I love it when I teach a Bible study and find that I learn something new there myself. That happened last night at Melbourne Bible Class, while I was teaching material that I had previously posted on this blog, on chiastic structures. One of the passages we were looking at was Luke 24:13-35, which forms a chiasm pivoting on the fact of Jesus' resurrection. What I hadn't noticed before was that an additional shift in passage between the name "Jesus" in verse 19, and the title "Christ" in verse 26.
And yet this is vitally important. It's because of the resurrection that Jesus is the Christ. This is the thrust of the apostolic preaching in the book of Acts, and therefore a summary of the very gospel itself.
As Calvin noted, in many aspects of theology we need to distinguish, but not separate. So it is with the name "Jesus" and the title "Christ". They are distinct, but we ought not to rend them asunder like the liberals and the neo-liberals were wont to do. The Jesus of history is the Christ of the Church. Jesus of Nazereth is God's anointed King.
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