Jesus Christ, The Holy One Of Israel

6. The Early Church Proclaims The Holy One

By Dr. Paul M. Elliott
The early church knew with certainty and proclaimed without apology - even at the risk of life - that Jesus is the promised Holy One.

From the TeachingtheWord Bible Knowledgebase

Part 6 of a series. Read part 5.

The early church knew with certainty and proclaimed without apology - even at the risk of death - that Jesus is the promised Holy One.

Peter's First Sermons

Earlier we noted David's Messianic prophesy in Psalm 16:10: "For You will not leave My soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption." Peter quoted these words in his sermon on the day of Pentecost, as he and the others who had been in the upper room, now anointed with the Holy Spirit, proclaimed Christ as the Holy One of Israel for the first time.

For David says concerning Him: "I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad; moreover my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave My soul in Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You have made known to Me the ways of life; You will make Me full of joy in Your presence."

Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.

This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself: "The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at My right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool.'"

Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. (Acts 2:25-36)

Here Peter made it abundantly clear that in Psalm 16 David was speaking of Jesus, and of His resurrection as the ultimate attestation of His sinlessness by God the Father.

A few verses later, in Acts chapter 3, we find Peter preaching to the Jews gathered in Solomon's portico at the temple, where he tells them, "But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you" (Acts 3:14). Then in Acts 4 we find the believers beginning to suffer persecution, and when they prayed for boldness in the midst of persecution, their prayer twice used the phrase, "Your holy Servant Jesus" (Acts 4:27,30).

"The Just One"

"The Just One" is another related name for Jesus that we find in the book of Acts. We have already seen Peter's use of this term in Acts 3:14. In the Greek it appears as forms of tou dikaios, meaning "the One who is absolutely guiltless, the One whose entire way of living, thinking, speaking, and acting is beyond all need of correction because it is absolutely acceptable and approved of in the sight of God."

This post-resurrection name of Christ is especially significant. He is now not only the holy Second Person of the Godhead, the promised Holy One. He is now also the demonstrated Holy One. He is the God-man who possesses a personal righteousness and holiness that no mere human being could ever possess. This has qualified Him to be the full and final propitiation for our sins, and His perfect righteousness is now the believer's righteousness before God. Furthermore, His absolute, demonstrated holiness - even to the point of death on the Cross in obedience to the Father - qualified Him to be raised from the dead and to be the one Mediator between God and man.

The Apostle Paul quoted the same passage from Psalm 16 in his address to the synagogue of Antioch in Acts 13:35. Like Peter, he declared that this was the attesting sign that Jesus met the scriptural qualifications of the promised Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins, and by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses (Acts 4:38-39).

Later in Acts, in retelling his encounter with the ascended Christ on the Damascus road in Acts 9, Paul recalled that Ananias told him, "The God of our fathers has chosen you that you should know His will, and see the Just One" (Acts 22:14).

Stephen used this term to identify Jesus as the Christ when he spoke against the hardness of the hearts and minds of the religious leaders of Israel, who refused to recognize that the promised Holy One had come. It was in reaction to this statement that the Jews rose up in bitter anger and stoned Stephen to death:

"You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it."

When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, "Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!"

Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." (Acts 7:51-59)

The young man Saul who participated in the mob's rebellion against the Holy One of Israel would soon become His greatest preacher to both Jew and Gentile, as the converted Apostle Paul.

Next: The Holy One in Paul's Epistles

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