Believers in Christ were first called Christians at Antioch in the Book of Acts of the Apostles. Acts 11:26 ESV, “and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.”
The Name Jesus means ‘Savior’ and it came from the Hebrew/Aramaic Yeshua which became Greek Iesous, then Latin Iesus, passing into German and then, ultimately, into English, as Jesus. Jesus came to save His people from their sins.
Christ is a title meaning the ‘anointed one’. The High Priest and Kings and Prophets of the Old Testament were all anointed with oil to signify that they were set apart, from all the other people for their particular office, by Yahweh. The anointing oil always signified the Power of Yahweh’s Holy Spirit on this individual. Jesus came to be our Prophet, Priest and coming King. He fulfills all the ways that Yahweh had spoken to man in Himself.
The anointing oil itself was a special blend of oil and spices.
Exodus 30:22-25, 32-33 KJV “More over the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fifty shekels, and of sweet calamus two hundred fifty shekels, And of cassia five hundred shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of oil olive a hin: And thou shalt make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound after the art of the apothecary it shall be holy anointing oil. Upon man’s flesh shall it not be poured, neither shall ye make any other like it, after the composition of it: it is holy, and it shall be holy unto you. Whosoever compoundeth any like it, or whosoever putteth any of it upon a stranger, shall even be cut off from his people.”
This is why the Scripture says “Do not touch my chosen people, and do not hurt my prophets.” Psalm 105:15 NLT God’s ministers are to receive double honor for the sake of their office and the anointing oil upon them, for they are considered as ‘angels’ to the churches.
Jesus Christ is honored with a Name that is above all other Names, and every knee will bow before Him. Philippians 2:10,11 “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Matthew gave Jesus the name Immanuel meaning ‘God with us’. So God of the Old Testament, Yahweh, has become Salvation of the New Testament by manifesting His Presence in the body of Jesus Christ.
II Corinthians 5:19 NASB “namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.”
Colossians 1:15 NASB “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”
Yahweh is a Spirit, and Jesus said that those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Jesus Christ became the image of that invisible Spirit of His Father. My Father and I are one.
This is why the Name of Jesus has authority in it to heal and cast out unclean spirits. It is not just a name, it is the God behind the Name, as the source of all anointing, and all power. Jesus even said this in Matthew 28:18 ESV “And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”
A Christian is a follower, a disciple of Jesus Christ, a person who believes that Jesus is God! Christianity is a Relationship with God. Christianity is Not a Religion!
I John 4:1-3 ESV “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus, is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.”
Jesus said He would send the Holy Spirit and then we would realize that He was in His Father and we are in Him and Jesus in us. We are spirit beings created to have fellowship with our Father by becoming Temples of His Holy Spirit. Since we are temples of the Holy God, we need to separate ourselves unto Him by doing those things that are pleasing in His sight.
Jesus says if we love Him we will keep His Words, and He will abide in us. If He abides in us, then we abide in Him, and the Father abides in our spirits as well. Our spirit is filled with His Holy Spirit, but our mind has to be renewed through the Word of God until we put away all works of the flesh. This is done through confession, prayer and study of His Word.
All of the religions of the world focus on what man can do to make amends for his own shortcomings. This is called work. This is man’s effort to reach God. Christianity is the opposite of religion. It is a relationship with God. In Christianity, God, because of His love for us, came to us in the virgin birth of Jesus. The more time we spend in prayer and study, the more we learn what the Father desires of us. The more we obey His desires, the closer the fellowship we have with Him. Enoch walked with God and was not for God took him, is quite an obituary on an empty grave.
In the beginning of the Bible, we are told how God created the world, how He created mankind in His own image. This is the image/ability of mankind to think, reason, understand, and have emotions, our moral capacity to do right from wrong.
Yes, the world is created by God. It is impossible for something to come from nothing and it is even more impossible for life to come from non-life. The Bible tells us that mankind was created for Fellowship with God, to have a relationship with God in the Image that God created us. This is our spirit, filled with His Holy Spirit. It changed the Apostles from timid to bold and turned the world of the early church upside down. It also gave them all strength to suffer horrible martyr deaths.
As we know, Adam and Eve disobeyed God and sinned. Sin separated sinful mankind from the Holy God. The Earth is a fallen place where sin is being lived out in disobedience, sickness and death, all at the displeasure of God. Heaven is where God’s will is being obeyed, and Heaven is without the presence of disobedience, sickness, sin and death.
Lucifer started the rebellion with his prideful disobedience and then deceived Eve and Adam into selling their birthright to him for a fruit. Satan is now the ‘god of this age’ and the ‘ruler of this world system’ and has come to steal, kill and destroy; hence, the condition of our world today is violent and heading toward Armageddon.
Our cities are filled with all manner of crime and enslavement. Paul said whenever he desired to do good, he ended up doing wrong, because of the Law of Sin in his members. Our only hope is through yielding ourselves to God’s Holy Spirit for super-strength.
We have this privilege because of the Blood of Atonement that Jesus Christ shed during His horrible Roman death on a cross. Man cannot be good enough in himself, for all of his righteousness is as filthy rags in God’s sight. They are all tainted with the sin of Adam and can only be washed away by Christ’s Blood. It is not by works that we are saved, but by faith in Christ. No man can come to the Father but through Jesus Christ.
This is where Jesus comes in. Jesus being God, He created us, yet man’s sin has separated us from God. In time, God took on the form of a man. In His body Jesus gave Himself and died on the cross, dying in the physical so we can now have a Spiritual relationship with God. Three days later Jesus rose from death, showing Himself to be Alive. Jesus is now Alive and in a Spiritual body.
The Bible tells us that our physical eyes cannot see the spirit or Heavenly realm, just as we cannot see radio waves, though they exist. But we shall receive a glorified body like His when we die or when He returns for His people, and we shall see as He sees and understand as He understands. The natural man cannot know the things of God for they are spiritually discerned, and then Paul goes on to say that we have the mind of Christ.
Christ in us gives us spiritual insight that the world does not have when reading the Word and seeing the signs of the times around us. To the unbeliever the Bible is difficult to read and understand, for they still have the blindness of Satan’s kingdom over them. Only when we ask to be Born Again, do we begin to see the Holy Spirit leading us into Truth and spiritual understanding.
Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” John 18:36 Jesus is referring to His kingdom where man is reunited with God in the Holy Spirit.
A Christian is a person who acknowledges their own human, sinful nature and accepts the Love of God to die on a cross for us. Being God, He then Resurrected from death, and currently is reuniting us into a living Spiritual Life with Himself, who is God in the flesh.