In Greek Christ means “the anointed One.” Christ, the anointed One, is full of ointment, full of anointing. He is the Son of God whom God has anointed above all His partners, His companions (Heb. 1:9). God attaches the apostles with all the believers unto this anointed One. The ointment flows in us because we have been attached to Him. Since we have been attached by God to Christ, the anointed One, we are spontaneously anointed with Him by God.
Second Corinthians 1:21 says that God firmly attaches us and has anointed us. He has anointed us by attaching us to the anointed One. In the universe there is only One who has been anointed by God. This One is Christ, the anointed One. Now we are all in this anointed One. Since we are members of Christ, we are also part of the anointed One. Because we have been joined to the universal anointed One, we also have been anointed.
The apostles were attached together with the believers unto Christ as the anointed One. This anointed One is also the anointing. The anointing is the moving of the ointment, that is, the moving and working of the all-inclusive life-giving, Spirit within us. Through such a Christ, who is both the anointed One and the anointing, God has anointed the believers. The anointing imparts His substance, His essence, into our being. God has anointed Christ and us with Himself as the divine ointment. The more we are anointed by God, the more we receive the element of God’s divine nature. The anointing is for the imparting of the divine element into us. God imparts all His divine ingredients and constituents into us by His anointing.
In one sense, we believers who have been regenerated have all been attached to Christ. Yet in our experience the extent to which we have been attached to Christ depends on the amount of anointing we have received. The more anointing we receive, the more we are attached to Christ. If we are living and doing things under the anointing, this anointing teaches us concerning all things (1 John 2:27). When we walk according to this anointing, we have the sense that we are attached to Christ. If we take care of the inner anointing, that is, if we behave and act according to the inner anointing, we are experientially attached to Christ, the anointed One. Day by day the anointing Spirit anoints us with the ingredients and the constituents of God, the elements of God Himself. If we daily walk and behave according to this anointing, God Himself will be added to us and imparted into us.
Through Christ, God has sealed the believers to impress them with God’s image. Since God has anointed us with Christ, He has also sealed us in Him. We should not regard sealing as something separate from the anointing. Actually, anointing implies sealing. As we are under the anointing, the anointing becomes a sealing. In this way we become different from others. Furthermore, the seal is the image of God; the seal causes us to bear the appearance of God. First God through the anointing adds the essence of Himself to us. Then this anointing seals us with the essence of God and makes us the image of God. In other words, we are first anointed that we may receive the divine essence into our being; then we are sealed that we may receive the impression of the divine image.
The sealing forms the divine elements into an impression that expresses God’s image. We have the mark of the Spirit as the living seal that causes us to bear God’s image. If we experience the sealing Spirit, when others contact us, they will have the sense that God has been formed within us (Gal. 4:19).
In 2 Corinthians 1:22 Paul also says that God has given the Spirit as a pledge in our hearts. The pledge of the Spirit is the Spirit Himself as the pledge (5:5). The seal is a mark that marks us out as God’s inheritance, God’s possession, as those who belong to God. The pledge is an earnest, guaranteeing that God is our inheritance, or possession, and belongs to us. The Spirit within us is the pledge, an earnest, of God as our portion in Christ.
The Spirit is not only the anointing and a seal but also a pledge. A pledge is a guarantee, a sample, or a partial payment. The Spirit is the pledge of our inheritance that guarantees that we will receive the full taste of God Himself as our divine inheritance (Eph. 1:13-14). We have the Spirit for our taste, our enjoyment, and the Spirit is sweet to our spiritual taste. The Christian life is not a matter of meditating in the mind but a matter of tasting the Lord in the spirit (Psa. 34:8; 1 Pet. 2:3). We can taste the heavenly things and the things of the age to come (Heb. 6:4-5) by the Spirit. The Spirit also transmits the things in eternity and in the New Jerusalem to us because He is the eternal Spirit (9:14). We need to enjoy the indwelling Spirit as the foretaste day by day.
The Spirit transmits all the heavenly things and elements of Christ into us, not for our mental knowledge but for our taste and enjoyment. We need to continually taste the heavenly, spiritual, and eternal things by the Spirit. Everything in the New Jerusalem is included in the Spirit, who has been given to us as a foretaste, a sample, of the full taste of the Spirit in the ages to come. The quantity of the Spirit we have in this age is smaller than that which we will receive in the ages to come, but the quality and taste are the same. We need to learn how to taste the Lord by continually calling upon His name.
God’s attaching us to Christ issues in three things: (1) an anointing that imparts God’s elements into us; (2) a sealing that forms the divine elements into an impression to express God’s image; and (3) a pledging that gives us a foretaste as a sample and guarantee of the full taste of God.
As believers, we have the Holy Spirit as the anointing, the seal, and the pledge, all of which are for our full enjoyment of Christ. Day by day we should be under the anointing, the sealing, and the pledging of the Holy Spirit. These three matters—the anointing, the sealing, and the pledging—are actually one. They are one thing with three aspects. First we are anointed, then we are sealed, and then we have the pledge as a guarantee. We have the essence, the image, and the guarantee, all of which are the processed God who is now the Spirit. The Spirit is the ointment with which we are anointed, the essence with which we are sealed, and the pledge which guarantees that God belongs to us and that He is our portion. Because we have been anointed and sealed and have received the pledge, we are now qualified and equipped to live the unchanging Christ.