When you hear the words, ”Jesus Christ” do you realize that “Christ” is not His last name?The word “Christ” is actually a title telling us who He is. The word “Christ” comes from the Greek word for “anointed.” It translates the Hebrew word “Messiah” which also means “anointed.” They both refer to someone who is anointed, and for believers they both refer to our Lord, the Son of God.Jesus asked His disciples, “What about you? Who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ. You are the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:15-16). So to call Jesus the “Christ” or “Messiah” is to say that He is the Son of the Living God, the one anointed and set to save us.When Andrew, a disciple of John the Baptist, met Jesus, the first thing he did was to find his brother, Simon Peter, and tell him about his discovery. He told his brother, “’We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated, the Christ). And he brought Peter to Jesus” (John 1:41). Andrew meant that Jesus was the anointed —the One that God sent.Unfortunately, the Jewish people and their leaders misunderstood what the Messiah would do. They had read the Old Testament prophecies (Isaiah 42:1; 61:1-3; Psalm 16, 22, Daniel 9, etc.) that promised God would send a deliverer to save His people. But & they understood this to mean that he would deliver them from the Romans. They expected the Messiah to set up a kingdom on earth. They expected the old kingdom of David to be restored. Then life would be wonderful—earthly peace and prosperity would be restored.They didn’t understand that His kingdom was spiritual, not political. They overlooked the Messiah’s spiritual role as a deliverer from sin and Satan. Just as Jesus told Pilate that His kingdom was “not of this world.” As a result, few of them were prepared to accept Jesus as the Messiah. He didn’t fit their ideas of what the Messiah would do. So they rejected Him.However, some recognized Jesus as God’s Messiah – His anointed, chosen one to save them from their sin. It became their purpose to share this wonderful news with others. As he closed his Gospel, the apostle John summarized the message he had been trying to get across. He wrote, “And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples which ...
