DIVINE ANOINTING
[p. 200] DIVINE ANOINTING
2 Corinthians 1:21;1 John 2:27;Luke 4:16 - 22
I am thinking, dear brethren, about divine anointing, hoping that the Lord will help us as to the import of it. It is a familiar expression, but perhaps we may be helped further in our understanding of it. What comes out in Scripture shews that it represents God’s rights in administration or service, and thus correspondingly shuts out mere human ability; God from the very outset of His operations indicating that whatever the instrumentality or instrumentalities employed. He had had to say in the operations. We find, therefore, that the idea of the anointing has a very wide bearing, and brings God in authoritatively and in suited dignity in the instruments used. We find in the book of Ezekiel the idea connected with a great being whom we have to regard as now fallen, who is spoken of as “the anointed cherub that covereth”. Thus before ever men were anointed the idea existed, and God anointed some great personage for a definite purpose. The king of Tyre is taken up as the immediate personage in (Ezekiel 28), but the Spirit of God has more than the king of Tyre in view. So we have an inlet into angelic service, how God employed, and does employ, angels; but in the service rendered there was that which denoted that it was on God’s part, it was not done independently, it was not done in the person’s own power.
So, in coming into our own realm, the creation of (Genesis 1), the creation as we are in it, we have the thought introduced in a very familiar and simple manner, in Abraham and others who are said to be God’s anointed ones. Even in those early days what was being done bore the divine stamp. God said He reproved kings on account of His anointed ones, shewing what they were to Him: “Touch not mine anointed ones”, (Psalm 105:15). They were moving under God, and God had an obvious [p. 201] part in their movements, they were not ordinary people. They had part in ordinary affairs outwardly like other people, and they prospered in material things too, but there was a distinctiveness about them that marked them off, even in the presence of kings, so that ultimately these anointed ones could bless kings, for their distinctiveness, their dignity, their moral authority, indicated the anointing. Thus God marked them off as His anointed, standing out in dignity and moral power, and in Abraham’s case enabling him to rebuke a king.
I am speaking very simply, dear brethren, because I am impressed with this, that God would put dignity and power upon His people in dealing with men in this world. He has a hand in our movement’s with the result that there is a constant rise in power and dignity in the saints before the eyes of those with whom they have to do immediately. So that as you see with Abraham, he could rebuke the king of the Philistines. So with Isaac. They were few and of small account in this world, but there was something that marked them off from men, and caused a gradual rise in power and dignity, so that they did not have to lend their shoulders to servitude; they were not brought under the power of this world, there was a superiority about them that lifted them above the current of the world. So that Isaac was able to speak on more than equal terms with the Philistine king, although he brought the general of his army and his friend with him, as an evidence of military power and social influence; but it was not enough to overwhelm Isaac. And then in Jacob you see the same thing; he stands before Pharaoh and blesses him. The Holy Spirit, commenting upon a similar occurrence, says that “the less is blessed of the better”, (Hebrews 7:7).
Now what comes out is that all this in Genesis leads up to a great position: Joseph is a fruitful bough by a well, and the branches run over the wall, and “from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel”, chapter 49.
[p. 202] That is the position in Genesis, Then in the typical books that follow you have the ministry or administration of it, and the way it is to be diffused and to reach men; that is the principle. So you have the anointing of Aaron and the anointing of the tabernacle and its utensils, with all that pertained to it, for God intends to shine out and to operate, and to shew Himself in a domain dignified by the anointing. He has to say to every part of it; no other rights are recognised there.
Now that is to reflect on our present position; there are no rights to be asserted among us, save God’s rights. The anointing makes the position too dignified to admit of any human assertion of rights. God puts in His claim in the most positive manner in the anointing, so that in the tabernacle and its utensils anointed you get what typically represents the heavens and the earth; and then Aaron is anointed in relation to that, and you have a domain in which God’s rights are asserted and maintained. The One who ministers there serves in the sympathy that belongs to the divine nature; for in. Aaron it is a question of the manhood and priesthood of Christ. All that God is, embodied in a Man, in order that what God is may be brought in in the most sympathetic manner in that whole domain; and that God Himself may be served in it.
Now you see what Exodus and Leviticus denote what a scene is presented! And what a Person is anointed in that scene! So that we have the rights of God in every detail asserted in the priest, but in the most sympathetic manner, for they are not arbitrary. What can be better for us, dear brethren, than the rights of God? The more they are asserted the better; for what are they today but His, rights in grace, or rather in mercy? It is a question of His right to be merciful and gracious, and the more we admit these rights, both in ourselves severally and in the whole domain in which God is operating, the happier and richer we shall be.
[p. 203] Now I want to come to 2 Corinthians, because the anointing is specially mentioned there. It is not formally mentioned in the first epistle, though it is involved in the expression “the Christ” in chapter 12; but not as implying that the Corinthians were marked by it, for they were not; they were marked by the very opposite. Although having the Holy Spirit, and as in that sense anointed, they were marked by man’s doings and sayings and party spirit, which is the very opposite of the anointing. That is simply the world, and walking according to men, and is, I need not say, degrading. But still, there it stands, “As the body is one and has many members ... so also is the Christ”, “the Christ” alluding to the saints as anointed as in relation to Christ, but it is not formally applied to the Corinthians. But in the second letter it is implied, for they are included, as I understand, in the idea with the apostle himself: “He which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God”.
Now, dear brethren, I wish to seek to make clear the import of that statement, appearing as it does in the second letter, which is based on a certain effect in recovery from the first letter. It indicates that the anointing refers to something of God in the person anointed; that it is intended to enable us in a dignified positive way to convey to others what we are enjoying. If God has saved me, has justified me, has given His Spirit to me, has brought me into the joy of the kingdom, “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”, then I say. Well, I can speak of that, and indeed I should; but the anointing means that I have power to speak of it effectively, that I can speak of it rightly, and in force, so that it affects others. It is not a matter of incidental comment, but the thing impresses you, and you are enabled to speak of it effectively. But, as I said, we have to bear in mind that the anointing is in the second letter to the Corinthians, not in the first. Not that it could [p. 204] not be spoken of in the first in abstract way, but it is spoken of in the second in a positive way, and what follows is that He has sealed us and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. Underneath the anointing is the sealing, the fact that you belong to God, that God had put a stamp on you, that you are His; He has right to you. But then, what have you got? Well, you have got in your heart the earnest of the Spirit that is something. And there I may liken you to Jacob in Bethel, for in this respect we may read these epistles into (Genesis 28).
The idea of the anointing was already there; Abraham was one of the “anointed ones”. (Psalm 105), and that has to be borne in mind if we are to understand aright Jacob’s action in pouring oil on the stone. It was but very little, the stone was hard, denoting hard circumstances; it was his own selection, he set it up himself; it was one of the stones of the place, and he took it and used it for a pillow. But you see there was something there, something had come into Jacob’s soul that had never, been there before. I cannot dwell on it; you all know the chapter; but it is so important for young people to lay hold of the idea of something coming into the soul, changing the whole texture of the person. Jacob was trammelled as yet by much of the flesh and nature, selfishness and natural ambitions, and other things, but there was something, perhaps indefinable by himself, which was there, and he was able definitely to take that stone and set it up and pour oil on it; there was spiritual intelligence and purpose in that action.
Now to shew us the bearing of the anointing, dear brethren, in the next chapter you see the energy, of the man on behalf of others. He went his way to Haran, and looked around and saw a well, and three flocks of sheep lying there. I only touch on that; I want to shew you that the anointing of the stone spiritually alluded to Jacob himself, and was to shew itself in his energy; he served ‘by love’. He did not roll the stone from the well’s mouth until Rachel arrived with her father’s sheep, and then he rolled away the stone and watered the flock; he served by love, as I said. That is the divine way to serve, the effect of the anointing; and it is within the range of the youngest as well as of the oldest, to serve by love; it is heaven’s way. You say. The world serves by love. No, it does not; you will not get any service by love in the world. Serving by love is a heavenly thing; it comes out of heaven. It is in the Person of Jesus that the thing is fully expressed, for Jacob was a type of Jesus.
We have not far to go for objects of affection. As soon as Rachel arrived Jacob said, “My brethren, whence be ye? And they said. Of Haran are we”, and they knew Laban. Earlier Jacob could speak of the time of day, and that the flocks should be watered, but he did not do it; that is to say, he could speak of the need of things being done without doing them, but as soon as an object for his affections appeared, he rolled away the stone and watered the flock. He is a type of Christ. What he did is typically the product of heaven brought down, and brought within the range of the youngest believer to serve by love. The greatest power in the whole universe is love; and it begins in a small way; if you have a brother or a sister an object for your affection near you, you can serve by love. Jacob rolled away the stone without any apparent difficulty.
But as he came back to Bethel twenty years later, he set up “a pillar of stone”; the idea is increased in his mind. That is why I am connecting this passage in Genesis with 2 Corinthians; it is very much like Jacob’s second visit to Bethel. In this letter we have the new covenant. The apostle discerned a change in their state; self judgment had taken effect. So he is able to open up to them the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, the new covenant, and then the ministry of [p. 206] reconciliation; he brings in the two thoughts. One reconciled, having the love of God in his heart, moves here pleasing to God. You see a person who loves is like Jesus. “Hereby we have known love, because he has laid down his life for us, and we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives”. The love of God learnt in the heart leads to similarity to Jesus; and similarity to Jesus brings out the divine approbation. It is sure to do that. God has His own way of bringing to the heart the sense of His approbation, a most blessed thing.
So that the life of a person truly in the good of reconciliation is a life for the pleasure of God. It is a most practical thing. God has refreshment in every little bit of service rendered by a person who is truly in the good of reconciliation. Hence in (Genesis 35) Jacob sets up a pillar of stone; not now simply a stone that had been his pillow, or a mere piece of stone, but “a pillar of stone”. The idea of a pillar is more permanent; and the substance of this is stone, it is something to remain; and Jacob is conscious in setting it up that he has been pleasing to God. And how pleasing? God came down and spoke to him, standing by him, not at a distance as before, and Jacob so revered the spot that he set up a pillar there, and poured a drink offering upon it; that is why I linked it with 2 Corinthians, for there is no doubt that spiritually the stone pillar was there.
There was something for God at Corinth. The Lord had said, “I have much people in this city”. (Acts 18:10), and the tone, so to speak, was set up. But there had not been continued pleasure; the Corinthians retrograded and man got in. But now there is a change and God speaks of the new covenant, and reconciliation, so that the idea of the anointing can be brought in. God was pleased with them as they were repenting as to the evil among them. Jacob was conscious in the second visit to Bethel that God was pleased with him, addressing him by name — surnaming him — and ennobling him. In [p. 207] effect God said to him. Your name is to be Israel henceforward, and My name is God Almighty. What a marvellous occasion! God Almighty standing by Jacob; his name changed to Israel; and speaking with him; and then a stone pillar is set up with a drink offering and oil poured upon it. Thus you have the idea that there is something that pleases God underneath the anointing. That is to say, in our preaching or other services, unless there is the consciousness in motive, of pleasing God, that I am moving in relation to the great anointed Man, like Him in motive, the anointing must be ineffective. There must be that underneath it which pleases God.
I will come back to that in relation to the passage read in Luke, but I wish to shew how this principle is applied to our education, and that is what John dwells upon. The anointing here implies more than simply oil poured on, it is a sort of rubbing in. That is what we need; many of us take things on too lightly when it is a question of education, and that particularly applies to the young; but there is this thing that God, as it were, rubs in, so as to enable us to shut out all man’s teaching. I do not mean the teaching that is necessary for ordinary service or to earn a livelihood, because for these things we need a certain education; but I am speaking of what relates to God, and of the superiority of the teaching, of what is here called ‘the anointing’, ‘the unction’. It is received from the Holy One. It is not called the Spirit; it is something known, as received.
Now the question is, dear brethren, as to the use of it the fathers, but to the little ones in John’s family. The apostle addresses us as a class, yourselves, a very suggestive expression! I think the Lord’s supper brings that about; and as to this, one would speak specially to any one who is not a partaker of the Lord’s supper. ‘Yourselves’, as used here, is a very precious word, it refers to a special class of people. The Lord’s supper [p. 208] brings us together in the most touching manner; it began with the Lord making a selection. He never intended His supper to be an open thing; He never intended it to be common to every one; He intended it to be jealously guarded, as for those who love Him. He selected those that were to be with Him when He instituted it. He sent ahead to make preparation for it; and He placed Himself at table when the hour was come with His disciples the twelve were with Him. He said, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer”; and then, “This is my body which is given for you”, and in keeping with that ‘you’ we have ‘yourselves’ in this passage. You also get, “Beloved ... keep yourselves in the love of God”, (Jude 20,21). You must not be outside of this, dear young people, nor can the Lord’s supper be exposed to unhallowed hands; it must be kept within the setting in which Christ instituted it. It is a select affair, and brings about a sense of privilege; this is implied in ‘yourselves’. “The anointing”, says John — and how qualified he was to speak of it! — “which ye have received of him ... teacheth you”. “Ye need not that any man teach you”.
Now this is a most practical thing, especially for our dear young brothers and sisters, that they might be preserved in the sense of what they have received, as receiving the Holy Spirit and using it, in their understanding of things, in their communications in regard of divine things. It is thus that we get, as I may say, the tabernacle anointed however you look at it, we have this thing ingrained in us, so that there is a rigid exclusion of man’s influence and man’s teaching and man’s thoughts. We are kept together thus, dear brethren, in holy dignity as in intelligence, for in this passage it is a question of spiritual intelligence. We have received the unction from the Holy One, so that we are kept together, a holy circle in a positive way by the anointing. There is a dignity about all our communications with one another,
[p. 209] both in our ordinary relations and in our comings together. There is something marking us that indicates God’s rights, something that is of God, and that man cannot imitate, nor cope with; he has to give way before it, he cannot stand before it; it is God in His holy dignity amongst His people.
I wish now to shew you how this appears in perfection in the Lord Jesus, because God would have us to see the perfection of everything, and this is always in Christ. God would bring us to that level in everything. But I am speaking for the moment of the anointing, and would have in mind more particularly now those of us who are older and who are specially laying ourselves out for the service of the Lord and His people; that we may see how the thing is to be carried on in correspondence with Christ. What you find in Luke 3 is that as the Holy Spirit comes down on the Lord Jesus, it is in a bodily form as a dove, and there is the Father’s voice to Him, “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased”. What I have been saying is verified in this; there was something there to be anointed an infinite something, but in man; the Father was pleased with it, heaven was pleased with it. As He came up out of the water and He was praying, a dependent Man, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove and abode on Him. Then the Father’s voice indicated His pleasure in what was there: “In thee I have found my delight”. One dwells on that with peculiar restfulness, on what was there, so well known to heaven, and, alas! So little known to men.
Then it says, “Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age”; I wish you to take notice of that, it is what He began to be; the service of God in the anointing is to be in those who are fully matured; that is in view, levitical maturity. It is not a mere historical fact that He was just that number of years old, but He “began to be about thirty years of age”. Now you see the idea in [p. 210] what He was, not simply that He was born on a certain date, and so many years had elapsed, of course there was this literal period, but really you cannot measure the life of Jesus by ordinary years. No, beloved, one day of that life is like a thousand years to God. It is what he was, who can say what was there? God conveyed it in that wonderful expression from heaven, “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased”, and how well pleased! Every moment of that life was for the pleasure of the Father. He was cast on Him from the womb. Think of that! What a life! And every breath of it filled up with motives and feelings and emotions all referring to God. What a life that was for God!
God has His own years. His own days, His own methods of measurement. We cannot limit God to finiteness. The Holy Spirit came down in a bodily form upon that blessed Person and abode upon Him; there was in Him a resting-place for God. As we read, “In him all the fulness was pleased to dwell”. (Colossians 1:19). While that entered into time it involves the infinite, and so room had to be made for time as God reckons it. Who knows the Son but the Father? No one! We observe and we worship. Those years were wonderful years to God. They were not the attenuated years of some of us; how little there is, alas! As Jacob said, “Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been”, (Genesis 47:9) he spoke for most of us; but not so with Jesus, a short life, thirty three years or so not half the span of man’s allotment, but what a life! Who can measure it but God!
Well, now you see that is the idea which is underneath the anointing. There was all that; He “began to be about thirty years”. He is fully matured; He is a model now for us all; He is seen praying. We have arrived at maturity, such maturity as implies that my personal motives are to be wholly set aside. Not that Jesus had any different motives, but the servant now is to be dependent entirely on God, the flesh profits nothing.
[p. 211] The flesh is repudiated, the anointing is enough; and so I yield to the Spirit. The Lord is “led by the Spirit in the wilderness”. That is another thing; He is entirely now in the hands of the Spirit, and that is really the full thought in the service of God. He was “led by the Spirit in the wilderness”, and He was tempted and came out victorious He overcame. Then He returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee and came to Nazareth, where He was brought up. You see He waits until He comes into the circumstances in which He was brought up; circumstances which are the most testing for us, for our relatives know us best, and we are not likely to get any help from them unless they are spiritual. That is a warning. Nature is utterly profitless and will not stand by you; your father, mother, or brother will fail you on this line; it cannot be trusted. So our relatives become the test, for they know us, and unless they are truly in the testimony they will be critical, they will oppose, and the opposition will be constant.
And so in His service the Lord reaches Nazareth, where He was brought up, and He enters into the synagogue and stands up to read the scripture which speaks of His anointing. The Holy Spirit loves to portray the full position of the anointing in this passage. It is “Luke, the beloved physician”, who is used of the Spirit of God to present to us this unique setting out of the anointing in the perfect Servant. And so we have the position; He stands up, to read, and He finds the scripture. Then as He rolled up the book and delivered it to the attendant, He sat down. Then He began to speak, saying, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears”.
Now look at the moral weight of all that is thus depicted; what shines out in His movements, in His standing up. His finding the scripture. His reading. His sitting down, and His speaking. He says, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears”. That is the idea of ministry; that is not simply future or past events, as [p. 212] in prophecy — that has its place; but it is, this day; to bring Scripture as it bears ‘this day’ to the ears of the saints. That marks an anointed ministry; it is not the unfolding of prophecy, you see, right as that is. I believe that in the early days of revival, ninety years ago or so, prophecy had a great place; it was in order that the saints might locate, their position. Prophecy unfolds the mind of God as to the future, and opens up the position so that you might see where you are; a most important matter. But when you know where you are, when you see what God intends for you, then the question is how does Scripture apply to you now? The point is what God has to say as to the saints now. That is the important thing, the way the Scriptures are brought to bear upon us today — “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears”. And what a fulfilment! Alas! they did not have circumcised ears and hearts, as the sequel shews, but I am speaking of the anointing and how it is fully set out in Christ in this passage. There was a fulfilment in power in the ears of those in the synagogue of Nazareth that day of that wonderful word, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel”.
I would commend to you, dear brethren, this matter of the anointing, that the idea may pervade us all as it pervaded the tabernacle, and that it may be seen especially in those who are ministering the word, that the Scriptures may be brought to bear on us today in power. May God bless the word.