
Why Essential Oils Are Blessed For
Healing
by Jim Lynn,
Copyrighted 2006
Many people familiar with essential
oils know they were used to anoint both the
Tent of Meeting in Old Testament Scripture (1), and Jesus
Christ (2). But few people are aware of the implications
of those events as they relate to the role of essential
oils in healing today.
Historically, the Christian Church is
known as the Body of Christ (3), and Christians within His
Body as His physical members (4). The Tent of Meeting in Old
Testament Scripture served as a type, a pattern or as a
shadow of the real Church to come (5).
So when God gave instruction for
anointing the Tent of Meeting with essential oil, He was in
effect giving instruction to anoint the Body of Christ. When
Mary anointed Jesus years later, she physically anointed the
real thing, what Old Testament priests could only
symbolically anoint...The forerunner of Christ's Body.
Under Old Testament law, no layperson
could touch the oil used for anointing the Tent of Meeting,
for it was sacred. Yet here is Mary, a layperson, anointing
Jesus with a whole jar of precious oil and wiping His oil
soaked feet with her hair. It was her way of honoring or
blessing Him for raising her dead brother from the grave,
but God saw her act differently (6).
What Mary did she did for herself, but
God used the occasion to enjoin (bless) man's flesh with the
flesh of His own Son: Something that had not happened
previously. Mary's anointing of Jesus bonds all of humanity
to the ultimate sacrifice Jesus Christ paid for our physical
and spiritual healing (7).
God stipulated healing oils be used in
the Tent of Meeting because He ordained them (8) to be the
natural counterpoint of Christ's healing ministry (9).
Israel (Jacob) called them some of the "best products of the
land" (10). When Jesus Christ, centuries later, accepted
Mary's anointing of healing oil, He confirmed the sacred,
healing role essential oils hold for us today.
Whether people accept or reject the above
accounts and their meaning is unimportant to this report.
What is important is for people who use essential oils to
understand why they were acknowledged in Holy Scripture, and
set apart for use in the Disciples ministry of healing the
sick (11). God has blessed essential oils and their use for
healing, because they symbolically and physically bond
mortal, corruptible human flesh to incorruptible, divine,
eternal flesh in Jesus Christ. They serve as a reminder that
it is God who is our Healer (12).
Remember this knowledge and share it the
next time you anoint a loved one with oils. People need to
hear this story for edification and to understand why it is
essential oils are blessed of God for healing.
References:
1) Exodus 30:22-ff
2) John 12:1-8
3) Ephesians 5:29-30
4) Corinthians 6:15
5) Hebrews 10:1
6) John 12:7
7) Isaiah 53:4-5
8) Exodus 30:25
9) Acts 10:38
10) Genesis 43:11
11) Mark 6:13; James 5:14
12) Exodus 15:26
Jim Lynn is author
of "The Miracle of Healing In Your Church Today," (Trafford
Publishing, http://www.trafford.com/robots/02-0019.html),
and publisher of God's Healing Word Today, http://godshealingword.org
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