Find Your Identity and Calling in Christ BY William Boekestein for Core Christianity
(31) Q. Why is he called “Christ,” meaning “anointed”?
A. Because he has been ordained by God the Father and has been anointed with the Holy Spirit to be our chief prophet and teacher who fully reveals to us the secret counsel and will of God concerning our deliverance; our only high priest who has delivered us by the one sacrifice of his body, and who continually intercedes for us before the Father; and our eternal king who governs us by his Word and Spirit, and who guards us and keeps us in the deliverance he has won for us.(32) Q. But why are you called a Christian?
A. Because by faith I am a member of Christ and so I share in his anointing. I am anointed to confess his name, to present myself to him as a living sacrifice of thanks, to strive with a free conscience against sin and the devil in this life, and afterward to reign with Christ over all creation for eternity.
“I believe in Jesus Christ.” This is the beginning of the second credo of the Apostles’ Creed, the second fundamental belief of Christianity. Jesus is the special, personal name of the second person of the Trinity. But Christ isn’t like his last name. To believe in Jesus Christ is to believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one of God (John 1:41). And if you truly know the Christ, you are becoming a different person.
Not long after Jesus died and rose again, those who trusted in him became known as Christians (Acts 11:26). Those who “belong to Christ” (1 Cor. 15:23) are firmly bound to him and delivered from the penalty of sin and receive the gift of eternal life. Belonging to Christ also redefines how we should live out our days on this side of glory, having been delivered from the power of sin (Gal. 5:24). To know ourselves, believers must know Christ.
Why Is Jesus Called “Christ”?
The title Christ helps reveal the identity of God’s Son who came to earth as Jesus of Nazareth. Peter says that the Christ was “foreordained before the foundation of the world” to be our redeemer (1 Pet. 1:20). Before we ever sinned, God determined that his lamb, “without blemish and without spot,” would wash away our sins with his precious blood (1 Pet. 1:19). The actual coming of the Christ was anticipated by God’s “anointed ones” in the Old Testament. God promised forgiveness through priests, spoke his will through prophets, and ruled through kings—they were types and shadows of the Christ. But because of human weakness (Heb. 7:28) these offices clearly needed fulfilment by a perfect prophet, priest, and king. At just the right time, our Redeemer was publicly anointed by the Spirit (Matt. 2:16–17) at his baptism; the world saw that the long-awaited Christ is Jesus. Christ was “manifest in these last times for you” (1 Pet. 1:20) as God’s agent of salvation.
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