From ancient times, the Jews understood that the coming Messiah would be a servant or agent of God who would rule on God’s behalf.[1]   Just as King David was referred to as God’s anointed[2], so the coming king would be called the same:

Psalm 2:2 (NASB)  The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against His Anointed (emphasis added)

The Christ of God

To be sure, throughout Scripture, Jesus is referred to as being of or belonging to God.  For example, in Luke’s account of the famous exchange between Jesus and his disciples, we find Jesus described as the Christ of God:

Luke 9:20 (NASB)  And He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.” (emphasis added)

On a separate occasion, John records a similar exchange between Jesus and his disciples where they acknowledge that he is of God:

John 6:69 (NASB) “We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” (emphasis added)

The word holy in the Greek is hagios, and it means, set apart by or for God.  In other words, the disciples did not believe that Jesus was God, but that he had been set apart by God for His use. 

Even those who did not align themselves with Jesus, nevertheless, understood that the Christ would be “of God.”  For example, at Jesus’ crucifixion, the rulers of the people said as much:

Luke 23:35 (NASB) And the people stood by, looking on. And even the rulers were sneering at Him, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One.” (emphasis added)

After Jesus’ resurrection, Peter declared that the cross had been a part of God’s plan for His Christ:

Acts 3:18 (NASB) “But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. (emphasis added)

Peter later quoted Psalm 2 in his prayer as having been fulfilled in Jesus’ suffering and death:

 Acts 4:24, 26-28 (NASB) And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord and said…’THE KINGS OF THE EARTH TOOK THEIR STAND, AND THE RULERS WERE GATHERED TOGETHER AGAINST THE LORD AND AGAINST HIS CHRIST.’ ²⁷  “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, ²⁸  to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur. (emphasis added)

Note that Peter, even after Jesus’ ascension to God’s right hand, still refers to Jesus as God’s Christ and God’s servant.  What’s more, in John’s heavenly vision, the seventh angel confirms that Jesus is the Lord’s (God’s) Christ:

Revelation 11:15 (NASB) Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.” (emphasis added)

Once more, the angel declares in a loud voice that Jesus is God’s Christ:

Revelation 12:10 (NASB) Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. (emphasis added)

Christ Belongs to God

The apostle Paul, in his letter to the church in Corinth, conveys Jesus’ relationship to God in very similar terms:

1 Corinthians 3:21-23 (NASB)  So then let no one boast in men. For all things belong to you, ²²  whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come; all things belong to you, ²³ and you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God. (emphasis added)

Paul said that all things belong to the disciples, and they belong to Christ in the same way that Christ belongs to God.  The word belong does not appear in the original Greek text which reads “you of Christ, Christ of God.”[3]  Thus, Young’s Literal Translation adds basic “be” verbs to the sentence to lessen its awkwardness for English readers:

1 Corinthians 3:23 (YLT) ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

Similarly, a number of translators, like the NASB above, add the phrase “belongs to” so as to clarify the meaning of the text.[4]  In other words, “Christ of God” means that Christ belongs to God.

Spiros Zodhiates speaks to this as well when he references 1 Corinthians 3:23 and says that it refers to “possession, property” of a master, teacher or guide.[5]  In like manner, another commentator defines God’s relationship to Jesus as that of an owner or proprietor:

God has a proprietorship in all that [Jesus] does, since Christ lived, and acted, and reigns to promote the glory of his Father.[6]

Not surprisingly then, Thayer’s Greek Lexicon states that the passage means that Jesus is “subject to [God]; to be in his hands or power.”[7]

Christ is Subordinate to God

The fact that Jesus is the Christ of God creates a problem for those who hold to the doctrine of the Trinity, which states that God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all co-equally God.  Yet, as we have seen, Scripture clearly states that Jesus belongs to God and is subordinate to Him.  F.B. Meyer admits in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 3:23 that, “The strict monotheism of the N. T. (see on Romans 9:5), and the relation of Christ as the Son to the Father, necessarily give the idea of the subordination of Christ under God.“[8]

This reality is stated in other passages as well.  For example, Paul speaks to this rather specifically when he addresses the topic of the coming kingdom of God.  The apostle writes that God has put all things in subjection to Jesus, all things, that is, except God Himself:

1 Corinthians 15:28 (NASB) When all things are subjected to Him [Jesus], then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all. (emphasis added)

Why is Jesus subordinate to God? Because, as Scripture repeatedly states, there is only one God who is the Father, and He alone reigns supreme.  Jesus, God’s royal servant,[9] himself, said:

John 14:28 (NASB) “You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. (emphasis added)

To be sure, God is greater than the Son, for it was God who exalted Jesus to His right hand for his obedience.[10]  And it is this God who is the head of Christ:

1 Corinthians 11:3 (NASB) But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ. (emphasis added)

Scripture vs Orthodoxy

The orthodoxy that developed in the first few centuries after Jesus’ ascension contravenes this Biblical truth.  The Church Fathers, having read the Jewish Scriptures through their Platonic lens, reclassified Jesus as a man with two natures. They reasoned that Jesus was subordinate to God only with regard to his human nature. On the other hand, they theorized, his supposed divine nature was equal with the Father.  However, not one Biblical author ever speaks of Jesus as having dual natures.  Furthermore, no one ever qualifies Jesus’ subordination as excluding a theorized divine nature. Truly, this was a post-Biblical development.

Adam Clarke’s commentary on 1 Corinthians 3:23 is just one example of how Greek philosophy, which slowly began to infiltrate the Church after the first century, still finds its expression in today’s dogma:

And Christ is of God. Christ, the Messiah, is the gift of God’s eternal love and mercy to mankind…Christ in his human nature is as much the property of God as any other human being. And as mediator between God and man, he must be considered, in a certain way, inferior to God, but in his own essential, eternal nature, there is no inequality – he is God over all.[11]

Clarke is forced by the text to admit that it teaches that Jesus is the “property of God” just as “any other human being” is.  But he is compelled by post-Biblical orthodoxy to add to the text by saying that God’s superiority to Christ is only over Christ’s human nature since the Son is himself, “God over all.”  Not only is this anachronistic, it directly contradicts Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 15 that even in the coming eternal kingdom, Jesus is subjected to God the Father[12] so that “God may be all in all.”[13] 

Unlike Church orthodoxy, Paul is consistent in his Christology.  The one God is the Father,[14] and He is God over all:

Ephesians 4:6 (NASB) one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. (emphasis added)

Scripture teaches that Jesus is not God, rather he is the Christ of God.  Moreover, he belongs to God in the same way that we belong to the Him. The Christ simply cannot be God and belong to God at the same time.

[1] Isaiah 42:1; Micah 5:2.

[2] 2 Chronicles 6:42.

[3] Berean Literal Bible, https://biblehub.com/blb/1_corinthians/3.htm ; The text in Greek, https://biblehub.com/interlinear/1_corinthians/3-23.htm

[4] NASB, Holman Christian Standard, Berean Study Bible, Weymouth New Testament, etc.

[5] Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary, (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 1992), p. 516.

[6] Barne’s Notes, https://biblehub.com/commentaries/1_corinthians/3-23.htm

[7] Thayer’s Greek Lexicon, https://biblehub.com/greek/1510.htm

[8] Meyer’s NT Commentary, https://biblehub.com/commentaries/meyer/1_corinthians/3.htm

[9] Acts 4:24, 26-28

[10] Philippians 2:5-11; Ephesians 1:19-22.

[11] Adam Clarke Commentary, StudyLight.org, https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/acc/1-corinthians-3.html

[12] 1 Corinthians 15:24.

[13] 1 Corinthians 15:28.

[14] 1 Corinthians 1:3; 8:6; Ephesians 1:2-3; Romans 16:27; 1 Timothy 2:5, etc.