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Christ |
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| Christ is the English
term for the Greek
word Χριστός
(Christós), which literally
means "The Anointed
One." The Hebrew
word for Christ is מָשִׁיחַ
(Mašíaḥ, usually transliterated
Messiah).
The word may be misunderstood by some as being the surname of Jesus due to the frequent juxtaposition of Jesus and Christ in the Christian Bible and other Christian writings. The word is in fact a title, hence its common reciprocal use Christ Jesus, or Jesus the Christ. Amplified, this tells us that Jesus was "Christed" - that he was filled with Christ, or Christ ensouled him. Followers of Jesus became known as Christians because they believed that Jesus has been ensouled by Christ, |
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| The Gnostics generally believed not in a Jesus who was a Divine Person with a human form, but in a spiritual Christ who dwelt in Jesus. Through the spiritual path of gnosticism, followers of these schools believed that they could experience the same experience, or gnosis. Their theology was premised upon an unknowable, formless God who took human form. This is considered heresy by the Catholic Church which worshipped Jesus as a God made man and a man made God. | |
| Ann Lee, the Shaker prophetess, taught that Christ (not Jesus) is the manifestation of Deity, — "Immanuel, God with us." Many times and in different races has the Christ Spirit rested upon, entered into and manifested itself through human beings,— special witnesses. The most complete and all- embracing endowment of the manifesting Spirit of God rested upon Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was a Jew, born of human parents. Struggling with a nature like our own, "tempted in all points like as we are," he conquered by self-control and daily cross-bearing, as we must conquer our natures, "learning obedience by the things that he suffered." | |
