Spices

Spices are used to sweeten or make fragrant, as with spiced oil (ointment), and to give a warm, pleasant taste to food or to wine and so improve the flavour. Another Hebrew word associated with spicery means to pound or wound or beat small, telling us that spices, if they are to be mixed with other things, and if they are to give forth their fragrance, must be bruised. Bruising speaks of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus ("He was bruised for our iniquities." - " It pleased the Lord to bruise Him." Isaiah 53.5, 10), and it is especially in His sufferings that we taste of the sweetness of His love.

The first occurrence of the usual Hebrew word for spices is in Exodus 25.6, and here they are closely associated with the Holy Spirit of God, being specifically stated to be "for the anointing oil." This holy "perfume" speaks of the Holy Spirit in His anointing of God's servants and empowering them for the service of God in worship, communion, prayer and other such privileges. As the oil conveys the sweetness of the spices, of the " perfume," so the Spirit conveys to us the excellencies of Christ, and any sweetness that we smell is the sweetness of Christ, this fragrance being the Spirit's own work.

Christian service of whatever kind, whether worship, praise, the preaching of the gospel, or the teaching of the truth, if it is not performed in the power of the Holy Spirit, is cold and formal and lifeless, and .can find no acceptance with God. Such was the service of Israel when God said with yearning heart, "Thou hast bought Me no sweet cane ("calamus in Song of Songs 4.14) with money, neither hast thou filled Me with the fat of thy sacrifices " (Isaiah 43.24), and again later, when formality had given way to disobedience, "To what purpose cometh there to Me frankincense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country (i.e., the very best and the most costly and difficult to obtain)? . . . your sacrifices are not pleasing unto Me" (Jeremiah 6.20). Israel no longer delighted in God, and they no longer had joy in His service; it had become formal and insipid and hard labour, because they found therein their own pleasure, and they had become self-righteous and self-satisfied. The unction of the Spirit was absent from their ministry, and self now supplied the motive of all they did. They had grown weary of God, and God had been wearied by them (Isaiah 43.22, 24)-mutual weariness instead of mutual delight, joy and rest (Isaiah 58.14; Jeremiah 6.16; Zephaniah 3.17). Spices no longer seasoned their diligent attendance upon the service of God (Isaiah 58.2, 8); they remembered their divine position, "The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, are these," but they were not walking in fellowship with the Lord of the temple, and thus were not abundantly satisfied with the fatness of His house, nor were they drinking of the river of His pleasures ; see Psalm 36.8.

"These things happened unto them by way of example; and they were written for our admonition.... Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." "Be not high-minded but fear; for if God spared not the natural branches, neither will He spare thee." Let us then walk humbly with our God, not deluding ourselves that we are rich and have need of nothing, but rather blushing to lift up our faces to God, confessing our formality and coldness and self-righteousness, our lack of the graces of the Spirit, and crying to Him for forgiveness and mercy, and for more grace.

Spices also speak of the warm, sweet atmosphere that denotes the presence of Love, of God ("friendship is an atmosphere warm with inspiration dear") ; they speak of the character of Love, of Christ, as seen in 1 Corinthians i3. 4-8, of His tact and sympathy, His courtesy and graciousness, of the "excellent way" in which He performed all His service.

Affections are to the soul as the helm to the ship ; if a skilful hand controls, the whole vessel is turned whichever way one pleases. If that hand be God's, He turns our souls into compliance with His will, in mercy, chastening and trials, and. holds them firm against all winds and storms of temptation, which otherwise would hurry them on to dangerous rocks. According as a blade is set, so will it cut. Similarly, the inclination of a man's affections will show whether he is keen and sharp or dull and blunt to "the things that are above."

"OUR AFFECTIONS ARE UPON THE MATTER OUR ALL. THEY ARE ALL WE HAVE TO GIVE OR BESTOW; THE ONLY POWER OF OUR SOULS WHEREBY WE MAY GIVE AWAY OURSELVES FROM OURSELVES AND BECOME ANOTHER'S. Other faculties of our souls, even the most noble of them, are suited to receive in unto our own advantage; by our affections we give away what we are and have "-and it is more blessed to give than to receive.

In what we do to and for others, whatever is good, valuable or praiseworthy in it, proceeds from the affection with which we do it. To do anything for others without an animating affection, is but a contempt of them; for we judge them really unworthy that we should do anything for them. "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, BUT HAVE NOT LOVE, I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, BUT HAVE NOT LOVE, I am NOTHING." (It is what we ARE that matters most, and love is the great assimilative power, the great builder of character). "And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, BUT HAVE NOT LOVE, it profiteth me NOTHING." Sincerity should characterize all our affections. Hypocrisy, of which formality is one evidence, is a simulation of virtue ; it is a deceitful imposition of the mind between men's affections and their profession, whereby a man appears to be what he is not.

Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart," and therefore pervade the Song of Songs, where spices are found in perfection, for the Hebrew word occurs seven times. Together with kindred words such as sweet, flowers, fragrance, the total is no less than fifty times. Here is a book that is concerned with the deep things of love, which sets forth communion or intimate friendship between the Beloved and His love, between Christ and the believer. It is intended to sweeten and spice and mature our lives, even as" the fig tree RIPENS her green figs," that is, " spices," " seasons or " fills with aromatic juices," and so "matures" (see Song of Songs 2.18).

Spices, as represented in the holy anointing oil, are also associated with unity among brethren as something exceedingly pleasant and rare and precious (Psalm 133.). This unity is the work of the Holy Spirit, and its New Testament, or present day, counterpart is " the unity of the Spirit " of Ephesians 4.8-6, for He is the Divine Apothecary who compounds (beats small into one thing) or blends into one, Christians in the Churches of God on earth to-day, and the whole Church which is Christ's Body, the Bride of the Lamb, throughout eternity.

Unity is also specially associated with love (Ephesians 5.30-32 A.V.), and hence forms, together with love, the chief theme in the last prayer of the Lord Jesus ere He went to perform the noblest act of love of all time and thereby to make possible the unity He longed for so much; see John 17., and 11.51, 52.

In Scripture, apart from the Temple services, noble women are most often found associated with spices and ointments, and especially in acts of love and devotion to the Lord Jesus. They were women who ministered to Him of their substance and who thus financed the greatest work ever undertaken upon this earth. They were women who brought Him costly ointments, gifts He received from believers in Israel.

The Queen of Sheba's gift of spices to King Solomon was never equalled for its abundance before or after. Spices are thus associated with all that is richest and most refined, and we are not surprised to find that Solomon understood more about spices and their spiritual significance (see Song of Songs 4.13, 14), and wrote more about them, than any other of the Biblical writers. The chief spices were of equal value with gold, or even more valuable. Hezekiah's "House of his precious things" in 2 Kings 20.13 is, literally, "House of his spices." The wise men's gifts of gold, and frankincense and myrrh, to Him who was greater than Solomon, tell the same story; and we remember too that His garments smell of spices, even of myrrh, and aloes and cassia. On the exceeding riches and preciousness and sweet fragrance of spices, and of what they signify in the spiritual sense in which we have been chiefly considering them, that is, the graces of the Holy Spirit of God, given without measure to the Son of Man, and continually at our disposal day by day if only we are willing to receive these " riches of His grace."

Finally, let us consider the MINISTRY OF LOVE on the part of those two women who poured out their precious ointments upon the Lord Jesus with such lavish profusion, and who then stooped low, even to the ground, to wipe His feet with their long hair, even with that which was their glory or special ornament and distinction. Their love, kindled by the Spirit, flowed out from broken, humbled hearts, and was poured into the open and deeply appreciative heart of their eternal Lover. And the Father looked down from heaven and rejoiced to see such honour given, and His own love expressed, to the Son of His love, and determined that the whole world for untold ages should honour these His faithful and loving servants. We read reverently the Divine record

"BUT SHE hath wetted My feet with her tears, and wiped them with her hair...

"BUT SHE, since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss My feet ...

"BUT SHE hath anointed My feet with ointment ... FOR SHE LOVED MUCH."

"Mary therefore took a pound of ointment of spikenard, very precious ... and she brake the cruse, and poured it over His head ... and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment... SHE hath wrought a beautiful (Greek) work upon Me ...

SHE hath done what she could; SHE hath anointed My body aforehand for the burying."

"Beloved, let ALL that we do be done IN LOVE" (1 Corinthians 16.14).

A DISCIPLE WHOM JESUS LOVES.

unknown | Jul 1953
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