 |  |
Before we proceed further, there is a question that demands an answer, "Is the title
`Christ' restricted to the Saviour to the period that follows His incarnation? can the title
be used of Him, in His pre-incarnated glory, the glory that He had before the world was?"
There are a number of expositors who unhesitatingly affirm, that the title "Christ"
belongs only to the Saviour as the Man, Jesus, the Christ. It is well known that the word
"Christ", the Greek Christos is the translation of the Hebrew Mashach, which is
transliterated into English as the Messiah and means the anointed. This "anointing" was
done with oil (Psa. 89: 20) and it is this fact that gives the word Mashach its
significance. There is another word that is translated anointed and that is the Hebrew suk,
which in every one of its nine occurrences is rendered "anoint" in the A.V. A word
derived from the same root is nasak, which occurs in Psa. 2: 6, "Yet have I set My
King", where the margin reads Heb. "anointed". While this reveals the necessity to
include nasak and mashach, it does not answer our question. There is, however, a
passage which does:
"The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way; before His works of old. I was
set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was . . . . . when He
prepared the heavens I was there . . . . . then I was with Him, as One brought up with Him
. . . . . rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth, and My delights were with the sons of
men" (Prov. 8: 22-31).
Young's literal translation reads "From the age I was anointed". Here we are taken
back "before the foundation of the world", and there we find One Who is called the
"Anointed". When the church was chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world,
"Christ" was there, "I was there" (Prov. 8: 27). This rids the mind of the necessity to
await the incarnation of the Saviour for He Who was acclaimed "The Christ" here on
earth, was "The Anointed" from the beginning. Yet, even though this illuminates one
aspect of the mighty truth we are considering, it only makes the problem deeper. Why,
seeing that Christ was "there" did the Lord wait geological ages for the advent of Adam?
and why, seeing Christ was already "there" must He too in the fullness of time "come in
the flesh"? We might at first be inclined to think that He only came in the flesh because
man had sinned--but we have already seen that unfallen Adam was the figure of Him
that was to come, and that the fact of sin and the need of redemption but adds to the
problem without solving it. In Phil. 2: there is observable a twofold descent: the one
reaching its goal when Christ became man, the other when He still further descended to
"the death of the cross".
"Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but
made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made
in the likeness of men."
This is the first stage.
"And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross" (Phil. 2: 6-8).
This is the second stage.