Jesus, The Christ

Jesus, the Christ names Jesus of Nazareth together with the title by which the New Testament and the churches confess him: Christos, the Greek word for "anointed," which renders the Hebrew mashiach. As a matter of language, the word is a title rather than a surname; as the New Testament uses it, it works as both name and claim, identifying Jesus as the anointed figure God promised. The phrase therefore bundles a person and an assertion about him, and most of the theological weight of the term lies in that assertion.

Scripture speaks directly to the relation the title carries. In John 10:30 Jesus says, "I and the Father are one," and John 15:7 makes remaining in him, with his words remaining in the disciple, the ground of prayer answered. Paul describes anyone "in Christ" as "a new creation," with the old things passed away (2 Corinthians 5:17), and speaks of putting on "the new man, who in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth" (Ephesians 4:24). The saving work is attributed to him personally: God "saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before times eternal" (2 Timothy 1:9); he "gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity" (Titus 2:14); he "bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24); and God "called you to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus" (1 Peter 5:10).

The title also stands against a prophetic backdrop. Isaiah 55:6–7 urges seeking Yahweh while he may be found, forsaking one's way and returning to him, "for he will freely pardon," and Isaiah 55:12 promises that the redeemed "shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace." Joel 2:28 promises God's Spirit poured out "on all flesh," with sons and daughters prophesying. Neither oracle names a Christ. Historically, the New Testament applies Joel's promise to the Spirit poured out at Pentecost (Acts 2:16–21), and Christian reading has long heard in Isaiah's invitation and its promised peace a description of the salvation Christ brings. That connection is an interpretive judgment rather than a statement the Hebrew text itself makes.

Christian traditions differ on how to read the title. The Nicene and Chalcedonian confession, held by Catholic, Orthodox, and most Protestant bodies, takes "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30) as a claim about shared divine nature within one person with two natures; unitarian and non-Trinitarian communities read the oneness as unity of will and purpose, and so treat the title as messianic rather than divine. Traditions also weigh the saving work differently: Orthodox theology characteristically speaks of recapitulation and the healing of human nature, Reformed theology of substitution and union with Christ, Catholic theology of incorporation through baptism and Eucharist, Anabaptist theology of following the anointed one in costly discipleship. Even "in Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:17) is read corporately by some as incorporation into a people and individually by others as personal conversion.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.