TITLES OF CHRIST
THE CHRIST
DR. JIM DIXON
MATTHEW 16:13-17
OCTOBER 9, 1988
Who was Jesus? That was the title of the cover story of the August 15th issue of TIME Magazine, and the cover of TIME was, of course, graced with the face of Christ. It was a kind of composite face – a piecing together of fragments of various portrayals of Christ by artists through the centuries. Inside the magazine, the six-page article was a kind of composite, a composite portrait of the person and nature of Christ with many different views of his humanity, many different views of His deity. It seems like TIME Magazine interviewed everyone from the forum critics to Jewish rabbis and TIME asked them all the same question; who was Jesus or perhaps, more appropriately, who is Jesus? The world has many opinions. The Bible has the answer. The Bible has the answer of the prophets who foresaw His coming. The Bible has the answer of the apostles who knew Him in the flesh and saw Him alive after His resurrection. And the Bible has the answer of God Himself who inspired the pages of scripture.
Who is Jesus? The Bible’s answer is clear. Jesus is the Christ. That was the testimony, the confession of Simon Peter at Caesarea Philippi near the headwaters of the Jordan. That was the confession of Martha at the tomb of Lazarus in the village of Bethany near the city of Jerusalem. And for 2,000 years that has been the confession of the Christian church. Jesus is the Christ. So common is this title that by the middle of the first century it almost ceased to become a title and it became part of the proper name of Jesus of Nazareth, so that people simply referred to him as Jesus Christ. Yet incredibly today, surveys show the overwhelming majority of Christians in the world today do not know the meaning of this title. Over 85% of the Christians in the world today and in the United States of America do not know the meaning of the title of ‘The Christ,’ and perhaps that is true of you. If so, by the grace of God, we hope to remedy that today.
The title ‘Christ’ comes from the Greek word ‘Christos,’ which means “the anointed one.” It is the equivalent of the Hebrew word ‘mesiasu’ from which we get the word ‘Messiah,’ which also means “the anointed one.” Now this is a critical title. To say that Christ is the anointed one has deep meaning and particularly had deep meaning for the Jews because there were three anointed offices in Israel. The expected Christ, the expected anointed one was meant to fulfill all three of those anointed offices. Those anointed offices were the offices of prophet, priest, and king. These comprise our three teachings this morning.
First of all, Jesus is the Christ is the fulfillment of the prophetic office. It says in 1 Kings chapter 19 that Elijah anointed Elisha that he might become the prophet of Israel in his stead. Now this he did by the will of God, by the command of God because Elisha could not become profit unless he were anointed. It says in the 105th Psalm that all the prophets of God were viewed by God as “my anointed.” But you see, no prophet who ever lived, and no prophet who ever will live will ever be so anointed as Jesus the Christ, the anointed one. He fulfills the prophetic office. But this is an office that oftentimes has been misunderstood.
When I was in college, I took a variety of history classes. In one of those classes, I studied the life of an individual whose name was Aeschylus. Now some of you may have studied him at some point in school. You may or may not remember him. He was born 525 years before Christ. He died in the year 456 B.C. Most historians refer to Aeschylus as the “father of Greek tragedy.” He wrote plays. He wrote more than 80 plays and incredibly, after 2,400 years, seven of his plays survive. Now most encyclopedias have a section that deals with the life of Aeschylus. The World Book Encyclopedia claims that his plays were so brilliant that they were only rivaled by William Shakespeare.
Aeschylus was also a philosopher and he was a theologian. I have a book at home called THE THOUSAND GREATEST LIVES OF HISTORY and Aeschylus is in that book because many people would consider him to be one of the greatest men who ever lived. Now, I have to say that I have very little interest in the life of Aeschylus. I’m probably like most of you in that regard. I have little interest in his plays. I’m really not interested even in the plays of William Shakespeare. Why should I be interested in Aeschylus? I have no interest in his philosophy and I have no interest in his theology. I basically have no interest in his life, but there is something about his death that interests me. He had a very curious death.
Now, any book will tell you that Aeschylus died in 456 B.C., but only a few books describe the manner of his death and they all say the same thing. Quite frankly, I find it difficult to believe. Apparently Aeschylus was living in Gala, in Sicily, and he was walking down the road outside the city with some of his friends. He was 69 years old. This was in 456. An eagle flew overhead and the eagle had a tortoise in its talons. In some parts of the world, eagles eat tortoises, and in order to do that they have to break open the shell. They do that by flying high and dropping the tortoise on rocks below. Well, Aeschylus was bald and apparently this, this eagle mistook the head of Aeschylus for a rock. At just the opportune moment or inopportune moment from his standpoint, the eagle let go of the tortoise and suddenly Aeschylus was not only bald, but he was also departed.
That would literally be little more than a curiosity except for the fact that there was a man in Greece at that time who was a kind of oracle and he had predicted the death of Aeschylus. And everybody in Greece knew that. He had predicted the death of Aeschylus and he had said that Aeschylus would die by a blow from heaven. Well, suddenly this man became famous and everybody began to refer to him as the prophet. They called him the prophet and they said he had to be a prophet because he had predicted the future and it came true. Apparently the prevailing view of prophecy in Greece 2,000 years ago was exactly the same as the prevailing view of prophecy in America today because most people in America today believe that a prophet is a person who predicts the future. But you see, biblically, that has very little to do with prophecy.
You can examine the prophets of the Bible from Isaiah to Malachi. You will find very few predictions. In fact, some of the prophetic books have no predictions at all. Yet, they’re prophets of God because the Bible has an understanding of prophecy that is based on the Hebrew word ‘nahbee,’ and this understanding is one where a prophet is simply a person who speaks for God. A prophet is a person who speaks the word of God. A prophet is a person who takes the message of God and proclaims it to the people. The message may concern the future, it may concern the past, but normally it simply concerned the present. The prophet was the mouthpiece of the Lord. To say that Jesus Christ is the Christ, the anointed one, and that He fulfills the anointed office of prophet is to say that He is perfectly the word of the Lord. He is perfectly the mouthpiece of God. When He speaks, we hear the very word of God. That is why in the Bible Jesus Christ is called the Word of God. “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory full of grace and truth” (John 1:1, 14).
In many and various ways, it says in the book of Hebrews, “God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets. In these last days, He has spoken through the Son” (Heb 1:1-2). The very fulfillment of the prophetic office, He is the Word of God because He is the Son of God and He shares deity with the Father. Well, if you really believe this, if you really accept that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one, and He fulfills the anointed office of prophet, it will change your life. His word will become binding in your life.
In 1870, The Roman Catholic Church at the official Council of Rome declared the doctrine of papal infallibility, that the Pope, when speaking in accordance with his official office as Supreme Pontiff and when speaking on matters of doctrine, faith or morals, was inerrant, infallible in his proclamations, uttering the very word of God without error. Now, I have nothing against Roman Catholicism and I thank God for every Roman Catholic who believes in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And I thank God for a pope in our time who speaks out on moral and ethical issues in the midst of a time when moral and ethical values are eroding. But I do not accept, and I’m sure most of you do not accept, the doctrine of papal infallibility even when the pope is speaking on matters of doctrine, faith, or morals. Because the pope is not the fulfillment of the prophetic office. Only Jesus Christ is. Only His word is infallible, inerrant, the very Word of God without error.
Now, if I were Catholic and if I did believe in papal infallibility, then the words of the pope would become my command and I would submit my life to them. If you’re a Christian and you really believe Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one, and the very fulfillment of the prophetic office, then His word, you see, must be binding for you. You submit your life to it. That is why Jesus said “He who hears my words and does them, I will tell you what he is like. He is like a wise man who founded his house upon the rock and the rain fell and the wind blew and the flood came and the house stood firm for it was founded on the rock, on My word. He who hears my words and does not do them, I’ll tell you what he is like. He is like a fool who founded his house upon the sand and the rain fell, the wind blew, the flood came and the house fell down and great was the destruction of it, as it was founded on sand.” Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one, the very fulfillment of the prophetic office, the Word of God.
Secondly, to say that Jesus is the Christ means that He is the fulfillment of the priestly office. He fulfills the office of priest and high priest. In Leviticus, chapter 8, you could not be anointed to the high priesthood of Israel or he could not attain to the high priesthood of Israel without being anointed. He had to be anointed. That was true of Aaron. That was true of every high priest of Israel. You could not attain to that office without anointing, the anointing of oil that symbolized the very presence of the Holy Spirit.
Throughout most of Israel’s history, you could not attain the office of priest at all, let alone high priest, without anointing. That is why in Leviticus, chapter 4, we’re told that the priests of Israel are called “the anointed of the Lord.” I’m saying that Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one. We’re saying that He also fulfills the second anointed office, the office of priest.
Now, you see, a priest in Israel did one thing. He represented the people before God. The prophet represented God to the people and the priest represented the people to God. In saying Jesus is the Christ or the anointed one, we’re saying He fulfills both of these offices and He represents God to us because he is Immanuel, God with us, Son of God. He fulfills the priestly office because He represents us before God. He is the Son of man, the representative of man.
Now the priests of Israel represented the people before God in two ways. Sometimes they did this sacrificially. If you had lived in Israel and if you were Jewish, your priest would represent you before God and his sacrifices for your sins. The priests of Israel did this daily on the altars of Israel. The high priest, of course, did this in a very special way and on one very special day, Yom Kippur. On the day of atonement, when the high priest went into the Holy of Holies and there in the presence of God, he sacrificed the blood of animals or poured the blood of animals over the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant, hoping to atone for the sin of the people.
Of course, the high priest took the scapegoat and he symbolically vested or imputed the sins of the people upon that goat by laying on of hands. Then the goat was sent into the wilderness unto Azazel symbolically removing the sin of the people from them. But you see, in saying Jesus is the Christ, the anointed one, we’re saying He fulfills this anointed function and office and He represents us sacrificially. He is our scapegoat. He has literally born our sins on His person and He has removed our sins from us, not symbolically, but in reality as far as the east is from the west. He is the Lamb of God and His blood was poured out for us as He represented us sacrificially by His own body. He has gone into the heavenly Holy of Holies, the very presence of God, of which the earthly tabernacle was a mere copy or shadow. There in the presence of God, Jesus Christ has offered His own blood on our behalf. He is our high priest.
The priests of Israel also represented the people before God in intercession and prayer and they did this daily. As Christians affirming the high priesthood of Christ, that He is indeed the anointed one, we affirm that He represents us and intercedes for us before the throne of the Father every day. So when you come to him in prayer, you come in His name and you know He cares about you. The Bible says “We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” The Bible says in the book of Hebrews “since therefore we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus Christ the Son of God, let us hold firm our confession for we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sinning. Let us therefore, with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we might receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
He loves you. He cares about you. He intercedes for you. He is indeed your priest if you believe in Him as Lord and Savior, if you’ve embraced Him as the Christ.
Every once in a while I get asked to give invocations at certain charity functions in and around Denver. From time to time, I accept. Sometimes someone will say to me, “We’d like you to give the invocation, but we want you to understand the circumstances. There’s going to be a lot of people there who aren’t Christians. There’s going to be some Jewish people there and there’ll be people from Eastern religions and there is going to be a lot of people there who probably don’t believe anything. So, we just like it when you say the invocation, please don’t mention Jesus Christ.” People will actually ask me that. They want me to pray a kind of neutered prayer and I, as respectfully and politely as I can, suggest to them that perhaps they ought to find someone else to pray. You see, I want to confess Christ and I want to acknowledge Him before men. I know and believe that I only have access to the throne of the Father through Him and because of Him because He is my high priest, my intercessor with the Father.
If you believe that, if you truly are a Christian, a ‘Christ one,’ and you have embraced Christ as the Christ and you believe He is the anointed one, then He is for you the prophet, the very Word of God, and He is the high priest. He is the source of your forgiveness. He is your sacrifice and your intercessor with the Father. And you approach the throne of God in His name.
Thirdly and finally, to say that Jesus is the Christ is to say that He fulfills the office of king. 1 Samuel, chapter 24, you might recall how David had the opportunity kill King Saul, king of Israel, and David didn’t do it. He said “I will not raise my hand, I will not lift my hand against God’s anointed.” You see, all the kings of Israel were anointed by God, anointed of God. There was an official ceremony through which the king was anointed. You could not attain to this office without that.
Three anointed offices: prophet, priest, and king. But the highest of these anointed offices was the office of king. Jesus is the Christ. He is the anointed one. He is the very fulfillment of the kingly office. Above all else, this was what was expected of the Christ.
In 1909, in Vienna, Austria in the Hofburg Museum, there stood a man, a man who was thin, a man who was pale, a man who was kind of shabby. He was 20 years old. He was looking at some of the exhibits in the Hofburg Museum. There were crowns made of gold and they glittered through the glass. This man had no interest in those. He was looking, he was focusing on one object in that museum. It was a sword. It was called the Sword of Longinus. This was the sword that allegedly had belonged to the Roman soldier Gaius Cassius Longinus. He was the man who allegedly had used this sword to pierce the side of Jesus Christ on Calvary’s cross. This sword had once belonged to Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome. The sword had once belonged to Charles Martel, who drove the Arabs out of eighth century France. The Sword of Longinus had once belonged to Charlamagne, who ruled most of the civilized world. It had once belonged to Frederick Barbarossa, who once was the Holy Roman emperor. Now this 20-year-old man wanted the sword to belong to him. This man’s name was Adolf Hitler.
As he stood in that museum in 1909, he believed as others did, that when Christ died on Calvary and the blood and water poured out of His side as the spear, as the sword penetrated His side, some of His power, Hitler thought, had actually come upon the sword. Adolf Hitler believed that whoever had this sword would rule the world and be king of the earth. It became one of the obsessions of his life to possess that sword. So in 1938, when Hitler annexed Austria, one of the first things he did was he called for the Sword of Longinus and he had it taken from the Hofburg Museum. He had it brought to him by special train and under the protection of a special guard. It was brought to Nuremberg and it was put in a church there which became a Nazi shrine. Then, when the allies bombed Nuremberg, Hitler had the Sword of Longinus taken to the Nuremberg castle and he had a special vault built into the very foundation of the castle. There he kept it. He would possess it. It would make him king.
On April 30th, 1945, American soldiers overwhelmed Nuremberg and they stormed the castle. They made their way that day down into the foundations of the castle. They opened the safe and they took the Sword of Longinus. Hitler would never know that. That very day, April 30th, only two hours later in a Berlin bunker, he took his own life. Today the Sword of Longinus is back in the Hofburg Museum in Vienna, Austria. No one really knows whether it was the sword that pierced the side of Christ. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. How incredible, though, to realize that Adolf Hitler actually believed that if he could possess that sword, he would be king of the earth. Hitler hated Christianity. He hated Christians almost as much as Jews. He said the Christian faith was a religion of weakness and he lived his life in blasphemy of the Holy Spirit of God. And yet somehow, even in his demonically twisted mind, he knew—there was a corner of his mind that knew Jesus Christ was King of Kings. And in his insatiable quest for power, he would never submit to the sovereignty of Christ. He longed for his own sovereignty, but he hoped somehow he might steal some of the royal power of Christ, if even through a sword.
Jesus Christ is king. He is the anointed one. He does not share his anointing with everyone. He only shares his anointing with those who hold him as the Christ and embrace him as king. You know your heart. Jesus Christ has not yet fulfilled the kingly office. His kingship has not yet reached fruition. One day He will rule the heavens above and the earth beneath and before Him every knee will bow. The Bible tells us that now his kingship is spiritual, and functions in the realm of the Spirit. His kingdom exists wherever and whenever one individual places him on the throne of his or her life. There is the kingdom of Christ and you know whether Jesus Christ is on the throne of your life.
You see, 2,000 years ago on a Galilean hillside, on a grassy slope near the Sea of Galilee, Jesus fed 5,000 people with five loaves of bread and two fish and the people marveled and suddenly they recognized him as the Christ, the anointed one, the king. They came and they asked him to sit up upon a throne and he rejected them because they didn’t really want him to sit on the throne of their soul. They didn’t want him to sit on the throne of their spirit. They only wanted him to provide for their body.
What kind of a king do you want? A horrible error in Christendom today is the belief by many that you can receive Christ as savior and never take Him as Lord. Sometimes I hear people say “Well, you know, I became a Christian when I accepted Christ as Savior back such and such a time, but I didn’t take him as Lord until six months ago.” God wants you to understand that biblically, you can’t have Him as Savior until you take him as Lord. He is the Christ. He is the anointed one. You must receive Him as prophet, the very Word of God, priest, your sacrifice for sin, your intercessor with the Father and king, the very sovereign of your life. 2,000 years ago Jesus said to His disciples “Who do you say that I am?” He asks us all that same question today. Let’s close with a word of prayer.