Anointed with the Holy Spirit and with Power

Peter preached to Cornelius and household about how God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power, which was how Jesus went about “doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (Acts 10:38). This anointing, however, was not just for Jesus. It belongs to all who belong to God through faith in Jesus.

The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, speaks about the Holy Spirit and power in relation to those who have received the Lord Jesus. We are, he says, “sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance” (Ephesians 1:13-14). Then he offers a prayer that God would give us “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation,” — wisdom and revelation by the Holy Spirit — so that we may know God more and more (1:17). In particular, Paul prays that we may know, deeply and intimately, three things:

• The hope (joyful expectation, positive anticipation) to which God has called us (v. 18). Paul spoke of this in 1:3-10, about our adoption as children of God, redemption through the blood of Christ, the forgiveness of sins, the abundance of God’s grace toward us, and about being gathered together along with everything in heaven and on earth into one — into Christ.
• The riches of the inheritance God has given us (v. 18). Paul spoke of this in 1:11-14, with the Holy Spirit as the guarantee of our inheritance. It is not just about what we have in Christ but also who we are in Him — and who He is in us.
• The exceeding greatness of God’s mighty power toward us who believe (v. 19).

It is this third one that I want to consider more closely here, for Paul goes on to describe the “exceeding greatness” of that power. It is the very same power by which God raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at God’s own right hand in the heavenlies. That is to say, the power of God has seated Jesus in the place of ruling and reigning. Paul tells us the extent of His reign. It is “far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (vv. 20-23).

The power God has toward us is not only the power by which God has raised and seated Jesus, it is also the power by which He has made us alive, too, who were once dead in “trespasses and sins” (2:1-3). God has not only made us alive together with Jesus, He has also raised us up together with Jesus and seated us together with Him in the heavenlies — in the place of ruling and reigning with Him (2:5-6).

In Ephesians 3:20-21, Paul speaks of this power again as he takes a moment to offer a praise to God: “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”

God is able to do “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think,” Paul says, and He does it “according to the power that works in us.” This is the power that raised Jesus from the dead and seated Him at the right hand of the Father. the power Paul fervently prays we might have a deep realization about through the Holy Spirit. Indeed, it is the power of the Holy Spirit Himself, who is at work in us.

It is far more wonderful than anything have even begun to imagine, and God does not hold any of it back from us. But what does hold it back is our own unbelief. We do not have because we do not ask, James says, and even when we do ask, we ask with wrong motives, because we do not think beyond our own pleasure (James 4:2-3). But faith expresses itself through love, which gives and serves. When our love is lacking, so is our faith. Then we are hindered in our ability to ask, think or imagine the amazing things God wants to do in us, with us and through us in the world.

But God’s Spirit, anointing and power are there in us nonetheless. Waiting.

For God was With Him

That word you know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. (Acts 10:37-38)

How did Jesus do the things He did? Jesus gave His own answer at the Last Supper: “The Father who dwells in Me does the works” (John 14:10). And now Peter, in his announcement of the gospel to Cornelius provides an answer:

• God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power.
• God was with Him.

Now understand, Jesus was (and is) fully divine as well as fully human. In other words, He is God. Yet Peter does not say that Jesus “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil, for He is God.” Rather, he says that it was because “God was with Him.” The miracles Jesus performed, He performed in His humanity but anointed with the Holy Spirit, and because God the Father was with Him.

But how was God with Him? Remember, when Jesus was baptized, the voice of the Father said, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” This identified Jesus as the Son God promised would come to rule and reign over Israel and the nations, and whom God would anoint with His Spirit. That anointing happened at Jesus’ baptism. The Holy Spirit descended like a dove and rested on Him (Matthew 3:16-17).

The Holy Spirit was always with Him and in Him, of course, but now the Holy Spirit was upon Him, anointing Him (this is why Jesus is called “Christ” or “Messiah,” which means “Anointed”). And when the Holy Spirit comes, there is power. And it was by this anointing and this power that Jesus went about doing good and working miracles of healing and deliverance from demonic oppression.

Peter gives us this account in Acts 10. But think back now to Acts 1, where Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the “Promise of the Father” (Acts 1:4). By this, He meant that they were to wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them. He said,

You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

Ten days later, during the festival of Pentecost, as the disciples waited at Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit came upon them — just as He had upon Jesus! Throughout the rest of the book of Acts, the power of the Holy Spirit is revealed in them through miracles, healings, exorcisms, and other ways — even raising the dead. God was with them just as He was with Jesus.

This same anointing with the Holy Spirit and power is available today for all who come to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith. The history of the Church is full of the same sorts of miracles and manifestations of the Holy Spirit. God is still doing today what He has always done, that we may show the evidence of who Jesus is and bring healing and freedom to the nations in Jesus’ name.

The Father Who Dwells in Me Does the Works

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. (John 14:10)

How did Jesus do the things He did? Why did He say the things He said? Our first inclination is that it was because Jesus is God — fully divine — and that He therefore operated out of His divinity. But the point of the Incarnation is that the eternal Son of God became fully human to dwell among us as one of us. He did not merely appear human, or put on humanity as a garment. He became human. So Jesus was (and is) fully human as well as fully divine. That has always been the faith proclaimed by the Church.

However, Jesus did not operate out of His divinity. He operated out of His humanity. The miracles, the healings, the exorcisms were all performed by Jesus in His humanity. Even the things He said were spoken by Him in His humanity.

In John 14, we see Jesus on the night of the Last Supper preparing the disciples for what was going to happen over the next days. They had not yet truly comprehended who He was or why He came. Or how He said and did all that He said and did, even though He had spoken of it before:

• Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. (John 5:19)
• I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me. (John 5:30)
• When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things. (John 8:28)

Now He repeats it again as He prepares the disciples for what lay ahead, and He tells them plainly. “The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.”

Everything Jesus spoke, He spoke by the authority of the Father. Not by His own divine authority as the Son of God, but as a human being who heard the voice of the Father. He said only what He heard the Father saying. He was not seeking His own will or His own words. He was completely about doing the will of the Father. So He listened for the will of the Father and spoke and judged in agreement with it.

Likewise, everything Jesus did, He did by the power of the Father. Not out of His own divine power as the Son of God, but as a human being obedient to the Father and observant of what the Father was doing. He did only what He saw the Father doing. And, indeed, it was the Father dwelling in Him who did the works. Jesus was energized by the Father.

All fine and well, a good study in Christology. Praise God — Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Ah, but watch how Jesus moves this forward in His instruction of the disciples. Just two verses later, He says,

Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. (John 14:12)

Jesus promised whoever believes in Him would do the same works Jesus did. Indeed, they would do even greater works than those Jesus did. Remember now that the works Jesus did, He did not do out of His divinity but out of His humanity — it was the Father who dwelt within Him who actually did the works. Would it be any different for the disciples? Would they be able to do the same works Jesus did (and even greater works) on their own? No! It would have to be God Himself doing the works, just as it was with Jesus.

But then how would this be? The answer I see is in the next few verses and seems to come in two parts, although perhaps they are two sides of the same coin. First, Jesus says,

And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it” (John 14:13-14).

Jesus was going to the Father, but He gave the disciples (and by extension, all who believe in Him) the authority of ask of the Father in His name. And whatever they asked in His name, Jesus Himself would do.

Asking in Jesus’ name is not a matter of tacking “In Jesus’ name” onto the end of our prayers. To ask in Jesus’ name is to ask as Jesus would ask and for the reason Jesus would ask — that the Father may be glorified. Jesus was all about the words of the Father, the works of the Father, the will of the Father and the glory of the Father. His desire was that the Father would be glorified in Him, but also in the disciples.

The second reason the disciples (and us, too) would be able to do the works of Jesus (and even greater works) is this: Jesus said,

If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever — the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. (John 14:15-17)

When Jesus went to the Father, He was going to ask Him, and the Father was going to give them “another Helper” who would abide with them. This Helper is the Holy Spirit, who was already dwelling with them but would now be in them. It would be God Himself dwelling in them by His Spirit. Just as the Father dwelt in Jesus and was the authority and power behind all Jesus said and did, so also the Holy Spirit was given to dwell in us.

Through prayer to the Father in Jesus’ name, and by the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us (and in all who believe on the Lord Jesus), we can manifest the works of Jesus, and even greater works. For it is God Himself who does the works — in us, with us and through us.