Now we come to the essence of all these spices and the pure frankincense. It is really difficult to interpret these, but with the aid of many dictionaries and some writings of ancient times we may arrive at their meaning. It is indeed interesting. The first and the third, the stacte and the galbanum, are of the plant life; they are gums from certain kinds of trees. The second spice, however, is not derived from plant life, but from animal life. The onycha is a kind of shellfish. According to the best writings, it is a shellfish produced in the marshes of the Red Sea. Its origin is not good. Now look at the picture: the first and the third are of the vegetable life, and the second, the middle one, is of the animal life. Of course, this is entirely figurative. What is its meaning?
We must see firstly that there are two factors in the life of Christ. In one sense His life is a generating life: He is the grain of wheat that produces so many more grains of wheat. This is the vegetable life. Christ’s life is just like the generating and reproducing vegetable life. Secondly, His life is also like the animal life, a life that can be slain and from which blood may be shed. He is the Lamb who was crucified on the cross for our redemption. These two kinds of lives have both been mentioned by the one writer, the Apostle John. In the first chapter of his Gospel he says, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (v. 29). Then in chapter twelve of the same Gospel he says that Christ is the grain of wheat, which when it falls into the earth and dies produces many grains (v. 24). As the Lamb of God He has the animal life, and as the grain of wheat He has the plant life. The animal life is for redeeming and the vegetable life is for generating, for producing.
Before man fell, God destined him to eat herbs, only herbs. At that time no sin was involved, and man had no need of redemption. Just the herbs, the vegetable life, were sufficient for his diet. But now since the fall, man must eat something of the animal, involving the shedding of blood. Man has need of both the plant life and the animal life, the generating life and the redeeming life.
In John chapter six these two aspects are brought together. Jesus said that He is the bread of life. And when the Jewish people could not understand how He could be the bread of life, Jesus said that His flesh is eatable and His blood is drinkable. On one hand He said that He is the bread, and on the other hand He said that this bread is the meat. He is the meat-bread. He is the vegetable life plus the animal life. If man had never fallen, he would not need the Lord Jesus as the animal life, but he would still need Him as the vegetable life in order to generate that life within him. We have fallen, however, so God must redeem us and regenerate us.
In order to redeem us, there is the need of the second Person of the Godhead with the aspect of the animal life to be slain on our behalf. We know that Jesus was such a redeeming One. The second Person, the middle Person, accomplished this. So it is the second spice, not the first or the third, that has the animal life. It grows in the marshes of the Red Sea. What is the Red Sea? It is the corrupted world. Christ became a little “animal” in the marshes of this corrupted world for thirty-three and a half years. But with Him there is the fragrant shell—the onycha. This is the Christ who was crucified to redeem us.
The first spice is called in English stacte; in Hebrew it is myrrh. It is a kind of resinous gum which may be used as myrrh, even the purest myrrh. So we may say that stacte is another kind of myrrh, signifying death. Of course, the second item, onycha, which comes from a little slain animal, also signifies death. Then we have the third item, the galbanum. Galbanum is another type of gum derived from another tree. Nearly all the dictionaries and other writings tell us that its odor is exceedingly strong and disagreeable. But this unpleasant odor has three strange functions: 1) It strengthens the fragrance of the other odors. When this spice is added to the other spices, the fragrance of the other spices will be increased. 2) It causes the fragrance of the incense to remain, to endure. 3) Finally, the odor of this spice repels and expels insects and poisonous reptiles. In other words, it expels the serpent. The death of Christ in a sense is not so pleasant, but it really strengthens, it really keeps, and it really expels. Perhaps you have been as I have in places where there is an abundance of mosquitoes. It has been my custom every day to put repellent on my hands and feet to protect myself and expel the insects. Christ’s death is a kind of repellent; it has repelling power to expel Satan.
From such a picture we may say that all three spices signify the death of Christ. In the essence of all the ingredients is the death of Christ. The triune God came into humanity to die in order that He might 1) produce, 2) redeem, and 3) expel. The triune God became a man to generate us as sons, to redeem us from the fall, and to expel all the evil.
Following these three spices, we come immediately to the frankincense. Frankincense signifies the resurrection of Christ. So we have here both the death and the resurrection. When we put all these concepts together we see that the incense is just Christ as God, incarnated to be a man, who died and was resurrected. In this incense we have both divinity and humanity, both the death and the resurrection of Christ. The triune God in man passed into death and came out in resurrection—this is the incense. Divinity mingled with humanity suffered death to impart His life to us, to redeem the fallen ones, and to expel all the poison. We have the numbers three and four signifying divinity and humanity, we have the three spices signifying the death for generating, redeeming, and expelling, and we have the frankincense to signify His resurrection. So we have here a picture of such a wonderful Person. The incense is nothing less than Christ Himself with all that through which He passed and with all He accomplished, His death and resurrection.