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The Role of the Messiah

The terms “Christ” and “Messiah” do not refer to a divine being but to the function an agent of God plays in bringing the kingdom that is to come on earth as in heaven.

By Bernhard W. Anderson

“Christ” is probably the most frequently used—and least understood—word in the Bible. Many use it unthinkingly as an expletive; others assume it is the second name of the founder of Christianity; some take it to mean God manifest in the flesh, a divine being. But how is “Christ” used in the Bible? The term “Christ” (Greek christos) is equivalent to “Messiah” (Hebrew mashiah), which was used for a reigning monarch: David, for example, spoke of King Saul as “Yahweh’s messiah” (1 Samuel 24:6, 10). Eventually the term came to refer to God’s agent who would liberate the oppressed and […]

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Endnotes

1.

JPSV goes its own way here: “He has been named ‘The Mighty God is planning grace; the Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler.’”

2.

See Frank M. Cross, Jr., “The Divine Warrior,” in Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1973), pp. 91–111.

3.

Joseph Jenson, Isaiah 1–39, Old Testament Message 8 (Wilmington, DE.: Michael Glazier, 1984).

4.

Ontology is the philosophical study of “being.”

5.

Elizabeth A. Johnson, She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse (New York: Crossroad, 1994), p. 98; see also my “Moving Beyond Masculine Metaphors,” BR 10:05.