and of cassia five hundred, after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of olive oil a hin;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
and make of it an oil of holy ointment, a perfume of perfumery after the work of the perfumer it shall be the holy anointing oil.
The instructions now become a recipe: fragrant spices measured out and worked into olive oil. The mixture is holy, and that raises three questions. What does the oil picture? Who could it touch? Why does a stern warning follow?
The word behind "blended as by the perfumer" names a trade. Which one?
In Scripture this term does not mean someone who mixes drugs for medicine. It means someone who blends ointments — what we would now call a "perfumer." That is how the margin renders it at Exodus 30:25, where the holy anointing oil is an ointment compounded "after the art of the apothecary." The same is said of the holy incense.
Nothing was left to the maker's own taste.
The five ingredients were of the best quality. Preparing them took a great deal of time and money. The formula was exact, and no one was to change it. It named exact weights and volumes.
The mixture has two parts, spices and oil. Each carries its own meaning.
The spices, then, speak of the graces of Christ. His very garments smell of these sweet perfumes. But they were mixed with oil, and oil, as many have often said, is a figure of the Holy Spirit. Put the two together, and we learn this: the graces of Christ — the moral fragrance of His excellencies — came out in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Myrrh heads the list of spices. How it leaves the tree matters.
Myrrh, the first ingredient, comes from a cut made in the tree. It seeps out in drops, like drops of blood or tears. It smells sweet, but tastes bitter. So it stands for the sufferings of Christ: He endured the bitterness of the cross, and we reap the sweetness of its results.
Spices and oil kept apart are not an ointment. The same is true of the truths they stand for.
Handle these holy themes apart from the Spirit, and the result is only a mental exercise. It would be barren or worse, as dry as handling the spices without the oil. The spices become an ointment only when the Spirit forms them into a holy compound, "after the art of the Apothecary." And that means more than the Spirit guiding us in the truth. He also ministers it to the soul in communion.
This oil had one use: pouring. It went on the tent, its furniture, and the priests.
Everything connected with the house of God must be ordered in the power of the Holy Spirit — how it is run, its service, and all the priestly work carried on in it. Ordered that way, it will express the sweet fragrance of Christ to God... So suppose everything connected with the house of God were arranged even according to His own word, and yet the holy anointing oil — the power of the Holy Spirit — were missing. Then it could not be acceptable to Him.
It touched people too, and the rule about who could receive it was strict.
This oil anointed the whole tabernacle with all its vessels. Aaron and his sons were also anointed and set apart for the priest's office. No one was allowed to make or use such an ointment. The command was that it should not be poured on man as man, only on Aaron and his sons as priests... It is a picture of the Holy Spirit, with whom only the Lord Jesus and believers are anointed.
Anyone holding the recipe could copy the mixture. A solemn command forbade it.
The making of this, and also of the ointment, was a sacred commission, invested with a charge of unusual solemnity; and the reason is evident... The command is given: whoever makes any imitation of the incense shall be cut off from his people. Experience has seen it, and prophecy has foreseen it — nothing attracts a certain kind of mind like this very work of composing counterfeit Christs.
The danger is not only public teaching but self-deception:
Our hearts are so subtle that we often deceive ourselves, and others too. We accept the sweetness of nature, its charm and good nature, as the work of the Holy Spirit, as a likeness to Christ. There can be no likeness to Christ except as the result of the work of the Holy Spirit.
- Compounded — the word points to a perfumer's craft. The weights were fixed, the ingredients the best, and no one could adjust the formula.
- Carried — the spices speak of the graces of Christ. The oil that holds them is a figure of the Holy Spirit, so His power carries those graces out.
- Blended — spices without oil stay dry. Truth handled apart from the Spirit is only a mental exercise; the Spirit ministers it to the soul.
- Poured — tent, furniture and priests all received it. A house of God arranged by His own word still needs the Spirit's power to please Him.
- Guarded — God allowed no copy. A counterfeit likeness to Christ, taught to others or believed about ourselves, is never the Spirit's work.