Christ The Victor
“15 He *said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Matthew 16:15-16
Who is Jesus Christ to you? Is He your Savior? Is He your friend? Do you call Him Lord? Is He an afterthought, or a nice example to point to, like Mother Theresa? The identity of Jesus Christ- more specifically, our relationship to Him in light of His identity- is, I think, the most important thing in all of existence. I have wanted to do a study on the role and identity of Christ for a while now, and have finally decided to focus in, be more faithful with my time, and move forward with it. If you have any resources or input you would like to offer for additional perspective, please feel free to reach out! I will probably be working on this study for at least several weeks, if not longer, so I would love to hear about more scriptures or references that I may have missed and could learn from or incorporate.
Back to the identity of Christ; if His identity is the most important thing there is, then I think the most important question we can answer is the same one He asked Peter in Matthew 16: “Who do you say that I am?” And Peter’s answer, combined with faith, is the most important response that anyone can possibly give. But what does it mean to be “Christ?” To clear the immediate air, let’s clarify that Christ is not a last name, but instead the Greek word Christos, which correlates to the Hebrew Moshiach, or Messiah, which means anointed one. Knowing that, we can understand that Peter is proclaiming, “You are the anointed one, the Son of the living God.” The odds are good that if you have spent any real amount of time in a church setting that you will have heard this before, but if you are like me at all you may have struggled to really understand and apply what all is entailed by this simple statement. A natural shortcoming of mankind is that we have a natural inclination to undercut and belittle God at every turn, to do what Romans 1:23 and 25 say and exchange the glory of the incorruptible God for corruptible images, and the truth of God for a lie. We want, by nature, to elevate ourselves and minimize Him. I am no different, and neither are you. Even when He has, by His own good pleasure, done great and kind things for us, the temptation remains to spurn His kindness and incur a severe correction. You know this is true if you have ever backslidden or committed a grievous sin, as we all sadly have or may at some point. When we sin, it is important that we remember against whom we have sinned; to remember the stakes- the consequences. In the course of this study, I (currently) plan to break up the identity of Christ into three distinct facets: Servant, Judge, and Savior, all culminating in His role as the Victor over sin and death. This introductory section will be focused on briefly laying out a bit of clarity as to what it does and doesn’t mean to be the Christ/Messiah, and why it is so serious that we regard Him with the proper respect and seriousness.
What Does it Mean to Be the Anointed One?
I hope you will be patient with me in this first section, because I think it is necessary to supply a bit of context to the meaning and role of the “anointed one” from the perspective of the people to whom He appeared. A concept that has gained some significant popularity in the broader discussion around Christianity is that of the “Christ consciousness-” a heretical ideology that sounds pleasant but is just a repackaging of the serpents’ lie in the garden. I have heard it talked about a lot over the last couple of years- mostly through my dad- but only started looking into it more on my own recently. If I may be completely honest, it’s repulsive. I will be dedicating some of this introduction to the study towards briefly addressing a few of the flaws with this perspective, but I will definitely be coming back to it in the future. The basic idea is that Jesus of Nazareth was not always God, but attained to a level of spiritual enlightenment that granted Him a form of deity- something you and I are also capable of attaining if we become "awakened" to our true spiritual identity/reality. Within this framework, your “anointedness” becomes bound to your awareness and acceptance of this higher state of love and truth as individuals who are not only made in the image of God and offered adoption, but are made in His image and inherently equal to Him. Obviously, this is antithetical to the entirety of Scripture- not to mention the Jewish concept of the Messiah- but it is an unfortunately seductive lie that stems from the human desire to dethrone and supercede God. From a Jewish/scriptural perspective, the Messiah is the title reserved exclusively for the Jewish leader who will ultimately come to deliver and redeem Israel. (Messianics and Christians know this to be Jesus, of course, but to the traditional Jew this Messiah is yet to appear.) Chabad.org, a Jewish resource, says this regarding the Jewish belief in a singular, human messiah: “Our prophets speak of the advent of a human leader, of a magnitude that the world has not yet experienced. His unique example and leadership will inspire mankind to change direction.” It is deeply unfortunate that this same resource states, in response to the question “Could Moshiach come at any time, in any generation?”: “Yes. In every generation there is a person who potentially could be the Moshiach. When G‑d decides that the time has arrived, He will bestow upon that individual the necessary powers for him to precipitate that redemption.” As believers in Jesus/Yeshua, we have already been told that 1) the Messiah has already come, and will come again, and 2) when He returns, it will be in all His glory, fearsome and magnificent, as described in Revelation 19:11-16: “11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. 12 His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. 13 He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. 14 And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. 15 From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. 16 And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”” (There is a lot to look at here, but in the interest of time and going through this study in something like a proper order I will not be diving into all of it right here- consider this scripture a preview of where I intend to focus in the coming weeks.) Stepping backward slightly, I want to fixate on the word example used to describe one of the ways the Jew believes the Messiah will change mankind. 1 Peter 2:21-24 has this to say regarding the role of Christ as our example: “21 For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps, 22 WHO COMMITTED NO SIN, NOR WAS ANY DECEIT FOUND IN HIS MOUTH; 23 and while being reviled, He did not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats, but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges righteously; 24 And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.” We can see through this passage that it is absolutely correct, then, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, because He is our benchmark. Christ-consciousness is correct on that single point, although it butchers the execution. Judaism is also correct in that He is our example and leader, but misled in that they have rejected they Messiah already at His first coming, and are still looking for one that will fit their desires, which pale in comparison to what God actually has in store for them. He will not have power “bestowed” on Him; He is the Son of God, all-powerful by His very nature. The fullness of His majesty was hidden at His first coming, but will be revealed in it’s fullness at His second coming. I have already given one passage to refute the traditional Jewish perspective on the coming of the Messiah as described by Chabad, but what about the “Christ consciousness” ideology? To respond to that, I would recommend a reading of Hebrews chapter 1 to gain some immediate perspective into the majesty ascribed to Jesus, the first and only natural born Son of God. Here are the first four verses: “1 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. 3 And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4 having become as much better than the angels, as He has inherited a more excellent name than they.” I cannot think of any man, living or dead, who can honestly make a claim even remotely similar to this without speaking blasphemy of an extraordinary caliber, and yet that is functionally what any worldview which ascribes Christ-likeness- in the sense of being His equal- is doing. Such a worldview is basically saying “‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’” (Isaiah 14:14) This is dangerous; God says in Isaiah 42:8 that “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, nor My praise to graven images.” When a mere man tries to claim the glory that belongs to Jesus Christ, he is tempting the patience of God in a way that I do not believe I have enough words to accurately describe. Put bluntly, it is utterly foolish, because God takes His Son and our treatment of Him very seriously; “ 28 Anyone who has set aside the Law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?” (Hebrews 10:28-29) How we regard and treat Jesus is of the utmost importance, literally life or death, and should be treated as such by all of us. If we disregard His significance to somehow assert our own, we are essentially telling God Almighty that His best- His love, compassion, generosity, mercy, kindness, goodness, and grace- aren’t good enough. Worse, we are telling Him that our best is comparable, even equal. A delusional ideology, but enticing to the flesh. There are obviously other attitudes that people might have towards Jesus that are problematic, such as a non-Jewish outright rejection of Him and His role altogether, through a more secular humanistic attitude that boils down to an atheistic or agnostic perspective that says “I am all that there is, but I will be good for goodness’ sake,” or “there is something beyond me, but it is too nebulous for me to be sure, so I will just do my best.” There are other, more mystical worldviews that I didn’t address because, frankly, they don’t interest me enough to address right now, I’m unqualified to tackle all of them, and even if I was, this post would become absurdly long if I tried to cram everything into it. For right now, I only want to focus on the centrality of Christ, regardless of worldview, and make sure to address the two misconceptions I have shared above. Other perspectives will be addressed in future segments.
Like I said at the beginning, I have been wanting to start in on this study for some time now, but have unfortunately allowed myself to be distracted quite a bit in the last couple of months and so haven’t given it my fullest attention. I have, however, been meditating a lot on the subject, in the music I listen to, sermons/teachings I listen to, and the scriptures I have fixated on. Like I said at the beginning, I believe the identity of Christ and our relationship to Him in light of that identity are the two most important things there are, so these two things weigh heavily in my mind. I by no means think that I am the most qualified person to write on this subject, but like everything I share here I hope it will be thought-provoking and beneficial to your growth and soul as well as my own.
