THE LORDØS ANOINTED
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THE LORD'S ANOINTED
`Jesus is the Christ'. John, at the close of the Gospel that bears his name, tells us that the object before him, as
he selected what signs he should incorporate in his record, was:
`That ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His
name' (John 20:31).
His name `Jesus', said Matthew, means that He is the Saviour:
`For He shall save His people from their sins' (Matt. 1:21) .
When John speaks of Him as `Jesus the Christ' he is using the word `Christ' as a title which has already been
explained in earlier chapters. `Jesus' is His name, `The Christ' is His title. We cannot go further with our study
with any hope of arriving at the intention of Scripture if we ignore these divinely inspired definitions.
In chapter 1 of John's Gospel `Rabbi' is translated, `Messias' is translated, and `Cephas' is translated (John
1:38,41,42), so John has before his mind's eye, those to whom Hebrew would be an unknown tongue. He wrote for
`the
world',
after
the
Jew
had
been
dismissed
at
Acts 28:
`We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ'.
`We have found Him, of Whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of
Joseph' (John 1:41,45).
It is a characteristic of Greek, that proper names usually end in as, os and us, as in this very context, Elijah is
Elias, Andrew is Andreas, Simon is Simonas, Peter is Petros, Philip is Philippos. So Messiah is Messias. John 1:41
informs us that Jesus is the Messiah, the Greek equivalent being `The Christ'. John gives evidence that the question
concerning the advent of the Messiah was in many minds, and Mark tells us that the Saviour opened His ministry
with the words `The time is fulfilled' (Mark 1:15). So it is not surprising that when John the Baptist was asked by a
deputation of priests and Levites sent to him saying `Who art thou?' he confessed, and denied not; but confessed,
saying:
`I am not the Christ', or as we can now retranslate it `I am not the Messiah' (John 1:20).
The recognition of the Messiahship of Jesus was not limited to Israel, for in John chapter 4, it is a Samaritan
woman who said `I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ', and to her came the revelation:
`I that speak unto thee am HE'.
The woman of Samaria went back to her city, and said:
`Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this THE CHRIST?'
and later the men of Samaria said:
`We have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world' (John
4:25,26,29,42).
It does not escape our notice how personal all this testimony is. Andrew said `We have found the Messias',
Philip said `We have found Him', the Samaritan woman said `Come see a man ... the Christ'.
After an absence from Jerusalem in Galilee, the Saviour returned at the feast of tabernacles, and some of the
people said:
`Is not this He, Whom they seek to kill? But, lo, He speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto Him. Do the
rulers know indeed that this is THE VERY CHRIST?' (John 7:25,26).
Others said:
`When Christ cometh, will He do more miracles than these which this man hath done?' (John 7:31).