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Over ten years ago I published a series of three short blogs about the Anointing of the Holy Spirit. There always seems to be some confusion among Christians about who is or isn’t anointed, and in some cases the “anointed one” is nothing more than a successful manipulator or talented performer. So I thought I would combine those three short blogs into one article to update the style and format.
What is the Anointing of the Holy Spirit?
A lot of people, including me, talk about the importance of “the anointing” on a ministry, or we talk about how someone is or was “anointed”. What do we mean by that? Is it just another example of “Christian-speak”, with a meaning that can only be understood after years spent in the Christian culture? Or is it a code word or phrase that we use to express how much we enjoyed or agreed with the ministry?
I believe it is something real, a gifting from the Creator for the benefit of the church. I hope to make it simple to understand, as His anointing to teach flows through me.
The Anointing of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament
The first recording of anointing is when Jacob poured oil on the rock on which he was sleeping when God appeared to him the first time.
Then Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. Genesis 28:18
Jacob re-named that location Bethel, or House of God. God remembered the anointing of that place, because when he called Jacob to return to Canaan, he referred to himself as the God of Bethel. (Gen 31:13) When Jacob returned to Bethel in Genesis 35, God re-emphasized Jacob’s name change to Israel, and Israel then set up another rock and anointed it with oil. In both cases, the pouring of oil was in response to the presence of Jehovah, God Almighty.
God instructed Moses to make anointing oil to be used to anoint the high priest and the furniture of the tabernacle, each vessel used in God’s presence (detailed in Exodus 30:22-33 & Exodus 40:9-15).
The connection between anointing with oil and the anointing of the Holy Spirit is shown in David’s call to be king of Israel.
“Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah.” 1 Samuel 16:13
The Anointing of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament
Jesus described the anointing in Luke 4:18-19:
“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD.”
John the Baptist describes the anointing of the Holy Spirit on Jesus with two comments. First, he described seeing the Holy Spirit coming and resting on Him (John 1:32-34), then he explains the magnitude of Christ’s anointing: “For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God does not give the Spirit by measure.” (John 3:34).
So there is a definite time when the anointing comes on a servant of God, and any limits on what God can do through someone He anoints are not because of limits in the Holy Spirit.
In the Book of Acts the anointing is indicated with the phrase “filled with the Holy Spirit” in situations where the anointed men spoke the word of God, such as
- Peter (Acts 4:8),
- the church with Peter (Acts 4:31),
- and Paul (Acts 13:9-10).
Luke uses the same phrase to describe Jesus at the beginning of His preparation for public ministry (Luke 4:1).
Jesus told His disciples to rely on the anointing of the Holy Spirit to speak His words in dire situations (Mark 13:11; Luke 12:11-12, 21:12-15).
The anointing is power from God for supernatural good works through an infilling by the Holy Spirit.
Is that simple enough? Probably not, because what we really want to know is how to tell when someone, including each of us, is anointed. The goal is to keep from being deceived, which often happens when there is an “anointed one”. How can we tell? What happens when someone is anointed? What are the true signs of anointing?
How to Recognize the Anointing of the Holy Spirit
“The anointing is RESULTS.”
That was how a youth minister defined the anointing in the after-meeting of a youth event I attended as a young youth pastor almost thirty years ago. This definition stuck with me mostly because it was so simple.
I honestly did not like the idea that it could be that simple because if it was that simple, those of us who had an anointing for ministry could not take credit for achieving any complex spiritual mastery. Yes, that was prideful, but that’s the reason I didn’t like this definition.
It’s what lays at the heart of recognizing the anointing. Jesus told us the the Holy Spirit “will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:14) Any human that has the anointing of the Holy Spirit will not draw attention to himself, but will always glorify Jesus.
The Apostle Paul wanted nothing else but that Christ be glorified in his ministry. He did not want the Corinthians to remember his wisdom, but only the results of the anointing.
And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. 1 Corinthians 2:4-5
In the Old Testament, God gave simple instructions to the Israelites for identifying the anointing:
“But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.’ And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the LORD has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.” Deuteronomy 18:20-22
It’s a simple measurement: either it happened or it didn’t.
Most of the true prophets in scripture foretold both events that would happen soon and events in the more distant future. The fulfillment of the more immediate prophesies proved we could believe what they said about the future. Jeremiah 25:11-12 (interpreted in Daniel 9) and Zechariah 11:13 are two examples.
When Jesus described His anointing in Luke 4:18-19, he read Isaiah 61:1 which spoke about both the past anointing on Isaiah and the current anointing on Jesus. But when Jesus said the scripture was fulfilled, what was the scripture identifying?
Results. The gospel preached and received, broken hearts healed, captives freed, blind people seeing, oppression ended, and God’s purposes fulfilled. While all these results can be manifested in both spiritual and physical ways, they all change individual lives, and the important changes are eternal. All through the Old and New Testaments, when the anointing is on God’s servant, lives are changed.
Whenever the anointing is truly flowing through a minister today, whether it is through prophesying, ministering, teaching, exhorting, giving, leading, or showing mercy (Romans 12:6-8), lives will be changed.
So when you wonder whether some man or woman is “anointed,” simply ask, “Was someone’s life changed forever?” Look for the results.
It really is that simple.
By His calling, in His strength,
Dean
*All Scripture quotations in this article are from the New King James Version (NKJV).
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