Exodus 30:22-38--The Anointing Oil and Incense

The Anointing Oil and Incense​
22 The Lord said to Moses, 23 “Take the finest spices: of liquid myrrh 500 shekels, and of sweet-smelling cinnamon half as much, that is, 250, and 250 of aromatic cane, 24 and 500 of cassia, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and a hin of olive oil. 25 And you shall make of these a sacred anointing oil blended as by the perfumer; it shall be a holy anointing oil. 26 With it you shall anoint the tent of meeting and the ark of the testimony, 27 and the table and all its utensils, and the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense, 28 and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils and the basin and its stand. 29 You shall consecrate them, that they may be most holy. Whatever touches them will become holy. 30 You shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may serve me as priests. 31 And you shall say to the people of Israel, ‘This shall be my holy anointing oil throughout your generations. 32 It shall not be poured on the body of an ordinary person, and you shall make no other like it in composition. It is holy, and it shall be holy to you. 33 Whoever compounds any like it or whoever puts any of it on an outsider shall be cut off from his people.’”

34 The Lord said to Moses, “Take sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum, sweet spices with pure frankincense (of each shall there be an equal part), 35 and make an incense blended as by the perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy. 36 You shall beat some of it very small, and put part of it before the testimony in the tent of meeting where I shall meet with you. It shall be most holy for you. 37 And the incense that you shall make according to its composition, you shall not make for yourselves. It shall be for you holy to the Lord. 38 Whoever makes any like it to use as perfume shall be cut off from his people.”

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I'll freely admit that I'm not sure how this passage directly connects to Christ or the Church or even the New Heaven and the New Earth.  It does show us though that God probably understood that the smell of blood and death that was likely so prevalent in the Tabernacle would need to be covered up by something sweet-smelling.  All of the Tabernacle would be "anointed" with this fragrant mixture and this was the only place in which this exact combination was to be used and no other combination was to be used in the Tabernacle other than this one.  God's "house" and the things of God and probably the priests of God that were in contact with this incense that burned morning and evening would probably have this aroma to them that would make people think of God and it was not supposed to be associated with anything else.

In some ways, I can connect this to our worship and how it should be different than anything that the world has to offer.  We should not feel like we are going to a concert or to hear a motivational speaker when we go to church.  Gathering for worship of the Lord should have it's own unique aroma that you can't capture anywhere else, nor should you try to take that which is designed to worship God and use it for ordinary, everyday purposes

We see that the oil (probably symbolic of the Holy Spirit) made everything and everyone it touched holy ,and those things and people were consecrated to the LORD and His service.  God was so serious about whatever this anointing oil represented that He said that anyone that misused it for common means or that even made a close facsimile of it would be cut off from the people of God--you would not be killed but you would no longer be an Israelite.

Similarly, God gave Moses the recipe for the incense to be burned on the Altar of Incense that we've already studied.  This too would be most holy and could not be used for any other common reason and no facsimile of it was to be made by the people.  It seems clear to me from the New Testament that the burning of incense had something to do with the prayers of the saints and that they would rise up to God's throne in heaven and be a sweet aroma to Him as they worshiped Him in spirit and in truth, but it would be putrid smell to Him if they offered insincere or false worship.  Our prayer life is meant for communion with God and it should not resemble anything else that is worldly, nor should we we confuse others by making them think that prayer is okay for approaching God any way we want or talking to ourselves or talking to the "gods" of our own creation or the false gods that are of the devil and his demons.  One of my biggest pet peeves is people asking others to pray for them when knowing full well that the person they are asking to offer prayers is not saved and will be praying to a false God or the idea of "positive thoughts" somehow being equivalent to asking God to intervene in a situation and watching Him work.  We need to be very careful in our calls that we make for people to pray that we don't make a call to "pray to whatever god you believe in," because there is only one God who hears and answers our prayers, and He requires that we approach Him through the blood of Jesus.  There is only one Way and one Mediator between God an man.  Those who misappropriate prayer to try to turn it into something that it is not (making God into a genie in a bottle) or make it into the same thing as "positive thoughts" and "positive energy" or who welcome the prayers of those worshiping false gods that are not worthy of worship or praise--only the one true God is worthy of that--those people might need a reality check to see if they are really a part of the community known as "God's people."  We should not let anything else receive our worship and we should not allow our worship to look like anything carnal or worldly.