The anointing is another mysterious matter revealed in John’s first Epistle. In previous messages we have covered the matters of life, fellowship, and mutual abiding. Now we come to the anointing, which John tells us we have received (1 John 2:27). The word itself is a verbal noun and is used metaphorically.
To understand biblical metaphors we must look to the Old Testament. Because spiritual things are abstract and therefore hard to comprehend, God in the Old Testament used many pictures, shadows, and types to portray their meaning. This is a biblical principle we need to be aware of. The Spirit of God is a mystery. God is invisible. His Spirit is abstract. Thus, to portray Him oil is used as the visible type. When someone was anointed as king to rule over God’s people or as prophet to speak forth for God, he was anointed with oil. By this visible means the invisible Spirit of God was signified.
Another principle in the Bible is that of first mention. The first mentioning of a matter indicates the principle of that matter. When was oil first used for anointing? It was when Jacob was escaping from his brother and on his way to his uncle Laban’s (Gen. 28). At night he dreamed of a ladder reaching to heaven and heard God’s word of promise (vv. 11-15). Upon awaking, he “took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Beth-el” (vv. 18-19). Bethel means the house of God. The oil poured upon the stone, then, is related to God’s house. When a thing is anointed with oil, it is associated with the building of God’s house.
When the children of Israel were led out of Egypt and brought to Mount Sinai, they received the vision of the tabernacle and how it was to be built. Then in Exodus 30, when the tabernacle was almost ready to be built, God told Moses how to prepare the anointing ointment. This ointment was to be used to anoint the whole tabernacle, as well as the furniture, the utensils, and the priests. The purpose of this anointing was the maintaining of the house of God on earth.
God charged Moses to make a compound ointment. He was not to use olive oil alone; four spices were to be compounded with it, making the oil an ointment. Bible students generally recognize that the oil is a type of the Holy Spirit. How can we explain, though, these four spices which were added? Why was there a need for the oil to be compounded with them?
These are the four spices in the anointing ointment, together with the amount and their meaning:
| Myrrh | 500 shekels | death |
| Cinnamon | 250 shekels | sweetness and strength of Christ’s death |
| Calamus | 250 shekels | resurrection |
| Cassia | 500 shekels | power of Christ’s resurrection |
Myrrh in biblical typology is commonly known to signify death. Cinnamon, a flavorful spice still used in cooking, speaks of the sweetness and strength of the death of Christ. Calamus, a reed that grows out of the mud high into the air, is a picture of resurrection. Cassia, which was used in ancient times as a repellent especially for snakes, signifies the power of resurrection.
All these spices are compounded into the anointing ointment; that is to say, to the Spirit of God are added the death of Christ, the sweetness and strength of that death, His resurrection, and the power of that resurrection.
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