The Anointed One, the Christ, the Messiah

Jesus first came to take away your sin. He comes again to bring paradise back to earth. Do you believe He is the One?  

April’s Awakening, Day 20

Jesus has been—declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Holy Spirit, through his resurrection from the dead. In this declaration and appointment—which are beyond historical definition—lies the true significance of Jesus. Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah, is the End of History; and He can be comprehended only as Paradox … as Victor … a Primal History. As Christ, Jesus is the plane which lies beyond our comprehension.

 —Karl Barth

Let us serve Him faithfully as our Master. Let us obey Him loyally as our King. Let us study His teachings as our Prophet. Let us walk diligently after Him as our Example. Let us look anxiously for Him as our coming Redeemer of body as well as soul. But above all let us prize Him as our Sacrifice, and rest our whole weight on His death as atonement for sin. Let His blood be more precious in our eyes every year we live. Whatever else we glory in about Christ, let us glory above all things in His cross.

 —J. C. Ryle  

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John 20:31 NIV   

            Messiah in the Hebrew literally means “anointed one,” and the Old Testament, especially in the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 11, describes the Messiah as the future King who would come under special anointing to reunite the twelve tribes of Israel and usher in the Messianic Age—a period of leadership and prosperity of Israel and the entire world at peace. The Messiah would be King, on the throne of David, to continue God’s divine leadership promised to David (the Davidic Covenant) that an offspring of David would rule forever on the throne. The Messiah would be of “the root and offspring of Jesse,” (David’s father), and oftentimes the anointed one would be referred to as the “Branch” of Jesse. This is the Messiah that the Jews were looking for—a King to retake control and command of Israel and the entire globe.

            Messiah in the Hebrew is transliterated as “Christ” in the New Testament Greek. So we have Jesus as His given name and Christ is really His title, the anointed one, the Messiah. Jesus often referred to Himself as the “Son of David,” “Son of Man,” and “Son of God,” to identify Himself as the fulfillment of Old Testament Messiah. And in fact, Jesus was of the direct lineage of David, both through Mary, his biological mother traced back to Nathan, one of David’s sons, giving Jesus the legal right to the throne, and through Joseph, as Jesus’s adopting father, tracing back to Solomon, giving Jesus the royal right to sit on the throne. The Book of Matthew traces the royal lineage through Joseph, and the Book of Luke traces the legal lineage through Mary.

            What the Jews missed is that Messiah would come first as the Suffering Servant, the Man of Sorrows, the sacrificial Lamb of God that would take away the sin of the world. When Christ comes again at His Glorious Appearing, He then comes as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the King of kings and Lord of lords. The one-thousand-year reign of Christ here on earth, sitting on the throne of David in the temple in Jerusalem, ushers in the Millennium—indeed, that will be the Messianic Age. Jesus is the Anointed One, the Christ, the Messiah—don’t miss it.