ANOINTED, CONSECRETED, SANCTIFIED

ANOINTED, CONSECRETED, SANCTIFIED

 

"You shall put them on Aaron your brother and on his sons with him; and you shall anoint them and ordain them and consecrate them, that they may serve Me as priests."　Exod. 28:41

These words indicate the method by which the priests were prepared to minister to God and a study of them is full of suggestiveness. There is no tautology here. Each of the three words has its own particular value, and the three in sequence cover the whole ground of preparation. The first, ANOINT, is quite simple, and describes the actual putting of the sacred oil upon the head (Exo_29:7), the symbol of the communication of the Holy Spirit to the one to exercise priestly ministry. The second, CONSECRETE, is the translation of two Hebrew words, meaning the filling of the open hand, and signifies the perfect equipment of the anointed one for the discharge of that ministry. The third, SANTIFY, means literally, to make clean, and refers to the spiritual and moral separation of the priest from all defilement. Thus all priestly ministries are made possible by the ANOINTING (Deu_28:40) of the Holy Spirit. That anointing communicates the power, and ensures the purity, apart from which there can be no priestly ministry before God. Thus we see how the Divinely arranged ritual of the Hebrew economy was intended to convey to these people truths of fundamental importance. This ritual is done away in Christ, because all the things it typifies are realized in and through Him. If we are priests unto God, it is because in Him we have the ANOINTING of the Spirit, and so the power for our ministry, and the CLEANSING, apart from which there can be no exercise thereof. ANOINTED, CONSECRETED, SANCTIFIED souls, may minister before the Lord as priests.