Bible Question: what exactly is the annointing? |
Bible Answer: Maybe we should start with what it is not. (Part 1 of 2) The anointing is NOT... when you get a chill down your spine. The anointing is NOT... the volume of your voice when you preach, neither is it the gyrating and shaking of your body in a convulsive manner as if electric jolts have been administered to you with an unseen stun gun. The anointing is NOT... a mystical invisible cloud that floats around in the congregation, a forth person of the godhead, whose job it is to make people hoop and holler with laughter when it brushes by them. The anointing is NOT about a feeling, that sometimes you have when you are preaching something exceptionally enlightening from the scriptures and other times has left you on your own if you are having to suffer through a teaching on New Testament culture at the time of Christ on the various pottery produced to assist your audience in archaeological digs in and about the city of Bethlehem. If we look at the New Testament meaning of this word, (assuming that the use of the word in the New Testament will give insight into the shadow meaning of any oils and anointing in the priestly service) we find these scriptures to be somewhat cornerstones of doctrinal truths concerning the idea of Holy Spirit anointing. Luke 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, Acts 10:38 How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. Hebrews 1:9 Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. 2 Corinthians 1:21-22 Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God; Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. 1 John 2:27 But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him. These all tell us that the Anointing that we speak of when we speak of a preacher being Anointed is that of a call and an equipping by God through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not leave the preacher, (or saint for we are all called to be anointed) the anointed abides with us John says. It does not come and go. (part 2 continued on next post) |