ЧЛЕН II. О СОВЕРШЕНИИ ГОСПОДОМ ИИСУСОМ ХРИСТОМ НАШЕГО СПАСЕНИЯ ИЛИ О ТАИНСТВЕ ИСКУПЛЕНИЯ

Section 143. How did the Lord Jesus accomplish our salvation? Having come to earth to save us (Matthew 18:11), the Lord Jesus Himself deigned to call His great feat, through which He actually saved us, service to the human race: The Son of man came, He said, not that they should serve him, but to serve, and to give His soul redemption for many (Matthew 20:28; Mark 10:45). What this ministry of His consisted of is shown by His very name of the Messiah or Christ, the anointed one, a name that from ancient times in the Church of God was given only to persons anointed by the Holy Spirit: prophets (1 Kings 19:16), high priests (Exodus 30:30), kings (1 Kings 10:1; 16:13), and which, in the primary sense, was appropriated to Him, our Lord, as one who was anointed, according to humanity, from God with the oil of joy more than his fellows (Is. 61:1; Ps. 44:8; Luke 4:18-20; Acts 10:38) 311, and as having combined in one Person, to the most excellent degree, all three designated types of anointing, both prophetic and high priestly, and royal 312. He saved us: a) as a prophet, giving us light and understanding, that we might know the true God, and that we might be in his true Son Jesus Christ (1 John. 5, 20); b) as a high priest, sacrificing himself for the sins of the world, and thus satisfying the Truth of God for us; c) as a king, having destroyed the power of death and hell, and having received from the Father all power in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18), may He give us eternal life (John 17:2). That is, the Lord Jesus accomplished our salvation through His threefold ministry to the human race: prophetic, high priestly and royal. “Because of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, He is called Christ. But He is anointed not as God, but as a man. If He is anointed as a man, then after His incarnation He is called Christ” (Theodorit. brief. Ill. of God’s dogmas, ch. 11, in Chron. Read. 1844. IV, 314). “We say that the Word then received the name Christ Jesus when He became flesh. since the Lord is anointed by God and the Father with the oil of gladness, or the Spirit: therefore he himself is called Christ. And that the anointing has taken place over humanity, none of the right-thinking will doubt this (Cyril Alex. in a letter to the queens, in Damascus. Exact. Ill. pr. faiths, IV, ch. 6, p. 29). “We approve. that the Son of God - the Word of God - became Christ (the anointed one), as soon as he moved into the womb of the holy Ever-Virgin, he became flesh without changing the Divinity, and the flesh was anointed with the Divine" (Damascus, ibid.). See the same thought in St. Cyril of Jerusalem (educational secret guide. III, paragraph 2, p. 450) and St. Gregory the Theologian (words about the Theologian IV, in the Tv. of the Holy Father III, 101). Orthodox Confession department and ap. Churches east part 1, rep. to the question 34: “The name Christ means the anointed one: for in the Old Testament those who were anointed were called Christs, such as priests, kings and prophets, into which three offices Christ was anointed, however, not in a common way with others, but preferentially before all other anointed ones” (p. 34, ed. 7). Space Chr. Katih. about member 2: “V. Why is Jesus the Son of God called the anointed one? Rep. Because all the gifts of the Holy Spirit are immeasurably communicated to His humanity, and thus to Him belongs in the highest degree the knowledge of the prophet, the holiness of the high priest and the power of the king (- pp. 37–38, M. 1840). You might be interested in: