The Anointing in the New Testament
I could probably make good money if I wrote and sold books with names like, “The Secret to Getting a Stronger Anointing,” “Receive Your Double-Portion Anointing Now,” “How to Increase the Anointing in Your Life” and so on. There are so many Christians running around from meeting to meeting trying to “get a stronger anointing” that there would be a good market for such books. However, I will give you a better deal. You can read the truth about the anointing here for free, and you won’t even have to go to a meeting and get anyone to lay hands on you!
There are actually only two New Testament Scriptures that deal with the anointing as a noun, and here they are – the same Greek word chrisma is translated both unction and anointing:
1 John 2:20:
But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.
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.
The word chrisma is not used anywhere else in the Bible. In the only 2 verses where it appears, the verses state plainly that you already HAVE it!
The same people desperately seeking the anointing are probably desperately seeking power as well, but when you’re baptized with the Holy Spirit, you already HAVE power (Acts 1:8). You are not going to get more power. Where would you get it? What is more powerful than the third member of the Trinity? You need to USE the power that you ALREADY HAVE instead of clamoring for more of it. You don’t need “more power” or for the anointing to “fall on you.” You already HAVE the anointing! The SINGLE portion you have is all you’ll ever need; you don’t need a DOUBLE portion of infinite ability.
God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and power ONCE (Acts 10:38) – He never had to do it again. Likewise, when you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you HAVE power (Acts 1:8) – you never need to be re-baptized with the Holy Spirit to have power from that moment forward.
We tend to think that flowing in a particular gift of the Spirit is the same thing as flowing in the anointing, but it isn’t. A tangible power may well flow through you at certain moments when God uses you in the gifts of the Spirit, but you ALWAYS have the anointing. It does not come and go. It does not “leak out.” Jesus did not have to keep going back to the River Jordan for refills after the Holy Spirit came upon Him once.
Sadly, many Christians shrink back at the idea of laying hands on the sick because they don’t think that they are anointed to do it. You HAVE the anointing and you CAN lay hands on the sick NOW without waiting for a special manifestation! You may or may not have a special “power gift” manifestation of the Spirit operate, but you can always let the anointing flow through you. That is what Jesus referred to in John 7:37-39. That is for “he who believes” in Jesus – which is ALL believers. If having the anointing flow through you required a special manifestation of the Holy Spirit, Jesus’ words would be wrong because NOT all believers would have rivers of living water flow through them. Those rivers flow through YOU as a Spirit-baptized believer, so you HAVE the anointing.
Is Jesus anointed? Yes! The very name Christ means “anointed!” You are now part of His Body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Ephesians 1:23). If WE are not anointed, we would be the partiality of Him, not the fullness of Him. We now share His anointing. People could come up to us and touch us in faith if they knew that His anointing is on us and they would receive healing through Christ’s anointing in us. In fact, that SHOULD happen. God’s desire is for us to be conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29), who had people touch Him to receive from the anointing that was on Him.
The fact that Jesus had ALL sick people come to Him and touch Him and be healed in SOME places but not others could lead you to the incorrect conclusion that the anointing would increase and decrease on Jesus at different times. The FLOW of that anointing did range from powerful to almost nonexistent based on the PEOPLE. However, He always was The Anointed One even when people were not receiving from that anointing. Jesus was in a crowd with people brushing against Him, but one woman touched Him in faith and received healing (Mark 5:25-34). He wasn’t doing a service or preaching at the time; He was just walking! He was still just as much The Anointed One when He was walking around as He was in places where multitudes touched Him and received healing. The difference was the people.
What about Paul and the cloth items that were brought to him (Acts 19:11-12)? This was not a normal thing that anyone could just go out and do – it says that God did special miracles through Paul. Hence, this was a special manifestation of gifts of healings and working of miracles and not something that just “came with the package” because Paul was born again. People could call that a “special anointing,” but technically it was a special way in which God used Paul in Ephesus.
I am not denying that sometimes you sense the anointing more than at other times. I love being in meetings where there is a tangible manifestation of God’s presence. However, God is ALWAYS with you whether you feel like He is or not (Hebrews 13:5). He doesn’t physically manifest His presence everywhere, but He is everywhere. You will sense the anointing in you when people put a demand on it.
There is another reason why you might FEEL like the anointing ebbs and flows in your life. There are times in all our lives when we yield to the flesh. When you yield to the flesh, you aren’t flowing in the anointing. It’s hard to flow in the anointing if you’re still upset about something a relative said or if you’re still mad at that driver who made you spill your drink all over your car when you had to jam on your brakes to avoid hitting him as he darted in front of you without looking. There are times when you will be in a position to have the anointing flow through you better than at other times, but that still does not take away from the fact that you HAVE the anointing.
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