King Jesus

Today’s post (12 March 2008) provides a good illustration of how the very point of a text can be lost by treating “Christ” almost as Jesus’ surname. To most of us now, Jesus Christ is ‘the full name’ of Jesus just as Neil Douglas Booth is my full name, but that really isn’t the way it should be.

The Greek word christos translates the Hebrew word mâshiyach (”Messiah”); and mâshiyach itself (from mishha, “anointing oil”) means “anointed” or “anointed one” and is a synonym in the Old Testament for melek which means “king”. Thus, in 1 Samuel 2.10 we have “He will give strength to his king (melek) and exalt the horn of his anointed (mâshiyach)”. The reason for this is simple: a person was designated king by being anointed with oil as a symbol of the Spirit of God being poured out upon him to equip him for the office - see 1 Samuel 16.1-13.

Israel’s great mâshiyach was, of course, King David, and all through the centuries that followed his reign, Israel looked back to that period as their golden age - an age that had passed but that presaged an age to come in which a son of David would regain his throne and rule over all the nations.

Move forward to roughly AD30 and hear Peter reply to Jesus’ question: “Who do you say that I am?” - “You are the Christ (christos), the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16.16). Here, Peter is declaring his belief that Jesus is that awaited mâshiyach, the heir to the throne of David, the King … and perhaps that is how we ought to translate the word christos wherever it is used in the New Testament. It is arguable that, although perhaps quite early in church history Christ became a proper name for Jesus, it was never used that way in the New Testament; there, it was always and ever a royal title, over against that of Caesar.