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Scripture Reading: Exo. 30:23-33; 2 Cor. 1:21-22
We want to have more fellowship concerning how we can grow so that the church might be built up. The way is by the anointing of the compound Spirit, typified by the compound ointment in Exodus 30.
We have seen that all the parts of the tabernacle with all its contents were not holy until they were anointed (Exo. 30:26-29). The anointing was the factor that made the entire tabernacle holy. This anointing sanctified the whole dwelling place of God. The word sanctify means to join something with God, to make something have the divine essence and nature of God.
To be sanctified is not to be sinlessly perfect, nor is it to be merely separated and changed in our position. Strictly speaking, to be sanctified means to be joined to God. Of course, if we are joined to God, we are separated. But this attachment to God is not only a change in position but also a change in disposition. By being sanctified, our whole being is mingled with the divine, holy essence and transformed.
Romans 1:4 speaks of “the Spirit of holiness.” Wuest’s translation uses “divine essence” instead of “the Spirit of holiness.” Thus, holiness is the divine essence of God’s being. To be sanctified is to be joined, to be attached, to the divine essence. To be sanctified is to be made one with God and to make God one with us. This sanctification is carried out by the anointing Spirit, who anoints us with the divine essence of God.
We have seen from Exodus 30 that the compound ointment typifies the compound Spirit. The Spirit today is a compound. In the previous chapter we saw all the ingredients of the compound ointment, which typify the ingredients of today’s compound Spirit, who is anointing us all the time. The humanity and divinity of Christ, His death with its effectiveness, and His resurrection with its power have been compounded into the Spirit. The ability to bear responsibility and the building element are also elements of the compound Spirit. This is the bountiful Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19). All the elements of Christ’s person and work have been put into this one Spirit, the compound Spirit.
All the priests as well as the entire tabernacle with all its parts were under the anointing of the compound ointment. Without this anointing, none of them could have been holy; that is, none of them could have been attached to God, joined to God. God’s divine essence would have had nothing to do with any part of the tabernacle or with any one of the priests if they had not been anointed. This means that under the anointing of the compound Spirit, there is the dwelling place of God, the church life, the priesthood, and the real serving body.
We have to see that the Spirit is no longer the Spirit of God possessing merely divinity; the Spirit today is the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the compound Spirit typified by the compound ointment. The compound ointment in Exodus 30 is the holy anointing oil. To be holy is to be one with God. Regardless of how perfect you are, if you are not one with God and if God is not one with you, you are not holy.
What we need today in the church life is the anointing of the holy anointing oil, the compound Spirit. We can never build up a proper church life by teachings. Many years ago when people came to me with questions and problems, I was able to give them an answer. Today I have only one thing to say: “Go to the Lord and ask Him.” Many years ago I taught people how to take care of their children, but that teaching did not work. Teaching does not work. If you teach me to be humble again and again, I can never be humble. The more teaching I get about being humble, the prouder I will become. I could give you the best teaching on how we need to love one another, but eventually we will argue with one another. Teaching stirs up the thinking of the mentality, the exercise of the mind. It does not minister life to people. What we need today is not teaching but the anointing.
Every part of the tabernacle had to be anointed. It would have been foolish to teach the parts of the tabernacle to be holy. They did not need teaching to be holy. They needed something to make them holy. As the New Testament dwelling place of God, we also need something to make us holy — the compound Spirit. Do not teach me; instead, pour the compound Spirit upon me. Then even though I may not know the teaching of holiness, I am really holy. What we need is the reality, not the empty teaching. We need the reality of brotherly love, not the teaching. We need the essence of love, not the mere terminology of love. What we need today is to be anointed with God’s essence by the anointing of the compound Spirit.
The book of Romans speaks of sanctification, transformation, conformation, and glorification. All of these are carried out by the anointing of the Spirit, and the Spirit is Christ Himself (2 Cor. 3:17). Some may ask, “Where is Christ?” Romans 10 says that there is no need to go to the heavens to bring Christ down or to go to the abyss to bring Christ up (vv. 6-7). Christ as the word is in our mouth (v. 8). He has become the living word, the Spirit, to be in our mouth like the air, the breath, that can be taken into our being. Christ today is the compound air, the life-giving Spirit, and we have to breathe Him in.
Romans 10 tells us the way to breathe Him in, that is, by calling on the name of the Lord. Verse 12 says that He is rich to all who call upon Him. In order to participate in the Lord’s riches, we have to call upon Him day and night.
According to the priestly service in the tabernacle, the priests had to light the lamp and then burn the incense (Exo. 30:7). The lamp signifies the Word (Psa. 119:105), and the incense signifies prayer (141:2). Whenever we come to light the lamp, we have to offer the incense. This shows that whenever we touch the Word, we have to pray. Praying should never be separated from dealing with the Word. Dealing with the Word needs the real praying. To light the lamp, we need to burn the incense.
The simplest way to pray is to call upon the name of the Lord. When we call on the name of the Lord, we get His person, and His person is the compound Spirit with all the ingredients of Christ’s being and work. If we mingle our reading of the Word with calling on the Lord’s name in prayer, we will be anointed with the compound Spirit, and spontaneously we will become holy.
Today what we need is not the teachings but the anointing. Every part of the church life needs to be anointed. This is why we have to call on the name of the Lord. The more we call on the name of the Lord, the more we are anointed with Him as the compound Spirit. Under this anointing we have the reality of the tent of meeting, the tabernacle, and the priesthood.
We have to turn away from the doctrinal teachings and cleave ourselves to calling upon the name of the Lord so that we may be anointed. We have to be renewed and revolutionized. The anointing is always fresh, but the teachings are always old. We need to be freshly anointed with the Spirit continually by calling on the name of the Lord all day.
By this anointing we are sealed with the Spirit (2 Cor. 1:22). Actually, the anointing is the sealing. The seal is a mark that marks us out as God’s inheritance. How can people realize that we are people of God? It is only by the anointing, the sealing, of the compound Spirit. When we are under the continual anointing and sealing of the Spirit, we give others the impression that we are the people of God, that we belong to God. If you dye a white shirt again and again with blue dye, eventually everyone is clear that it is a blue shirt. Similarly, if we are anointed with the Spirit continually, everyone will be clear that we belong to God, because we will be His expression. How can we know that we are saved? The more we are anointed, the more we are sure that we are saved. We doubt our salvation because we have not been anointed that much. The more we are anointed, the more we have the mark of the Spirit as the living seal, causing us to bear God’s image.
Furthermore, the more we are anointed, the more we receive the pledge, the guarantee, the enjoyment, the foretaste, of the Spirit (v. 22). When we enter into eternity in the New Jerusalem, we will completely and eternally enjoy the compound Spirit. Today we have the pledge, the guarantee, the foretaste, of this Spirit.
If we are going to have a proper church life, to be built up together, and to serve the Lord as the priesthood, we need the anointing. Every part of the church life and everyone in the church life has to be anointed. We cannot have the building or the priesthood without being anointed. When we are under the anointing of the compound Spirit, we have the priesthood and the service in the Body. The way to be anointed is to call upon the name of the Lord continuously. The result is the building up of the tent of meeting, the dwelling place of God, and the priesthood in today’s church life.
