Hello.
Jesus is the Christ or the anointed one. Appointed to be a king. So, basically, somebody made a king by somebody else.
Kings, priests, and prophets were anointed, or had oil applied to them that sealed and signified their role. For example the Prophet Samuel anointed David because David was chosen to be king of Israel.
The word meshiach, in Hebrew, can be used in a more generic sense such as this. An example would be King Cyrus of the Persian Empire who is called "My messiah" in the Bible. In this case Cyrus was the anointed, or chosen, to free the Jews from their captivity.
This denotes a demoted position to God. If Jesus is the supreme God Himself, why does He need to be appointed to be a king? God is the highest position by default already.
Jesus is also human. Yes, He is God the Son, only-begotten of the Father; but He became human, He was (and still is) really, truly human.
It is generally believed that one of the oldest Christian hymns is preserved by St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians where he writes,
"[...]
Christ Jesus, who though was in the form of God, did not count equality with God something to exploit, but emptied Himself, by taking on the form of a slave, born in human likeness. And found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name, so 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." - Philippians 2:6-11
There is a lot being said here, but let's break down some of the key things:
"Christ Jesus, who though was in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to exploit"
The opening line here establishes that Jesus is has Divine status, an eternal Divine status, called here both having God's form and equality with God.
Jesus, however, who though God humbled Himself, lowered Himself, "emptied" Himself. He who is through all eternity God the Son, co-eternal, co-equal with the Father; became a man. In the Epistle to the Hebrews the author there writes, "He was made a little lower than the angels". The Eternal Son of God became human, Deity united with humanity.
That's the Incarnation. God became man.
"[He] emptied Himself by taking on the form of a slave, born in human likeness. And found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross."
Elsewhere Paul compares and contrasts Jesus with Adam. Where the first man, Adam, fell by disobedience and therefore brings ruin to the world, Jesus, the second Adam, is obedient and through His obedience rescues and redeems the world.
The Son lowers Himself, empties Himself, He comes and shares fully and truly in our weak, fragile, mortal humanity. Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant Christians subscribe to the Definition of Chalcedon, an ancient Christian confession of faith; in which we confess that Jesus is "truly God and truly human, of both a rational soul and a body; of the same substance of the Father according to His Deity, and also of the same substance as us according to His humanity. Like us in every respect, except sin."
"Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,"
The Son of Man, in Daniel's vision, (and "Son of Man" is Jesus' preferred way to refer to Himself in the Gospels) is taken up before the "Ancient of Days" to "receive kingdom, authority, and everlasting dominion". The coming messianic kingdom that will mean the end of all the kingdoms of this world.
In contrast to the general expectations of the time--that when the messiah comes he will lead Israel in battle against the foreign nations, and reign on the earthly throne of his father David in Jerusalem--Jesus' claim to Messiah-ship and the Christian confession and belief about Jesus being the Messiah is very and emphatically different.
Jesus didn't raise any army, He didn't lead a revolution against Herod and Pontius Pilate. The Shekinah didn't return to the Temple in Jerusalem. And Jesus was never crowned king and seated on an earthly throne.
But Jesus is the Son of David, the Messiah, the King. He reigns as King Messiah, not in an earthly city, over a small nation in the Levant; He reigns as the King Messiah and Lord of heaven and earth, of all creation. And as King Messiah He lives and reigns, and will come again, with everlasting kingdom and world without end.
"so 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."
Without being pretty familiar with the Bible it's easy to miss fully all that is being said here. It is of course part of the exaltation of the Messiah, as mentioned just before this; but it is also echoing strongly the language from the Prophet Isaiah where God says, "By Myself I have sworn; truth from My mouth has gone out in justice a word that shall not return: 'To Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.' (Isaiah 45:23). The allusion back to Isaiah is part of the way Jesus is being identified with Israel's God.
Jesus, who has always been God, and never ceased being God, and will always be God became human, and He remains human, and will forever be human. God and man. In becoming man He humbled Himself, lowered Himself; and even as He lowered Himself in humility He has been exalted. The lowly virgin-born Child who was laid in a feeding trough for livestock is the One who made the cosmos to be, the crucified Victim of the cross, the son of a carpenter in Nazareth, was raised up, He ascended, and sits at the right hand of His Father in heaven, as King of kings and Lord of lords.
If somebody anoints Jesus to be king of Israel, a very small state in the middle East, then it’s minimization of God. The anointer must be of a higher authority than the anointed. Usually it’s priesthood that anoints a king. And so he is subjugated to the will of the clergy.
Jesus is also the Great High Priest, in addition to being the King of Israel. But you'll notice that Christians don't say that Jesus became a king of a small middle eastern state.
Jesus is Lord of the whole universe. On of the many worshipful epithets that we ascribe to the Lord Jesus is Pantokrator, a Greek word literally meaning "All-Ruler", "Ruler of All". At the end of the Gospel of Matthew Jesus says, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me" It is with this authority that He commissions His Church to go out and make disciples, baptizing, preaching His Gospel, and to love our neighbor and do good works, etc.
Imagine I tell you bow your heads to Tribhuwan the Anointed to be the king of Nepal who is God Himself… You would object that God is not a king of a small country.
To me the title of Christ sounds political and not theological. What do you think?
It's because of Jesus' lowliness that He is exalted. The God of the universe became small, and was put to death shamefully, mocked, abandoned by almost everyone close to Him.
St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the most important theologians of Western Christianity said that Jesus is
Victor quia Victima, "The Victor because a Victim".
-CryptoLutheran
