Who is Jesus Christ?

One day, Jesus was walking with His disciples in Caeserea Philippi. According to Matthew 16:13, He asked the following question, Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am?" Normally this would seem like a ridiculous question, but Jesus Christ was no ordinary man. His disciples had been following Him for about two years when He posed this query.

This is more than a question about Christ's reputation. This is obvious what is said by the disciples in verse 14, "Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some Elias (Elijah); and others, Jeremias (Jeremiah); or one of the prophets." These refer to, in all but one case, men who had been dead for hundreds of years. John the Baptist, of course, had recently been put to death by Herod. The disciples were basically saying that people were saying that Jesus was one of the Prophets come back to life.

So we have it that people knew He was no ordinary man. He was a contemporary of John the Baptist, so some thought He was John risen from the dead. In Matthew 14:1 and 2, "Herod the Tetrarch heard of the fame of Jesus, and said unto his servants, This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in him." At times Herod must have quaked with fear because he himself had ordered that John be put to death.

Some said Jesus was Elijah, who did not die, but was carried up to heaven in a chariot of fire. The prophet Malachi said that God would "send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse" (4:5 and 6). People were expecting Elijah to return as the forerunner of the Messiah, and in Jewish tradition to this day, when they have the Passover feast celebrating the freeing of their slave forefathers from Egypt, they set an extra place at the table for that Prophet. Some thought Jesus was Elijah came back to earth.

Others said He was Jeremiah, the "weeping Prophet," who gave stern warnings the nation was going to fall because of the sins of the leaders and people. Jeremiah wept over Judah (the southern kingdom of Israel) because the leaders and the people would not repent and turn back to the Lord, but instead relied on Egypt to protect them from Babylon. Jesus, like Jeremiah, wept at times. He wept at the tomb of Lazarus in John 11:35. It is very hard not to imagine Him weeping during His preaching of Matthew 23.

Others said He was one of the prophets, probably referring to the many prophets of the Old Testament. These were the predictors of the future to whom God gave the gift of prophecy. But prophets were more than that. They were the preachers who had the Word from God that the people were commanded to follow. They were also the interpreters of what had already been set forth by the Lord, applying the known principles of God's Word to every day life. In this sense, they were like Pastors of today, preaching in church. A Biblical example of this is Ezra in Nehemiah 8:4-8.

But Jesus is infinitely more than this. He was great teacher, and more. He was a worker of miracles, and more. he was a healer, and more. He was a man of compassion, and more. He was a man of strong ethical principles, and more. He was a man of God, and more. All of these answers are true, but inadequate.

He asked His disciples in verse 15, "But whom say ye that I am?" This is the important question. If the Bible is true, every one's eternal destiny lies in the way he answers this question for himself. There is no getting around this.

Peter, speaking for all the disciples, in verse 16 replied, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." This answer went much farther than any answer above. There had been may mortal prophets throughout Israel's history. Israel had seen many teachers, miracle workers, and healers come and go. Men of compassion, strong moral principles, and exceptional godliness had lived and died over all of the existence of the world. But here was someone unique.

The Christ, the Son of the living God." This is what Peter called Him. The Christ. The Son of the living God. Not a Christ. Not a Son of the living God. Peter was saying this was someone so special, so unique, there never has been nor ever will be another man like Him.

Jesus was called the Christ by Peter. This is the Greek term for the Hebrew Messiah. This word means Jesus was the "Anointed One." The Jews were looking for the Messiah to fulfill many Old Testament prophecies. In the Old Testament men were anointed to serve in three different offices; prophet (I Kings 19:16), priest (Exodus 3:20-33), and king (I Samuel 15:1-13).

The prophet was anointed to be the messenger from God to His people. He foretold what would happen in the future, and forthtold God's message to them. This function in forthtelling was like that of a preacher today. Today, we have the completed Word of God, which is the entire Bible, and when a preacher, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, puts together a message from the Word of God and preaches it, he is doing some of what the prophet did.

In Isaiah 61:1-3, the Messiah, speaking through Isaiah, said, "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty unto the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance our God; to comfort all that morn; To appoint unto them that morn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for morning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called Trees of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified."

The priest was anointed to go before God on behalf of the people and offer sacrifices for them. In the Levitical system, only the tribe of Levi were allowed to become priests. At least two of the kings of Israel (Saul and Uzziah) tried to usurp the priestly office for themselves, and were punished severely by the Lord. So God called the men of the tribe of Levi to be priests, and no other.

The king was anointed to administer the government of the state. He was to lead God's people in war, and govern them according to His Word at all times. He was to administer justice with an even hand, showing favor to neither rich nor poor.

The Messiah was unique in one regard: He would be anointed to all three positions. No other man would be so anointed. Jesus was this man. Christ was not His surname, but His title. He was a man, but a unique man.

The other part of Peter's reply to the question of who Jesus is; the Son of the living God. In this we see that Jesus was and is more than a man. He was the very Incarnation of God Himself. He is God's Son in ways no sinful man could ever be.

In the Apostles' Creed, it states that Jesus Christ the Son of God, was "begotten, not made." He was not created by God, but is God. Back in the time of creation, God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." Note the plurality. Also the very word for God, Elohim, is a plural. John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God." in verse 14, John says, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." Jesus Christ was the Incarnation of God Himself. This is what separates Him from the rest of humanity: He is God as well as man.

A further aspect of His Sonship that is different from ours is He is the natural Son. Everyone who trusts Him for their salvation is adopted into the family of God. The Father sent the Son to make this possible. The Apostle Paul in Romans 8:15 tells us, "For ye have not received the the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." Everyone in the human race needs to be adopted by God. Sadly, many never are, and remain in bondage of sin forever. But those who are adopted into the family of God are set free from sin's penalty and will some day be forever free even from sin's very presence.

Jesus, however, had no need to be adopted. He, "being of one substance with the Father," is co-equal with Him in every way. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have existed from all eternity, so the Son exited before creation. The heretic Arius was wrong when he said, "There was a time when the Son was not." He was dead wrong. The Son is equal to the Father in all things, now and forever. As Colossians 2:9 says, "For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily."

Now let us briefly look at Jesus' response to Peter's answer in Matthew 16:17: "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven."

Two things are stated in Jesus' response: 1)Flesh and blood (men) did not reveal this to him, and, 2) The Father did reveal it to him. Peter got his information from the right source, and the information was true. For this Jesus called him , "Blessed."

So, who is Jesus? He is none other than the Messiah the Jews were expecting, and the Son, God in the flesh.

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