THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD AND THE HOLY OINTMENT
What is the precious blood? It is the Lord’s blood. The Lord’s blood indicates the redemption accomplished by the Lord. Through His incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection He accomplished the work of redemption. In the Bible, the work which the Lord accomplished by His being processed is called redemption, and it is symbolized by the blood. Thus, the blood represents redemption, which includes the Lord’s incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection. What then is the ointment? We have already seen that the ointment is God Himself who is the Spirit. Our God became flesh as the Lord Jesus; He passed through human living, death, and resurrection, thereby accomplishing redemption. Then in resurrection, He became the life-giving Spirit. The Spirit includes all that Christ is. Thus, the blood, representing His redemption, refers to what He has accomplished, while the Spirit, representing all that He is, refers to what He is.
Your being sprinkled by the blood indicates that you have been redeemed. All the negative things and the problems of sin can never bother you again. Because of the blood, God forgives all your sins and erases all your offenses. After the sprinkling of the blood, the Spirit as the ointment—what God is—follows to anoint you inwardly. God is life; He is also love, light, holiness, righteousness, and power. This anointing anoints all that God is into you, giving you all of God’s being. The Lord’s blood cleanses us, and the ointment anoints us. In this way the redemption God accomplished and all the riches of His being are fully applied to us through our believing.
I am very happy today because I am a person who has been cleansed by the blood and who has obtained God Himself. I was a sinner, a fallen and corrupted person, but my God, who accomplished redemption for me, sprinkled the blood upon me, a symbol of His redemption, and cleansed my entire being for me to receive His redemption and all that He has accomplished. At the same time He also anointed into me what He is, His very being, represented by the ointment. Thus, even today, we who believe in the Lord have the precious blood and the holy ointment. Hallelujah, how wonderful this is!
ABIDING IN THE LORD AND ENJOYING HIS LIFE THROUGH THE BLOOD AND THE OINTMENT
As soon as we are saved, we obtain the fellowship of the divine life. However, the inward sinful nature and the outward sinful acts always become a problem to us, as we have described above. Both gross sins and trivial sins block our fellowship with God and give us a sense of guilt. Therefore, if we want to remain in the fellowship of the divine life, the first thing we must do is confess our sins to God. First John 1:7-9 says that whenever we are in the light, we confess our sins. When we are not in the light, we do not feel that we have sin; once we are in the light, however, we feel that we truly have sinned. As soon as we confess our sins, the Lord forgives us. If we are in darkness though, we will only see the sins of others without seeing our own sins. In that condition we cannot confess our sins, and the Lord’s blood cannot cleanse us from our sins.
In other words, whenever we come to God and feel that we are wrong or we have a guilty feeling, that means we are in the light. Spontaneously, we ask the Lord to forgive us of our sins. Once we confess our sins, God is faithful to forgive us of our sins. He is also righteous, so He must cleanse us from all our sins through the blood of Jesus. The cleansing of the precious blood brings in the anointing of the holy ointment. This anointing teaches us how to live and walk.
Thus, the next time you are about to get angry, the anointing will immediately remind you that you must walk by the anointing. You can be angry only when the anointing is angry; when the anointing is not angry, you cannot be angry. When the anointing says, “Hallelujah,” you must also say, “Hallelujah.” All our deeds and actions must follow the teaching of the anointing. In this way our entire living will be one of experiencing the cleansing of the precious blood and enjoying the anointing of the holy ointment. Then we will abide in the Lord and enjoy His life.
A life of abiding in the Lord and enjoying His life is a life in which we constantly experience the cleansing of the blood and enjoy the anointing moment by moment. Whenever you have even a slight feeling that something is wrong or have the sense that you are living in the flesh, in the old creation, or in the self, you should immediately confess your sin and ask for the Lord’s forgiveness. When you confess according to this sense, it proves that you are in the light. Then the blood cleanses you, and the anointing follows to anoint you, increasing the element of God within you. You then enjoy more of what God is. You are practically abiding in the Lord and enjoying His life.
(Abiding in the Lord to Enjoy His Life, Chapter 7, by Witness Lee)
