Home » Programs » Jesus As... » Jesus as the Christ

Jesus as the Christ

If you are even remotely familiar with the Bible, you will know that the words “Jesus” and “Christ” somehow go together. In the Authorized Version, the combination Jesus Christ occurs 189 times. Occasionally, you will hear Jesus referred to as “the Christ.” This may strike you as strange, particularly if you think that “Christ” was Jesus’ last name, as in: Tom Smith, Mary Wilson, Jesus Christ. “Christ” is not a name at all, but a title.

Our English word Christ comes from the Greek word Christos, which is a translation of the Hebrew word “Messiah.” The word “Christ” suggests God’s anointed, God’s chosen messenger. Hundreds of years of Jewish history were focussed on the coming of the Messiah. For those who recognize Jesus as Messiah, it was a long wait but worth it all. Some never did accept Him as Messiah and for them, the wait continues. Others have simply given up hope.

I won’t try to present a full defence for the assertion that Jesus is the Messiah, but I’ll make a couple of comments about that. One of the great themes of the Messiah is that He would be the deliverer - that He would set people free from bondage they were in. In Luke, we read about an encounter where Jesus identifies Himself as the Messiah and had a very negative response. People immediately wanted to take Him out and kill Him. There was no question in their minds that Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah. Jesus commended Peter when Peter identified Him correctly as the Christ, the son of the living God. Given all of the evidence, I don’t hesitate to say that Jesus is the Messiah.

Knowing Jesus as the Christ effects the way we relate to Him, particularly as we see Him as the deliverer - the One who came to set us free from our sin. It is certainly true in the broadest sense. 1 John 2:2 tells us that Jesus is the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. It is also true in the narrowest sense because in Galatians 2:20, Paul applies the death of Jesus very personally when he wrote: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Jesus died for the sins of the whole world including all the sins that we will individually commit, overtly, covertly, by omission and by commission, sin that we have already committed and sin that is yet to be committed. Jesus is the deliverer from all sin and from the consequences of all sin.

Most religions and even some branches of Christianity don’t understand this aspect of Jesus and what He did. This, of course, leads to the unsettling position of wondering whether or not we may be able to expiate or atone for our own sin. Could what I do, or suffer, ever be enough? How would I know? What if it’s not?

I admit I am speaking from a particular bias, but it would make no sense to me that God would go most of the way, but not all the way, in procuring our salvation. Without the assurance that all of our sin was completely dealt with we would be forced to go through life with the gloomy thought that God was about to punish us in this world for our sins or worse yet that if we didn’t suffer sufficiently in this world then He would punish us in some more severe way in the indefinite future, for some indefinite period of time.

For Christians who look only to the Bible and not to the traditions of men this is not a problem because the New Testament makes it clear that when the deliverer delivers He does so completely. There is nothing left for us to do and it is not by works of righteousness which we might do that we are saved.

Hebrews 2:14 and 15 tell us this: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death - that is, the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” Without Jesus as the Christ - the Messiah - the Deliverer - we are slaves of our fear. Fear can drive us to any one of several courses of actions.

We may anaesthetize ourselves with the things the world offers to help us forget what lies ahead. We may mask our fears with other emotions, employing anger, for example. Bullies are often insecure. Sometimes humour is used to mask fear. We laugh at it instead of dealing with it. We may minimize our fear by convincing ourselves that it is just not that important. Focussing on smaller, more practical things we can do something about gives us some relief. We may rationalize our fear by explaining it away. We tell ourselves that it is just an emotional reaction and doesn’t really matter. Lastly, we may exaggerate our fear, letting it assume control of our lives. We call this kind of fear a phobia and this way of handling fear can lead to serious mental and emotional breakdown.

How good it is when we relate to Jesus as the Christ. Then our hearts can be at peace in the way that David’s was when he wrote in Psalm 34: “I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.”

Ron Hughes
© July 2006