"All the minister's efforts will be vanity or worse than vanity if he have not unction. Unction must come down from heaven and spread a savor and feeling and relish over his ministry; and among the other means of qualifying himself for his office, the Bible must hold the first place, and the last also must be given to the Word of God and prayer." - Richard Cecil |
IN the
Christian system unction is the anointing
of the Holy Ghost, separating unto God's work and qualifying for it. This unction
is the one divine enablement by which the preacher accomplishes the peculiar
and saving ends of preaching. Without this unction there are no true spiritual
results accomplished; the results and forces in preaching do not rise above
the results of unsanctified speech. Without unction the former is as potent
as the pulpit.
This divine unction on the preacher generates through the Word of God the spiritual
results that flow from the gospel; and without this unction, these results are
not secured. Many pleasant impressions may be made, but these all fall far below
the ends of gospel preaching. This unction may be simulated. There are many
things that look like it, there are many results that resemble its effects;
but they are foreign to its results and to its nature. The fervor or softness
excited by a pathetic or emotional sermon may look like the movements of the
divine unction, but they have no pungent, perpetrating heart-breaking force.
No heart-healing balm is there in these surface, sympathetic, emotional movements;
they are not radical, neither sin-searching nor sin-curing.
This divine unction is the one distinguishing feature that separates true gospel
preaching from all other methods of presenting truth. It backs and interpenetrates
the revealed truth with all the force of God. It illumines the Word and broadens
and enrichens the intellect and empowers it to grasp and apprehend the Word.
It qualifies the preacher's heart, and brings it to that condition of tenderness,
of purity, of force and light that are necessary to secure the highest results.
This unction gives to the preacher liberty and enlargement of thought and soul
-- a freedom, fullness, and directness of utterance that can be secured by no
other process.
Without this unction on the preacher the gospel has no more power to propagate
itself than any other system of truth. This is the seal of its divinity. Unction
in the preacher puts God in the gospel. Without the unction, God is absent,
and the gospel is left to the low and unsatisfactory forces that the ingenuity,
interest, or talents of men can devise to enforce and project its doctrines.
It is in this element that the pulpit oftener fails than in any other element.
Just at this all-important point it lapses. Learning it may have, brilliancy
and eloquence may delight and charm, sensation or less offensive methods may
bring the populace in crowds, mental power may impress and enforce truth with
all its resources; but without this unction, each and all these will be but
as the fretful assault of the waters on a Gibraltar. Spray and foam may cover
and spangle; but the rocks are there still, unimpressed and unimpressible. The
human heart can no more be swept of its hardness and sin by these human forces
than these rocks can be swept away by the ocean's ceaseless flow.
This unction is the consecration force, and its presence the continuous test
of that consecration. It is this divine anointing on the preacher that secures
his consecration to God and his work. Other forces and motives may call him
to the work, but this only is consecration. A separation to God's work by the
power of the Holy Spirit is the only consecration recognized by God as legitimate.
The unction, the divine unction, this heavenly anointing, is what the pulpit
needs and must have. This divine and heavenly oil put on it by the imposition
of God's hand must soften and lubricate the whole man -- heart, head, spirit
-- until it separates him with a mighty separation from all earthly, secular,
worldly, selfish motives and aims, separating him to everything that is pure
and Godlike.
It is the presence of this unction on the preacher that creates the stir and
friction in many a congregation. The same truths have been told in the strictness
of the letter, but no ruffle has been seen, no pain or pulsation felt. All is
quiet as a graveyard. Another preacher comes, and this mysterious influence
is on him; the letter of the Word has been fired by the Spirit, the throes of
a mighty movement are felt, it is the unction that pervades and stirs the conscience
and breaks the heart. Unctionless preaching makes everything hard, dry, acrid,
dead.
This unction is not a memory or an era of the past only; it is a present, realized,
conscious fact. It belongs to the experience of the man as well as to his preaching.
It is that which transforms him into the image of his divine Master, as well
as that by which he declares the truths of Christ with power. It is so much
the power in the ministry as to make all else seem feeble and vain without it,
and by its presence to atone for the absence of all other and feebler forces.
This unction is not an inalienable gift. It is a conditional gift, and its presence
is perpetuated and increased by the same process by which it was at first secured;
by unceasing prayer to God, by impassioned desires after God, by estimating
it, by seeking it with tireless ardor, by deeming all else loss and failure
without it.
How and whence comes this unction? Direct from God in answer to prayer. Praying
hearts only are the hearts filled with this holy oil; praying lips only are
anointed with this divine unction.
Prayer, much prayer, is the price of preaching unction; prayer, much prayer,
is the one, sole condition of keeping this unction. Without unceasing prayer
the unction never comes to the preacher. Without perseverance in prayer, the
unction, like the manna overkept, breeds worms.