Christ, His Baptism, and the Messiah

From: Dave Maxwell (dmaxw@cs.itc.hp.com)
Date: Fri Dec 29 1995 - 16:25:52 EST


RE: The discussion on the anointing of Christ
    initiated by Mikael <etxroan@flipper.ericsson.se>:

>Date: Fri, 22 Dec 95 11:06:30 +0100

>but what we
>see at this time of year is that they try to celebrate the
>birth of Jesus (Why?) and show him as a small child, and he
>was certainly not Christ when he was born as a human.

>Date: Thu, 28 Dec 1995 11:20:20 -36000

>He actually came here to
>earth to preach and to become Christ, specifically. But he
>always had the option not to obey God. Why else did Satan try
>to seduce him? Why even mention that he kept his integrity, if
>that was all he COULD do? We're most thankful that he did keep
>his integrity. And from the prophecies and the rest of the
>Bible it's obvious that God never doubted that he would. It's
>even spoken of as a fact before it happened! (his integrity-
>keeping) And, being on the B-GREEK list, you should know that
>the greek word for Christ means anointed; as does the hebrew
>word for Messiah. So -- maybe I'm a bit picky -- he couldn't be
>called Christ until he de facto was anointed, which happened
>when the holy spirit descended in the form of a dove after his
>baptism. Regards, Mikael!

Both of these arguments in my mind touch critically on the person
of Christ. Who was he? One theory holds that Jesus was a man
whom Christ came to indwell, and whom some (I think the Gnostics)
hold went back to heaven before the man Jesus died on the cross.
I am in no way making a straw man. At the heart of the matter is
the full humanity, and the full deity of Christ.

First, the angel in Luke 2:11 announced:
  "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour,
   which is Christ the Lord:"
He was born the Messiah.

Second, I see no way of separating the Messiah-ship of Jesus from
his deity. He was "MOSHIACH BEN YOSEPH" (i.e. the term used by
some Jews to denote what we would term the "Suffering Saviour") by
virtue of the fact that he was the SINLESS Son of God. He did not
become sinless - he was sinless. He began his earthly ministry at
his baptism, but the descending of the Spirit as a dove did not make
him anything intrinsically that he wasn't already.

Christ said to the Jews in John 8:58:
  <<Before Abraham came into existance, I am>>
The contrast of the present tense with the aorist infinitive is a
statement of an "actual infinite" hearkening back to the proclamation
in Exodus 3:
  "I AM that I AM"
  "Tell them that I AM hath sent thee."

The record in Hebrews 1:2,3 states:
  "Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath
   appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds:
   Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of
   his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power,
   when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right
   hand of the Majesty on high:"

Here is a statement in which the humanity and deity of Christ come
together. He is at once seen as the "appointed heir", the one who
"purged our sins", and "sat down" (in time dimension); but also
the one who "made the worlds" and "[upholds] all things". To dissect
the humanity/deity of Christ is as much beyond human reason as the
unity/plurality of the Godhead. There are those who take the KENOSIS
of Christ (Philippians 2:5-11) as indicating that he gave up some of
his attributes such as his omnipresence. But there is no evidence
at all that having taken the "form of a servant" (vs 7) that he ever
gave up the "form of God" (vs 6) - GK : MORPHE(*). He set aside the
*exercise* of his attributes, and lived his life for the most part as
a *man* yielded in totality to God. One notable exception would be
his transfiguration in which he lifted the veil of his humanity for
a moment for the sake of three disciples. There is no more reason
to assume that God gave up his omnipresence when he "localized" himself
in the incarnation than when he "localized" himself in the burning bush
before Moses. God being omnipresent even "exists" (for lack of a better
word) in hell, and yet hell is "an atheist's paradise" where there truly
*IS NO GOD*.

This also relates specifically to the issue of whether Christ could
have sinned. One can attempt to reason a dissection of "Jesus" from
"Christ" all day long, but the "humanity" of Jesus could not have sinned
without the "deity" of Christ also sinning at which point the entire
universe would have "melt[ed] with fervent heat" seeing that "all
things are upheld by the word of his power". The little bit of
"comfort" we might gain in seeing his temptations as being more
"legitimate" if he "could have sinned" is small gain for the price of
deity sinning! Besides, Satan evidently *thought* that it might be
possible to entrap Christ. If he really knew the impossibility of
causing Christ to succumb to temptation I doubt that he would have
done it just so the gospel writers would have had something to
write showing the invincibility of His Character. This alone is
sufficient to make the temptation of Christ "legitimate". He answered
the temptation as a man who had fasted for 40 days and nights, and
yet with the wisdom and finality of Eternal God.

Revelation is more often than not cheapened by the feeble attempts of
relentless human reason. The beauty of a flower is better appreciated
before it is dissected. And though we may better "understand" a flower
by dissecting it there are some things better seen "through a glass
darkly". We may have access to the physical world through a microscope
and scientific test, but the spiritual world comes only through the
revelation of the Spirit of God --without which we would have no choice
but to be agnostic--. I am in no way against apologetics, and Bible
analysis, and the like. I am simply saying that we cannot choose to
negotiate the sinlessness of Christ in order to obtain a more
"legitimate" temptation of Christ "who was in all ways tempted as we,
yet without sin".

Nor is it necessary to envision Jesus as becoming Christ in order to
obtain a more earthly Messiah. From the "beginning" he was the LOGOS
[the eternal expression/proclamation/revelation] of eternal God.
He never ceased to be that. He never became less than "Anointed".
Having been conceived within the virgin womb of Mary by the Holy
Spirit, what more could he have *become* when the Spirit came visibly
upon him at the baptism? The baptism was more a public testimony of
who he *was* and a foreshadowing of the "baptism" that he would be
baptized with, and the "cup" that he would drink when he went to the
cross. Baptism in all of its Biblical forms is demonstrative of a
death, burial, and resurrection. There are no exceptions. From the
crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Christ to water baptism to
Spirit baptism into the Body of Christ. It is a dying to one life to
be raised to another. So Christ died to any life of his own, embarking
on a path of messianic public ministry that lead ultimately to the
architypal baptism after which all others are patterned, namely, his
crucifixion.

Christ was anointed at his baptism in the sense of obtaining the public
proclamation of the Father's approval in the demonstration of the dove
and the audible voice, but there is no evidence in the text that Jesus
was more Messiah after the baptism that before. On the one hand Jesus
became in the sense that all men become. But as he was intrinsically
God, he was Christ from conception and birth.

One may perhaps argue that "Christ" is office and not substance, and in
this sense he became Messiah. But again, he was proclaimed to be Christ
at his birth, and his full name "Jesus Christ" is too substantive to be
mere office. Other religions may speak of their "guru" or "prophet" as
becoming, but I believe the text of scripture would indicate the Jesus
was always "Emmanuel"/"Messiah"/"Lord". It may be said that he did not
enter into the full expression of who he *was* until the baptism, but
even as a child he demonstrated who he *was* by confounding the scribes
in the temple. Even then he knew that he "must be about [his] Father's
business".

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