And in Jesus Christ His Only Son

by Stephen Chambers

“Christ Crucified”: Diego Velàsquez, c. 1632.

When Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”, several answers came to the fore. “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” (Matt 16:14) The disciples’ answer to Jesus’s next question was of course much better, recognizing that He occupied a different level entirely than any of those other emissaries of the one true God. “But who do you say that I am?” Jesus asked, and the answers Peter gives in each of the Gospels are pretty similar. “You are the Christ,” Peter says in Mark (8:29); “the Christ of God,” in Luke (9:20); “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” in Matthew (16:16). In all three responses, Peter nails the question. Jesus is indeed the Christ, which means “the anointed-one.” He is the one chosen and set-aside by God to rescue His people from their sins.

Notice, though, the slightly different ways in which that fundamental truth gets expressed. In Mark it’s enough to stick with just the bare title: Jesus is “the Christ.” In Luke we learn who it was that anointed Him: Jesus is neither self-appointed nor chosen by any human authority but is “the Christ of God.” And in Matthew that affirmation leads to an even fuller confession of the relationship between Jesus the chosen one and God who sent Him: Jesus is not just an ordinary guy chosen by any old god; as “the Christ,” He is also “the Son of the living God.”

In a way, you see, the way we too answer the question who Jesus is depends on how much information, and what sort of information, we need to provide. When we consider the various ways in which the Church has confessed Jesus to be the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, we see that the answers tend to become longer and more detailed over time. Is it an orthodox, true, and valid confession to say simply that Jesus is “the Christ,” as Peter does in Mark? Of course! But even that seemingly simple title “Christ” is jam-packed with rich theological meaning, stemming from its root in the Hebrew title “Messiah”—a word which captured the fullness of Israel’s confidence in the restoration that she trusted the Lord to bring. There’s no way we could fully unpack the richness of the term “Christ” in such a short article as this!

And the same is true of all of the titles that Jesus’s followers apply to Him throughout the Gospels. In the first chapter of John, for instance, no fewer than eleven titles are flung at Him. Some are pretty familiar, such as “Christ.” Others are less common, such as “Word,” “Light,” and “Only-begotten.” A couple, like “Prophet” and “Teacher,” might even seem at first glance to be somewhat inadequate. Yet every single one of these titles confesses an important facet of Jesus’s identity. Each of them, in viewing Him from a different angle, exposes something unique not only about His role here on earth but also about His relationship to the other Persons of the Trinity. That’s why no single title ever displaces any of the others. As Paul confesses in one of His letters, Jesus, the Son of God, fulfils all of God’s promises to His chosen people: “However many promises God has made, the ‘yes’ is in Him!” (2 Corinthians 1:20).

Detail from “The Good Shepherd” (St. John the Baptist Anglican Church, Ashfield, Australia): Alfred Handel, c. 1933. (Image credit: Toby Hudson, Wikicommons).

Even so, some particular aspects of Jesus’s identity and role within the Trinity have become particularly foundational to our common Christian faith. We see this when we consider the way we confess Him in the creeds in weekly worship. In both the Apostles’ and the Nicene creeds, the same three titles are applied to Jesus. He is the Christ, the Son of God, and the Lord. As we also see again and again in the New Testament, none of these titles is really “explained” in the creeds. The presumption is that Christians will have already been taught what each of them means before they begin to confess them in worship.

Interestingly, though, both creeds do indeed give us a sketch of what Jesus did as Christ, and Son of God, and Lord, to save us. Details differ, but both creeds zero in on the same three clusters of events, starting with Jesus’s conception and birth. In the Apostles’ Creed, which stems from the second century, the twin elements responsible for His dual nature are covered quickly in two short lines: Jesus was “conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.”

In the Nicene Creed, which took shape two centuries later, the parallel affirmation occupies nine lines. Why? Not because there’s anything unorthodox or misleading about what we say in the Apostles’ Creed, but because a fuller confession became necessary to combat the spread of heresy. Arianism, for example, claimed that even though Jesus was God’s son in some sense, He did not fully share in the Father’s divine nature. To counter this false teaching, the Nicene Creed affirms that Jesus was “begotten, not (merely) made”; that He is “of one substance with the Father”; that he is every bit as much “God,” “Light,” and “true God” as the Father Himself is; and that this oneness of identity and purpose was evident already in the fact that He, the Son, was the agent “by whom all things were made.” What a densely packed set of closely reasoned confessions this is!

“Christ Pantocrator” (Saint Catharine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai, Egypt); c. 6th century.

Beyond His birth, the only parts of Jesus’s earthly ministry that mattered to the compilers of these creeds took place right at the end: His crucifixion, suffering, death, and resurrection. This is exactly the same pattern we encounter in most of the New Testament summaries of Jesus’s work. Other elements come and go, but Jesus’s suffering, death, and resurrection on the third day are always at the core of the most important passages. Paul in fact insists that Jesus’s death and resurrection are “of first importance”—elements of faith that He Himself had received and preached, and that His hearers too had received, and “stood” in, and were being saved by (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). It’s exactly the same for us. It’s true that writers often bury their less important points in the middle of their work, on the principle that people find it easier to remember the first and last elements of a list. But the opposite is true of our creeds. The central section of both of them, dealing with Jesus’ cross and empty tomb, are the core of our faith not only rhetorically but also theologically. As Paul urged Timothy, we too constantly “remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead.” (2 Tim 2:8)

Finally, the creeds point us forward as well as back by affirming that Jesus was raised up into heaven, too, after being raised from the dead. Until the appointed time arrives, when He will at last “come again to judge the living and the dead,” He reigns over all things from a position of power and honour “at the right hand of the Father.” There, He is our advocate and defender, the head of the Church, and our forerunner—the One who went on ahead of us through suffering and death, taking away both the sting of the grave and the punishment of hell, so that we too can rise and ascend and enjoy the fullness of the Father’s kingdom forever. Because of everything that the second Person of the Trinity has done for us in all three phases of his mission, we are glad to confess with Peter that “there is salvation in no one else, and no other name under heaven… by which we can be saved” (Acts 4:12)!

Who, then, do we say Jesus is? Both the Scriptures and the creeds overflow with titles and descriptions of His identity, work, and significance. And all of it is, as the Nicene Creed puts it, “for us human beings and for our salvation.” For us He’s the Christ, the Son of God, and our Lord. For us He became incarnate, suffered and died, rose and ascended. And for us He rules and will return. It’s all true, it’s all for us, and it’s all part of the glorious inheritance that’s ours within the orthodox boundaries of the historic Christian faith. Such richness. And such a Saviour!

Rev. Dr. Stephen L. Chambers is Professor of Exegetical Theology and Academic Dean at Concordia Lutheran Seminary in Edmonton

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