The Christ

And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God, Matthew 16:16.

I want to take a brief look at three words, Christ, Anointed, and Messiah. Without having to know any language other than English, we can know that they are all the exact same word in three different languages. Our bible tells us that.

He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ, John 1:41. Here we have what the word of God does, it interprets a word, it does not translate it. Translation is an arbitrary process that as we can see with the few hundred English Bible translations, can go on forever.

To interpret a word is to give the reader the understanding that the writer had intended. When heads of state meet together, they do not take translators, they take interpreters. The Holy Ghost has interpreted the Hebrew word Messiah. (Messias when transliterated into Greek and then into English.) He is not interested in how some scholar might translate that word, he has told us that by interpretation Messias is Christ.

For those not familiar with the term "transliteration", that is when a word written in a non-English alphabet is taken just as it is and written with our alphabet. The word of God abounds with such words. An example of that is "Golgotha". It is a Hebrew word and is mentioned in three gospels. Instead of writing it in the Hebrew Alphabet which would be incomprehensible to most English Speaking People, it is spelled out in English letters for us to read.

And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha, John 19:17.

And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull, Mathew 27:33.

And they bring him unto the place Golgotha, which is, being interpreted, The place of a skull, Mark 15:22.

By these three verses we can see that Golgotha is a Hebrew word and that the Holy Ghost wants you to know that it is referred to as The Place of a Skull. That is how transliteration works, it takes a word written in one alphabet, and without translating it, writes it in another alphabet. It is by that process that we can see the word "Christ" which is from the Greek, and the word "Messias" which is from the Hebrew are the same word.

What about "anointed"? Look at Psalm 2:2; The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed. Read as that verse is quoted in the Book of Acts; The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ, Acts 4:26.

What was written in the Psalms as "anointed" is interpreted in our New Testament as "Christ". Without having to study any other language, we can see that Christ, Anointed, and Messias are the same word but said in three different languages.

I hope in the next few weeks to be able to explain why that is important. Keep in mind, all Jews believe in Christ. They believe that God will send an anointed prophet who they call the Messiah. Howbeit we know this man whence he is: but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is, John 7:27. Those words were spoken by people who fully believed in a coming Christ.

What they did not believe is that Jesus is that Christ. A person is not born again because he believes in Christ. He is born again when he believes that Jesus is the Christ.

But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name, John 20:31.

Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?, 1st John 2:22.

Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, 1st John 5:1.