The Anointing of the Comforter
‘‘Now He which stablisheth us with you in Christ and hath anointed us is God.” 2 Cor. i :2i.
AMONG the emblems of the Old Testament there is none which is more frequently used to set forth the offices of the Holy Ghost than the anointing oil.
The first thing we notice about it is that the oil was always placed upon the blood. ‘’Upon man’s flesh shall it not be poured” was one of God’s most solemn sanctions. The carnal heart cannot receive the Holy Spirit. Only after we have been touched with the blood and brought into fellowship with the death and resurrection of Jesus can we receive the Spirit in our new nature. The Holy Ghost is always associated with the cross and the precious blood.
The next typical fact which we notice is the anointing of the Tabernacle of which we have a detailed account in the last chapter of Exodus. After Moses had completed the sanctuary according to all God’s specifications, it was solemnly anointed and given over to the Lord. God immediately took possession of it and the cloud which hitherto had hovered above it or marched before descended and entered the Tabernacle and henceforth appeared as the Shekinah glory in the Holy of Holies. From this time forth we find God speaking to His people not from the cloud but from within the Tabernacle. He had changed His dwelling place and was now in the midst of Israel. So important was this fact that it marked a new era in the history of the chosen people and we are particularly told was the beginning of the second year ol their journeys in the wilderness. Flow it reminds us that the coming of the Floly Spirit to a human heart is the second great epoch of our spiritual life and marks a crisis just as distinct as conversion itself.
Dear friend, have you entered upon the second year of your spiritual history by receiving the anointing of the Holy Ghost?
We next read in connection with the healing of the leper in the fourteenth chapter of Leviticus of a remarkable application of the oil, along with the blood, to the ear, the thumb and the great toe of the leper who is to be cleansed. This represents the consecration to God and the quickening by the Holy Spirit, first of all our receptive powers represented by the ear; next of all our active powers represented by the hand, and finally of our life and walk represented by the foot. Beloved friends, have we given our ears to the Holy Ghost to hear and understand only what He would teach and speak? Have we yielded our hands to minister to God through His grace and to be wholly controlled by His power? And have we yielded our feet to walk in the Spirit and be guided wholly according to His perfect will?
The anointing oil was poured upon prophets, priests and kings to set them apart to their sacred ministry and to signify their enduement with the wisdom, holiness and power which they required for their sacred functions. So the Holy Spirit alone can call us to Christian service and fit us for it. ‘If any man minister let him do it as of the ability which God giveth.’’ He uses our natural powers, but in such dependence upon Him, that, as the apostle expresses it in the passage already quoted ‘’That in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”
The anointing of the sick which we find our Lord commanding and the Apostle James confirming was a direct means of physical healing and was intended to set forth the quickening ministry of the Holy Spirit in the human body. All life and energy are allied to spiritual forces. The very power that moves the world and the mightiest physical force, the law of gravitation, is ethereal more than material. Physical life is an invisible and intangible force. When the Spirit moved upon Samson of old he had the strength of a hundred giants. And when the Spirit was withdrawn he was weak as a child. The Comforter, therefore, is the real source of physical life and healing and quickens the mortal bodies of those in whom He dwells.
These are but some of the blessed results of the anointing of the Holy Ghost. Surely they may well encourage us to ask how may we receive this blessed touch of divine life, power and healing. What is the anointing of the Holy Ghost? Where can we hnd a better answer than by turning to the example of our great Forerunner, who ‘hn all things was made like unto His brethren?’’ We are told that ‘’God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with power.” We know when that occurred. It was not in His childhood, although He had been born through the agency of the Holy Spirit and during His childhood and youth walked with God and under the direction of the Holy Spirit. But it marked a distinct crisis in His life when, after yielding Himself to His Father’s will and His appointed work. He received a direct visitation of the Holy Spirit who henceforth abode upon Him and became the source of all His strength and ministry. For us His disciples also there is the same definite second experience of the anointing of the Holy Ghost if we will meet the conditions like Him. Beloved, “have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?”