What did the apostles mean by calling Jesus ‘the Christ’? They meant ‘the Christ: i.e. the Son of God who was to come into the world’. They didn’t mean God. If they did mean Jesus is God Himself then they would have confessed it instead and risked execution. Even confessing Jesus as ‘Son of God’ risked similar fate. Given the possibility of charges of the capital crime of blasphemy they would be very careful what to confess, that if it meant potentially fatal backlash from strict Jewish brethren they would better be in trouble for truth than error. Yet by confessing Jesus as the Christ’ they knew what that meant, namely the Son of God who was to come into the world from God. A person with all God’s characteristic makings and righteousness and chosen by God to be sent for the saving of the Jews. Not God Himself. The God-chosen, God-made mediator between man and God.
