Jesus Christ!

Today this pairing of words functions as an interjection—Christians use it as praise while pagans use it pejoratively. What does the expression actually mean?

A little background. Christ is the English transliteration of a Greek word which is a translation of the Hebrew word transliterated into English as Messiah. It literally means “anointed” and refers to a person who was set apart for a special task like a King.

The word “Christ” has become so associated with the name of Jesus that scholars are unclear whether its use in the gospels still functions as title (Jesus Christ = Jesus the Messiah) or as merely a second name. Fun fact: my family name (Barkley) comes from “birch tree,” so these shifts do happen! While much twentieth century Jesus scholarship argues for Christ as a name, Bird argues that even the nominal (name-like) use of Christ “does not evacuate the designation of its titular and messianic significance” (13).

The four main chapters of Jesus Is the Christ explain how each of the four gospels use the title Christ/Messiah in carefully nuanced ways. For Bird, it is precisely these four understandings of Christ—not metaphysical speculation—that lies at the heart of biblical Christology.

Bird’s book is meticulous yet readable. It provides the reader with a high view of Christ from the perspective of his first four biographers.

Bird, Michael F. Jesus Is the Christ: The Messianic Testimony of the Gospels. Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2012.