The Holy One of God

Send us Fan MailIn the Gospels, Jesus is called the Holy One of God on two occasions. The first time was by a demon (Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34). The second was by Peter when many of the disciples were grumbling about the difficulty of Jesus' teaching. It is a reflection of the seriousness of our problem with holiness that the demons recognized who Jesus was before His own disciples did. It would be wrong to conclude from this that Jesus' approach to holiness was reductionist. Jesus did not simplify the idea of holiness. He was not lowering the bar or trying to make holiness more manageable. If anything, the opposite was the case. Unless it comes to us as a gift, holiness, as Jesus defines it is an impossibility.Dr. John Koessler is an award-winning writer and retired faculty emeritus of Moody Bible Institute. John writes the Praying the Word column for the Lifeway publication Mature Living and is the author of 16 books. His latest book, On Things Above: The Earthly Importance of Heavenly Reality, is available from Amazon.  You can learn more about John at https://www.johnkoessler.com.