That the expected Messiah had come to the world bearing with Him from heaven a message of salvation was the cardinal doctrine of Apostolic preaching.  To accept Jesus as the Christ was to accept Him as the Saviour and Deliverer.  When Andrew found his brother Simon he said to him, “We have found the Messias."[041] “Is not this the Christ?"[042] was the appeal of the woman of Samaria to the people of her city; and the confession of Peter that Jesus was the Christ, was declared by our Lord to be a revelation not of flesh and blood, but of His Father in heaven.[043] Not Apollos only, but Paul and the other inspired teachers also, set it before them as their appointed work, “to show by the Scriptures that Jesus was Christ."[044] To confess that Jesus was the Christ was an acknowledgment that in Him were vested all those attributes and qualities which the Old Testament Scriptures ascribed to Messiah, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Deliverer of whom the prophets testified, to whose coming all the holy men of old looked forward, whom prophets and kings desired to see, and of whom all Scripture bore witness.  It was the acknowledgment by the common people that Jesus was Messiah that stirred the indignation of the Jewish rulers.  They saw that, if this were conceded, all His claims must be held valid, and accordingly the Sanhedrim passed a resolution to the effect that, “if any man did confess that Jesus was Christ, he should be put out of the synagogue."[045]

The name “Christ” denotes the offices which Jesus executes as our Redeemer.  Three classes were set apart by anointing—­the Prophet, who made known the will of God; the Priest, who confessed sin and offered sacrifice for the people; and the King, who acted as their leader and commander.  Jesus was consecrated for His work as our Redeemer by anointing, but not, so far as we know, with material oil.  He who anointed Him was God the Father, and the oil that descended upon Him was the Holy Ghost, of whose influence oil was the symbol.  “God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."[046] He fulfilled the office of a Prophet by revealing the Father, and making known the will of God for our salvation; of a Priest in the sacrifice of Himself which He offered up to God for us, and in the intercession which He makes on our behalf at His Father’s right hand; of a King in the victory He won over man’s enemies, and in the power He imparts to His people, by which they overcome evil in themselves and in the world.  It was not until after He had finished His work that His followers so closely associated Him with the Messiahship as to speak of Him not as Jesus only, nor as Christ only, but as Jesus Christ.  This twofold name occurs very rarely in the Gospels—­once in Matthew, once in Mark, never in Luke; but in the Epistles it is the name by which He is designated and made known to the world.  To believe in Jesus Christ is to accept Him in all His offices, and to take home the truth which John had in view when he penned his Gospel:  “These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name."[047]