The Words “Messiah” and “Christ” do not mean “Savior” although they are being treated as if they do.

There is much confusion around these terms. So we are going to try to shed some light on this topic, so that believers of the Most High can maximize their ability to connect to their Creator.

It is a fact that what Christians identify most about Yahusha (otherwise known as Jesus or Yeshua) is that He is their savior. After all, his sacrifice was made in order to save humanity from eternal damnation. That was the purpose. So if any word would be used to refer to Yahusha, it should be “Savior”, right? After all, the root of Yahusha’s name is “yasha” which means “salvation” and His Name “Yahusha” means “YHWH Saves”.

But yet, the title words that have been assigned to Him are “Christ” and “Messiah” which do not mean “Savior”. They both mean “anointed one”.

• “Christ” is the Greek translation of the word;
• “Mashiach” is the Hebrew word;
• “Meshiha” is the Aramaic word; and
• “Messiah” is the transliteration of the Hebrew and Aramaic forms of the word.

But herein lies the problem: If I were to ask any Christian if “Messiah” means “Savior”, they would probably say yes. But they would be wrong. The only other answer you might get by a few would be based on what Christian ministers would say which is “Yes, “Messiah” means “Anointed One” because in the Hebrew culture, anointing with oil was a ritual signifying divine appointments like prophet, priest, or king. Yeshua is considered the ultimate Anointed One, fulfilling these roles and more, as he was anointed by YHWH with the Holy Spirit.“ But the problem is this is not a good answer. This is because there is no good answer. This is just what they have been told by someone who does not have a good answer to the question themselves, but want to appear as if they know the answer.

Tip: This is the precise point at which devout believers should begin to question what they are being told, because without questioning, you cannot come upon the truth.

Because the truth is that this is not a good answer as to why Yahusha would be identified by these words when there is a better one.

Granted, being anointed is a fairly special thing, but is it special enough to be used as the term that denotes the ultimate sacrifice, taking on all of the sins of humanity upon yourself and dying each of their deaths, so that they (all of humanity) can have eternal life?  We don’t think so. After all, many people can be anointed. No, we believe the words “messiah” and “Christ” do not contain the gravitas, the power, or standing befitting of Him or that He deserves.

But there is a word that is more befitting of Him, a word that means “savior” in Hebrew, and it sounds crazily similar to the word “messiah” but has a different root meaning.

Moshia means “savior”

The Hebrew word “Moshia” literally means “Savior”, “rescuer”, “One who gives freedom from distress  and the ability to pursue one’s way.

Its root is the same root as Yahusha’s Name, which is “yasha”, which means “to save, rescue, deliver”.

Despite how close the words “Moshia” and “Meshiha / Mashiach” (which can also be spelled as “Moshiach” making it even more confusing), these two words are not related, and do not share the same root.

But out of these two words, by definition, “Moshia” is clearly closer to the way that Christians understand Yahusha’s role to be.

The Bible makes it clear that Yahusha is the one and only Savior:

“Today in the city of David a Savior has been born to you.” (Luke 2:11).

“We know that this is truly the Savior of the world” (John 4:42)

 For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living Ilohim, who is the Savior of all men, specially of those that believe. (1 Timothy 4:10).

To Titus, mine own son after the common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace, from YHWH the Father and the Messiah Yeshua our Savior. (Titus 1:4)

I, even I, am YHWH; and beside me there is no Savior. (Isaiah 43:11)

So we officially ask what we have already stated in a roundabout way:

Why wasn’t “Moshia”, which actually means “Savior”, used as the main title / honorific for Yahusha throughout the Bible, instead of “Messiah” and “Christ”?

With Whom Does The Mistake Lie?

There are a few possibilities:

• It may be due to the lack of understanding by the Gentiles about the Hebrew language. Maybe early translators mistranslated the word “moshia” to “mashiach”.
• It may be due to a lack of understanding of ancient Hebrew people as to what was meant by the purpose of Yahusha’s coming as Savior. Eg. Some out there try to claim that the confusion is due to the way that the concept of a messiah differs between the Hebrew culture and Gentile views of what a “messiah” is.In the Jewish mindset, the concept of salvation is more national (corporate) than personal, as Christianity considers it. The term refers to a role in the physical realm. In their culture, the salvation of the individual Jew is directly bound up with the salvation of the entire people, including the rescue from national enemies, the Temple’s complete restoration, and the inheritance of the covenant blessings. For the Jew, Ha Moshia‘ is a worldly, temporal leader who would rescue corporate Israel from her enemies and make the nation great in all the earth. The idea of a “Savior of the Jewish people,” then, is bound up with the idea of national Israel and the restoration of the Kingdom of David on earth. This explains why the Jewish people reject Yahusha as their Savior: from their point of view Yahusha did not rescue corporate, national Israel from her enemies nor set up the kingdom of David.As Christians, however, we believe that Yahusha indeed did all of these things — in a “was, is, and is to come” way. He already affected full deliverance from sin and death. He has conquered more than the physical – He conquers and rules and reigns spiritually, and He will be the King over all Creation once He returns at the End of Days.

There wouldn’t even be an issue

Multiple issues happened that caused unnecessary confusion.

• The words “messiah” and “Christ” were not translated, but left in the Bible in a form of their original language.
• There is still more confusion because Gentiles use both the term Messiah AND Christ. Why is that? They mean the same thing: “Anointed one”. Supposedly the New Testament was first written in Greek, then why would both the Greek and Aramaic word for “anointed one” be in the Bible (both untranslated)?
  And who is the author of confusion?

If the translators would have just translated all of the words in the Bible, like they were supposed to, instead of leaving in Greek and Aramaic words, then we would have the answer of their intention – either:

• (1) we would have the correct word “savior” in our Bibles now, or
• (2) we could see if they actually intended on using the word “Anointed one”.

Then we would know more about what actually happened.

There is one more possibility

With all of this confusion, it feels like a manipulation of language has occurred to diminish the praise that should attributed to Yahusha.

Could this have happened? Just like how the Name of The Most High was removed from the Bible. Just how both His Name and Yahusha’s Name were replaced with the word “Lord”.

As we have outlined in other articles, in the Bible, the names as well as the titles words used to refer to the Most High and Yahusha have completely been either replaced, mistranslated or not translated at all, making understanding of the original intended meaning to be confused or skewed. Using the term “Messiah” instead of “Moshia” could be added to this as well.

Could this have been done with the Yahusha’s title? Well, since we do not have any Hebrew version of the New Testament in existence, and what we do have is hundreds of years after Yahusha, I would say it is very likely that it was deliberate.

The Biggest Problem of All

If a manipulation of truth like this happened, then why didn’t any Christian notice this and correct it, including church leaders, translators, etc?

In the very least, by allowing this to go on, they are not attributing the praise to Yahusha that He deserves.

And an even bigger question:

If Christians don’t even know what Yahusha means to them, that they didn’t even notice they were not giving Him to reverence He deserves, and call Him by that which He is which is Savior of the world, then how can they possibly be saved?

Conclusion

Regardless the reason, we as believers and followers of YHWH, want to honor the sacrifice made for us in as great a way as we can. So we choose to use the term “Moshia” to acknowledge what Yahusha/YHWH has done for us. If you agree, please join us in celebrating Yahusha Ha Moshia, by using this honorific to recognize Him.