A question has come about the meaning of the word "unction" in its one time occurrence in one version of the Bible: "But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things" (I John 2:20, KJV ). The dictionary says that an "unction" is "the act of anointing ... as a symbol of consecration, dedication, etc. in religious ceremonies," and it says that to "anoint" is "to pour oil upon; to smear or rub over with oil or ointment."

Jacob, sleeping on the ground, using a stone for a pillow, was deeply impressed by the Lord’s appearance and by his words (Genesis 28:10-16). Jacob trembled, saying, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven" (Genesis 28:16-17). He set up his stone pillow for a memorial pillar, "and poured [olive] oil on the top of it," and names "that place ‘Bethel,’" which means the "House of God" (Genesis 28:21-22). In this way Jacob performed an unction, pouring oil on a rock "as a symbol of consecration, dedication" in a religious ceremony.

Years later, in far away Paddanaram (Genesis 28:2), the Lord spoke again to Jacob: "I am the God of Bethel, where you poured oil on a memorial and you made a vow to me"

(Genesis 31:13). When Jacob returned from Paddanaram, he revisited "the place where God had spoken to him," set up a stone as previously, "and poured oil and a brink-offering upon it" (Genesis 35:14).

Long after the days of Jacob, God commanded Moses to prepare a special ointment, an unction of "the finest spices" (liquid myrrh, sweet-smelling cinnamon, aromatic cane) mixed with "olive oil," making "a sacred anointing oil blended as by a perfumer" (Exodus 30:22-25, RSV).

This "holy anointing oil" Moses was to pour on an oblong tent (45x15x15 feet, Exodus 26:18-30) called the "Tabernacle" (mishcan, a "dwelling place,"), or the "tent of meeting" (Exodus 29:9; 30:25-26). Also, all the sacred furniture of the tabernacle received the specially prepared oil in a dedication ceremony (Exodus 30:26-29).

The holy anointing oil was also poured on the heads of "Aaron and his sons" to "consecrate them" as "priests" (Exodus 29:7, 21; 30:30; Leviticus 8:12). Their unction, their anointing, said the Lord, was to "admit them to a perpetual priesthood" (Exodus 40:15). The "precious oil" ran "down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes" (Psalm 133:2, RSV).

As Jacob’s unction dedicated a stone, and as Moses’ unction dedicated the tabernacle and the priests, so "Samuel took a small jar of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s head" to set him apart as Israel’s first king (I Samuel 10:1, CEV). When Saul proved unworthy, the Lord said to Samuel, "I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me, and has not carried out my commands" (I Samuel 15:11). The sad words "grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night" (I Samuel 15:11).

But the Lord knows best. He sees "not as man sees; a man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (I Samuel 16:7). In this case he looked down from heaven and saw a young man "after his own heart" (I Samuel 13:14), and he instructed Samuel to go to Bethlehem to Jesse’s home, and "Fill your horn [an animal horn hollowed out] with oil, and go, ... for I have selected a king for myself among his sons" (I Samuel 16:1). Samuel did what the Lord had told him, and anointed David as Israel’s new king (I Samuel 16:13).

Similarly, the Lord’s plan for a religious ceremony was carried out when "Zadok the priest brought some olive oil" and "poured it on Solomon’s head to show that he was now king" (I Kings 1:39, CEV), and Elijah anointed Elisha as a prophet (I Kings 19:16).

When Jesus was "anointed" to "preach he gospel to the poor" (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18), the use of literal olive oil for an unction was displaced by a pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon him, even while he was still wet in the Jordan River, after his baptism. He could even see "God’s Spirit coming down on him as a dove" (Matthew 3:16). Then, when he "returned from the Jordan," he was "full of the Holy Spirit" (Luke 4:1), and he knew that his unction in the river had qualified him as a gospel preacher. He announced in the synagogue at Nazareth: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor" (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:18).

The oil unction poured on Saul, David, and Solomon set them apart as kings, but the Holy Spirit unction, poured on Jesus at his baptism, did not make him a king. He was not a king while he was on the earth. It turns out that Jesus had two unctions, one to empower him as a gospel preacher on the earth, and one later in heaven to make him King of kings. On earth he had refused to be a king (John 6:15), but not when he arrived back in heaven (Acts 2:30).

While on earth, he knew what his Father had promised: "Most certainly I will anoint my king in Zion, my holy mountain" (Psalm 2:6), but he knew that the "Mount Zion" where he would be anointed would not be earthly: it would be a "heavenly Jerusalem" (Hebrew 12:22).

He also knew that his great grandfather David, a thousand years before, had called him the Lord’s Mashiah, meaning "Messiah" (Psalm 1:2). The Hebrew word Mashiah is from the verb mashah, meaning to smear, to anoint, and so the title "Messiah" means to "Anointed One." The Greek word Christos (Psalm 1:2, LXX) is from the verb chrio, meaning to smear, to anoint, and so the title "Christ" means the "Anointed One."

Thus, both in the Hebrew and in the Greek, an unction, an anointing, was planned for Jesus when he would arrive in figurative "Zion, my holy mountain" (Psalm 2:6). But there is no olive oil in heaven!

However, as in Jesus’ first unction the Father poured out, not literal olive oil, but the Holy Spirit on his Son, so in Jesus’ second unction, the Father poured out figurative olive oil, described as "the oil of gladness," as it had been predicted: "Therefore, God, even your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness" (Psalm 45:7; Hebrews 1:9).

Consequently, on the day of Pentecost, May 28, A.D. 30, after Jesus’ heavenly anointing, for the first time in the history of the world, Jesus was proclaimed to be, in actuality, "both Lord [that is, the King of kings] and Christ [ that is, the Anointed One]" (Acts 2:36).

As Jesus received an unction, an anointing, without olive oil when he was crowned king in heaven, so sinners receive an unction, without olive oil, when they become children of God. Their anointing is invisible, and not felt, but is real: "Now God is the one ... who anointed us; who also sealed us, and has given us the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts" (II Corinthians 1:21).

This unction, received by all Christians, is for two purposes: (1) it is a seal (sphragizo, to confirm, to authenticate, to place beyond all doubt, Thayer) that sinners have truly become children of God, "sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise" (Ephesians 1:13). "All of you are God’s children through faith in Christ Jesus, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ clothed yourselves with Christ" (Galatians 3:26-27). Because "you are sons, God has sent his Son’s Spirit into our hearts, crying ‘Abba, Father’" "You, therefore, are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then also an heir through God" (Galatians 4:6-7). After "the bath of the new birth," after "the washing of regeneration," God "pours out on us" the Holy Spirit "richly" (plousios, in full measure, Titus 3:5-6).

(2) Not only is the unction, the anointment, by the Holy Spirit a certification of sonship, but more! It is a pledge (arrabon, a guarantee), "the first installment of our inheritance" (Ephesians 1:14), "an imperishable and unstained and never fading inheritance, reserved in heaven for you" (I Peter 1:4).

As Jesus, on the day of his second unction, changed from a non-regal status to the regal, so all sinners, after their baptism, on the day of their unction, have been made "kings [Majority text] and priests, and they reign upon the earth" (Revelation 1:6; 5:10, ASV).

Sinners in the world "cannot receive" the Holy Spirit (John 14:17), but God gives the Spirit "to those who obey him" (Acts 5:32). This reception of the Holy Spirit by all Christians bestows no miraculous power, else all Christians would be able to work miracles.

But some Christians in the first century received a second unction, by the laying on of the hands of an apostle (Acts 8:18), and obtained miraculous power. Apparently it is to this second unction that John refers to when he says that "you have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things," and "you do not need that someone should teach you" (I John 2:20, 27). Surely he was not attributing omniscience to any Christian, else his own teaching would not have been needed.

Apparently some Christians, not all, had an apostle to lay hands on them, and they received miraculous knowledge. Knowledge was one of the nine miraculous gifts listed in I Corinthians 12:8-10. Apparently, then, the second unction mentioned by John (I John 2:20, 27) was wholly miraculous, and consequently, when the last person died, on whom an apostle had laid his hands, no one has that second unction today.

This conclusion, that the unction spoken of by John (I John 2:20, 27) gave miraculous knowledge to those on whom an apostle had laid hands, and now has disappeared, has a parallel in the fact that some elders, not all, had the hands of an apostle laid on them, and they received the unction that gave them another one of the nine listed miraculous powers, namely, "healings" (I Corinthians 12:8:10; James 5:14). And, just as there is today no unction giving miraculous knowledge, so there is today no miraculous healing.

The unction giving supernatural knowledge (I John 2:20, 27), and the unction giving unfailing healing power (James 5:14), are both impossible today. The unction not of olive oil but of the reception of the Holy Spirit (II Corinthians 1:21) has no time limits, for "the promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call" (Acts 2:39).