Christ / Messiah

The title Christ renders Greek Christos, which translates Hebrew Mashiach — "anointed one." In the OT economy, anointing set apart three offices: priest (Ex 28:41), king (1 Sam 16:13), and prophet (1 Kgs 19:16). David's anointing in 1 Samuel 16 supplies the formative Messianic type; Psalm 2 gathers kingly and divine language into one figure — "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee" (v.7) followed by the kings of the earth warned to "kiss the Son" (v.12). Calvin, commenting on Psalm 2, argues that while David's own anointing furnishes the immediate ground, every feature of that psalm that strains beyond a merely earthly king resolves in Christ. Isaiah 61 extends the anointing outward into mercy — the Anointed sent to preach good tidings and bind up the broken-hearted — the very passage Jesus claimed in the Nazareth synagogue (Lk 4:16–21). Matthew Henry, treating Daniel 9:25–26, locks the Messianic figure to a specific chronology: Messiah cut off "but not for himself," the pivot on which all later Christology turns. Zechariah 9:9 adds the lowly-king paradox the Gospels would cite for the triumphal entry.

The NT writers press the title Christ to their very first sentences. Matthew opens "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham" (Mt 1:1), setting the Davidic and Abrahamic anchors in place before any narrative begins. Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi — "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Mt 16:16) — receives the benediction that becomes the foundation-stone of ecclesial confession. John frames his entire gospel around it: "these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ" (Jn 20:31). Alfred Edersheim notes that the rabbinic expectation of a kingly, conquering Messiah forms the quiet backdrop against which the Passion reorders the whole category — Jesus accepts the title at his trial (Mt 26:63–64) even as he refuses its political shape. Paul's opening to Romans (1:1–4) fuses Davidic descent with resurrection-declared divine sonship, making "Jesus Christ our Lord" not two names but a single confession. Revelation 11:15 closes the arc: "the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ."

Calvin treats the title Christ under a triple office — prophet, priest, king — because the three OT anointings converge in him alone. Jesus is the prophet who speaks God's final word (Heb 1:1–2), the priest who offers himself as the sacrifice (Heb 9:11–14), and the king whose throne is both Davidic and everlasting (Lk 1:32–33). Matthew Henry draws the pastoral conclusion: to confess Jesus as Christ is to receive him in all three offices together — one cannot claim the king while evading the priestly work that makes approach possible, nor receive the priest while refusing the prophetic word that exposes the need for atonement. Athanasius locates the weight of the title in the eternal Son: the anointing descends not because Christ needed what he did not already have but so that the humanity he assumed could be flooded with the Spirit for our sake (On the Incarnation). The Messianic claim therefore is not one title among many but the organizing confession — "Jesus is the Christ" — against which the apostolic preaching, the NT canon, and the church's creedal frame are all measured.