The Anointing brings God to us and the Incense is our going to God with Christ!

This week is our last in the series of the Crystallization-Study of Exodus (part 3), and the topic for this week is, “The Incense”. After God gave the pattern of the tabernacle including the ark of the testimony, the incense altar, the showbread table, the lampstand, the burnt offering altar, and the laver, in Exo. 30 He gave specific instructions on how to make two particular things: how to make a holy anointing oil, and how to make the incense.

The holy anointing oil was to be made in a particular way and for a particular purpose; as we have seen, this ointment signifies the compound Spirit, the consummation of the processed Triune God, to be the anointing within us constantly speaking to us, anointing us, painting us, and adding God’s elements to our being.

The incense, on the other hand, was also a compound, and it was made for a particular purpose: it was not made for man’s enjoyment or smell but for God’s enjoyment.

The incense is what made God happy; on the one hand, God was satisfied with man and could speak to man because of the sacrifices, whose smell rose to God for a sweet-smelling fragrance, and on the other hand God carried out His administration in His government when the incense was offered at the incense altar.

With the incense, if you read the entire Bible, you can see that, anytime the incense was offered in the right way to God, He was satisfied, He carried out His administration, and many things happened.

What satisfies God is the incense, and if we love God and thus care for what is in His heart, we will offer incense to God. If we love God, we will care for the desire of His heart and for the fulfillment of His purpose, and we will offer up incense to God for Him to be satisfied.

God Desires and Loves the Incense: He loves the Sweet Christ Offered by us in Prayer

Have you ever wondered, what does it mean to love God (Mark. 12:30)? Nothing can replace our love for the Lord Jesus, who is our Savior, Lord, Master, life, and everything, but what does it mean to love God as God? To love God is to care for what is in His heart and for the fulfillment of His purpose.

To love God is to have Christ as love wrought into us and with Christ and in Christ we tell Him, God, I love You! Oh Lord, my God, I love You! God wants to see those who care for the desire of His heart and care for the fulfilment of His purpose.

What does God desire? What does both satisfy Him and carries out His administration? One word: INCENSE. The burning of the incense at the golden incense altar, when it ascends to God, brings enjoyment, satisfaction, and rest to God; simultaneously, this ascending incense carries out God’s administration.

What God desires is the burning of the incense. What does it mean to burn the incense? It is to have prayer from deep within our being which is the expression of Christ in His sweetness. Something of Christ has been wrought into our being, and now from deep within, we utter a prayer the expresses Christ in His fragrance; this is the burning of the incense.

Our prayer must be the expression of the sweetness of Christ – Christ in His resurrection and ascension in a fine and sweet way. To burn the incense is to pray in Christ as the incense, with Christ as the incense, and to pray Christ as the incense.

Our prayer itself is not the incense; we need to experience the ingredients of this incense, and if our experience has been broken to pieces and grounded and burnt, then Christ as the incense will be added to our prayer as we are praying, and Christ as the incense ascends to God for our acceptance and for the making of our prayers effective.

In the Old Testament, when the priests burned the incense, the fragrance ascended to God to satisfy the desire of His heart; in the New Testament, when the incense is added to the saints prayers, the throne reacts to carry out God’s administration (see Rev. 8).

When God smells the fragrant, resurrected, and ascended Christ as the incense offered by the saints, He is satisfied, at rest, and full of enjoyment, and He has a way to carry out His administration.

Our main function as priests to God is to offer incense on the altar for God’s satisfaction. As priests, we are persons in Christ, the reproduction of Christ, those who are absolutely for God, living on earth for God’s interests; we are those fully open to be filled, saturated, and permeated with God until He flows through us. Also, as priests we are those mingled with God and the persons of incense – incense people. Amen!

God, our God, we love You! We care for the desire of Your heart and the fulfillment of Your purpose. We want that You would be delighted, satisfied, and at rest, so that You may carry out Your administration on earth. Oh Lord, give us the experiences we need so that we as priests to God would burn the incense through our prayer for God’s satisfaction! Make us the incense people, those who experience Christ and have Him wrought into them to offer Him in Him to God for His satisfaction!

The Anointing brings God to us and the Incense is our going to God with Christ!

Our Christian life is a divine two-way traffic: God coming to us and we going to God, God being wrought into our being and we being built into God so that we and God, God and man, would become one corporate entity, the Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem.

In Exo. 30 we see the holy anointing oil (Exo. 30:23-25) and the incense (v. 35); the anointing oil signifies Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit coming to us from God, and the incense signifies Christ going to God from us; this is a divine traffic in two directions.

Have you ever paid careful attention to these two pictures in Exodus 30, the one of the ointment and the other of the incense? The significance of these pictures is tremendous. The significance here is that of two-way traffic, the coming and the going. As we have pointed out, the ointment is coming to us, and the incense is going to God. Christ as the Spirit coming to us is the ointment, and Christ ascending from us to God is the incense. The ointment is toward us; the incense is toward God. The ointment is for us to enjoy, and the incense is for God’s enjoyment. We should not think that the incense is for our enjoyment. If we try to enjoy it ourselves, we shall be cut off. Exodus 30:38 speaks clearly concerning this: “Whoever shall make any like it, to smell it, shall be cut off from his people.” Incense is absolutely and entirely for God. However, there is an enjoyment for us, and this enjoyment is the ointment, the compound Spirit. We have emphasized the fact that with the ointment the priests and all the parts of the tabernacle were anointed. This is our portion. The incense is God’s portion. The ointment is Christ for us; the incense is Christ for God. (Witness Lee, Life-Study of Exodus, msg. 167)

In our Christian experience we need to have this two-way traffic daily: we need to have God wrought into us and added to us, and we need to offer Christ to God for His satisfaction. God’s coming to us is a matter of the anointing: we have the indwelling life-giving, compound Spirit in our spirit as God in Christ as the Spirit coming to us to anoint us, paint us, saturate us, and soak us with God’s elements.

The incense is our going to God in prayer by first experiencing Christ and then offering this sweet, fragrant, and satisfying Christ to God for His satisfaction, rest, and enjoyment.

We need to come to the bronze altar and be terminated, spend time at the showbread table to be properly nourished with God, be shined on by God in Christ through His word at the golden lampstand, and meet with God on the propitiatory cover of the ark of the testimony; here, in God’s presence, we are at the incense altar to offer Christ as incense to God for His enjoyment.

Our Christian life and experience needs to be this two-way traffic: we need to have Christ as the Spirit wrought into us as the anointing, and we need to go to God through Christ, in Christ, and as Christ as the incense for God’s satisfaction.

The anointing brings God to us in Christ and through Christ for our participation in the divine element; when we heed the anointing and walk according to the anointing, we are painted with the elements of the Triune God and we become divinely-human just as Christ was.

The incense altar is our going to God with Christ and as Christ in prayer for God’s enjoyment (see John 14:13-14; 15:16; 16:23-24, 26); when pray in the Lord’s name, we pray as Christ and with Christ in prayer for God’s enjoyment.

May we have much two-way traffic between us and God, having God coming to us in Christ as the Spirit, and going to God in Christ and with Christ as the incense for God’s satisfaction!

Lord Jesus, may our Christian life and experience be a two-way divine traffic of God coming to us as the anointing and our going to God with Christ as the incense! Lord, we want to continually participate in the divine element by living according to the anointing so that we may be filled, saturated, permeated, soaked, and painted with the compound Spirit. We want to have Christ wrought into our being and offer this sweet Christ to God as the incense for God’s satisfaction!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, brother Ron Kangas’ sharing in the message for this week, and Life-study of Exodus, msg. 167 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (3), week 12 (week 36), The Incense.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Two hymns on this topic:
  # Ointment is Christ for us, / Exceeding glorious! / Incense is Christ for God, / Wholly for Him. / Ointment flows down to us, / Christ is our portion thus; / Incense ascends to God, / Fragrant to Him. / ’Tis by th’ anointing / Christ we experience / And then the incense burn. / Christ in our prayer and praise— / O what a Christ we raise / From our experience, / Precious to God. (Hymns #1116)
  # I’ll offer prayers as incense burns, / Christ’s resurrection bring therein, / God’s wish thus meet, His heart give joy, / And I’ll rejoice with Him. / Let us the incense burn / Of prayer before the Lord; / The lamp we’d light, through day and night / Our praise to Him outpoured. (Hymns #791)