The title “Christ” is Greek for “Messiah,” which is Hebrew for “the anointed person.” The idea goes back to when the king of Israel was “anointed” by God’s prophet to that office as a kind of inauguration ceremony. But once Israel, from the Babylonian captivity on, had no king, the title referred to the hoped-for future king who would reign when Israel would once again be a sovereign nation. But such a king seemed never to emerge—until Christians identified Jesus as that king to come and so called Jesus “Messiah,” in Greek “Jesus Christ.” - JAMES ROBINSON