The Problem With Christ: Why we don't understand Jesus, His enemies, or the early Church

by Christopher Gorton

The Problem with Christ discusses how English dictionaries, Greek scholars, and common usage all treat Christ as little more than a surname for Jesus. Discover how this error in scholarship and translation has, all too often, obscured the message of the New Testament.

For those who love Jesus, this book will give you a fresh, stunning view of how early believers viewed Him, and the extent of meaning that is contained in believing that “Jesus is the Christ.” It will also give you a new glimpse of why Jesus came, why His enemies hated Him, and why His followers died for Him.

Easy to read and yet authoritative; scholarly and yet accessible, this book will leave you wondering how you could have been unaware of the problem with “Christ.” But you will be delighted and—perhaps—transformed by the insight its resolution brings.

Genres: Christian

126 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2013

About the author

I earned my B.A. In science education, with honors, from the University of Central Florida in 1988. In 2005, after a number of years as a popular science teacher in the high-tech vicinity of NASA's Kennedy Space Center, I moved with my wife Joya, and the youngest four of our seven children to an isolated Costa Rican community, to be salt and light. There, learning to read my Bible in Spanish ignited a desire to understand the New Testament in its original tongue. Now I continue to seek to serve my Lord, and share the truths I have discovered on my journey. I can be contacted here on Goodreads, or through my blog at RadicalFish.net.

Reviews

[Lee Harmon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong with Jesus. What irks Gorton is the way we misuse the title Christ.

“Christ” is a transliteration, not a translation. That means it is a made-up word replacing the Greek word Christos, meant to sound the same rather than provide meaning. So, we’re left on our own to figure out what it means.

Unfortunately, we’ve guessed wrong, aided by horrible translations. We’ve turned Christ into a last name. It’s not a name at all, but a title; it means Lord, or Messiah, or Anointed. Or, better yet, Gorton argues that the most accurate and meaningful translation of all is the simple word King. He is so serious about this that he requests we drop the title Christ, for those who claim to truly follow Him should no longer use a meaningless term. Better to replace “Jesus Christ” with “King Jesus” in our speech, or at the very least insert the definitive article “the”: Jesus the Christ.

Christopher isn’t suggesting we degrade Jesus by pretending he is just any old king—he is the prophesied king of the age of God’s rule—but it’s still helpful to understand what it means for Jesus to be anointed (for that’s the most literal translation of “Christ”). It means to be proclaimed the son of God, a king over God’s people, just as it did all through the Old Testament. Gorton points out that King David saw himself as the messiah and the son of God; the christos of his era. Moving on to the second half of the Bible, then, Gorton concludes that “in every occurrence of christos in the New Testament, it was the author’s intention that it be understood as the title king, and that christos was never understood as a name!”

I struggled a bit deciding my rating for this book, even though I enjoyed reading it a great deal, and finally settled upon a full five-star review. Yet I have two problems with the book.

First, Gorton is right, and I know no scholars who will argue. His thesis is no startling new revelation; maybe I’m betraying my nerdiness a bit, but I should think that anyone who reads books like this one already knows that Christ means King, and when Christians called Jesus the Christ, they were hailing him as God’s anointed king. So, while Gorton writes as if this is a controversial discovery, he is actually preaching to a choir a bit, though his research is thorough and appreciated.

My second problem is that, even though Gorton is right, I don’t like it. It’s true, the word “king” describes precisely how many viewed Jesus, because that was the dream the Jews held for their Messiah: they wanted a David-like king to set the world right again. While there was much argument over what exactly it meant back in the first century to call Jesus “king,” and what the kingdom was supposed to be like, just take a gander at the book of Revelation if you don’t think any first-century Christians wanted a literal, this-worldly, political figure as their Messiah. Christians in the first century were adamant: they would not bow down to Caesar; they had no king but Jesus. But to me, “King Jesus” sounds too earthly, too literal and restrictive, describing the very type of king that Jesus refused to be. I’ll compromise with Jesus the Christ.

[Ben Embry · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Problem with Christ" is a treat for Bible readers. Gorton doesn't actually have a problem with Jesus Christ, but with the way we understand the word "Christ". Small potatoes, right? Gorton anticipates this response early on. Says he, "You will be tempted to dismiss what you learn as a simple piece of trivia, but I submit it is a key that unlocks the purpose and power of God in this age."

The bulk of the essay is an examination of the word "Christ". Gorton delves into various translations and texts, including the Septuagint. But the waters never get too deep for the average reader. Gorton tips off the reader at one point with this line: "What follows is easily the most technical part of this book, and I ask your indulgence as it may be tedious. However, even without any previous training in New Testament Greek, you should be able to understand the gist of what follows." Honestly, it wasn't all that tedious. After the analysis, Gorton proposes a couple of practical changes a Christian can make.

For me, the analysis was the best part. I think that pastors and intelligent Bible readers will enjoy the essay more than others. I don't think anyone will agree *entirely* with Gorton's methods or conclusions, and that's part of why I liked this essay so much. Gorton is earnest in his argument, yet extremely humble: the perfect partner for intellectual dialogue. I'm tempted to buy a copy each for a couple of the lay leaders at my church just so I can discuss this book with them.

For a small price ($4.99), you get a small book that is in ways reminiscent of the likes of N.T. Wright (as in, How God Became King) and Peter Leithart (Between Babel and Beast). At other times Gorton's writing evokes the scrappy offensive of David Bercot (Will the Real Heretics Please Stand Up).

Gorton's essay isn't merely enjoyable. It's compelling. Even though you might choose to disagree with some of his conclusions, his analysis of Christ will probably move you to re-examine your loyalties and invite you to a stronger commitment to Jesus Christ. Gorton at one point proposes, "We must begin to reclaim the integrity of the message of our scriptures. In other words, we must, beginning with ourselves, deliberately undo the violence that has been done to the Word by the veiling of Jesus' kingship." In his introduction (which I would recommend that you read as an epilogue) Gorton invites the reader to pray his way through the essay in an effort to have a clear picture of The Truth. From such practical advice, one can see that the title ("The Problem with Christ") does not aim to persuade the reader away from Biblical Christianity. Quite the opposite. In fact, one sentence I highlighted in my Kindle was this. "When we shy away from seemingly difficult Biblical passages or concepts, we provide our enemy with an opportunity."

[Gary Patton · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Men suppose their reason has command over their words; still it happens that words in return exercise authority on reason." ~ Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English statesman and philosopher; precursor of British empiricism; advocated inductive reasoning

Thanks to Christopher Gorton’s easy and quickly read book, which I had the privilege of reading and commenting on before its public publication, I discovered an amazing Biblical example of the truth of Sir Francis’ quote above.

I learned that the Greek word, 'christos’, does not mean 'Christ'. I also learned that, for Jesus’ first Followers, ‘mashiach’ no longer meant “anointed one”, literally “smeared with oil.

Chris clearly documents that both christos and mashiach are each most accurately translated not as Christ or Messiah in English. His excellent research reveals that the English word Christ is an inaccurate, traditional, transliteration, and not an accurate translation. (A transliteration conveys only similarity of sound ..not accurate meaning!)

While proving this for me, Chris puts to rest, once and for all, that Christos was certainly NOT Jesus' second name, which both some Christians and most non-Followers actually believe.

Pastors and Christians who love their Bibles will enjoy exploring with Chris why translators since the King James Bible have hidden this fact from modern Christians. And they did so in languages other than English.

Chris does not play “conspiracy theorist” around this intriguing conundrum. But, I had a fascinating time doing so. I concocted my own theory as to why we’ve not been told the whole truth by Bible translators and scholars who should know what Chris reveals ...at least those in the modern age with the Biblical tools and resources now available.

"So what?", you may ask? "What's the big deal about a word?" You decide after reading Christopher’s enlightening book. But please remember that Satan has been practicing "semantic sedition" for a reason since he first conned Adam and Eve.

Plus “this truth will set you free” and open new vistas to our Saviour as you substitute the correct translation for Christ and Messiah as you read Scripture and sing the old hymns and modern worship songs.

You can follow other discoveries Chris has made on Facebook and Twitter as he continues to explore the ancient, real meanings of other sacrosanct, Christian words ...words like ‘apostle’, ‘church’, and others. That truth will enrich your understanding of the Bible as well.

Be enlightened and blessed by this book,
GaryFPatton

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorton's premise is simple. The term "Christ" is not translated, it is transliterated.

I think what he is arguing is possible, and maybe even probable. After all, it has likely happened with other important biblical words. An example is the word baptism - another transliterated word. Apparently the word itself pretty clearly means immersion. So, we non-Greek-speaking students of the Bible ignorantly speak of "baptism by immersion," not understanding we are being redundant.

I can see the same thing having happened with the word christos. And I can see that this can result in an unfortunate loss of meaning in translation (or lack of translation).

It remains to be seen what difference embracing this premise might make for Christians. I think it may take a while to see what if anything changes about our worldview when we start to see Christ not as a last name for Jesus, but as king. I think that over time thinking "King" whenever we see "Christ" may indeed lead to a richer and better mental image in our mind of who Jesus is.

[Karen Bainbridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

truly inspirational, intelligent, thoughtful investigations of the word 'Chrestos' the King. Goodreads Firstreads, Advance copy.
This book helped increase my belief that Jesus is King, through comparing the languages of the Bible, first written in Aramaic then transposed into Greek. The Greek translations used the words Christ or the Christ whereby Jesus' followers became known as Christians. But translations of the New Testament changed the word 'Chrestos' from the King to Christ but the word King is the correct, for me, translation.
Christopher Gorton's research is very plainly stated in such a way that when you read the New Testament and substitute King for Christ or the Christ it makes more sense. As I see it and other biblical scholars believe there have been mistakes in the translations., from the time of Jesus and John's writing. Originally written in Aramaic, used by Palestinian Jews of Jesus' time, and then written into basic Greek by John, who was a simple fisherman. It is the translations from the Greek into English that have been not written with the proper word is King not Christ or Messiah. John only uses the word Messiah twice in his writings. Early believers believed that Jesus was King and that through the Blood of the King they were saved. Many people in the area around Palestine were more used to reading Greek than Aramaic and a lot of Jesus' first followers weren't Jews, apart from the apostles and the few who believed that Jesus was King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Jesus said that whoever believed in him had the right to heaven, he did not specify Jews or Gentiles. It is been believed by many Christians that only the chosen go to heaven that does not include the gentiles, but that is not the case in my opinion. I believe that most of us would be classed as gentiles because we do not live in Palestine where jesus and the Apostles came from. I like Mr Gorton believe that anybody who believes that Jesus is King of Kings, Lord of Lords is saved... sorry if I have offended anyone!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

English readers of the Bible see it over and over again: Jesus Christ. While most know that "Christ" is not Jesus' last name, new readers to the Bible could be forgiven if they get that impression.

This is the problem, according to Chris Gorton. By taking the Greek title "christos" and transliterating it into English as "Christ" rather than translating it the term becomes devoid of its power. Chris' book argues, convincingly, that the title "the Christ" means "the king". This is not controversial as anyone with even a minimal study knows that Christ is not Jesus' last name. Most recognize it is a title: Messiah, anointed one, KING. Chris' argument goes that if this is what the word means, it ought to be translated that way.

By leaving the word as just "Christ", English Bibles take the claws off the eagle, so to say. The person of Jesus loses a bit of his power. This leads to a weakened Christianity where most followers of Jesus see him as merely a spiritual savior and not the one to whom we owe our allegiance above any other king or kingdom, power or principality, nation or president.

I do have some minor qualms with the book. Some are questions which I do not find Chris' answers satisfying, such as his assertion that two Greek words (basileus and christos) be translated king. Surely if there are two Greek words, they carry slightly different meanings and something would be lost in translating them the same? I am also skeptical as to whether simply changing Christ to King in English Bibles would solve many problems or lead to a revival. I doubt Chris thinks it would, though in reading it is easy to see this issue as a sort of silver bullet - the bad translation is a demonic conspiracy and if we can fix it then we'll really see God work.

Such issues aside, this is great study. Thanks Chris.