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Bible Dictionaries
Christ
American Tract Society Bible Dictionary
or Anointed, a Greek word, answering to the Hebrew MESSIAH, the consecrated or anointed one, and given preeminently to our blessed Lord and Savior. See MESSIAH and JESUS.
The ancient Hebrews, being instructed by the prophets, had clear notions of the Messiah; but these became gradually depraved, so that when Jesus appeared in Judea, the Jews entertained a false conception of the Messiah, expecting a temporal monarch and conqueror, who should remove the Roman yoke and subject the whole world. Hence they were scandalized at the outward appearance, the humility, and seeming weakness of our Savior. The modern Jews, including still greater mistakes, form to themselves ideas of the Messiah utterly unknown to their forefathers.
The ancient prophets had foretold that the Messiah should be God, and man; exalted, and abased; master, and servant; priest, and victim; prince, and subject; involved in death, yet victor over death; rich, and poor; a king, a conqueror, glorious-and a man of grief, exposed to infirmities, unknown, in a state of abjection and humiliation. All these contrarieties were to be reconciled in the person of the Messiah; as they really were in the person of Jesus.
It is not recorded that Christ ever received any external official unction. The unction that the prophets and the apostles speak of is the spiritual and internal unction of grace and of the Holy Ghost, of which kings, priests, and prophets were anciently anointed, was but the figure and symbol.
The name Matthew 2:4 , Herod "demanded of them," the priests and scribes, "where Christ should be born," that is, the Old Testament Messiah. Peter confessed, "thou art the Messiah," Matthew 16:16 . The devils did the same, Luke 4:41 . In later times the name JESUS was comparatively disused; and CHRIST , as a proper name, was used instead of JESUS.
When we consider the relation of Christ's person, as God and man, to his official work as our Prophet, Priest, and King, and to his states of humiliation and glory; when we consider how God is in and with him-how all the perfections of God are displayed, and all the truths of God exemplified in him; when we consider his various relations to the purposes, covenants, word, and ordinances of God, and to the privileges, duties, and services of saints, in time and to eternity, we have a delightful view of him as ALL and IN ALL, Colossians 3:11 .
These files are public domain and are a derivative of the topics are from American Tract Society Bible Dictionary published in 1859.
Rand, W. W. Entry for 'Christ'. American Tract Society Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ats/c/christ.html. 1859.
