The Spirit anointed Jesus and was in the move of the man Jesus in His ministry to God on the earth (Mark 1:10, 12; Matt. 4:1; Luke 4:1, 18; John 1:32-33). After Jesus was baptized, the Spirit as a dove descended upon Him. In symbolic form, Jesus is the Lamb, and the Spirit is the dove. The Spirit as the dove came upon Jesus as the Lamb to carry out God's redemption and salvation for the accomplishing of God's economy.
Luke 4 says that the coming down of the dove upon the man Jesus was the anointing (vv. 1, 18). Jesus was anointed with the Spirit as a dove. This anointing made Jesus a particular man. In the Old Testament, a number of people were anointed with oil, and then the Spirit came down to reach the anointed one (Exo. 29:7; 1 Sam. 9:16; 16:12; 1 Kings 1:34; 19:15-16). But the anointed one was not anointed with the Spirit directly. In the New Testament, however, Jesus was anointed directly with the Spirit as a dove.
This anointing Spirit is not referred to as the Spirit of Jehovah or as the Spirit of God but simply as the Spirit. The reality and the essence of God's statuses in the Old Testament are implied in the Spirit. This means that this anointing Spirit was in God's status as the Creator and in His status as the One who was, who is, and who is to be. In the Old Testament the Spirit is God, the Spirit is Jehovah, and the Spirit is holiness. Jesus was anointed with such a Spirit who is God, who is Jehovah, and who is holiness.
After the baptism of Jesus, we see Him standing in the water, the Spirit coming down upon Him, and the Father speaking from the heavens. This is a picture of the Divine Trinity. The Father is in the heavens, the Son is on the earth in the water, and the Spirit is in the air. They are in three locations. This is mentioned in the first three, synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Matt. 3:16-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22). These Gospels deal mainly with the Lord's humanity.
But the fourth Gospel, the Gospel of John, deals mainly with the divinity of the Son of God. John shows that the three of the Divine Trinity are one. John 14:26 says that the Father sends the Spirit in the Son's name. But John 15:26 says that the Son sends the Spirit from the Father. The sense in the Greek for the word from here is actually from with. These verses indicate that the Father and the Son are one. They both sent the Spirit. Then when the Spirit came from the Father, He came with the Father. The Son also said that He was never alone, because the Father was always with Him (John 8:29; 16:32). This is mainly concerning His divinity.
The synoptic Gospels are mainly concerned with Christ's humanity. In these Gospels we see that God, Jehovah, who is the very holiness, came down upon the man Jesus as the Spirit to be one with this man. The anointing God is one with the anointed man. The dove was in the air. The Lamb was on the earth. But now here is one entity— the dove on the Lamb. The One in the air is now one with the One on the earth. God and man have become one, indicating a kind of organic union. The anointing Spirit and the man Jesus became one in His ministry. The Spirit was not only for the anointing of the man Jesus but also for the move of the man Jesus in His ministry to God for three and a half years on this earth.