Christ appears five hundred and one times in the New Testament, each time referring only to Jesus and his kingship. Today, many people believe that Jesus’s sir name is Christ. It is not. People having sir names only started a few hundred years ago. Before that, people had only one word for a name.
However, sometimes when referring to a person, people would say that he was the son of someone. For example, James was called the son of Zebedee to distinguish him from James the son of Alphaeus (Matt. 10:2-3). In other cases, a person’s title and/or position was added to their name (i.e. King Herod, Tiberius Caesar, etc.). These practices did not mean that those men had sir names (although this did happen in some cultures centuries later). Thus, it is the same with Jesus.
Christ is not Jesus sir name; it is his title. “Christ” refers to Jesus kingly position. Christ is a Greek word with the same meaning as the Hebrew word Messiah. Jesus being the Messiah refers to his kingly lineage stemming back to King David and at the same time looks to his future reigning as King of Israel and the world. When the Bible states Jesus is the Messiah; that is the Christ, it means that Jesus is the King, God’s anointed one.
Throughout human history only two types of people were anointed with oil; kings and priests. (Exodus 29:29, 40:15, Lev. 7:36, and 1 Samuel 2:10, 35, 10:1, 15:17, 15:13) Oil poured over their head was a symbol of the Holy Spirit coming over them. Jesus, the Christ, is God’s special anointed one. (Ps. 2:2, Dan. 9:25) Jesus was anointed by God with the Holy Spirit as king and priest. (Luke 4:16-24, Acts 10:38)
