John 7:39 says, “But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were about to receive; for the Spirit was not yet, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” This means that before the Lord’s glorification the compound Spirit was not yet. The Spirit of God was present in Genesis 1, and the Holy Spirit was involved with the birth of Christ. Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit. But, as Andrew Murray makes clear in the fifth chapter of The Spirit of Christ, the term “the Holy Spirit” is not used in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit is first mentioned at the beginning of the New Testament when Christ was conceived. For Christ to be conceived of the Holy Spirit means that His humanity, as part of God’s creation, is holy. The conceiving Spirit in Greek is called the Spirit, the Holy. But although the Holy Spirit was present at the conception of the Lord Jesus, the Spirit was not yet until Christ was resurrected, glorified. It was then that the compounding of the Spirit was completed.
In the writings of John, the term the Holy Spirit is seldom used. However, especially in the book of Revelation, John often speaks of the Spirit. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev. 2:7). This statement is repeated throughout chapters two and three. Then Revelation 14:13 says, “Yes, says the Spirit...” and Revelation 22:17 says, “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come!”
In his first Epistle, John emphasizes the anointing. First John 2:20 says, “And you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.” In 1 John 2:27 he says, “The anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you; but as His anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and even as it has taught you, abide in Him.” No doubt, when John was writing these verses, he had in mind the picture of the holy anointing oil in Exodus 30.
Do you know what the anointing is? The anointing is the moving, the “painting,” of the compound Spirit. We all have this anointing, this painting, within us. Furthermore, the anointing we have received teaches us.
We worship the Lord that, over the years, He has made us clear concerning the compound Spirit. In the past, many Christians experienced only the Passover, the manna, and, at most, the living water. Their Christian experience did not come to the point of partaking of the compound Spirit.
Why have so many Christians failed to experience the compound ointment? The reason is that this Spirit is for the building up of a spiritual house and for the holy priesthood. In 1 Peter 2 we have the spiritual house and also the holy priesthood. Likewise, in the book of Exodus, we have the tabernacle and the priesthood. In chapters twenty-five through twenty-seven the tabernacle is revealed. This corresponds to the spiritual house in 1 Peter 2. Then in chapters twenty-eight and twenty-nine we have the priesthood. Therefore, at Mount Sinai two things were made ready—the tabernacle and the priesthood. After the revelation of the tabernacle and the priesthood, we have the description of the compound ointment. This indicates that the ointment is for God’s dwelling place and for the priesthood.
If we do not care for God’s building and His priesthood, we cannot experience the compound Spirit. Because of the lack of the building up of the spiritual house, Christians throughout the centuries have not been able to see the matter of the compound Spirit. Furthermore, there has been a lack of the priesthood. The ointment was not merely for the anointing of individual priests. According to Exodus, Aaron and his sons were to be anointed. This indicates that the anointing was for the priesthood, for a body of priests. In the New Testament two different Greek words are translated priesthood. One of these words means the priestly office; the other means a body or group of priests. In Exodus we have not only the office of a priest; we also have the corporate body of priests, the priesthood. If we would have the anointing of the compound Spirit, we must have God’s dwelling place and a corporate priesthood.