raised continual questionings in the minds of outsiders whether He were indeed ' the Christ.' John the Bap- tist is represented as frankly confessing that he was not himself 'the Christ,' but His forerunner (i^o.^s 2"^), pointing not obscurely to Jesus as the Messiah. And accordingly John's disciples following their master's suggestion find in Jesus ' the Messiah ' ( i^^) , which the evangelist interprets to us as ' the Christ.' When the woman of Samaria confesses her knowledge that ' Mes- siah ' (who, adds the evangelist again, is called 'Christ') is to come, our Lord majestically declares Himself to be Him (4^°--^). The speculation of the people over His Messianic character finds repeated mention (4^9 726,27,31,41,41,42 ^22 ^^24 j^^^). Jesus Him- self is represented as catling out from Martha the full confession, in which the current Messianic titles are accumulated with unwonted richness: "Yea, Lord: I have believed that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God, He that cometh into the world" (ii"'^). And the evangelist himself, with some similar repetition of titles, explains that the purpose he had in view in writ- ing his Gospel was that it might be believed that " Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God" (20^^), and announces as the full name of the subject of his narrative, at its inception and possibly at one point in its course where explicit identification seemed to him useful, ' Jesus Christ' (i^\ cf. 17^). We must not pass over this list of passages without noting that on two occasions the Aramaic term ' Messiah ' occurs (i^\ 4^^), the only instances of its occurrence in the New Testament.
Nor should we leave unnoticed the somewhat diffi- cult question whether 'Jesus Christ' in 17^ is intended as a word of our Lord's or is to be understood as a
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1§4 The Designations of Our Lord
parenthetical explanation of the evangelist's. No doubt it is easiest to take It as an insertion of the evan- gelist's. The term ' Jesus Christ ' occurs elsewhere In the Gospels only as a form of the evangelists' own, employed In the rarest manner as the most ceremonious and solemn of all direct designations of Jesus (Mt i^^ [i6^^], Mk i\ Jno i^") ; and there seems something Incongruous in placing this full name on the lips of Jesus Himself, Implying as it does that ' Christ ' had already for Him acquired the quality of a proper name,
and Indeed that the compound ' Jesus Jesus' own Use of^, •^,111 ^1 1 r
'Jesus Christ' ^^""^st had become, though ot course
not with the loss of its Messianic Im- plications, yet very much Itself a proper name. Never- theless the structure of the sentence Is not favorable to Its assignment to the evangelist. Our Lord, speak- ing in these opening verses of His great prayer In the third person (" Thy Son," " Thy Son," " to Him," " to Him," verses i and 2), declares that eternal life con- sists In knowing the Father and Him whom the Father has sent (verse 3). To each of these persons, thus formally mentioned, then, a fuller designation Is de- scriptively added: the words run: "That they may know Thee, ' the only true God,' and Him whom Thou didst send, ' Jesus Christ.' " The balance of the clauses seem, to Imply that they stand together, and that accord- ingly if ' Jesus Christ ' is to be taken as an explanatory addition, so must also ' the only true God.* Dr. West- cott accordingly makes this supposition, and urges in its support that ' the only true God ' Is In John's man- ner (cf. I Jno 5-^) and not in our Lord's: and that it is In no way derogatory to John's truthfulness as a reporter that he should thus insert brief explanations,
The Designations in John 185