The proportions of the spices used is also meaningful. The ointment had five hundred shekels each of myrrh and cassia, the first and last spices listed, and two hundred fifty each of cinnamon and calamus, the middle two spices.
First let us consider the number five hundred. Five in the Bible means responsibility; it is composed of four plus one. Four, like the four fingers of our hand, signifies the creature; one, like the thumb, signifies the unique Creator. By this arrangement of our fingers and the thumb, our hand is able to carry out what needs to be done. Four plus one means man plus God, or responsibility. With the number five hundred, we have responsibility increased a hundredfold. Myrrh and cassia, then, each form a unit of five hundred.
Cinnamon and calamus, the middle spices, are only a half unit each, two hundred fifty shekels. The two of them together form a unit. Why is this second unit split? All these spices, in three units of five hundred, signify the Triune God, the Second of whom was split when He was crucified. The first half is connected with His death, the second to His resurrection.
The number of spices was four, the human number. The measure of the spices was three units, the divine number. All these four are mingled with one hin of oil, again giving us four plus one, or five, the number of responsibility.
After this compound ointment was made, it was used to anoint both the tabernacle and the priests. This ointment, then, was mainly for God’s building and for His service. We are God’s dwelling place and also His priests. This anointing is for us! The anointing in Exodus 30 corresponds exactly to the anointing in 1 John 2.
The numbers most used in the compounding of the anointing ointment are three and five, both of which relate to God’s building. His first building was Noah’s ark, the measurements of which are mostly multiples of three and five. It was three hundred cubits long, thirty cubits high, and fifty cubits wide (Gen. 6:15). It was of three stories (v. 16).
Three and five are also the basic units of the tabernacle. Consider these dimensions or amounts:
(1) The altar 5 x 5 x 3 (Exo. 38:1)
(2) The ark 2 x 1 x 1 (Exo. 37:1)
(3) Sections 3 (outer court, inner court, Holy of Holies)
(4) Boards 10 x 1 (Exo. 36:21)
(5) Length of tabernacle 30
(6) Curtain loops 50 (Exo. 36:17)
(7) Brass taches 50 (Exo. 36:18).
Notice how all these measurements are either three or five, or are multiples or halves of three or five. Every single measurement is full of meaning, but for the present I would simply point out that these two numbers, which figure so prominently in the anointing ointment, are related to God’s building.
The anointing is the moving of the ointment. Its purpose is not for our individual spirituality but for the building and the priesthood, which are corporate.
As this ointment moves, the ingredients of which it is made will be applied to the very place where it moves. Christ’s divinity, humanity, death, and resurrection will be applied to your being. When you contact the Lord in a living way, the effectiveness of His death will be present. If you take antibiotics, they will kill the germs. There is no need for you to reckon that they are killed; the killing power is in the antibiotics, not in your reckoning. Besides the killing power, the anointing’s other rich ingredients will be applied and wrought into your being.
Suppose you have a bad temper. Surely from your experience you can testify that the only way to be rescued from it is to contact the living Lord. Within Him is a divine ingredient that kills the germs of your temper. By contacting the Lord, you are experiencing the application of the anointing to your temper.
How can we participate in this anointing? It is simply by abiding in the Lord. This means we must be always in touch with Him without any insulation. If we thus keep directly contacting Him, we shall experience the anointing applying the divine ingredients to our being. “Ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know all things.”
Day by day you will be transformed, not by following outward regulations but by having these divine ingredients added to you.
The anointing in 1 John 2 points directly to the anointing ointment in Exodus 30. When we consider the ingredients of this compound, we have to worship the Lord for such an accurate, unveiling picture. Our God has been compounded with all these wonderful ingredients. Because He has transferred us out of Adam and into Himself, we now have the position to abide in Him and let Him abide in us. If we thus keep ourselves attached to Him, we shall all the time be participating in what He is and what He has accomplished for us. By way of the anointing He will work Himself into us.
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