What is Christ?

CAROLYN B. SWAN

Before the world was, Christ was. And after the world ends, Christ still will be. Christ is God's eternal, spiritual idea. But Christ is easiest perceived in terms of what it does for the world.

From early Bible times, godly men glimpsed the Messiah, or Christ, the anointed one of God, and prophesied its appearing in the flesh. In the Old Testament, Christ is referred to, and occasionally demonstrated through healing works, as saviour, redeemer, the Sun of righteousness ... with healing in his wings. Later, Christ Jesus cited his countless saving, redeeming, healing works to identify himself as the anointed one, manifesting Christ in the flesh.

Of course, Christ manifest in the flesh never was all there is to Christ. Jesus indicated this when he prayed near the end of his human experience, "O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was."^{John 17:5.} But because Christ was for all time exemplified by Jesus, it follows that obeying his precepts and emulating his example mark the obvious way to understand what Christ is.