October 12, 2020
The Holy Ointment – Part 2
Exodus 30:22-33
It was unique. The Jews were forbidden to make its like. It was to be neither imitated nor profaned. Its ingredients and their amounts are given. It all speaks of Christ. First, we have the myrrh. It points to the passion of Christ. Myrrh was a resinous gum derived from a tree of the terebinth family. It grows in the dry desert wastes of Arabia. The myrrh, used in making the anointing oil, is described as “pure” myrrh. The Hebrew word for “pure” is said to describe the swallow, darting in the sky. The Lord Jesus, in His life, was as free as the birds of the air. Christs death was voluntary. His death was like the free-flowing myrrh. Myrrh was obtained by incisions made in the tree. It was used at weddings and funerals. It added fragrance to life’s gladdest and saddest hours. Five hundred shekels by weight was the contribution of the myrrh to the anointing oil. That amounted to one third of the total weight of the whole. The same is true of the four Gospels also. The heavy emphasis, in all of them, is the death of Christ. John’s gospel, for instance, devotes about half of its space to the events of the last week of our Lord, to the events, that is, connected with His death.
The next two ingredients were sweet cinnamon and sweet calamus. They point to the Person of Christ. It took two ingredients to depict the Person of Christ because Christ united two natures in His being, the human and divine. He was both God and man. Cinnamon comes from an evergreen tree of the laurel family. The inner bark yields a light brown spice. In olden times it was more valuable than gold. The Lord in His Person was like that—an evergreen! He was the “blessed man” of the first psalm. “His leaf also shall not wither,” the psalmist said (v. 3). He was the God-man of Philippians 2:5—11. Death itself could not overcome Him. When the time came, He laid down His life Himself. He dismissed His Spirit Himself.
The calamus was a reed, pointing to the sky, a species of tall grass— depicting the fragrant humanity of Christ. He grew up as a tender plant, rooted to earth but pointing to the sky. The plant had to be crushed before its full fragrance could be obtained. The holy anointing oil called for two hundred fifty shekels of cinnamon and the same amount of calamus. The deity and humanity were perfectly balanced in the Person of Christ.
The cassia points to the perfection of Christ. It belonged to the same family as the cinnamon. A full five hundred shekel measure of cassia was required. The cassia reminds us of the Lord Jesus as He is presented in the typology of Scripture. The prophetic Psalm 45 said of Him: “All thy garments smell of . . . cassia” (v. 8). This plant grows where others die. It was used to blend all the other ingredients of the holy ointment.
Oh, the pungency of the holiness and perfection of Christ. Bullying Pilate himself was overwhelmed by it. It threw wicked Herod into sharp reaction and open ridicule. It was strong enough to conquer the grave.
But the ointment, with all its pungent ingredients, needed one more thing—oil. The oil points to the position of Christ as the Anointed Once. The oil speaks of the Holy Spirit. The oil took all these various fragrant excellences of the Lord Jesus (symbolized by the myrrh, the cinnamon, the calamus, and the cassia) and blended them together. It was the Holy Spirit who took the various excellences of Christ—His passion, His Person (both human and divine), His perfection—and transformed them from a collection of superlatives into one glorious, breathtaking whole and blended them into one inimitable fragrance.
One of the Lord’s most eloquent titles was “the Christ,” the Anointed One. He is God’s anointed Priest. He ministers thus in heaven, filling that glorious place with the pervading fragrance of His presence. He is God’s anointed Prophet. Truly, no man spoke like this man. And He is God’s anointed King, coming soon to restore Edenic conditions to this world.
In the meantime, He anoints His own. Nobody was allowed to imitate that ointment, but God was willing to share it with us. Nobody can imitate the life of Christ. But we may have His fragrance shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.
100 Devotions for Leaders – 2008 by John Phillips – Published by Regal Publications Grand Rapids, Michigan
Pastor Lee’s Thoughts: This is such an amazing depiction of Christ and who is to us! I cannot not even begin to add to this devotion, it is written with such elegance! May my view of Christ change today knowing the fragrance of His Mercy and Love is bestowed upon me and I have a responsibility to be a shining light to this dark world. This is what the world needs to hear, of the amazing splendor of our Lord!