displeased with your conduct. We would like to give you the opportunity to change your hearts and minds, and embrace our republic's ideals as a path to spiritual betterment." Don't be ridiculous! The message was: "Rome is on it's way. I am on my way. Pledge your loyalty to us now, be faithful to the true world power, whatever your illusions of your own self-importance, because your time is short and our wrath is bottomless. Our coming is nigh."

It gives another meaning to 'parousia,' the 'advent' or 'coming' of the Lord. For anybody in Paul's head, using politically-charged terms like Lord, Savior, Son of God, and Gospel, 'Coming' (as in, Second Coming) cannot be spoken without at least taking account of its usage in Roman imperial terminology. When an emperor or official envoy was on his was to a city, the city was forced into a state of urgent preparation for his arrival. Whether they accepted him with a parade or with barred gates determined their gate; by the time he arrived, it was already too late.

Paul's talk about salvation is thus never far from his talk about the last days. 'Getting saved' isn't about ensuring your soul goes to heaven when you die; it's about ensuring that you're marked out as a loyal subject here and now so that when the king arrives back to earth, you don't die then. After all, the end of the end times isn't eternity in heaven; it's heaven brought to earth at the hands of the king.

How then, are we marked out as part of this loyal community with this rebellious corner of God's empire? Faith (pistes) and baptism. The Greek word for faith, pistes, means belief, trust, fidelity, loyalty; it is not merely an intellectual affirmation of a truth, but deep-abiding dependence on something and tenacious loyalty to it. Roman citizens and soldiers had pistes in Caesar; Christians have pistes in Christ. We can say we are saved 'through faith alone' because faith is not dead belief, but generates works (that add nothing themselves). And baptism? Baptism is the visible sign, seal, and sacrament that incorporates us into this family of faith. It is the grace that alone generates pistes, and alone marks those with pistes.

The faithful baptized make up the church; and what is the church? In AD 135 the Roman Emperor Hadrian, after defeating the Jewish rebels of Simon bar Kokhba, turned Jerusalem into a Roman colony city, Aelia Capitolina. It was called a colony because, as in so many other places, it was a city for poorer Romans and Roman veterns to move to. It was prime real estate. And it was typical Roman strategy: pacify a rebelious area by making it properly Roman.

The church is quite the same thing. Its individual congregations are like embassies (headed by ambassadors, populated by foreign service officers and staff), or colonies. The church is the place where the true emperor of the universe- Jesus Christ, not Caesar- plants down his loyal followers. The church is the ark that the floodwaters will pass over, because these cities are already loyal.

A side note: much has been made of Paul's curious statement in 1 Thessalonians that the dead in Christ will rise first, to be followed by the living, and that the living will meet him in the clouds before he returns to earth. The latter has somewhat mangled into a justification for this brand new idea of a 'rapture' seven years before the return of Christ; so the reasoning goes, there's no reason for believers to meet Christ up in the heavenly realms only to turn right back around to come back to earth; there must be a seven year gap inbetween, the so-called tribulation period.

But in ancient Rome, both the dead rising first and the meeting the Lord 'out there' before returning make absolute sense. In the former case, one must recognize that ancient cities had sacred boundaries in which people could not be buried. The dead were buried outside the city; the graveyards of Rome are all south of the current city center, around the catacombs of the Appian Way, and the same is truth of Kerameikos Cemetery in Athens, west of the Agora and Acropolis. If Paul is envisioning a parousia (advent, coming) paralleling the coming of an emperor to a city, well, of course you meet the dead first! They're outside the city, after all.

In the second case, remember that a city loyal to the emperor didn't just wait for him to arrive. They certainly didn't wait until he arrived to unbar the gates. No, a good and proper and loyal city held festivities in which the populus ran out to greet the arriving dignitary and escorted him back into the city. Believers ('the faithful' is a better translation) show their fidelity to the Lord by running out to greet him. There's nothing odd about it that requires the insertion of some seven year tribulation.

So what about our (post-)Protestant phrase from the Pax Americana, "make Jesus the Lord of your life?"' Is this really how Paul and the early Christians thought about their relationship to Jesus of Nazareth and the nature of his reign? I very much doubt it. One does not 'make Caesar the lord of your life.' Caesar is the lord of your life and everything around it. You don't even get to accept it or not; it's just a fact. You can rebel against it all you want, and willfully fight against it, but at the end of the day, Caesar is your lord anyway. The only question is whether you will break the law and have him as the lord that condemns you to death on a cross, or you will go about your business and have him as a lord and savior.

This is one of the many, many reasons why, at the end of the day, I don't believe we can talk about 'accepting' Christ, 'choosing' Christ, or doing anything to become saved. We may choose to rebel against the Kingdom of God; we can reject his Lordship; we can frown at the good news, the Gospel; we can deny that he is Son of God; we can turn cynical at the prospect of his increasingly-delayed Parousia; but only pistes, that tenacious fidelity, that loyalty, that belief in the Lord who is unseen, can ensure that he is our Savior. We may choose our earthly lords; it is obvious whether one might choose to believe the good news of America. But choose to believe in the unseen? That sort of radically moronic move- foolish in the eyes of the world- can only come about because grace has generated that within us. No choice necessary; that is the radical confession of grace alone, and I reject theology that says otherwise.

And therein lies the difference between Emperor Caesar and King Jesus. Caesar commands loyalty and leaves it to his subjects to obey; Jesus extends grace, and adopts brothers and sisters to be the Father's sons and daughters. The gospel of Caesar is the order brought about by Roman law; the gospel of Christ is the good news grace. As Martin Luther put it in one of my favorite quotes of his (or of anyone): "The Law says 'Do this,' and it is never done; Grace says 'believe in this,' and everything is already done."

And now we strike to the heart of the difference between Caesar and Christ. Caesar wins his victories by conquering enemies on the battlefield. He rides at the head of legions and compels people to behave like civilized men rather than barbarians.

But Christ has already won the victory. And his victory, quite appropriately, was at the hands of Rome's principal instrument for the execution of those rebellious barbarians: the cross. Christ died for our sins; but however much it would have 'worked' had his innocent life ended quietly in bed in Nazareth, can we really imagine Christianity being the same if the death that saves us from death was a quiet and peaceful death in his sleep? I think not. Christ conquers Rome's good news of civilization by dying at its hands; he shows the world for what it is; he shows us for what we are. The Old Adam dies in the mutulated Image of God at the hands of those who believe themselves to be gods. He becomes the rebel- "he became sin"- in order to win the victory that Caesar never could. The idolatry of earthly goods and the pride in human accomplishment lies in ruins scattered around the Mediterranean Sea, while the ambassadors of Christ continue to subvert the principalities of this world through our tiny colonies called churches. Who is the victor?

Jesus is Lord. And Caesar is not.