Jesus Christ

I believe in Jesus Christ,
His only Son, Our Lord.
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
and born of virgin Mary.

Jesus was a fairly common name in Israel around the time Jesus was born, just as it is still common in Spanish- and Arabic-speaking regions. The name Jesus tells about being human. It tells also about a task. Jesus means “God saves” or “God is Savior” (Matthew 1:21). Jesus came for one task: to save us from our sins back to a relationship with God. For this task he was “anointed”. The word Christ comes from Greek and means anointed. In Hebrew this word is Messiah. The Old Testament tells us how kings, priests and prophets were installed in their offices by anointing. Each of these had the task of functioning between God and man. Jesus is our king, priest and prophet. Jesus was the long awaited Savior, about which there are many prophetic descriptions in the books of the Old Testament (John 1:41). The first promise of a messiah was given immediately after falling to sin (Genesis 3:15). In this it is declared for the first time that the power of sin will come to an end through a male child that will be born once. When we say “Jesus Christ” we confess that the son that was born to Mary was the promised Savior of the world.

Jesus is mentioned also in other historical sources. The historians Tacitus and Josefus who lived during the first century mention Jesus, and historians Svetonius and Plinius who lived during the second century also wrote about Jesus. The gospels tell the lineage of Jesus. Matthew shows how Jesus belongs to a royal family branch through Joseph. Jesus is the promised messiah king. Luke presents apparently through Mary the lineage of Jesus all the way to Adam. Jesus came to bring back the real humanity which Adam lost. In this way a new era began. We have started our calendar from the birth of Jesus. This chronology wasn’t started until several hundred years after Jesus was born, so we do not know exactly the birth year of Jesus. Despite this lack of accuracy, every time we mention a year we refer to the year Jesus was born even if we don’t notice it ourselves.