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Greek Word for Christ: What Does “Christos” Really Mean?
Quick answer: The Greek word behind “Christ” in the New Testament is Χριστός (Christos), pronounced khrees-TOSS — Strong’s G5547. It is not a surname. It is a title, and it means “anointed one” — the exact Greek translation of the Hebrew mashiach, which comes into English as Messiah. Every time you read “Jesus Christ,” you are reading “Jesus the Anointed One.”
Word Study: Where “Christos” Comes From
Christos is built from an unremarkable Greek verb: χρίω (chriō, G5548) — “to smear,” “to rub with oil,” “to anoint.” There is nothing religious about the verb itself. In everyday Greek you could chriō a wall with plaster or chriō your own skin with oil after a bath.
So Christos, taken flatly, means “smeared one.” “Oiled one.” It is about as ordinary as a word can be — and that ordinariness is the point, because of what Israel did with oil.
Pouring oil over someone’s head was how an office was publicly conferred. Priests were anointed into their work (Exodus 29:7). Kings were anointed into theirs (1 Samuel 16:13). So were prophets. The oil did not make a person holy. It marked them as chosen, set apart by God for a particular job that nobody could simply appoint themselves to.
Hebrew had a word for the person this was done to: מָשִׁיחַ (mashiach, H4899) — “anointed one.” When Greek-speaking Jews translated their Scriptures into Greek (the Septuagint, widely read in Jesus’ day), they needed a Greek equivalent for mashiach. They reached for christos. Two languages, one identical meaning.
That is the whole word, and it is worth sitting with before moving on: “Christ” is not a name Jesus was given at birth. It is a claim about who He is and what office He holds.
Where “Christos” Appears in the Bible
Christos appears over 500 times in the New Testament. A few of the load-bearing ones:
| Reference | Text (KJV) | What’s happening |
|---|---|---|
| Matthew 16:16 | “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” | Peter answers “whom say ye that I am?” with a title, not a name |
| John 1:41 | “We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.” | Both words side by side, with the translation shown (see below) |
| John 4:25 | “I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things.” | The Samaritan woman, reaching for the Hebrew term |
| Acts 10:38 | “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power” | The verb behind the title — the anointing itself |
| Acts 11:26 | “And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.” | The title becomes the name of the people who follow Him |
Verse Deep Dive: John 1:41 — The Moment the Translation Happens
“He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.” (John 1:41, KJV)
Andrew has just spent a day with Jesus. He goes straight out to find his brother Simon, and what he blurts out is a single word: Messias.
Then John — writing in Greek, for readers who have never spoken a word of Hebrew or Aramaic — stops the story mid-sentence to translate it for them: “which is, being interpreted, the Christ.” He does the same thing one verse later with Simon’s new name, Cephas, and again in John 4:25.
Three things are worth noticing here.
First, the translation is inside the text. Scripture itself tells us that “Messiah” and “Christ” are the same word in two languages. That is not a scholar’s footnote added centuries later; it is the Gospel writer’s own aside to his reader.
Second, Andrew did not report a person — he reported an office being filled. “We have found the Anointed One.” He is not saying he met someone interesting. He is saying the long-awaited appointment, the one Israel had been waiting on for centuries, has been made.
Third, John expected readers who needed the help. Messias meant nothing to a Greek speaker in Ephesus. Christos did. The word “Christ” exists in your Bible at all because the good news was already crossing a language barrier within one chapter of John’s Gospel — and the writer thought that crossing was worth interrupting his own narrative for.
There is a quiet implication in that. Every English Bible on your shelf is downstream of the instinct in the second half of that one verse: say it in the language of the person standing in front of you.
Not All “Anointed” Is the Same: Christos, Messias, Chriō, and Chrisma
Four related Greek words sit behind what English flattens into “Christ” and “anointing”:
- Χριστός (Christos, G5547) — “anointed one.” The Greek translation of mashiach. Over 500 New Testament uses.
- Μεσσίας (Messias, G3323) — the Hebrew word carried straight across into Greek letters rather than translated. It appears exactly twice in the entire New Testament: John 1:41 and John 4:25 — both times in John, and both times immediately explained for the reader.
- χρίω (chriō, G5548) — the verb, “to anoint.” It appears only five times in the New Testament (Luke 4:18, Acts 4:27, Acts 10:38, 2 Corinthians 1:21, Hebrews 1:9) — and in every single one of them, God is the one doing the anointing. Not once does it describe a person tipping a flask of oil.
- χρῖσμα (chrisma, G5545) — “the anointing” as something received, used in 1 John 2:20 and 2:27 of what believers themselves have been given.
That third one is the quiet surprise of this word study. In the Old Testament, anointing is a physical act: Samuel with a horn of oil, a prophet pouring it over a head. By the New Testament, the verb has lifted off the oil entirely. The anointing is something only God does now.
Why the Original Word Changes the Meaning
Read “Jesus Christ” as a first name and a last name, and the phrase goes flat — it becomes an identifier, like a name on an envelope.
Read it as “Jesus the Anointed One,” and it becomes an argument every single time. “Jesus Christ is Lord” is not a label; it is a claim being made out loud. “The Christ” is an answer to a question the Old Testament spent centuries asking: when will God appoint the one who actually does the job — a priest who needs no sacrifice for himself, a king who does not fail, a prophet who does not merely carry the word?
It also changes what Christian means. Acts 11:26 says the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch — literally “anointed-one people.” Not “people who admire Jesus.” People named after a title, and after the one who holds it.
Living It Out
Try one small experiment this week: every time you hit the word “Christ” while reading, silently swap in “the Anointed One” and see what happens to the sentence.
Romans 5:8 — “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” — becomes “while we were yet sinners, the Anointed One died for us.” Suddenly the sentence is not about a man who happened to have that name. It is about the office doing the work it was appointed to do.
Journal Prompts
- Andrew’s first instinct after a day with Jesus was to find his brother and say one word (John 1:41). Who is the one person you would go find first — and what single word would you use?
- The verb chriō appears five times in the New Testament, and every time it is God doing the anointing, never a person with a flask of oil. Where have you been waiting for a human being to appoint you to something God may have already set you apart for?
- Acts 11:26 says the disciples were first called “Christians” — “anointed-one people.” If someone followed you for a week with no idea what the word meant, what definition would they write down at the end of it?
Prayer
Lord, I have said the word “Christ” so many times that I stopped hearing it. Teach me to hear the title again — the Anointed One, appointed by God, doing what no one else could do. Jesus, You did not seize that office; it was given to You, and You carried it all the way to the cross. Make me the kind of person whose life gives that word its meaning, and not one who only borrows it. Amen.
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“Christ” is not Jesus’ last name. It is Χριστός — Greek for “anointed one,” the exact translation of the Hebrew Messiah. So every time you say “Jesus Christ,” you are making a claim, not using a name. [Post URL]
The New Testament uses the verb “to anoint” five times, and in every one of them God is the one doing the anointing — never a person with a flask of oil. A short word study on Χριστός: [Post URL]
FAQ
Is “Christ” Jesus’ last name?
No. Χριστός (Christos) is a title meaning “anointed one,” the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew mashiach (Messiah). First-century Jews did not use surnames the way we do — Jesus would have been identified by His town or His family, as in “Jesus of Nazareth.” “Jesus Christ” means “Jesus the Anointed One.”
What is the difference between “Messiah” and “Christ”?
In meaning, nothing at all. “Messiah” comes from the Hebrew mashiach; “Christ” comes from the Greek Christos. Both mean “anointed one.” John 1:41 actually shows the translation being made in real time: “We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.”
Why were people anointed with oil in the first place?
Anointing was how an office was publicly conferred in Israel — on priests (Exodus 29:7), kings (1 Samuel 16:13), and prophets. The oil itself did not make anyone holy; it marked the person as chosen and set apart by God for a specific task. That ceremony is the background sitting behind the title.
Does the Old Testament use the word “Christ”?
Not in Hebrew — the Hebrew text uses mashiach, which the KJV usually renders “anointed,” as in “the LORD’s anointed” (1 Samuel 24:6). But the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament widely read in Jesus’ day, renders mashiach as christos. Greek-speaking Jews had been reading the word “christos” in their Scriptures long before the New Testament was written.
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