Jesus the Messiah, Son of the Father
Who Jesus Is According to the New Testament's Own Categories
Ask an average Christian who Jesus is, and you will usually get an answer that draws heavily on the Nicene Creed or the Chalcedonian Definition. "The second Person of the Trinity." "Fully God and fully man." "The divine Son who became incarnate." These are fourth and fifth-century theological terms. They are not New Testament vocabulary.
The New Testament answers the question "who is Jesus" using different categories. First-century Jewish categories. Messiah. Son of God. Son of Man. Lord. Prophet. The one sent. The righteous one. The last Adam. The man whom God raised.
These categories carry real weight. They are not second-best because they are not Nicene. The New Testament's own vocabulary is the primary vocabulary. The later creeds are attempts to paraphrase the New Testament into the philosophical language of a different century, and every paraphrase introduces assumptions the original did not carry.
This page walks through what the New Testament's own vocabulary says about Jesus.
Messiah (Christ)
The most frequent title for Jesus in the New Testament is the one most Christian readers have stopped hearing as a title. "Christ" is not Jesus's last name. It is the Greek translation of the Hebrew mashiach, "anointed one," which transliterates into English as "Messiah."
The title had a specific meaning in first-century Judaism. The Messiah was the anointed king from the line of David who would restore the kingdom of Israel, defeat its enemies, establish justice, and inaugurate the age to come. This expectation drew on the prophetic texts (especially 2 Samuel 7, Isaiah 9 and 11, Jeremiah 23 and 33, Ezekiel 34 and 37, Zechariah 9 through 14, and the Psalms of David). Different Jewish groups held different versions of this expectation, but the basic shape was consistent. The Messiah was a human king, chosen by God, anointed with the Spirit, commissioned to redeem his people.
When the early church confessed "Jesus is the Christ" (or in Greek, Iēsous Christos), they were making a specific claim. Jesus is the anointed king of Israel. The one Yahweh promised. The one through whom Yahweh will accomplish the redemption of the world.
The title does not, by itself, carry any claim of divinity. It carries a claim of divine commissioning. The Messiah is God's agent, anointed and sent. Many human figures in the Hebrew Bible are called "anointed" (priests, prophets, even King Cyrus of Persia in Isaiah 45). None of them are God.
When Peter confesses in Matthew 16:16, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God," the title he gives Jesus is a first-century Jewish messianic title, not a Trinitarian ontological claim. Jesus accepts the confession and calls it a revelation from the Father. This is the apostolic Christology in its most compressed form. Jesus is the anointed king of Israel, the Son of God in the messianic sense, the one God has sent.
Son of God
The second major title is "Son of God," and the meaning of this title is where later theological development has done the most distorting.
In modern Christian speech, "Son of God" typically functions as a near-synonym for "God the Son," the second Person of the Trinity. The title is taken to assert an ontological relation: the Son is of the same divine substance as the Father, eternally begotten, co-equal and co-eternal.
In first-century Jewish and biblical usage, "Son of God" does not carry this meaning. It is a title of divine commissioning, not of divine substance.
Several strands of Hebrew Bible usage converge on this. Israel is called God's son: "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son" (Hosea 11:1). The king of Israel is called God's son: "I will be his father, and he shall be my son" (2 Samuel 7:14, Psalm 2:7). The angels or divine council members are occasionally called "sons of God" (bnei elohim, Job 1:6, 2:1). Righteous individuals are sometimes called sons of God (Wisdom of Solomon 2:18, though this is Second Temple literature rather than Hebrew Bible).
None of these uses of "son of God" entail ontological identity with Yahweh. They all entail relational commissioning: the son acts on behalf of, represents, and is loved by the father. When Israel is God's son, Israel is commissioned to represent Yahweh to the nations. When the Davidic king is God's son, the king is commissioned to represent Yahweh as Israel's ruler.
When the New Testament calls Jesus "the Son of God," this is the first meaning. Jesus is the one uniquely commissioned, the Messianic king, the representative of the Father. The confession "you are the Son of God" is equivalent to "you are the Messiah."
This is not reductive. It is the first-century meaning. Notice how the New Testament couples "Son of God" with Messianic texts from the Hebrew Bible. Acts 13:33 cites Psalm 2:7 ("You are my Son, today I have begotten you") as fulfilled in Jesus's resurrection, not in his eternal begottenness. Romans 1:4 says Jesus "was declared to be Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead." The resurrection is the moment of declaration, not the acknowledgment of an eternally pre-existing identity. Hebrews 1:5 quotes Psalm 2:7 and 2 Samuel 7:14 together, applying them to Jesus as the exalted Messianic Son.
The Son of God, in New Testament usage, is the Messianic Son, the one whom the Father has commissioned. This is a high Christology, not a low one. It is the Christology that the apostles themselves confessed.
Son of Man
Another title Jesus frequently uses of himself is "Son of Man" (Greek ho huios tou anthrōpou, rendering the Aramaic bar enasha). This title appears over eighty times in the Gospels, almost always on Jesus's own lips.
The background for this title is Daniel 7. In Daniel's vision, beast-empires rise from the sea, and then "one like a son of man" comes with the clouds of heaven and is given dominion, glory, and a kingdom. The "son of man" in Daniel 7 is an exalted human figure who receives the kingdom from the Ancient of Days (Yahweh). He is not Yahweh; he is the one Yahweh exalts to inaugurate the kingdom.
When Jesus applies this title to himself, he is invoking Daniel 7. He is the one who comes with the clouds to receive the kingdom. He is the exalted human. The Daniel 7 background explains why Jesus uses "Son of Man" at his trial (Mark 14:62, Matthew 26:64), where he quotes Daniel 7 directly. The Sanhedrin hears this as a messianic claim and acts accordingly.
The title "Son of Man" emphasizes Jesus's humanity and his eschatological vocation. He is the human one through whom God is bringing the kingdom. He is not identified with Yahweh in these passages; he is identified as the one exalted by Yahweh to rule.
Lord (Kurios)
The Greek title kurios is complex because it carries several overlapping meanings. In ordinary Greek, kurios could mean "sir" (polite address), "master" (of a slave or household), or "lord" (of a ruler or king). In the Septuagint, kurios is the standard translation of YHWH (the divine name) and of adonai (the Hebrew title of respect used for God and for human superiors).
When the New Testament calls Jesus kurios, the meaning depends on context. Sometimes it is ordinary "sir" (Mary calling the gardener "sir" in John 20:15). Sometimes it is "master" (the centurion's "lord" in Matthew 8). Sometimes it is a high messianic title echoing the Septuagint's use of kurios for Yahweh.
The highest use of kurios for Jesus is found in passages like Philippians 2:9-11, where God has given Jesus "the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow... and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (kurios), to the glory of God the Father." This passage is significant because it is explicit about two things at once: Jesus is now kurios in the highest sense, but this status has been given to him by the Father, and the confession of Jesus as Lord is to the glory of God the Father.
Acts 2:36 is equally explicit: "God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." Peter's Pentecost sermon declares that God made Jesus kurios. The title is bestowed on Jesus at his resurrection and exaltation. It is not intrinsic to him by nature; it is granted to him by the Father as the Messiah whom the Father has vindicated.
This means that when 1 Corinthians 8:6 calls Jesus "one Lord," it is a real and exalted title, but it is a title the Father has given the Son. The Father remains the one God from whom and to whom all things exist. The Son is the one Lord through whom the Father has acted.
The one sent
The Fourth Gospel constantly describes Jesus as "the one sent" or "he who has sent me." This sending-language is not decorative. It maps onto the Jewish concept of the shaliach, the authorized agent who carries the full authority of the sender.
Jesus identifies himself through sending-language at every major point. John 3:17, 3:34, 4:34, 5:23-24, 5:30, 5:36-38, 6:29, 6:38-39, 6:44, 6:57, 7:16, 7:18, 7:28-29, 7:33, 8:16, 8:18, 8:26, 8:29, 8:42, 9:4, 10:36, 11:42, 12:44-45, 12:49, 13:16, 13:20, 14:24, 15:21, 16:5, 17:3, 17:8, 17:18, 17:21, 17:23, 17:25, 20:21. Thirty-nine times in one Gospel.
The sending-language does two things simultaneously. It exalts Jesus (he is the one authorized; what is done to him is done to the Father; he speaks only what the Father gives him; he does only what the Father is doing). It also locates Jesus as distinct from the Father (the Father is the one who sends; Jesus is the one who is sent; the Father is the source; Jesus is the agent).
The sending-language fits the Shaliach framework exactly. The authorized agent shares the full authority of the sender, and yet the agent is not the sender. The Father and Son are one in authority, mission, and revelation, and they are distinct in identity.
The last Adam
Paul develops a distinctive Christology in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5 around the category of Jesus as the second or last Adam. Romans 5:14 calls Adam "a type of the one who was to come." 1 Corinthians 15:45 contrasts "the first man Adam" with "the last Adam." 1 Corinthians 15:47 contrasts "the first man" from the dust with "the second man" from heaven.
The last-Adam Christology does two things. First, it locates Jesus firmly within the human race. He is a man, like Adam. He undoes what Adam did. Second, it names him as the new head of humanity, the one through whom a new humanity is constituted. What Adam began (a humanity under sin and death), Jesus recapitulates and reverses (a humanity under righteousness and life).
This Christology is fully compatible with the Biblical Unitarian framework. The last Adam is a human being, the righteous man through whom God has inaugurated a new creation. The last Adam is not a pre-existing divine Person who has taken on human nature; the last Adam is a human being whom God has exalted and through whom God has redeemed.
Fully human, fully the Messiah
What all of these New Testament titles converge on is a Christology that is high but not metaphysical. Jesus is:
- The anointed King of Israel, the Messiah promised in the prophets
- The Son of God in the Messianic sense, the one uniquely commissioned by the Father
- The Son of Man of Daniel 7, the exalted human to whom the kingdom is given
- The Lord whom God has exalted and to whom he has given the name above every name
- The one sent by the Father, the Shaliach who carries the full authority of the Father
- The last Adam, the righteous human through whom a new humanity is constituted
- The Messiah whom God raised from the dead, whose resurrection vindicates everything he taught and promised
None of these titles require Jesus to be ontologically identical with the Father. All of them require him to be uniquely commissioned, uniquely empowered, uniquely exalted. The New Testament's Christology is high because it ascribes to Jesus the status of the Messiah, the Son, the Lord, the one through whom God has acted decisively. It is not metaphysical because it does not describe this status in the categories of Greek ontology.
Jesus is fully human. This is not a diminishment. The Messiah was always going to be a human being. That is what the prophetic literature promised. The surprise of the New Testament is not that the Messiah turned out to be God; the surprise is that God accomplished the world's redemption through a human Messiah whom he raised from the dead.
The virginal conception
One piece of the New Testament's Christology deserves specific attention because it is frequently misread in Trinitarian frameworks. Matthew 1 and Luke 1 describe Jesus's conception by the Holy Spirit in Mary, without a human father. This is the virginal conception (sometimes called the virgin birth).
Trinitarian readings often take the virginal conception as evidence that Jesus is divine. The reasoning: only a divine being could have been conceived without a human father; therefore Jesus must be divine.
The New Testament does not make this argument. The virginal conception in Matthew and Luke is treated as a sign of the Messiah's special divine commissioning, not as a proof of his ontological divinity. The angel tells Mary that the child will be called "holy, the Son of God" because of the way he was conceived (Luke 1:35), but "Son of God" here bears its Messianic sense, not its Nicene sense.
The virginal conception is the beginning of Jesus. It is not the revelation of a pre-existing divine Person taking human form. Jesus begins when he is conceived in Mary's womb. He is, from that moment, the Messiah, the Son of God, the one through whom God has begun the new creation. He is fully human from the start. The Holy Spirit's agency in his conception is the Father's way of inaugurating the new Adam.
The invitation
The New Testament's Christology is rich, high, and messianic. It does not require the vocabulary of the fourth-century councils. It speaks in its own first-century Jewish idiom, and its own idiom is sufficient.
If you are coming from a Nicene tradition, read the New Testament's descriptions of Jesus in their own vocabulary, and ask whether the fourth-century creedal formulations add something to the picture or subtract from it. The creeds claim to clarify. In practice, they often foreclose. The New Testament's Jesus is the Messiah whom God has raised from the dead and exalted. The creeds' Jesus is the second Person of the Trinity, the second hypostasis sharing one ousia with the Father, pre-existent from eternity, incarnate in time. These are different pictures. The first is the New Testament's own picture. The second is a paraphrase produced by a later culture with different categories.
If you are coming from a tradition that teaches multiple divine beings, the New Testament's Christology is not one of multiple divine beings either. Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God in the Messianic sense, the Lord whom God has exalted. He is not a pre-existing divine being who descended into human form; he is a human being whom God has raised and made Lord.
The invitation of this page is to let the New Testament's Christology do its own work. Read the titles in their first-century Jewish context. See what they add up to. Then ask whether the later theological developments are elaborating this Christology or replacing it.