Messiah

Messiah (Heb. for ‘anointed’). A person invested by God with special powers and functions. It was rendered in Greek by χριστός, from which ‘Christ’ derives.

In the OT the term could be applied to anyone set apart for a special function, such as the priest in Lev. 4: 3, but it was used more particularly of the king, who was conceived as anointed by Divine command; as ‘the Lord's anointed’ his person was sacrosanct (1 Sam. 24: 6). Later the whole Davidic dynasty was seen as specially chosen by God, and the hope that a king who should be both ‘the Lord's anointed’ and ‘the son of David’ never died out.

In the NT, Jewish expectations of a deliverer are echoed at Lk. 24: 21 and Acts 1: 6, and at Mt. 2: 2–4 where, using the absolute form not found in early Judaism, Jesus is called ‘the Christ’ (AV) or ‘the Messiah’ (modern translations commonly render the word thus when the Greek has a definite article, and leave it as ‘Christ’ where there is no such article). The expectation that the deliverer would be descended from David is present both in the genealogies and in such titles as ‘Son of David’. The inscription on the Cross confirms that Jesus was executed as a Messianic figure, but it is unclear whether He Himself defined His role in these terms. In Mk., at a central point St Peter confesses Jesus as Messiah (8: 29), but the disciples are silenced and His identity is revealed only at His Passion (14: 61 f.) and in His death (15: 39). In the letters of St Paul the title ‘Christ’ (or ‘Messiah’) is already on the way to becoming simply a name. See also CHRISTOLOGY, JESUS CHRIST, and MESSIANIC SECRET.