Jesus and the Anointing of the Holy Spirit

Because the Holy Spirit is so often the unseen partner of the godhead, it’s almost impossible to talk about Him without looking at Jehovah or Jesus. In fact, some of our best insight comes through looking at the other two persons of the Trinity.

There’s a verse in Acts that almost blew me out of the water at one time. Peter was speaking with a group of Gentiles who had little or no teaching on God. He said, God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. (Acts. 10:38 ESV)

Just a short statement, words so easy pass over when looking at the larger story. But I was focusing on the word and the concept of anointing at the time, and I found the verse strange. Jesus was God incarnate—conceived by the Holy Spirit—Immanuel—God with us. So why was the anointing important to the ministry of Jesus? Why did He need an anointing? Didn’t He do the things He did simply because He was Jesus?

(The word anoint literally means to rub or to smear with oil. See Strong’s Concordance #4886 and #5480. When people live in an arid climate—as the Israelites did when wandering through the Wilderness—they often used oil to clean themselves because water was at a premium. And because spiritual purity or cleanliness is important when preparing to meet God, God provided instructions for the priests who would minister in the tabernacle. During cleansing ceremonies they sometimes poured water and sometimes rubbed oil on themselves as a cleansing ritual. The oil was prepared according to a recipe given to Moses by God. The concept of anointing expanded with time until eventually it evolved to mean receiving power from the Holy Spirit.)

Over time—and through a bit of study—I learned the Son of God needed an anointing because, although He was truly God, He had denied his God-nature and identified with human nature. Paul said, though he [Christ Jesus] was in the form of God, [he] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. (Phil 2:6,7)

In The Message, a contemporary paraphrase of the Bible, those verses read, He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages . . . When the time came, he set aside the priviledges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. . . . He didn't claim special privileges.

This aspect of our Savior is so important. When Jesus made himself nothing, he separated Himself from Satan/ Lucifer who said, I will make myself like the Most High. (Is. 14:b) And He separated Himself from Adam and Eve who gave in to temptation when Satan enticed them with, For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. (Gen. 3:5) To maintain being nothing, Jesus had to continually resist Satan’s bait. Even though He was God, He had to resist claiming or assuming His God-nature.

How easy it would be for Jesus as God to heal—or to walk on water. As God, Jesus could easily look into individual souls and give them a word of life—or reach the multitudes when preaching from mountaintops. However, Jesus continually released or gave up His God nature to embrace His human nature. He limited Himself to functioning only as a man.

If Jesus did everything as a man, how did He do what He did?

Through the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said of Himself, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.( Jn. 5:19) Do you feel the drama and the power of this verse?

Isaiah looked forward to this time when he wrote about the Messiah who would move under the anointing: The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news. . . . (Is. 61:1a) The passage goes on to list the things the Messiah would do, things a normal person could not do. After His baptism, Jesus went into the Wilderness where He rejected Satan’s bait. Then He returned to His hometown of Nazareth where he identified Himself by reading Isaiah’s passage in the synagogue: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news. . . . (Lk. 4:18) And He listed the supernatural works He would do as a man.

The anointing brings Jehovah, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit together. The power of Jesus is established by the unity of God.

The Jesus who read the Scripture in the synagogue that day was different from the Jesus the townspeople had known. When He was baptized He received the anointing of the Holy Spirit through the will of His Father. After telling the people of Nazareth, Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing, (v. 21b) He went on to point out their sin. His words had power, and they tried to kill Him. His ministry had begun.

After Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension into Heaven, and after He sent the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, His followers became a closely-knit family of believers. And when they began expanding beyond the confines of Jerusalem, Peter explained Jesus’ ministry to Gentiles. He said, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses. . . . (Acts 10:38, 39a)

The man named Jesus did the works of God. He was anointed by the Holy Spirit.