Mark 1:21-28
They went to Capernaum; and when the sabbath came, he entered the synagogue and taught.
They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.
Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God."
But Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Be silent, and come out of him!"
And the unclean spirit, convulsing him and crying with a loud voice, came out of him.
They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, "What is this? A new teaching--with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him."
At once his fame began to spread throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.
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When Jesus was called the Holy One of God, most religious commentators say that Jesus is so perfectly holy that this perfectness cannot be overtaken and that his unparalleled holiness is provided as a biblical, scriptural proof of his full divinity.
If we try to stand on the ground zero of the Holy Trinity which is a theological notion, developed into its fullness in the fourth century, then we may easily accept its logic. If God is perfectly holy and if Jesus is God too, then Jesus must be perfectly holy as well.
However this term, the Holy One of God, nowhere appears in the Old Testament, and it appears only once in the New Testament, in the Gospel of Mark. The parallel text in Luke is technically a quote from Mark, and in the Gospel of John the verse 6:69 is rather using the term of " the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Although the concepts of the equally shared trinity and the full and equal divinity of Jesus inside of it, made it into the mainstream Christianity as dogmatic and systematic teachings, still the mechanized notion of the Trinity and the pedestal-ish approach to Jesus may easily eliminate a very important aspect of the personality of Jesus, namely, his equally full humanity.
For we are humans, we can not really follow an invisible and perfect God with all of our visible imperfectness and unfortunate iniquities. We need a perfectly trustworthy leader, whom we can follow, who is although perfect, but fully human too. This was well understood by the early Christian Synods that created the main doctrines of the mainstream Christianity.
Nonetheless, the Gospel of Mark, in question, was written earliest in the second part of the first century, and it has a big distance from the doctrinal Trinity of the fourth century. Most of the scholars agree that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity can not be derived directly from the scriptures, albeit it is derived as a faith concept of the church, as an interpretation and a church wisdom.
However, if the first century gospel does not aim directly to prove the Holy Trinity or the Creator level divinity of Jesus, then it tries to tell us something else, because "the Holy One of God" title is obviously a Messianic title, even if it technically appears nowhere else, just in this text in the Gospel of Mark.
And it is exactly how the story goes. The audience was amazed that Jesus taught them and acted, not as the scribes, but a person who has real authority.
Heaven a little bit different, where it is obvious, but also on Earth authority is given by God and here we are talking about moral authority, and not legal or political authority. Normally only the moral authority should count, and even legislation or the political will should always seek to enact or to do what is morally right.
Moral authority comes from God. Atheists reject the authority of a Creator over the world and people, however nobody can be an authority for himself. The authority over us must be higher than us. Humans, without overseeing moral authority, as history shows, often became monsters.
The ancient and for sure a mythological Mesopotamian text, the so called “Sumerian King List” regarding the human civilization reads that before the Great Deluge the kingship as an institution came down from Heaven to Earth, and they started to build cities.
Ancient Mesopotamian legends have it that before the Flood 8 kings ruled the Earth for an fascinatingly extended period of not less than around 240k years. After the Flood the years of the reigns became more earthly. Nonetheless, despite of the inconceivable numbers, this ancients source agrees with the Bible that real authority was established on Earth by the decree of Heaven. It can be given or it can be taken away. Like, according to the Book of Daniel, chapter 4 the Babylonian kingdom was taken away from Nebuchadnezzar and it was given back to him when he finally acknowledged the ultimate kingship of God over the world.
Thus, authority in general, and especially in the ancient world was a case when someone was appointed by Heaven to have authority on Earth, as an envoy of Heaven. All the time kings and emperors appealed to God to show that their rule has real authority. Even today we can see that from the royal style of the British Monarch which exactly goes like this: “Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith”.
Of course that a constitutional but hereditary monarchy with a parliamentarian system and with very limited royal power is not the worst imaginable political structure, quite the contrary. However, even the most wicked dictators like most of the Pharaohs and Emperors, or historical figures like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Attila the Hun who was called the Scourge of God, Genghis Khan, or even the modern usurpers of power, had the urge to morally justify their rule, because the requirement of moral authority in order to lead is so compelling that even the wicked ones are not able to ditch it completely. They blatantly lie for fake justification to deceit the governed and oppressed people.
However, there is real moral authority on Earth and it comes from God.
In the Land of Israel where the audience drank the words of Jesus, these authorities were, the Scripture, the King, the High Priest, a prophet and the Messiah. It must be observed, that anybody who ruled, taught and acted obviously against the Torah and its laws, against the Holy Scriptures, he was regarded as the enemy of the people and God.
So Jesus taught the people as a person who has authority on Earth, as an envoy of God. As the letter to the Hebrews says that Jesus is our Prophet as our only Teacher, our High Priest, who sacrificed himself for us, and our King, who rules us with the Spirit of love and justice. All of them in Israel, the prophets, the High Priests, the Kings, were anointed by holy oil to visibly show, that they were appointed by God, as Messiah means exactly, the “anointed one”, or in Greek, the Christ.
As God holy in heaven so the word holy means on Earth a thing or a person who belongs to God. Thus, who serves God or who has been chosen by God, that person, including the angels, or even an object like the Arc of the Covenant, and even a place like where the bush was burning, are holy, not in themselves, but because God sanctifies them, God makes them Holy.
In this way the temple in Jerusalem is holy. The nation of Israel, the light of the nations, is holy, and the Messiah, the anointed one is holy, as God is holy who sanctifies them. All of them are unique, as the God of Israel is unique. It is also easy to see that there was only one authentic temple in Israel, the one in Jerusalem. When the one temple had been destroyed by the Babylonians, only one temple was rebuilt. That one temple was destroyed again by the Romans, but the one Messiah will rebuild the one temple in Jerusalem in the end times.
The chosen one nation of Israel, which was dispersed and scattered throughout the whole world will be gathered again by the one Messiah even from the farthest corners of the Earth. It is obvious, that the regathering is happening in our days. Thus, the people of Jesus, we have to pray everyday, that God sanctify us to belong to him, to serve him, to obey him and to respect the authority, whom God ordered to govern Humanity in truth and grace, who is Jesus the King, by the Holy Spirit.
Amen
