l title_ of Jesus. There is only
one Christ. Lord is used of men. It is used of both the Father and the
Holy Spirit, as well as of Jesus. But the name Christ is used of only
one person, and can mean only that one. There could be only one Christ.

The word or its equivalent was used occasionally in the Old Testament in
a narrowed sense for the King of Israel, who is reverently spoken of as
"the Lord's anointed," that is, God's Messiah or Christ.[12]

But the one common thought of it among the Hebrew people, growing ever
intenser as the Old Testament period merges into the time of the New,
was that there was one coming, _the_ Messiah, _the_ Christ, God's
chosen, the one anointed and empowered, to be their Deliverer. The one
question that sets all hearts a-flutter about the rugged John of the
deserts was this: "Is he _the_ Christ?"[13] In their thought there was
only one to whom the title belonged.

And even so it is. Christ is the official title of _the One_ Chosen and
anointed by God to be ruler over His Hebrew people, and over all the
race, and the earth, and the universe,--God's King, to reign until all
have been brought into full allegiance to the great loving Father.[14]
The Christ is the Crowned One, God's Crowned One. The very word Christ
tells that Christ is crowned.

Our Great Kinsman.

There is an intensely interesting question that crowds its way in here,
and it proves an immensely practical question, too. _Why_ was Christ
crowned? We can say at once that this was His due. He was given that
which belonged to Him in good right. He was reinstated in His former
position, with all the power and glory that were His before His errand
to the earth.[15]

Then too this was His vindication after the shameful treatment of earth.
Before the eyes of all the upper world, both loyal and disloyal eyes,
this man whom earth hounded so shamelessly is vindicated; He is set
right by the Father.[16]

But there is yet more than this. It is a more of a sort that concerns
_us_ very closely, and it sets one's heart a-beating a bit faster. This
crowning was part of a plan, a plan of which our earth is the centre. It
was the second great part of a plan of which the suffering and dying
were the first great part. Both were for the sake of us men and our
earth-home, and the lower creation.

This is the thing being emphasized in the second great paragraph of the
Hebrews.[17] Man was made the under-master of the earth and of the low