‘Lord’ is the English word used for the personal name of God in the Bible. For example, Deuteronomy 6:4 says ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.’ This Deuteronomy verse is the fundamental verse of Jewish monotheism called the Shema. It makes it clear that there is one God only whose name is ‘the Lord’ - YHWH - and He alone has existed for eternity, as His name means ‘I Am who I Am’ (Exodus 3:14-15). However, we see in the New Testament that Jesus Christ is known as, and is repeatedly called, ‘the Lord’. The apostle Paul deliberately re-works the Shema to show that Christ is ‘the Lord’ in 1 Corinthians 8:6: ‘… yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.’ Paul is quite clear that both the Father and the Son are the Lord God of the Old Testament (Acts 10:36, John 20:27-30, Titus 2:13-14, Jude 1:4).
