When we turn to Matthew’s Gospel, and observe the designations applied in it to our Lord, what chiefly strikes us is that it runs in this matter on precisely the same lines with Mark, with only this difference, that what is more or less latent in Mark becomes fully patent in Matthew.
The narrative name of our Lord is in Matthew (as in Mark) the simple ‘ Jesus’; which (as in Mark) Never occurs as other than the narrative name, with the single exception ¹⁰(which is no exception) that in announcing His birth the Angel of the Lord is reported as commanding, ‘” Thou shalt call His name Jesus” (1²¹). And not only does Matthew, like Mark, reserve the simple Jesus’ for his narrative name, but, also like Mark, he practically confines himself to it. The only outstanding exceptions to this are that Matthew sets (like Mark) the solemn Messianic designation ‘ Jesus Christ in the heading of his Gospel (1¹), and follows this up (unlike Mark) by repeating it both at the opening of his formal narrative (1¹⁸), and at an important new starting point in his narrative (16²¹ -);1 and that he employs a certain fulness of designation throughout the formal genealogy with which the Gospel begins, by which he places the Jesus’ of whom he is to speak clearly before the readers and clearly as the Messiah. ‘ The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (1¹) is the phraseology with which he opens this genealogy: he closes it with the words, Mary of whom was born Jesus surnamed Christ” (1¹⁶); and in the summary which he adjoins he calculates the generations “ unto Christ (1¹⁷)—a designation which meets us again at 11². Thus Matthew in beginning his Gospel leaves no room for doubting that he purposes to present the story of Jesus’ life as the life of the Messiah; but as soon as he has given that formal emphatic enunciation, he takes up the narrative with the simple ‘ Jesus’ and with only the two breaks at 11² and 16¹ carries it on with the simple ‘ Jesus’ to the end.2 The simple Jesus’ occurs thus in his narrative about 139 times, and is replaced only by the compound Jesus Christ (1¹,¹⁸.16²¹ “, cf. 1¹⁶), and by the simple Christ” (1¹⁷ 11², ef. 1¹⁶), each, at most three times.
In this sparing use of ‘ Jesus Christ and ‘ Christ by Matthew himself, the term ‘ Christ appears to be employed not as an appellative but as a proper name. In 2⁴ no doubt, “the Christ” is used in the general sense of the Messiah’: Herod did not inquire of “the chief priests and scribes of the people” where _ Jesus was born, but where, according to prophecy, the Messiah should be born”: but just on that account there is no direct reference to Jesus at all here. The commentators are very generally inclined to look upon the use of the Christ” in 11² as a similar instance, as if what John had heard in the prison was that the works of the Messiah ”’—such works, that is, as were expected of the Messiah,—were occurring abroad; and accordingly sent and asked Jesus whether He was indeed “ the Coming One.”³ Attractive as this explanation is, however, it scarcely seems to fit in with the connection. Jesus’ exhibition of His works to the messengers would hardly in these circumstances have been an answer to John’s inquiry, so much as rather a refusal to give an answer. And the connection of the pronoun “Him” in verse 3 with its antecedent “ Christ” of verse 2 appears to require us to take that term not as a general but as a particular one: John surely is not said to have sent to “ the Messiah” and inquired of “Him” whether He was the Messiah. In other words if “the Christ” (0 Χριστός) can be taken as a proper name, designating Jesus, surely it must be so taken here. And that it can be so taken and is so taken by Matthew, its use in 1¹⁷ appears to show.
“The Christ” in 1¹⁷ also has sometimes, to be “The works which Jesus does,” says Wellhausen iz loc., “rouse doubts in John whether He is really the Christ; for he had expected from the Christ something wholly different. Just on this account Matthew calls them the works of the Christ;… the Baptist turns, however, with his doubts to Jesus Himself and leaves the decision to Him.” “The works,” comments J. A. Alexander, “i.e. the miracles (Lk 7¹8) of Christ, not of Jesus as a private person, but of the Messiah, which He claimed to be,… The meaning then is that John heard in prison of miraculous performances appearing and purporting to be wrought by the Messiah.” These commentators seem to suppose that Mt 11² is to be rendered somewhat like this: “But John, because he heard in his prison through the medium of his disciples of [talk about] the works of the Messiah, sent through the medium of his disciples to ask Him, Art thou the Coming One, or are we to look for another?” The query arises, however, to whom John sent this inquiry? To “the Messiah”? Or to Jesus? What, then, is the antecedent of the αὐτῷ? As the αὐτῷ is Jesus, so its antecedent τοῦ Χριστοῦ is Jesus: and the concrete rather than the abstract seems more natural. Why not then translate: “Having heard of the works of Christ he sent and asked Him”? The solution seems to depend on whether Χριστός is used always as a pure appellative in Mat., or sometimes as a nomen pro- prium, or at least as a quasi nomen proprium. But the answer to that is scarcely doubtful (e.g. 1¹⁷).