Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

CHRIST

The Transfiguration, Duccio di Buoninsegna (1311; National Gallery, London). Christ stands before the apostles Peter, John, and James and flanked by the prophets Moses and Elijah (Art Resource, N.Y.)

Gk. Christós, lit., “the Anointed One,” a translation of Heb. /Aram. “the Messiah.” The term is related to the verb “to anoint, to smear.” As with its Hebrew counterpart, “Christ” can be used adjectivally (“the anointed priest”; e.g., Lev. 4:5, 16) but is most common as a noun. As a title, “the Christ” makes sense only in Jewish and Christian literature where the ancient (biblical) practice of anointing with oil as part of ritual installation to office is in view. The term presumes not only a biblical context but a history of interpretation, since the form — a noun and a definite article, without modifiers — is unattested in the Greek LXX as well as in the Hebrew Bible.

Pauline Letters

The term appears in the NT most frequently in the Pauline letters (more than 200 times in the undisputed letters alone). In the vast majority of instances, “Christ” appears in nontitular form. It can appear with the proper name Jesus (“Jesus Christ,” “Christ Jesus,” “the Lord Jesus Christ”), or alone, in anarthrous form (“Christ died for our sins,” “in Christ,” “baptized into Christ”), where the reference is clearly to the one Christ, Jesus. Only once in the Pauline corpus does “the Christ” refer clearly to a figure from Jewish tradition, without necessarily being a reference to Jesus (“to them [the Israelites] belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Christ . . .”; Rom. 9:5).

While the title never appears as a predicate nominative (“Jesus is the Christ”), the data in Paul’s letters represent an advanced stage in a developing christological tradition, presupposing an initial Hebrew/Aramaic confession, “Jesus is the Messiah.” It is possible to read Paul’s letters without knowing much about “Christ” other than that it is some honorific designation that appears next to Jesus’ name. The meaning of the term is provided by statements about the Christ, Jesus. As Nils A. Dahl has shown, however, a more careful reading of Paul’s letters indicates the degree to which Paul presumes a whole history of christological tradition, including a complex and sophisticated “messianic exegesis” of Israel’s Scriptures. Knowing something about Israel’s messianic tradition is thus important for understanding Paul’s use of the term.

Striking is how greatly Paul’s “christological” statements differ from traditional Jewish messianism. Apart from a few passages like Rom. 2:16; 1 Cor. 15:24-28 that refer to judging and ruling, identifying Jesus as “Christ” has less to do with a royal office than with suffering, humiliation, and death (e.g., 1 Cor. 1:22-24; 15:3-4). Paul can speak in more traditional terms, e.g., about the Davidic descent of Jesus the Christ, but even in these instances it is Jesus’ death and vindication that are the focus of his “office” (Rom. 1:2-4)

While “Son of God” is a more comprehensive term, its place in messianic oracles like 2 Sam. 7:14; Ps. 2:7, where God addresses the king as “Son,” is an important feature of the title. To be the promised Christ is part of what it means to be “the Son of God.”

While not explicitly developed in the extant letters, Jesus’ identity as “Christ” is central to Paul’s theology. While Jesus may be called “Son of God” and “Lord,” terms with currency in gentile as well as Jewish religious tradition, as “Christ” Jesus belongs to Israel (Rom. 9:5). It is not surprising, therefore, that Paul should find large-scale Jewish opposition to his preaching a serious theological as well as personal problem. At stake are God’s promises to Israel. Rom. 9–11 are crucial to Paul’s understanding of the gospel as well as of his mission.

That Jesus is the promised Christ is likewise central to Paul’s reflection on gentile freedom from adherence to the law of Moses. His argument in Gal. 3 about gentile participation in the heritage of Abraham includes actual citations and allusions to a host of texts, some of which were part of messianic tradition (2 Sam. 7:10-14; Gen. 49:10). At the center of his own argument is the image of the crucified Christ who died “on a tree” and thus under the curse of God’s law (Gal. 3:13; quoting Deut. 21:23). That Gentiles are exempted from obligation to the law of Moses is bound up with Jesus’ death as Christ — and his vindication by God in the Resurrection. Gal. 3 in particular affords a glimpse of a whole tradition of “messianic exegesis” which Paul both presupposes and develops further.

It is significant that at precisely the point where Paul’s theological and pastoral reflection are most distant from Jewish tradition (Romans and Galatians) he makes the most extensive use of learned scriptural argument paralleling that of school traditions within Judaism. While knowledge of Jewish messianic tradition is crucial for understanding Paul’s argument, what stands out is the novelty of Paul’s conclusions — something even Paul’s colleagues within the Church found subversive and dangerous.

Gospels

In the Gospels “Christ” is used far less frequently than in Paul’s letters (Matthew, 17 times; Mark, 7; Luke, 12 [Acts, 28]; John, 18). As in the Epistles, “Christ” can be used with Jesus’ name (e.g., Mark 1:1). However, the use of “the Christ” as a title is more common (“where the Christ was to be born,” Matt. 2:4; “You are the Christ,” Mark 8:29; “the Christ is David’s son,” 12:35; “Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now,” 15:32); “but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God . . .,” John 20:31). Only in Luke-Acts does the term appear occasionally in its more biblical form (“the Lord’s Christ,” Luke 2:26; “the Christ of God,” 9:20; “his Christ,” Acts 3:18). In all instances, readers are expected to know what the term means: it has to do with a royal office.

There are a few exceptions, as in Luke 4:17-19, where Jesus is “anointed” to preach good news to the poor, more clearly a prophetic than a royal office. Elsewhere in Luke-Acts, however, the content of Jesus’ office as “a savior who is Christ the Lord” is provided by royal tradition: he is the “Son of the Most High” who will sit “on the throne of his ancestor David”; he will “reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32-33). He is the one whom God has made “both Lord and Christ” by raising him from the dead and seating him at the right hand (Acts 2:34, quoting Ps. 110:1). Passages like Luke 4 are best understood as filling out what it means to be “the Christ” by means of creative interpretation of the Scriptures.

The term is notably uncommon within the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry. In the Synoptic Gospels, it is the demons who from the outset know who Jesus is. Yet according to Mark and Matthew, the demons do not recognize Jesus as “Messiah” but as “the Son of God” (though “Son of God” is clearly a title associated with the royal office, as in Ps. 2:7; 2 Sam. 7:14). The common people recognize Jesus as a prophetic figure: John the Baptist, Elijah, or one of the prophets (Mark 8:28 par.). In the Gospel narratives, the only person to call Jesus “the Christ” is Peter — an insight that in Matthew Jesus characterizes as possible only through inspiration (“flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Father in heaven”; Matt. 16:16-17). The “confession” of Jesus as the Christ is followed by the first of Jesus’ predictions of his impending rejection, death, and resurrection (Matt. 16:21-23; Mark 8:31-33). Peter’s reaction — his “rebuke” of Jesus — indicates that “Christ” and cross do not belong together.

In all the Gospels, “Christ” appears most frequently, with related royal imagery, in the Passion Narratives: Jesus is arrested, tried, mocked, and executed as king. The royal office is expressed differently by various groups in the story. The chief priests use the language of the tradition in referring to Jesus as “the Christ,” “the Christ of God,” or “the Christ the King of Israel.” Romans, appropriate to their gentile status, refer to Jesus as “the King of the Jews,” using “Jews” instead of “Israel” and viewing the title exclusively as a political claim. Jesus is most frequently identified as “the Christ” (= King) at that point in the story where he looks least like the promised Messiah.

Even apart from knowledge of Jewish biblical tradition, the Gospel stories highlight the strangeness of the term when applied to Jesus in this context. To the Jewish authorities, calling Jesus “the Christ” is blasphemous and absurd (Mark 14:63-65). He is taunted as he hangs on the cross: “Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down from the cross now, so that we may see and believe” (Mark 15:32). He does not, which means to the Jewish authorities that he is simply another pretender. The claim to be the Christ, which makes Jesus guilty of sedition in Caesar’s empire, is no less absurd to the Romans, who treat Jesus to a mock investiture. They put a robe on him, make a crown, and salute him: “Hail, King of the Jews” (Mark 15:17-19). From the perspective of the characters, therefore — the religious and political authorities — there is something grossly inappropriate about calling Jesus “the Christ.”

From the readers’ perspective, the charges and taunts are ironic. Readers are told at various points that Jesus is the Christ; his vindication by God in his resurrection is foreshadowed throughout the Gospel narratives. That Jesus’ enemies are the ones to dress him as king and to announce his identity to the world is a literary expression of Paul’s insistence that God has chosen to reveal wisdom through foolishness (1 Cor. 1).

What it means to call Jesus “the Christ” is thus bound tightly to his trial, death, and resurrection. Thus there is in the Gospels and Paul a subversive element, an acknowledgment that Jesus’ “messianic” career is a surprise, a scandal, a critical moment that demands a reappraisal of the whole biblical witness. It is appropriate that those who are not persuaded should find such a confession at odds with Israel’s biblical heritage. And while believers in Jesus began an effort to understand the OT witness in light of his cross and resurrection — eventually remaking the notion of “the Christ” through a radical reconfiguring of messianic tradition — the scandal of a “crucified Christ” still remains.

To understand what it means that Jesus is “the Christ” in the NT is aided by knowledge of Jewish messianic tradition. The language derives from the Scriptures of Israel and the history of their exposition in postbiblical times. The specifics of NT tradition, however, are bound to the particulars of the career of Jesus of Nazareth. Only in view of those particulars, especially the accounts of Jesus’ trial and death, is it possible to understand the dramatic shift in meaning of “the Messiah” as it is used of Jesus of Nazareth.

Beyond the New Testament

Jewish and Christian tradition developed in different directions from a common heritage. For the later rabbis, the Messiah-King remained one of the important figures in visions and dreams of the future. For followers of Jesus, “Christ” became largely a second name of Jesus, though significant enough to serve as the basis for a new self-designation that would distinguish those heirs of Israel’s heritage who confessed Jesus from those who did not. By the end of the 2nd century, “Christian” came to designate a worshipper of Israel’s God who believed in Jesus the Christ, to be distinguished from “Jew.”

The later tradition of the Church took up the task of making sense theologically and christologically in a gentile setting. The confession of Jesus as “Christ” was presupposed but was largely insignificant for the dogmatic tradition and trinitarian developments. Even by the middle of the 2nd century, the issue of Jesus’ identity as “Christ” was important for authors like Justin Martyr almost exclusively in the context of scriptural interpretation. More important were to be biblical images like the “Logos,” the “Lord,” and “the Son” and his relationship to the Father.

Yet while the NT begins the process of reflecting on the new rules for speaking about God as the one who raised Jesus from the dead and is now revealed in Jesus, Jesus remains “the Christ” — rooted in the tradition of Israel — whose identity is tied most closely to his death and vindication as “the King of the Jews.”

See Messiah.

Bibliography. J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity (Minneapolis, 1992); N. A. Dahl, Jesus the Christ: The Historical Origins of Christological Doctrine (Minneapolis, 1991); D. Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Earliest Christianity (Minneapolis, 1988); G. Vermes, Jesus the Jew (1973, repr. Philadelphia, 1981).

Donald Juel

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

CHRIST

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)