Message 159
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Scripture Reading: Exo. 30:22-33
When I was young, I heard many messages from the book of Exodus. I often heard about the Passover lamb and the manna, and I heard a few messages about the living water. However, I did not hear anything concerning the compound spirit.
The children of Israel stayed at Mount Sinai to receive the law and the ordinances and then to receive the revelation of the tabernacle. Some teachers pointed out that the law was given as God’s test of His people. God did not intend that the children of Israel would keep the law. But because of their ignorance, it was necessary for Him to give it to them. Therefore, God tested the children of Israel by giving them the law. Immediately after the decree of the law, God gave Moses the revelation of the tabernacle. These teachers pointed out that this revelation is a matter of grace. John 1:17 says, “For the law was given through Moses; grace and reality came through Jesus Christ.” Jesus Christ is the reality of the tabernacle. When this tabernacle came, grace came. Some teachers had light concerning this; however, their experience was limited. Because they were short of experience, they could not properly understand the compound ointment in Exodus 30.
Experience is not necessary simply to teach the tabernacle doctrinally as a type of Christ. As long as we have objective light, we can teach this type in a doctrinal way. But to touch the real significance of the compound ointment in our teaching requires spiritual experience. Because the teachers were lacking in experience, they did not know the compound ointment.
Bible teachers have pointed out that the oil in Exodus 30, as elsewhere in the Old Testament, typifies the Spirit of God. Some have even taught that the oil poured by Jacob on the stone in Genesis 28 signifies the Spirit poured upon God’s chosen people. But although these teachers of the Bible have seen the significance of the oil, they have not seen the significance of the ointment.
The ointment in Exodus 30 is a compound. However, in itself, oil is not a compound, but rather a single element without any other ingredients. The ointment was a compound formed by blending four spices with olive oil. This compound ointment can be compared to paint. Paint is a compound containing more than one element. The same is true of the holy anointing oil in Exodus 30.
C. A. Coates has much to say concerning the Spirit in his writing on Exodus 30. He devotes nearly three pages to the ointment and the incense. In this section of his writing he uses the terms the Spirit of Christ or the Spirit twenty-one times. He does not speak of the Spirit as the Holy Spirit or as the Spirit of God. Once he speaks of the Spirit of the Man of God’s pleasure. He indicates that the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of the Man of God’s pleasure. Coates also speaks of the Spirit of another Man, even the Man sitting on the right hand of God.
C. A. Coates says that the four spices “represent all those features of grace which were so perfectly blended and harmonized in the Spirit of Christ.” This indicates that Coates realized something concerning the blending of the spices with the olive oil. However, he does not say what are the features of grace that are blended in the Spirit of Christ. Regarding this, he did not have light. He did not see that myrrh signifies the all-inclusive death of Christ and that cinnamon signifies the effectiveness of Christ’s death. Furthermore, he did not see that calamus, rising up out of a muddy situation and shooting into the air, is a symbol of Christ’s resurrection, and that cassia, a substance that repels insects and snakes, typifies the power of Christ’s resurrection.
The sequence of the four spices is significant: myrrh, cinnamon, calamus, and cassia. Furthermore, here we can see three complete units of five hundred shekels. There were five hundred shekels of myrrh and five hundred shekels of cassia. Here we have two complete units. But there were two hundred fifty shekels each of cinnamon and calamus. Together these half units make another complete unit. It is significant that it is the second unit that is split into two parts. This is at least an indication that the Second of the Trinity was split into two parts on the cross. Therefore, with the ingredients of the holy anointing oil and the measurements, we have symbols of the death and resurrection of Christ. Moreover, in the spices we also see the effectiveness of Christ’s death and the power of His resurrection.
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.
The five elements of the anointing oil — the four spices and the olive oil — all had to pass through a process that involved either pressure or cutting. For instance, if olives are not put into the press, they cannot give forth olive oil. Likewise, in order to have myrrh and cinnamon, some kind of incision must be made on the bark of a tree. Someone has said that when a tree flows out the resin of myrrh, this resin has the appearance of tears. This points to an experience of suffering. The blood and tears that issue from our body also are signs of suffering. When the myrrh tree flows out its resin, we may say that it is shedding tears.
As we pointed out in a previous message, cinnamon comes from the inner part of the bark of a tree, and cassia comes from the outer part of the bark. Cinnamon can be used to stimulate the heart, and cassia, to repel insects and snakes.
All the spices were prepared for use through suffering. This indicates that the Spirit of God could become the Spirit of Christ as the compound ointment only through Christ’s sufferings. Actually, the compounding is the suffering. It was through the sufferings of Christ that the spices were blended with the oil to form the compound Spirit.
The Lord Jesus suffered death throughout His life, not only during the six hours He was on the cross. As soon as He was born, He began to suffer. This suffering is signified by myrrh. In the past we have pointed out that the Lord Jesus lived a crucified life. A crucified life is a life of suffering. The Lord Jesus was crucified continually. He was crucified by His mother, by His brothers in the flesh, and by His disciples. Daily He lived a life of crucifixion. This is the experience of myrrh dropping as tears from cuts made in the tree.
After the Lord Jesus was born, the magi expressed their appreciation of Him by offering Him gold, frankincense, and myrrh. At the time of His death, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea also showed their appreciation of the Lord by putting myrrh upon His body when they buried Him. Therefore, at the beginning of the Lord’s life on earth and at the end, at His birth and at His death, there was myrrh. This indicates that the Lord’s life from birth to death was a life of suffering, a life of tears. He lived a crucified life, a life of myrrh.
We need to learn how to apply the myrrh in our experience. Where is the death of Christ today, and how can we apply it? The death of Christ is in the Spirit. In our language the word “spirit” in a particular usage can mean the essence of a substance as extracted in liquid form, especially by distillation. Therefore, the extract of a particular substance is the spirit of that substance. For example, alcoholic beverages made from extracts of grains are known as spirits. Likewise, the aloes used with myrrh to anoint the body of the Lord Jesus for burial may also be regarded as a kind of spirit. When a plant, a grain, or some other substance is subjected to pressure, we can extract from it the spirit of that substance. We can apply this principle to the Lord’s death and ask this question: What is the extract of the death of Christ? The answer is that the extract of the Lord’s death is an element in the Spirit of Christ. The real essence or element of any substance is its spirit. For example, when we drink tea, we actually drink the spirit, the extract, of the tea. The effectiveness of the tea is in this extract or spirit. In like manner, the effectiveness of Christ’s death is one of the elements of the compound Spirit.
In speaking concerning the subjective experience of the cross of Christ, Jessie Penn-Lewis emphasized the Spirit. In her writings she has much to say about the Spirit. A. B. Simpson also saw something regarding the subjective aspect of the death of Christ. However, with respect to the subjective experience of the cross, he did not emphasize the Spirit as much as Jessie Penn-Lewis did. A. B. Simpson’s presentation is good doctrinally, but it is not so helpful experientially. Concerning our identification with Christ in His death, A. B. Simpson emphasized the matter of reckoning. He even wrote a hymn on the subject of reckoning.
Brother Watchman Nee pointed out that if we would experience the death of Christ, we need the Spirit. He also said that the fact revealed in Romans 6 that our old man has been crucified with Christ can only be experienced through the Spirit in Romans 8. In other words, apart from the Spirit we cannot experience the death of Christ. The fact of our identification with Christ in His death is in Romans 6, but the experience of this is in Romans 8.
In Romans 8 there are at least four terms used to describe the Spirit: the Spirit of life, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from among the dead. The aspect of the Spirit in Romans 8 that is most crucial is not the Spirit of God, the Spirit of life, or the Spirit of the One who raised Christ from among the dead. The crucial aspect in this chapter is the Spirit of Christ.
The title Christ includes incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension. Christ is the anointed One. As God’s anointed One, Christ passed through birth, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Today the Spirit of Christ contains the extract of His death, resurrection, and ascension. It even contains the extract of His birth and human living. Therefore, the Spirit of Christ is the Spirit, the extract, of Christ’s birth, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension. We have seen that the spirit of a substance is the extract of that substance. Applying this principle to the Spirit of Christ, we may say that the extracts of Christ’s birth, living, death, resurrection, and ascension are now all elements of the Spirit of Christ. Therefore, in this one Spirit we have the effectiveness of Christ’s birth, living, death, resurrection, and ascension.
It is only through experience that we can have this understanding of the Spirit of Christ. When we walk according to spirit, we have Christ’s incarnation and His human living. We do not have merely an imitation of the way Christ lived. Furthermore, we also have His death, resurrection, and ascension.
Apart from the Spirit of Christ, we cannot have the experience of being seated with Christ in the heavens (Eph. 2:5-6). Some Bible teachers present Ephesians 2:5-6 merely as a doctrine. They claim that being seated with Christ in the heavenlies is a positional matter and that we should simply take the fact by faith. However, when we believe as a matter of position that we are seated with Christ in the heavens, nothing happens. This is not the way Paul teaches. According to Paul’s teaching, the extract of Christ’s ascension is included in the Spirit of Christ. In the Spirit we have the experience of sitting with Christ in the heavens.
Most of today’s Christians are lacking in spiritual experience. In His recovery, however, the Lord is going on. We cannot deny that, by His mercy and grace, we have learned much concerning the Spirit throughout the years. We received light doctrinally from other Bible teachers. From experience we have learned that reckoning and taking our position by faith do not work. Some teachers of the Word claim that what we need to do is take the accomplished facts by faith. According to this understanding, we should not do anything except believe the facts. I practiced this, but it did not work. The more I tried to believe the facts, the more dead I became. I did not experience any of the divine stimulation. However, I can testify that when I prayed and contacted the Spirit, I did experience the Lord’s stimulation.
In the past centuries a number of saints experienced the Spirit, even though they had not been enlightened concerning the compound Spirit. When they prayed, they were stimulated by the Spirit and spontaneously experienced the element of the death of Christ included in the Spirit. They experienced this because they prayed themselves into the Spirit. Because they were in the Spirit, they experienced the extract of the death of Christ contained in the Spirit of Christ. There was no need for them to reckon themselves dead, and it was not necessary for them to take the position by faith. Simply by being in the Spirit, they experienced the effectiveness of the death of Christ.
Today we also need to experience the effectiveness of Christ’s death in a practical way. When we are in the Spirit experiencing the extract of Christ’s death, our flesh, our temper, and our natural disposition are put to death. Furthermore, our natural goodness is terminated. We even come to hate this natural goodness because we realize that it is something derived from our natural birth. After praying and contacting the Spirit, we realize that God does not want anything that has its source in our natural life. Natural goodness is an imitation of the Spirit.
When I was in China, I was bothered by the fact that the behavior of many disciples of Confucius was better than that of many Christians. These disciples of Confucius were patient, kind, sympathetic, and helpful. However, all that good behavior was natural. It had nothing to do with the Spirit.
The majority of Christians live a life of imitation. Unbelievers can also be kind, humble, patient, and helpful. This certainly has nothing to do with the Spirit. If we Christians live like this, we are making an imitation of the ointment, something that is strictly forbidden in Exodus 30. Nevertheless, in many religious gatherings, Christians are taught and encouraged to live a life of imitation. They are urged to be kind, loving, and honest, all without Christ and without the Spirit. This is an abomination in the sight of God. It is possible that we may practice the same thing. If we do not see the matter of the compound Spirit, in our daily living we may be the same as those who imitate the Spirit.
The disciples of Confucius practice his ethical teachings. They claim that they have been taught by Confucius and they respect him. This is an aspect of Oriental culture. But in the West something very similar is practiced under the name of Christ and in the atmosphere of Bible teaching. In both cases, people behave in a natural way. The culture of the West has been influenced by the Bible, in much the same way as the culture of China has been influenced by the ethical teachings of Confucius. This means that the teachings of Confucius exert a moral influence in China and that the teachings of the Bible exert a moral influence on western culture. If we live according to this influence, we shall have an imitation of the Spirit.
Actually, every kind of living that is according to ethics is artificial. People may act patient, but this patience is artificial. There are artificial flowers, and there are real flowers. Because real flowers are organic, they live and grow. In these flowers, there is the element of life. Artificial flowers may have the same color, shape, and appearance as real flowers, but they do not contain the element of life. Certain Christians and certain disciples of Confucius may behave in a way that is humble, patient, and loving. Their humility, patience, and love outwardly may seem to be the same as the fruit of the Spirit described in Galatians 5. However, the fruit of the Spirit is organic and full of life. But good natural behavior according to ethics is a dead work. It does not have anything of life. Those who live according to the ethics of Confucius have dead works. Then what about those Christians who imitate the Spirit by living according to their natural goodness? In their case also there is a kind of living that is artificial and lifeless, an imitation of the compound Spirit.
We should not take this word concerning the compound Spirit merely as a doctrine. Rather, we need to understand it in an experiential way and learn to apply it in a practical way.
