Chapter Two:

The Christian Faith

 Christianity is a religion based on the person of Christ or let me say the concept
of Christ. The Christian faith is fundamentally about believing in Christ and
worshipping God through him (John 3:16, Romans 12:1). According to the writer
of Acts in chapter 11:26, he asserts that the disciples were first called Christians in
Antioch, thus all the subsequent followers (newly converts) of Jesus who is called
Christ were all referred to as Christians. But let me make one point clear, the word
‘Christ’ is not a name in and of itself, it’s just a title.
According to the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance dictionary, Christ is the
English rendering of the Greek word Kristos (Christos) which simply means
“anointed one”. Therefore, Christ is simply a title which can be given to anyone
who is anointed. The Hebrew word for anointed one is Mashiach were we get the
English word “Messiah”. Hence, when we say Jesus Christ, we don’t mean Jesus
as his first name and Christ his last name. Jesus Christ simply means Jesus is the
messiah. Christ and Messiah mean the same thing (Anointed One), so I will be
using them interchangeably in this book. Professor Bart Erhman puts it well in his
book “Jesus, Interrupted”:
The term “Messiah” is simply the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek term
“Christ.” I have to tell my students this because some of them think that Christ
was Jesus’ last name—Jesus Christ, born to Joseph and Mary Christ. Christ
eventually did become such a common designation for Jesus that it started to
function as his name, but originally “Jesus Christ” meant “Jesus is the Messiah.”

Erhman, Bart. D (2009), Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in

the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them), New York: HarperCollins
Publishers Inc, p227
 So if you have ever asked a Jew why they don’t believe “Christ is the
Messiah”, what you really asked and meant is ‘why they don’t believe the
Anointed One is the Anointed One’. Preposterous question! No offense. The more
reasonable question you were supposed to ask should have been something like
this: ‘why don’t you believe that Jesus is the Messiah?’ or ‘why don’t you believe
that Jesus is the Christ?’
As Christianity is essentially based on the concept of messiah, I will now head
to the Old Testament where it all began. In the Old Testament, there were many
anointed ones or messiahs if you prefer who were anointed to serve God in
different positions such as kings or priests. King Saul, the first king of Israel was
an anointed one of God and so were the subsequent kings of Israel. David at one
point restrained himself from killing Saul when he had the opportunity to do so
because he considered him as the messiah, the anointed one of the Lord.
1 Samuel 24:6
v6 “And he said unto his men, The LORD forbid
that I should do this thing unto my master, the
LORD'S anointed, to stretch forth mine hand
against him, seeing he is the anointed of the
LORD.”(KJV)
Since the English word which is translated anointed is mashiach and kristos in
the Hebrew and Greek languages respectively, therefore, it will be correct for this
same scripture to be translated as follows:
1 Samuel 24:6
“And he said unto his men, The LORD forbid that
I should do this thing unto my master, the messiah,
to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he
is the messiah of the LORD.”
 Or preferably
1 Samuel 24:6
“And he said unto his men, The LORD forbid that
I should do this thing unto my master, the christ,
to stretch forth mine hand against him, seeing he
is the christ of the LORD.”
Therefore, King Saul was a messiah and so were David, Solomon and many
other kings after them. When one is anointed, oil was smeared on their head to
usher them into God’s service, a symbol of divine favor. They could be anointed to
serve God as King, Priest or sometimes Prophet and all these individuals were
called messiahs. Here are some of the messiahs who were anointed in the Old
Testament:
Exodus 40:13
v13 “And thou shalt put upon Aaron the holy
garments, and anoint him, and sanctify him; that
he may minister unto me in the priest's
office.”(KJV)
Kings 19:15 &16
v15 “And the LORD said unto him, Go, return on
thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when
thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria:
v16 And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint
to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of
Shaphat of Abelmeholah shalt thou anoint to be
prophet in thy room.”(KJV)
Psalm 105:14 &15
 v14 He suffered no man to do them wrong: yea, he
reproved kings for their sakes; v15 Saying, Touch
not mine anointed, and do my prophets no
harm. (KJV)
Isaiah 45:1
v1 Thus saith the LORD to his Messiah, to Cyrus,
whom I have taken by his right hand to subdue
Gentiles before him and to loose the loins of kings.
To open before him the two leaved gates; and the
gates shall not be shut; (JUB)
From the above passages, we clearly see a number of messiahs. Aaron the high
priest was anointed and therefore a priest messiah, Jehu was anointed as a king
messiah in Israel and Elisha was anointed as a prophet messiah in place of Elijah.
Cyrus king of Persia who destroyed Babylon and rescued the Jewish people is also
referred to as the messiah. The English word anointed is translated as kristos in the
Greek scriptures. Therefore, Cyrus was also Christ, the anointed one of the Lord.
As you can see Messiah was simply a title for prophets, kings or priests. If you
had lived at that time in history and asked anyone ‘where can I find the messiah?’
they would ask you which messiah because there were many anointed ones back
then. It’s like the title of president, we have many presidents in the world;
presidents of countries, companies, organizations, football clubs etc. the same can
be said about Pharaoh. Pharaoh was not a name of a person; it was a title for the
king of Egypt, kings in Egypt were called Pharaohs. In the same way Christ or
Messiah is not a person’s name but a title, and as we have seen they were a lot of
them in history.
Now that I have established the fact that there were many messiahs in the Old
Testament, I will look at a special Messiah who was promised, a direct descendent
of David who was going to liberate Israel from her enemies. The prophets
predicted this future messiah, the one we refer to as “The Messiah”. This special
“Christ” was to liberate the Israelites from their enemies and establish an
everlasting kingdom on earth. This Messiah was to fulfill certain requirements or
criteria that I will look at in another chapter.
In the gospel of John chapter 4, we are presented with an account of the
conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. In verses 25 and 26 the
passage reads as follows:
John 4:25&26
v25 The woman saith unto him, I know that
Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is
come, he will tell us all things. v26 Jesus saith
unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. (KJV)
Another passage in the gospel of Luke we have two disciples on their way to a
village called Emmaus and they meet a stranger on their way and they get to
converse with him. Take a look at their conversation:
Luke 24:25-27, 44
v25 Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of
heart to believe all that the prophets have
spoken: v26 Ought not Christ to have suffered
these things, and to enter into his glory? v27 And
beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he
expounded unto them in all the scriptures the
things concerning himself…. v44 And he said unto
them, These are the words which I spake unto you,
while I was yet with you, that all things must be
fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses,
 and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning
me. (KJV)
So the gospels clearly identify Jesus as this long awaited Messiah. But Jesus
did not redeem Israel from her enemies as per the requirement of the messiah and
usher in an everlasting kingdom, instead he was crucified. We may wonder just as
the two disciples were wondering how the messiah could have been killed instead
of triumphing over the enemies, in this instance the Romans. The disciples were
clearly disappointed with how things turned out because they were convinced that
Jesus would be the one to bring in the everlasting kingdom and universal peace on
earth they had long waited for.
Luke 24:21
v21 But we trusted that it had been he which
should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this,
today is the third day since these things were
done. (KJV)
Luke is in fact very explicit in presenting Jesus as the messiah and he quotes
the Old Testament to establish his claims, even though he does not specify which
passages in the Old Testament he refers to precisely. Look at this passage for
instance:
Luke 24:46
v46 And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it
behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the
third day: (KJV)
Luke explicitly and unambiguously claims that it is “written that Christ had
to suffer, die and rise from the dead the third day.” However, if you search the
Old Testament, there’s no passage of which Luke is quoting, one would ask where
exactly is it written. Nothing is ever mentioned concerning a messiah who goes
through suffering, death and resurrection in the Old Testament, maybe it is in
Daniel 9:26 though the resurrection of the messiah is not mentioned in that verse.
As we have seen in the other verses Luke has Jesus stating that he began to
expound the scriptures, beginning with Moses, the law and the prophets concerning
himself.
Nowhere in the law or the prophets is it stated that the Messiah will suffer, die
and be resurrected the third day, search as thoroughly as you may, it’s just not
there. You can only infer this statement by looking at arch-types, metaphors and
allegories that sound similar to Jesus and of course what Christians say
foreshadowing of Christ in the law and Levitical sacrificial system, and even these
under close examination turn out not to be prophecies about the messiah. Psalm 22
and Isaiah 53 are usually cited as proof texts for a dead messiah, however, Psalm
22 describes David’s struggles with his enemies using poetry while Isaiah 53 is
actually a fourth servant song or poem which describe Israel as the servant of the
Lord. I will look at these texts in chapter four in detail.
It is important to note that throughout history, the bible gives accounts of how
Israel had been oppressed by world kingdoms over time beginning with the
Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Syrians, and the Greeks and at the
time of Jesus the Romans were ruling them. The Messiah was expected to triumph
and liberate the Jews from their enemies but instead the enemies crushed Jesus. 1
How can that be? The promised Messiah was never expected to die because his
kingdom was to be established forever, and if that’s the case then the messiah
would also have to live forever (see Psalm 89:35-36). Therefore, the Jews believed
that the messiah cannot die, Christ cannot die.
The New Testament writers and Christians at large insist that the messiah’s
first mission was to defeat and triumph over sin and death. His primary goal was to
offer himself a sacrificial lamb and a ransom for the remission of sins. The other
requirements which he never fulfilled would thus be fulfilled in his second coming.
The Jews completely disagree with this view of the messiah insisting that there is
no such thing as a second coming of the messiah in the Hebrew Scriptures and I
personally agree with them.
In the subsequent chapters I will look at the real messianic prophecies that have
to be fulfilled by the messiah and the messianic prophecies that are allegedly
fulfilled by Jesus when he lived which do not hold up when subjected to scrutiny.
So we will see how strong the case for Christianity holds up or if Jesus did fulfill
the alleged messianic prophecies at all.
The question that I will now delve into is whether Jesus was this long awaited
messiah who would eventually redeem the Jews from their enemies and thus
establish the truthfulness of Christianity…
“Christ” ians = Christ followers (disciples).
= Messiah followers.
If the New Testament was written in Hebrew and not Greek, I suppose
Christians would have been called Messians since that’s where essentially their
name is derived from, it’s just a thought I had in mind. Now back to my question,
did Jesus fulfill the required messianic prophecies as predicted in the Old
Testament? Let’s find out in chapters three and four

1. Erhman, Bart. D (2009), Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the
Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them), New York: HarperCollins Publishers
Inc, p229-p231

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