Anointing is the application of oil—or, in its spiritual reality, the bestowal of the Holy Spirit—to consecrate and equip a person for divine service, and by extension the abiding presence and teaching of the Spirit in believers. In the Old Testament, prophets, priests, and kings were anointed with holy oil to set them apart and qualify them for their offices; the oil was the outward sign of the Spirit’s inward equipping, so that the anointed king was the LORD’s anointed, His mashiach. These offices converged and were fulfilled in Jesus the Christ—the very title means “Anointed One”—upon whom the Spirit descended at His baptism and who declared, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel.” From the anointed Head the anointing flows to the members: John writes that believers “have an unction from the Holy One” and “the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you,” teaching them all things—the indwelling Spirit who illumines the Word and preserves the saints from the lies of antichrist. The doctrine thus binds together the Spirit’s consecrating and teaching work in every believer. It must be guarded against a common abuse: the notion of “the anointing” as a special, transferable, quasi-magical power possessed by elite spiritual figures—star preachers and healers who claim a unique unction that sets them above ordinary Christians and that may be imparted, sold, or caught. Scripture knows no such caste; the anointing is the common possession of all who are in Christ, the indwelling Spirit who teaches and consecrates the whole body, not a special charge reserved for a charismatic few.