The Anointing and Holy Spirit Baptism

by M.W. Bassett
Pastor, Life Tabernacle UPC, Milford, CT.

There is no greater promise known to man today than the wonderful Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Not only is this experience and miracle a fulfillment and climax of many centuries of God's unfolding revelation of His salvation: this spiritual transformation and regeneration of Pentecost is a principle component of the New Birth.

It is important that the church both understand and teach the Biblical perspective of doctrine, from the Apostolic perspective and using Apostolic terms. A good understanding of the message of salvation is essential to evangelism, but of equal or greater importance is for each child of God to understand the elements of his own salvation. Abiding in the word of God ensures our remaining and bearing fruit.

From time to time, some have asserted various ideas that seem to detract from and distort the Biblical doctrine of the New Birth. One movement has put much emphasis on the Biblical term "Anointing", improperly unifying and consolidating all its uses to the detriment of good doctrine.

Upon examining this issue, we will find that it involves a number of very significant truths.

Anointing - what is it ?

Good ecclesiology, the study of the Church, is intimately related to and has its roots in, Christology, the study of Christ. Though it will be covered at length later on, the term Christ really means anointed. When the nature and life of Jesus Christ are studied, that study has direct implications regarding the nature of the Church, since the Church is divinely born of the nature of God through the second Adam. It is also profoundly true that our understanding of the nature of Jesus, specifically the relationship of His human and divine natures will directly affect our understanding the nature of the church, its inception with the New Birth, its enduring power in Christian victory, and its future.

Anointing! This awesome and important term seems to leap from so many diverse areas of the scripture. It is difficult to find a perfect entry point for studying the subject in a brief space. Let's rather examine a few statements that might be heard commonly, regarding the anointing.

  • Anointing occurred at the Jordan
  • The Holy Spirit descended at the Jordan
  • The Holy Spirit (anointing) is given for empowerment of divine purpose in the operation of ministry
  • The Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost

Given these ideas, a number of inferences are made and become assertions:

Since the Spirit of God is divinity …

  • Jesus was empowered for ministry at the Jordan, Christians are to be empowered in the same way
  • Christians become "sons of God" through imparting the divine nature (2Peter 1:4, Heb 6:4, 12:10), and therefore some say, "similarly Divinity was conveyed to Jesus at the Jordan."

Except for the last statement, these conclusions are not problematic, for it is true that God's power and nature is to live in us. We will return to the problem areas but first let's examine the basis for an understanding of the anointing.

God's power is indeed supposed to dwell in Christians, by the very plan of God. We could go so far as to say that, unless the power of God dwelling and being demonstrated in them, they are not Christians. After all Christian means, "follower of Christ, or Christ-like".

This wonderful aspect of the plan of God is troublesome to the world which lives bound by the limitations of carnal mind, and looking squarely at the blight of condemnation. Religious tradition lacking the illumination of spiritual experience has always placed much emphasis on distinguishing the deity from sinful humanity, and rightly so. However, without the knowledge of a life-changing experience, and a true understanding of God's means of bridging the spiritual and physical gap between God and his beloved but lost offspring, religion places God in a distant and unreachable place. Ancient Trinitarianism, conveying Jesus as the "second person of the godhead" reflects this in its religious art of bygone centuries where Jesus appears behind a window, and often is recalled standing near another figure in distant clouds, with Stephen's vision as the model.

For the diligently religious, who do not preach or experience the transforming power of the Holy Ghost, Stephen's vision is a natural choice of models, for it depicts man saved by faith in a righteous God whose power will not intervene to save him in his immediate perils. With the many spiritual upheavals of the 20th century, a general understanding seems to have settled upon the religious world. Of necessity, God must be a NOW God, and a NEAR God, if not also a HERE God. In today's spiritual climate, thankfully, it is not acceptable to suggest that all must leave this world with as little present response from God to their own faith, as Stephen experienced.

So, the charismatic movements as well as traditional Pentecostals properly and rightly point to the immediate existential experience and power promised by the Lord Jesus Christ. Today, when Christians read the words: "But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me … (Acts 1:8), they do not accept an accompanying disclaimer which removes the impact and tangible reality from the power. The words "… He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do…" (John 14:12) are read literally and no excuses or exemptions are allowed or desired. It is widely believed that Christians should display not only the character attributes, but the supernatural power that Jesus did in the pages of scripture.

Seekers of God today rightly bypass the ordinary and intellectually oriented tradition of Christendom seeking to find fulfillment of what they read of the Bible. In lively spiritual atmospheres, powers attributed to Deity are exercised by its adherents. It is in these atmospheres where there is a need to carefully apply the word of God to help us from becoming unbalanced, giving heed to wrong and destructive ideas due to careless disregard for the Word of God.

Throughout the scripture, the Bible makes reference to the power of God being applied directly to the mortal man, thereby changing the individual, and drastically altering the way in which he relates to the world and other humanity. This imparting of divine substance and power, or unction, is often referred to as anointing in both Old and New Testaments. For example, Saul was selected by God to be King of Israel. Accordingly, an anointing was performed:

Then Samuel took a vial of oil, and poured it upon his head, and kissed him, and said, Is it not because the LORD hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance? - 1 Sam 10:1

Seeking the Hebrew root of "anoint", From Browns-Driver-Briggs

4886 mashach- to smear, to anoint, to spread a liquid

  • a) (Qal)
    • 1) to smear
    • 2) to anoint (as consecration)
    • 3) to anoint, to consecrate
  • b) (Niphal) to be anointed

Forty-two times in the Old Testament, the verb takes the form of a noun as "the anointed", or as it is expressed in Daniel, Messiah. Readers unfamiliar with Hebrew may not be aware, but each time the term is read from the Old Testament pertaining to one who is anointed of God, it is pronounced mashiyak, or as anglicized, messiah. This is the term used by David to explain why he would not meddle with Saul, the Lord's anointed.

The New Testament teaches us that the elements of the Old Testament were shadows of spiritual things. We therefore understand that the anointing shown here and many, many times through the activities of God's priests and prophets, were reflections of a spiritual reality transcending the oil used by the priest. When a lamb was sacrificed unto the Lord by priests following the pattern showed them by instruction of God through Moses, it represented, in various ways, the coming Savior who would die on Calvary. When oil was used to anoint, it also represented a greater spiritual reality to be revealed in time to come.

The word is also used to denote both physical and spiritual transmission in the New Testament though the English word anoint derives from two distinct words in the Greek.

The word ailepho is used for anoint where ever an actual physical rubbing of oil or ointment occurs, as in James 5:14 or John 11:2. In the New Testament however, a new word appears which is used exclusively for spiritual anointing. Chrio is never used to refer to the rubbing of actual oil, but appears to be related to another word, chraomai, meaning to supply or furnish a need.

Is spiritual anointing a part of the plan of God regarding humanity? Absolutely! When God wanted to illustrate how God could magnify and use man in a way demonstrating God's love for man, Jesus Christ was spotlighted on the stage of time. Describing the transformation allowing Jesus, the incarnate God, to live as a man while doing the powerful works of deity, the Apostle writes:

How God anointed (chrio) 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. - Acts 10:38

This experience is not unique to the only begotten Son of God, as the following scripture demonstrates:

"Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed [chrio] us, is God;" - 2 Cor 1:21

From chrio comes the term chrisma, from which come the sacristic term chrismate, and the popular description of those who demonstrate spiritual phenomenon in their lives, charismatic. Since chrismate relates to the literal smearing or sprinkling of oil by clergy, it appears to be wrongly derived, for the scriptures use of this root pertains to the anointing of man by God, never with material substance, but spiritually, by the hand of God.

Since we have determined that God uses an anointing to covey power, and know from Bible doctrine that the power which God provides to transform humanity (as illustrated in the sublime example, Jesus) is the Holy Ghost, we can say assuredly, God anoints with the Holy Spirit. Indeed, most Bible scholars agree that the symbol of oil used throughout the Old and New Testaments does represent the Holy Spirit of God.

When God had the priesthood anointed with oil by Moses, and then other priests anointed by the priesthood, it anticipated the day in which God would anoint (separate, consecrate, and empower) to himself a "royal priesthood" by means of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. (see 2 Peter 2:9)

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