“let your soul delight itself in abundance” (Isa. 55:2, NKJV)
We are currently discussing the unfolding of the spirit of Elijah WITHIN us, and in the process we are slowly coming to an understanding of how mantles come into being, and empower believers to do what God has called them to do. We use Elijah as prototype to understand the process of his mantle formation, and the authority that springs forth from that.
From Elijah’s interaction with the widow of Sidon we became aware that flour and oil is of great typological importance for the New Testament believer, and in the previous teaching we specifically looked at the meaning of the flour. Now we are going to look at the symbolic meaning of oil.
In Biblical times oil mainly derived from the fruit of the olive tree, and had a multiplicity of uses. It was used in food (Ezek. 16:13); applied to the body (Deut. 28:40); had medicinal uses (Isa. 1:6); and as oil for lamps (Ex. 25:6). It was a traded object with commodity value (1 Kings 5:11; Ezek. 27:17), and was used as part of certain sacrifices (Lev. 7:10). It was also used in anointing procedures, as in the case of the anointing of priests (Ex. 29:7) and kings (2 Sam. 2:4).
The holy anointing oil was an oil-based balm, mixed with other fragrant spices, according to what the Lord had stipulated (Ex. 30:22-25). The fattiness of the oil (Judg. 9:9) was an indication of God’s favour (Ps. 65:11) in the land and in its people (Gen. 45:18), and which satisfied the soul (Ps. 63:5). In Isa. 10:27 it is used symbolically to point out that it breaks yokes: “It shall come to pass in that day that his burden will be taken away from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck, and the yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing oil.” This practice is then also carried over symbolically to the New Testament (Rom. 11:17).
When the Old Testament prophesies about the coming Messiah, his distinguishing feature is that He takes up his position of authority through anointing. Isa. 61:1 becomes the first prophetic proclamation of the Messiah: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me …” Please note: the anointing came before the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, not the other way around, as we have often been taught. The salvation is NOT the Holy Spirit, just as the Holy Spirit is not merely the anointing. Selah.
The anointing is very specifically linked to Him as Anointed (the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word for Messiah). It thus has nothing to do with physical oil, except that it is a symbol of how the Anointed’s fattiness, his characteristic nature, drips onto you. This is obviously because the Spirit is WITHIN Him, remember – “the Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17). The Holy Spirit is typologically compared with, for instance, wind (John 3:8), or water (John 7:37-39), but not with oil! This anointing is specifically the anointing of Christ, the Anointed! The problem the five foolish virgins (Matt 25:1-12) ran into was thus not that they did not have the Holy Spirit (everything points to the fact that they did indeed), but that they did not have the anointing.
- Selah: Try to define anointing.
- Read: 1:1-3:36.
- Memorise: 3:22-23.
