Glorification

By Nathaniel Dandridge Pendleton
1941

Part IV
THE LAST JOURNEY

II. THE ANOINTMENT

"Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment. Then saith . . . Judas Iscariot. . . . Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor? . . . Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always." (John 12: 3 - 8.)

The miracle of Christian faith and its regenerative power lies in the fact that the Lord who was born a Man in the world was conceived of the Most High God through the Holy Spirit descending upon a virgin. In consequence of this miracle men were redeemed, and by faith therein the way was opened for their salvation. There could be no redemption, nor could any man be saved by other than a Divine miracle, and indeed, by no other - than the miracle of incarnation. This, and this alone, was equal to the emergency. For God, by becoming Man in the world, put Himself in the place of man and did that which man, because of his failing power, could not do.

Man's salvation before the incarnation came through heaven and the guidance of the angels. But the burden of sin had become too heavy. Its weight had broken the connection with heaven. Infernal spirits took possession of the minds and bodies of men. The only hope lay in the immediate exercise of Divine power in favor of man. This could be brought about in one way only. Incarnation brought the Divine into touch with evil through the instrumentality of a body put on in the world of nature - a body which carried all racial tendencies to evil. The Lord's human assumed, opened the door of contact, and so of conflict with and victory over, evil. This resulted in the eradication of evil in the Lord's assumed body and the subjugation of the abnormal power of evil over man. In this way freedom and the power of its exercise were restored. This may be likened to a restoral of sanity or mental equilibrium.

The miracle of the Lord's Divine conception is told in the following words: The angel said to Mary, "The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee." (Luke I: 3 5.) These words do not signify, the joint action of two distinct or separate Divines, for the Holy Spirit was none other than the Spirit of the Most High God in its presence in the heaven of angels, or in its transit through these heavens, whereby it was accommodated to human needs and service. It was necessary that the Divine should be thus humanly accommodated, and by virtue of this, at the chosen time it could be shaped and directed by the will of God to a virgin conception and birth.

It is important to know this in order to understand why the Lord received the Holy oil of His anointing at the hand of Mary, and also why she anointed His feet and wiped them with her hair. He was anointed by Mary even as He was baptized by John. For His coming was to and into a church which was composed entirely of representatives, of symbols which signified Him and the progressive states of His glorification; which states, while involving Divinity, were for the time qualified in and by His human assumed. It was of order, therefore, that these successive states should be representatively enacted by and through the events of His outer life in the world. For this reason He was anointed by the hand of Mary and in all other respects lived an outwardly representative life in the world.

At the time of our text His journey's end was near. He had come by way of the East, and had arrived at the Mount of Olives, the holy mountain overlooking Jerusalem. Upon this mountain, according to ancient prophecy, the feet Of Jehovah would stand in the day of judgment; and that day was at hand. The Lord was now at Bethany, a village on the Mount of Olives. There He raised Lazarus from the dead as a sign of His own near death and resurrection. Subsequently they made Him a supper, and Lazarus sat with Him at table, and Martha served; but Mary, her sister, "Took a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair."

His arrival at the Mount of Olives signified a state of Divine Good which involved and initiated the culmination of His glorification. The holy oil of His anointing had a like significance; namely, the Divine Good infilling the forms of Divine Truth with Him. As He said, this oil was kept for His burial, that is, for His resurrection, which marked His total Divinity. His true anointing was, however, not by the hand of Mary. He was anointed from conception, and Divinity was His birthright. From the womb He was the Christ and the Messiah, that is, the Anointed of Jehovah. The ointment which Mary put upon Him was a symbol of that Divine which, by degrees, wrought His glorification. But at the time of the Mary anointing it was a sign that His glorification had progressed even to the ultimates of His body.  Mary "anointed His feet, and wiped them with her hair." Besides, the time had come for His entrance into Jerusalem, and He must needs enter the Holy City as a King - as an anointed King, bearing the outward sign of His royalty.

From ancient times kings were anointed with holy oil, not, indeed, in sign of their Divinity, but as a token that they were hedged by Divinity and protected thereby. Because of this it was not lawful for anyone to touch (with violence) the king who was called the Lord's anointed. The oil of anointing conferred upon kings the power of representing the Lord. For a like cause priests and prophets were anointed and thereby set apart for their sacred service and its Divine representation.

The Lord alone of all men was truly born a King, a Priest, and a Prophet. The Divine which other men were chosen to represent was in Him an actuality. For He was conceived of the Most High God through the Holy Spirit descending; and more, for as His glorification progressed, He was successively born again of God alone. So that in His resurrection there was nothing of Mary, the mother, in Him. Yet, as long as He was a Man in the world, His Divinity was constrained by an outer body taken from nature, and to this extent He was like another man. Therefore, while a Man in the world, He was also able to represent and to enact representative things. Thus He put on, in His person, all the states of the church. As He hung upon the cross He represented the death of the church; and so throughout His life all things round about Him in which He took part were representative; on the one hand of the states of the church, and more interiorly the Divine transactions which took place within Him. Hence He suffered baptism at the hand of John, even as other men were baptized; and so now, in sign of His royalty, just before He entered Jerusalem, there was placed upon Him the outer sign of Kingship. In doing this, Mary represented the cooperative service of heaven. For the Lord, in His glorification as well as in His descent into the world, took nothing from the angels. Yet, in all stages of His descent into the world and of His ascent therefrom, the heavens served Him. He called angels and spirits to Himself at will and sent them away. They came to Him with all their states of life, bringing appearances of truth in an endless succession. He sent them away reinstructed and reformed. This was of Divine service to Him. As with the angels, so also it was with the men about Him in the world; and so now with Mary when she laid the holy oil upon His feet. Not only angels, but good men in the world served His purpose in this way, and also evil spirits and evil men in another way. For His work was not only to glorify His Human and re-order the heavens and re-establish the church, but as well, to subdue the hells by overcoming evil.

The church to which He was come was in its last stages. Its judgment was at hand, and the evils overwhelming the race were at the point of final defeat; His complete victory was not yet, for as soon as Mary had laid the sacred oil upon Him, there occurred a resurgence of evil, accompanied by a denial of His Divinity. The voice of this denial spoke through Judas Iscariot, who said, "Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?"  In these words the Lord's Divinity was offered for sale at a price, and the price was to be given to the poor.  An evil charity, this; a more false one could not be found. This ointment signified His Divinity, and the poor to whom the price of it was to be given signified those who knew not the Lord, and who in their blindness rejected Him. Judas represented the church, even the church which crucified Him. The denial of His Divinity was His spiritual crucifixion. This Judas later betrayed Him for pieces of silver, even as he now would sell the sacred ointment of His anointing. But the Lord answered him, saying, "Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this. For the poor ye always have with you; but me ye have not always."

The Judas church could not see beyond the grave. The Lord spoke in accord with its state when He said that the oil of His anointing was kept for His burial, as if death was the conclusion. His burial was, indeed, the end of that church, and in His death He put on the representation of its condemnation.

In the eyes of the angels there is no death. Burial to them signifies resurrection, for the Lord and for all men. Even as the Lord rose from the grave, so His resurrection carried with it the upraising of a new and living church. His concluding words in the text apply to this new church as well as to the old, which passed away. He said, "The poor always ye have with you," that is to say, those who know not the Lord, and who in their spiritual blindness reject Him, would continue and would again rise to place and power in the revived church. This result was inevitable. Therefore He said, "Me ye have not always," which signifies that the Lord would, in time, depart from the revived church because it also would sell the oil of His anointing for a price, that is, would reject His Divinity - the Divinity by which He was conceived, and into which He was successively born, until He, in mind and body as well as in soul, became in actuality the Born of God. This last, however, was not at that time openly revealed. It was reserved because it could not be borne, could not be received.

The miracle of the first Christian faith and its saving power consisted in belief in His Divine conception and virgin birth. In this there was a primitive adequacy, and it served the church until credal perversions and additions arose. The entire cycle of the truth was reserved for the Lord's Second Coming. Then was it revealed that our Lord was not only conceived of the Most High God through the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin, but that as His life in the world advanced He was successively born again of God alone; and that in this He followed in the way of man's regeneration, and in so doing opened that way as never before. The revelation of this way constitutes His Second Coming, and until that revelation was given the way could not in clearness and with certainty be seen and followed. The special offering of the Church of the New Jerusalem is an open way for man's spiritual regeneration.