Fragrance

“Your anointing oils have a wonderful fragrance; Your Name is like anointing oil poured out.” [Song of Songs 1:3] 

The Lord initiated the fragrant anointing oil and incense, to usher in His Holiness!

Moses assembled the whole community of Israel to give them the Lord’s instructions to take up a collection – yes, fund-raising for the church. Well actually, to build an incredible tabernacle in the wilderness, to house the Holy of Holies (the Ark of the Covenant), with a magnificent gold candle-stand to light inside, a huge bronze washbasin outside and a big altar for burnt offerings. The people generously gave gold, silver and bronze, yarns, ram skins, acacia-wood, precious stones, olive oil for light and spices for both the Anointing Oil and the Fragrant Incense.

Fragrance can be defined as a sweet or delicate scent; something compounded to give off a pleasant odour, such as flowers in perfumery. A fragrant aroma refers more to aromatic plant oils which are extracted from seeds, peel, resins, leaves, roots, bark or flowers – oils that are the essence of nature in a very concentrated form – and smell astonishing! Essential oils deliver natural healing support for our mental, emotional and physical well-being. I love the scent of oils emanating from a diffuser through my house!

The Lord provided Moses with all the plans for His house, the ‘Tabernacle’ and its furnishings, including making the Altar of Incense. It was small – eighteen inches square (45.72cm) and only twice that in height, made out of acacia-wood and overlaid with pure gold. It was positioned in front of the tapestry curtains behind which was the Holy of Holies. God also specified the formulas for His incense and anointing oil:

Fragrant Holy Incense: Balsam and Frankincense resins, bitter Galbanum gum and sweet Onycha (Labdanum) root, all ground finely and salted;

Holy Anointing Oil: Myrrh, Cinnamon, Cassia bark and Calamus cane, blended expertly in pure, fresh olive oil.

For thousands of years, fresh olive oil has been called ‘liquid gold’. Oil was pressed from picked-fresh olives and stored in air-tight jars sealing in the freshness, preventing it from decaying. (Extra-virgin olive oil is a pantry staple, but have you ever opened your half-empty bottle and got a whiff of a putrid-smelling stale oil? Toss it out. The purity of your olive oil has been contaminated – air in the empty half of your bottle has oxidised the oil, daylight through a clear container and high temperatures in the cupboard all combine over time to corrupt the purity, rendering it a stinking, unpalatable loss.)

Are you an artist? Or a carpenter? Our talents are God’s gifts in all manner of workmanship. Likewise, the Lord appointed Bezalel and Aholiab to design artistic works, and teach gifted craftsmen and engravers: to build, to mould, to spin and weave, carve wood, cut and set precious stones; and expert perfume-makers to create the Holy Anointing Oil and the pure Incense of aromatic plant substances. [Exodus 31:1-11]

Outside the tabernacle was the altar for the burnt offerings – animals, birds and grain, sacrificed to God by fire, morning and night, day after day with Frankincense – a fragrant aroma for the Lord! The fragrance of burnt bulls, rams, lambs, goats, doves or pigeons – innocent animals whose blood was poured out against the altar to atone for sin, every day. God would smell the sacrifice burning, and it was fragrance to Him. People had gifted that animal which died in their place, the loss to their herds would be substantial. It wasn’t a gift that didn’t cost them anything.

The fire under the sacrifices had to burn continually. Every morning the priest scraped out the ash, and stoked the fire ready for the new daily sacrifices. Glowing coals heated the new wood into roaring fire. The Priest would take a red-hot coal with his tongs from the Altar of Sacrifice, and carry it to the Altar of Incense. No other hot coal was authorised. No other glowing coal had been purified by the sacrifices. It wasn’t a separate fire that had burned down to hot coals –that would have been unauthorised fire like Nadab and Abihu had used, resulting in the death penalty. 

On the glowing coal, he sprinkled the finely ground blend of aromatic spices. The fragrance of the Incense filled the inside of the tabernacle as a beautiful, pleasing aroma to the Lord!

Fast-forward a few hundred years to the prophet Isaiah, who began his ministry when both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms had declined spiritually and politically. The Jewish people still went through the motions of church, with daily sacrifices in the Temple giving an outward appearance of Godliness, but they had corrupted their hearts with wickedness, and become a stench in the nostrils of God. The prophet Jeremiah issued a terrible reproach from God to Israel:

“The Lord called your name, Green Olive Tree, lovely and of good fruit.  

(But) with the noise of a great tumult He has kindled FIRE on it, and its branches are broken.” [Jeremiah 11:16]

The nation Israel, once called God’s ‘pure fresh olive oil’, had become degenerate, their sinful way of life and false worship was offering profane incense to Baal!

“Instead of a sweet smell there will be a stench; instead of a sash, a rope; instead of well-set hair, baldness; instead of a rich robe, a girding of sackcloth; and branding instead of beauty. Your men shall fall by the sword, and your mighty in the war.” [Isaiah 3:24]  God’s judgment had been declared.

One day when Isaiah was praying, he saw the Lord in a vision, seated on His high, imposing throne! Seraph’im stood over Him, all their voices celebrating the Holy, Holiest of Holiness –the LORD! The doorposts around Isaiah shook under the heavenly sound and the house FILLED with smoke. Isaiah fell to the depth of his soul under the overwhelming recognition of Israel’s putrid spiritual condition. He cried desperately, realising how contaminated his own soul had become, living amongst such degradation. Isaiah repented jointly of his own grossly unrighteous life, together with Israel’s shame: “Woe is me! I too am doomed! Because I, a man with unclean lips, living among a people with unclean lips, have seen with my own eyes the King, Adonai-Tzva’ot!” 

Then one Seraph flew to Isaiah with a glowing coal, which he had taken with tongs from the Altar. He touched Isaiah’s mouth with it, proclaiming, 

“Your iniquity is taken away! 

Your sin is purged (atoned for)!”   [Isaiah 6:1-7] 

In the eyes of God, Isaiah’s repentance was burning on the altar of sacrifice. So, the Seraph having taken one red-hot live coal FROM the righteous sacrifice, touched Isaiah’s mouth and declared forgiveness! Isaiah’s humble response was a beautiful (pleasing) aroma to the Lord.  

Our Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God, became the righteous sacrifice once and for all for our sin. (But) only through OUR repentance is our unrighteousness purged (taken away / atoned for). Otherwise our worship isn’t pure. It’s defiled by the degradation of our sinful souls, and as shocking as this sounds, God cannot endure our assemblies, our sacred meetings, calling them “futile sacrifices; and the Incense is an abomination to Me.” [Isaiah 1:13]

When the thoughts of our hearts are surrendered righteously, the words from our lips are a pleasing sacrifice – and through His anointing a fragrant incense from our soul and spirit emanates a sweet-smelling aroma to the Lord.

 Psalm 92:10

 “I have been anointed with FRESH OIL.” 

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Scripture quotations taken from the Spirit-Filled Life Bible

The Holy Bible, New King James Version

Copyright © 1991 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Scripture quotations taken from the Complete Jewish Bible

Copyright © 1998 and 2016 by David H Stern

Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.