by Rev. Alex. McPherson
(continued from page 244)
PSALM TWO
Verses 2, 3. Jesus Christ is Jesus, God’s Anointed. We have already noted that He was never anointed with oil but received from the Father the immeasurable impartation of the Holy Spirit which designated and qualified Him for the office of Mediator of the new covenant. In his book, “The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit”, Dr Smeaton has a chapter on “The work of the Spirit in the anointing of Christ”. To anyone who has the book I would say that a perusal of that chapter would yield great benefit. What I shall attempt to do here is to abbreviate and simplify Smeaton’s teaching. He says that the anointing with the Spirit was in three grades successively imparted.
The first was at his incarnation. It was the Holy Spirit who prepared the body which God the Son assumed into union with his divine Person. Luke tells us what Gabriel said to the virgin Mary. “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: wherefore that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1, v. 35). In order to be the last Adam, the second covenant head of the race, the Saviour had to be sinless. Every child born by ordinary generation is born in sin, therefore another course had to be taken to avoid this in the case of the Redeemer. It was the Holy Spirit therefore and not man who formed that which was born of Mary, and this holy human nature was assumed by the Son of God into a union peculiar to Himself and unshared by the other Persons of the Godhead. This union was so perfect that the holy thing born of Mary must also be called the Son of God. He who is from eternity became one with that which was created in time. There are two natures but only one Person who is not only God but man, yet is such without partaking of the corruption transmitted by Adam to all the ordinary members of his race. The Redeemer had to be a near kinsman without any taint of Adam’s sin and guilt.
If it now be asked, “But did not the fact that Mary was a sinner make it impossible for a holy child to be born of her?” we must bear in mind that sin, evil and terrible though it be, has not become the very essence of man. It is this fact which makes redemption possible. There is a real distinction between human nature, God’s good work, and sin which corrupts that nature and exposes it to wrath. God can redeem man and separate him from sin. He does the latter at the death of every believer. God by His Spirit did create out of the substance of the virgin a child who had no sin, and that perfect child who was born in the city of David was Christ, the anointed One.
Not only in his miraculous conception, however, but in every endowment of body, mind and spirit with which Jesus began life was He the subject of the anointing of the Spirit. Another feature of the man Christ Jesus which must be grasped if we are to understand certain things said about Him in Scripture, is that, notwithstanding his two natures, his personality was that of the Son of God. His human nature had no distinct personality but derived its consciousness and self-direction from his Godhead. The communication from one nature to the other was by the Holy Spirit, and this also was part of the anointing which fitted Him for his office of Mediator.
Thus the man Christ Jesus knew that He was the Son of God, as we read in John 13, v. 3-5: “Jesus knowing – – – that he was come from God, and went to God; he riseth from supper, and laid aside his garments, etc.” As a result of his anointing He acted and spoke according to the will of the Father, which will was shared by Himself the Son and communicated to his manhood through the Holy Spirit. Thus we read, “When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.” (John 8, v. 28). In short, Christ lived his entire life through the Spirit. What He undertook was by the Spirit’s direction; what He spoke was by his guidance, and what He did was by the Spirit’s power.
The second grade of Christ’s anointing was at his baptism. Until then He had lived a private life distinguished from that of other men only by its holiness and wisdom, but his entrance upon his public ministry necessitated the conferring of supernatural gifts. John the Baptist was given notice of this inauguration and knew that it had occurred when he saw the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon Jesus. On this august occasion all the Persons of the Trinity were distinctly manifested — the Father revealing Himself by an audible voice, the Son appearing in the flesh which He assumed, the Holy Spirit descending in a bodily shape like a dove. The anointer was the Father, the anointed was the Son, the unction, or anointing oil (Ps. 45, v. 7) was the Holy Ghost. As Isaiah had foretold, the Spirit of the Lord, the Spirit of power now rested on Immanuel. (Isaiah 11, v.1, 2). And, as the Baptist said, “God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.” (John 3, v. 34).
Jesus possessed such a fulness of the Spirit that He could communicate his own miraculous power to his friends. “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead; freely ye have received, freely give.” Sustained by the Spirit, Jesus overcame the Devil’s temptations. He returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee where He began to convert sinners unto Himself. He taught the doctrines of his kingdom, foretold the future, cast out devils, wrought miracles and finally offered Himself without spot to God through the eternal Spirit. By the Spirit, Christ executed all the parts of his mediatorial work during his estate of humiliation.
The third grade of the anointing is that referred to in verse six of this Psalm. “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.” Compare the metrical version.) At Pentecost, Peter stated the fact as plainly as words can. “Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear.” (Acts 2, v. 33.) This third degree of unction, the receiving of gifts for men, was for the erecting and organising of the New Testament Church. All for whom Christ died must be brought to receive Him as their Saviour, and only the Holy Ghost could do that. The Spirit also had to be the donor of those gifts of mind and spirit which the servants of the Lord would require for their tasks.
So the Spirit was given, and from Pentecost onwards, He has worked among sinners as the Spirit of conviction and the Spirit of adoption. Who would confer the gift of the Spirit, a divine Person, but one who was also a divine Person. Is not Christ such a Person? Did He not receive the right to send forth the Holy Spirit by atoning for his people’s sins? The subject may be summed up in this way. To the end that the Son of God might mediate between his Father and sinners, He received a holy human nature by the anointing of the Spirit. To the end that Jesus might atone for his people’s sins, He was anointed with a plenitude of the Spirit. To the end that He might effectually call all his redeemed people. He was anointed with the Spirit who quickens, and sanctifies and is the Comforter of these people. Take all this together and one has some idea why Jesus is called the Anointed, or the Christ. The great question for us therefore ought to be: have we experienced the blessed anointing of the Holy Ghost conferred by the Saviour of sinners so that it can be said of us, “Ye have an unction from the Holy One and know all things”?