I was raised a Roman Catholic and essentially inhaled the religious ethos of Roman Catholicism. I went to the seminary, earned theological degrees, and taught theology at a graduate level for a number of years before I ever started making a distinction between “Jesus” and “Christ.” For me, they were always one and the same thing, Jesus Christ.
To my mind, Jesus Christ was the second person of the Trinity who took on flesh in the incarnation and is still now our God, our advocate, and our friend in heaven. I didn’t distinguish between Jesus and Christ in terms of whom I was praying to, speaking about, or relating to. Indeed, for many years in my writings, I simply used the words Jesus and Christ interchangeably.
Slowly through the years this changed, and I have begun to distinguish more between Jesus and Christ. It began with a deepened understanding of what the Gospels and St. Paul mean by the reality of Christ as a mystery which, while always having Jesus as its center, is larger than the historical Jesus. This distinction and its importance became clearer to me when I began to have more contact with Evangelicals, both as students and as colleagues.
In faith fellowship with various groups of Evangelicals, I began to see that one of the ecclesial differences between us, Evangelicals and Roman Catholics, is that we, Roman Catholics, while not ignoring Jesus, are very much about Christ, and Evangelicals, while not ignoring Christ, are very much about Jesus.
How we understand the Church, how we understand the Eucharist, and how we understand the primary invitation given us in the Gospels are colored by how we perceive ourselves in relationship to Jesus and to Christ.
What’s at stake here?
What’s the difference between saying “Jesus” and saying “Christ”? Is there any difference between praying to Jesus and praying to Christ, between relating to Jesus or relating to Christ?
There’s a difference, an important one. Christ is not Jesus’ second name, as in Jack Smith, Susan Parker, or Jesus Christ. While it is correct to use the two names together, as we do commonly in our prayer (We pray through Jesus Christ, Our Lord), there is an important distinction to be made.
Jesus is a person, the second person in the Trinity, the divine person who became incarnate, and the person who calls us to one-to-one intimacy with him. Christ is a mystery of which we are a part. The mystery of Christ includes the person of Jesus but also includes us. We are not part of the body of Jesus, but we are part of the body of Christ.
As Christians we believe that Jesus is the body of Christ, that the Eucharist is the body of Christ, and that we, baptized Christians, are also the body of Christ. St. Paul states clearly that we, the Christian community, are the body of Christ on earth, just as Jesus and the Eucharist are the body of Christ. And Paul means this literally. We (the Christian community) are not like a body, or some mystical or metaphorical body; nor do we represent or replace Christ’s body. Rather, we are the body of Christ on earth, still giving physical flesh to God on earth.
This has implications for Christian discipleship: Jesus is a person, the person who invites us to one-to-one intimacy with him (which Evangelicals see as the goal of Christian discipleship). Christ is part of a larger mystery, which includes Jesus but also includes each of us. In this mystery we are called to intimacy not just with Jesus, but also with one another and with physical creation. In Christ, the goal of Christian discipleship is community of life with Jesus, with one another, and with physical creation (since the mystery of Christ is also cosmic).
At the risk of huge oversimplification, allow me a suggestion: Roman Catholics and Evangelicals can learn from each other on this.
From our Evangelical brothers and sisters, Roman Catholics can learn to focus as much on Jesus as we do on Christ, so that like Evangelicals we might realize more explicitly (as is clear in the Gospel of John) that at the very heart of Christian discipleship lies the invitation to a one-to-one intimacy with a person, Jesus, (and not just with a mystery).
Conversely, Evangelicals can learn from Roman Catholics to focus as much on Christ as on Jesus, with all this implies in terms of defining discipleship more widely than personal intimacy with Jesus and church more widely than simple fellowship. Relating to Christ points to the centrality of the Eucharist as a communal event. As well, it implies seeing Christian discipleship not just as an invitation to intimacy with Jesus, but as an incorporation into an ecclesial body that includes not just Jesus but the community of all believers as well as nature itself.
We can learn from one another to take both Jesus and Christ more seriously.
Source: Angelus News
