He Is Lord – Anonymous

An ancient confession this is, from an ancient song. We might say the apostle borrowed it for his own recitation of a reminder to those who would listen. Why did Paul appropriate a song that contained the words “He is Lord”? Like so many who came after him, Paul may have discovered that an important message becomes more memorable if music is the vehicle to carry the words we want to retain. It must have been no later than the 1^st Century, and not before then either, when this song emerged, given its appearance in a letter (Philippians 2:10-11) to a group of people in the area called Philippi (modern-day region of Macedonia and Thrace, in northeastern Greece) and the content of the words. Was its origin in fact the region and the people to whom Paul wrote? Early Christians in that area and time are not the only ones who need a reminder.

Paul was likely not actually in Grecian Philippi when he penned his letter to its residents, but instead in Rome or perhaps elsewhere. Nevertheless, his heart was amongst the people there, and hence the letter he took the time to write and send to them. A prison was his location, though we might say he was actually under house arrest. Perhaps the words were eventually in a Latin chant – Ipse est Dominus – some eight or nine centuries after Paul would have first heard them sung. The 1^st Century musical form is a mystery – but, perhaps originating from a type familiar to those who had worshipped in a synagogue. Even with our gap in knowledge regarding the music, the words today still possess a unique potency. They were words of ‘first importance’, as Paul had already written to another group of people (1 Corinthians 15:3) in the same area of southern Europe (also in modern-day Greece), some years earlier. So, is it possible that this Roman citizen named Paul may have in fact spurred the development of ‘He Is Lord’ among fellow citizens with his own pen? Was the music not yet extant when Paul wrote to Corinth’s believers, but had arisen by the time he was arrested in Rome and communicated with those in Philippi? We don’t know, is the short answer, but these words and their nature certainly had already been spoken by many others since Jesus’ resurrection in about A.D. 33. So, sometime in the 30 years between that seminal event and Paul’s words to southern Europeans, people began to confess and testify musically with the same purpose. He died and arose, and every one of us will be humble before Him, and confess His kingship. It will be a proclamation of fact, a joyous exclamation, and a hope-filled trust that I place at His feet.

The words he repeated were a subset of something else Paul had heard sung in his letter -- that Jesus was a servant first, even as He was God. Maybe this odd confluence resonated with Paul, especially as he experienced the confiscation of his earthly freedom but expected the reward of his faith in the future. That must have made it sensible for Paul to write and do as he did after his Damascus Road experience. Someone says if I confess Him today, He will accept and mediate for me later; if I don’t, the consequences are incalculably awful. Is it so really hard to confess His status, to believe He is the truth in every sense? Don’t just do so because you dread burning in Hell – though that is appropriate fear, for sure. Seek him out. See if He’s the genuine article, according to historical evidence. Others have done so (Lee Strobel comes to mind, in our contemporary age), even as they sought to prove Him false; they are the present age’s Pauls. God may have an amazing plan for you, just like He had one for Paul. Are you beyond being amazed today?   

            

The NIV Study Bible, its notes, and the scripture references in the above are the only source for the song story.