18. “CHRIST” IS A TITLE — NOT A PROPER NAME
The words “Jesus” and “Christ” appear together so often in the Bible that people tend to associate them as first and last names. This is wrong thinking. Christ is not Jesus’ last name.
Jesus is a noun and a proper name that is always capitalized. “Christ” is an adjective that should not be capitalized unless it appears as the first word in a sentence.
Bible editors and publishers have confused readers about the word “christ” by always capitalizing it as though it is a proper name.
STUDY TIP: In Bible days, people were not identified by first and last names. If there was a need to identify a man by more than his first name, that would be done by identifying his father. That is why we find James the son of Alphaeus, James the son of Zebedee, Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, John, the son of Zacharias, Jesus, the son of Joseph, Judas, the son of Simon, Simon, son of John and many others mentioned in Jesus genealogy.
This practice of capitalizing christ confuses readers because it deters them from thinking of Jesus as a messiah. The definition of “christ” is messiah. In fact, the Hebrew word “christos”, which is typically translated as “christ” is also translated as messiah six times in the NASB.
STUDY TIP: See Messiahs for understanding of christ.
Jesus’ role as messiah is much more important than his proper name which came from his father Joseph. His role as messiah (i.e. anointed one) is the most important thing about Jesus. Without that anointing he would have been an ordinary man because the anointing comes from his father God.
This anointing is symbolically represented at the time of Jesus’ baptism when the spirit descended on him. At this point, Jesus was born again and began his ministry of speaking God’s words as a true prophet. Before that moment, he was only a son of man, but at that moment he became a Son of God. Before that moment he was just another religious Jewish carpenter, but when God said of him “this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased,” he became a messiah.
It is important to recognize that Jesus was “a” messiah and that he was not “the one and only” messiah whom God promised to send. Indeed he was a messiah for his time, but he had no special qualities that differentiated him from other prophets, priests and kings whom God anointed as servants and shepherds to speak his words to hard-hearted religious people who could not hear his voice. Nor was he any different from any of his followers who also have God’s anointing and power to speak for God.
What makes Jesus different is that the Bible teaches us much more about what it means to be a messiah through his life and death than it does through other prophets. We do learn a little about the lives and teachings of messiahs through the books of the prophets. But these facts are conveniently packaged together in the New Testament so that we can more easily understand prophets by emphasizing their the characteristics and functions in the life of one person (i.e. Jesus) who is a model for all New Covenant disciples.
To be a follower of Jesus means to model our lives after Jesus’ life after he was anointed. To be a follower of Jesus does not mean that we should worship him. Worship is easy. Following is hard.
We followed him when we are religious, but we should also follow him when we come out of religion and become New Covenant disciples. That is what the Apostle Paul is talking about when he says to imitate him as he imitates Jesus. Neither Jesus nor Paul, nor God, nor anyone else in the bible ever said that we should worship Jesus. What we should do, however, is follow him in the sense that we do the things he did and say the things he said after we come out of religion and become New Covenant disciples. These are hard things to do. That is why Jesus promised that his followers would be persecuted.