Thine Ointments Have A Goodly Fragrance

by J.D. Terrell, Carlisle, England | Category: A Meditation On Song Of Songs 1:3. | Jan 1993

In Incarnation: in Song of Songs chapter 1 the words which immediately follow our text are these, "Thy Name is as ointment poured forth". There is DOthing associated with the person of our Lord in His incarnation more "200d1V" in fra2rance than that Name.

The angel of the Lord who appeared to Joseph, as recorded in Matthew chapter 1 not only prescribed the Name by which the promised Saviour was to be known among His fellow-men, he also quoted Isaiah 7 and pronounced the title Name of the eternal God made flesh - Immanuel. The sweet savour of the Name JESUS began to permeate the whole of human history from the moment of His birth. Not that the name itself was at all uncommon in Jewish society. Nor was the new and gloriously elevated significance of the Name immediately appreciated by large numbers in the Master's early years. Certainly Mary and Joseph treasured the secret surrounding His birth, and the promise of salvation associated with His Name. Did the wonder of it grow a little dim sometimes as "Jesus" was called across the ca~~nter's shop, or the village boys linked His Name with their own in their play? But between those days of obscurity and the resplendent fulfilment of Philippians

2:10 - "in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow" - millions have learned that, "sweet is the savour of His Name, who suffered in His people's stead"; and that appreciation has brought joy in sorrow and peace in turmoil of heart.

Joseph, however, had to understand that the goodly fragrance of the Name, which is as ointment poured forth, belonged in heaven before it was enjoyed on earth. From Isaiah were drawn the beautiful words, as quoted in Matthew chapter one, "And they shall call His Name Immanuel", which means "God with us":

Woman's seed in Eden promised, God incarnate, virgin born.

Who, we might ask, was to call His Name "Immanuel"? He was not so addressed in "the days of His flesh". Was "Immanuel" to be the adoring language of the heart of each one who embraced the transcendent truth of God manifest in the flesh? Perhaps this holy designation provides the more intimate fragrance of private

meditation; and the strong perfume for the student of divine truth as he or she reverently pores over the deep mystery of "being in the form of God", of "taking the form of a Servant", and of "emptied Himself' (Phil. 2). Truly a Name "as ointment poured forth".

In a more immediately tangible form the "goodly fragrance" of His ointments was presented to Mary and the Child in the form of the frankincense and the myrrh which accompanied the gift of gold from the Wise Men. We can only meditate in reverence on the degree of understanding that Mary and Joseph had of the significance of these. Perhaps a vague recollection of the pure frankincense of the "perfume after the art of the perfumer" for the incense of the sanctuary (Ex. 30); perhaps a slightly uneasy sense of the subdued satisfaction given by myrrh in its association with death. At all events, these earliest of aromatics presented to the Saviour, brought their own sweet fulfilment of Song of Songs 1:3.

In Life

During the years of our Lord's ministry few places of refuge can have been more treasured than Bethany. The home of Martha, Mary and Lazarus was, of course, accessible only when Jesus was in Judea and it was there that, appropriately enough, Song of Songs 1:3 again found a sacred fulfilment. The record is in John chapter 12 and the scene is the familiar home whose hospitality was so appreciated by the Master. The neighbourhood still resounded to the

near-unbelievable story of the resurrection of Lazarus. Passover was imminent and a supper was arranged for the Lord. Lazarus "sat at meat", Martha served, and Mary as usual adored. Now a few verses on in the first chapter of Song of Songs, Solo~ mon declared, "While the king sat at his table, my spikenard sent forth its fragrance" (v.12). There would be litfie comparison between the opulence of Solomon's table, and that set in honour of the Lord in Bethany. Yet the former was the shadow and the latter the substance, spiritually. "Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of spikenard, very precious, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment." Mary's costly ointment was given in love to Him. It became His ointment, and as the King sat that day at His table in Bethany, "His spikenard gave forth its fragrance". But senses must be conditioned to appreciate a perfume to the full, and Judas's were not. We trust that others present that day shared the Master's evaluation of Mary's act, and the powerful sweetness of the spikenard. A similar red~ lence of divine perfection and worth filled the dwelling place of God in Israel when the "pure and holy" incense ascended "before the testimony in the tent of meeting" ~x. 30:34-38). "Suffer her", said the Lord of Mary, "to keep it against the day of My burying". As was the "goodly fragrance" of His birth, so was that of His life and ministry. Yet all looked

forward with solernn, unrelenting direction, to His suffering and death. And as the Kind reclined by another table soon after the Bethany supper, He provided the Remembrance of Himself in which we savour week by week His spikenard sending forth its fragrance.

In Death

As the sensitive fragrance of the precious incense permeated the tabernacle and temple precincts, it mingled with the odours of sacrifice and blood. Orderly as the sacrificial procedures of the court would be within the limits of human capability, there must have been an elemen~ of squalor as the lifeblood of animal after animal flowed by the altar of sacrifice; yet nothing to match the horror of a Roman crucifixion. He gave His back to the smiters and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair (Isa. 50:6). The loved one of Song of Songs 5:13 had declared, "His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as banks of sweet herbs; His lips are as lilies, dropping liquid myrrh".

What determined, we wonder, the precise moment of intervention by God - the moment of "thus far and no further"? For when the prophecy of Scripture concerning the piercing of His side was fulfilled, human abuse of the Holy One was at an end. "And after these things Joseph of Arimathea

asked of Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus ... and there came also Nicodemus ... bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight". As, doubtless, Mary watched, the memory must have

been vivid of the flask put into her hands in Bethlehem by the wise men. So again, in death, there was fulfilment, with infinite prec!ousness "thine ointments have 'a goodly fragrance"; and again shadows of the holy anointing oil and the incense most holy (Ex. 30).

In Glory

Whether the 45th Psalm was "of' or "for" the sons of Korah is of secondary importance. Whether their lot was to compose, or to express in song (or both) this sublime illumination of Christ in glory, these priesdy ministers of the sanctuary knew what they sang of. Their forefathers had watched the anointing of Aaron and his sons with the holy anointing oil. There was myrrh there and cassia among the aromatic ingredients. With the myrrh of the anointing which Joseph and Nicodemus provided in His death, they mingled aloes. So all comes together in Psalm 45 verse 8. "All thy garments smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia. Not a frugal sprinkling, but a generous outpouring as with the High Priest of Israel, so that the fragrance was strong and all-pervasive. Great heavenly High Priest in eternal glory, "God. Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows".

We savour the rightness of Christ in glory; the complete fitness of the sublime poetry of the Psalmist; and our hearts too "overflow with a goodly matter".

"Thine ointments have a goodly fragrance".

J.D. Terrell, Carlisle, England | Jan 1993
A Meditation On Song Of Songs 1:3.