What is "the Christ?"

When we refer to Jesus as "Jesus Christ" what is it exactly that we are saying? What is the meaning of the word "Christ?"

Periodically, you may hear someone refer to "Jesus, the Christ," so we know immediately, that "Christ" is not a last name*. Rather, it is a title. Since the New Testament uses the word "Christ" about 531 times, we can quickly conclude that this is an important title. The Bible also uses dozens of other words and phrases - Son of God, Redeemer, Son of Man, etc. - to refer to Jesus, but Christ is by far the most prevalent.

So, as Christians, it is incumbent upon us to have a sense of the meaning of the word.

The word Christ, or Christos, is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah. Here's what those words look like in the original languages: Christ (Greek): Χριστός; and Messiah (Hebew): מָשִׁיחַ.

The word Messiah means "anointed one." So, the question becomes, anointed by whom and to do what? The "by whom" question is pretty simple. In the Old Testament, there were three groups of people who were anointed, all by God: prophets, kings and priests.

In the Old Testament book of Isaiah, we have a lengthy prophesy of what is to come upon the arrival of a special deliverer, referred to as the anointed one:

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me; because the LORD hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. (Isaiah 61:1)

This sounds like a pretty good description of what Jesus would accomplish while on Earth. So, Jesus, is indeed the anointed one - anointed to bring good tidings to the meek, to bring liberty and to offer a new kind of freedom to those imprisoned by death. At various points in his ministry, Jesus combines the functions of prophet, priest and king, the work of one who is anointed. He is not only "a" christ, but in fact "the" Christ. In most instances in the Bible, in the original Greek, the article which translates as "the" is used.

The word "Christ" did not generally come to be applied to Jesus until after the Resurrection. No one knows who first began calling Him "Christ." The word does appear several times in Paul's First Letter to the Thessalonians, which is believed to have been written around 52 A.D., barely 20 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and likely the oldest of the New Testament writings. So we know, at least, that within 20 years of Jesus' passion, that the word was in use.

* For the record, Jesus' formal name would have been Jesus bar (son of) Joseph. He would also have been known as Jesus of Nazareth. Here's how those phrases would look in the Greek of the New Testatment: Ἰησοῦ τοῦ Ἰωσὴφ (Jesus (son) of Joseph); and Ἰησοῦ Ναζαρηνέ (Jesus of Nazareth).