Psalms 45:7

God anoints him before his own people with the oil of joy. Just as he appeared before humankind incarnate and perfect, Christ appeared anointed with oil before all Christians. There were many righteous people from Abel to Christ, but none born of a virgin, none …

He was also anointed in the all-holy Spirit, not as God but as a human being: as God he was of one being with the Spirit, whereas as a human being he receives the gifts of the Spirit like a kind of anointing. Thus he …

You have been anointed with the oil of gladness above your fellow people, above your apostles. You possess the font of unction; they, the drops.

Let no one be misled by the fact of the apostle's frequently omitting the name of the Father and of the Holy Spirit when making mention of baptism, or on this account imagine that the invocation of the names is not observed. "As many of you," he says, "as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ;" and again, "As many of you as were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death." For the naming of Christ is the confession of the whole, shewing forth as it does the God who gave, the Son who received, and the Spirit who is, the unction. So we have learned from Peter, in the Acts, of "Jesus of Nazareth whom God anointed with the Holy Ghost;" and in Isaiah, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me;" and the Psalmist, "Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."

The flesh of the Lord was anointed with the true anointing, by the coming of the Holy Spirit into it, which was called "the oil of gladness." And he was anointed above his fellows; that is to say, all people who are members of Christ. Therefore, a certain partial sharing of the Spirit was given to them, but the Holy Spirit descending on the Son of God, as John says, "abode on him."

To whom again the blessed Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews bears witness in these words: And of the Son he saith, thy throne, O God! is for ever and ever; the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Having said this …

These words also show clearly that he who did all things [God the Father] testified that he [Jesus] is to be worshiped both as God and Christ.

Christ, to be sure, was nowhere anointed with oil but with the Holy Spirit. For this reason he added "beyond your companions" to indicate this very fact, that no one was like him.

Christ was not anointed by people with oil or material ointment, but the Father, having before appointed him to be the Savior of the whole world, anointed him with the Holy Spirit.… As he was anointed with an ideal oil of gladness, that is, with the Holy Spirit, called oil of gladness, because he is the author of spiritual gladness, so you were anointed with ointment, having been made partakers and "fellows of Christ."

To those who have been forestalled by divine grace — the humble and pious, the contrite and devout, those anointed with the oil of gladness, lovers of divine wisdom and inflamed with desire for it, who wish to devote themselves to magnifying, admiring, and even …

He was anointed above His fellows, because all we men first exist as sinners, and afterwards are sanctified through the unction of the Holy Spirit. But He Who, existing as God before the ages, was conceived as man through the Holy Spirit in the Virgin's womb at the end of the ages, was there anointed by the same Spirit, even where He was conceived. Nor was He first conceived and afterwards anointed; but to be conceived by the Holy Spirit of the flesh of the Virgin was itself to be anointed by the Holy Spirit.

God, his God, has anointed him with the oil of gladness above his companions in order that he may deign to make us also companions of that anointing of his, that is, sharers of spiritual grace.

He himself promised the favor of the same holy anointing to his companions, … that is, to the faithful; and he sent what he had promised, as we know, not long after.

"Your throne, O God, is forever and ever." Above, the Psalmist commended Christ for his graciousness and warlike virtue; here he commends him for his judicial power. And first, he describes his judicial power. Second, the execution of that power, at "a rod of direction." …

Therefore - Therefore God hath exalted thee far above all men and angels, to a state of joy and endless glory at his right hand; which is fitly compared by the oil of gladness.

17 , as commissioned by him, and the head of those that are taken into covenant with him), has anointed thee with the oil of gladness. Therefore, that is, (1.) "In order to this righteous government of thine, God has given thee his Spirit, that divine unction, to qualify thee for thy undertaking," Isa. lxi. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because he has anointed me.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

Therefore - Therefore God hath exalted thee far above all men and angels, to a state of joy and endless glory at his right hand; which is fitly compared by the oil of gladness.

Thou lovest righteousness,....

WE KNOW THAT THE ANOINTING received by our Lord Jesus Christ was the resting of the Spirit of God upon him without measure. We are not left to any guesswork about this, for in Isaiah 61 we are told, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me." Our Lord appropriated these very words to himself when he went into the synagogue at Nazareth and opened the book at the place wherein these words are written, and said, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears."

As in Ps 45:6 the divine nature is made prominent, here the moral qualities of the human are alleged as the reason or ground of the mediatorial exultation.

Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness. Christ Jesus is not neutral in the great contest between right and wrong: as warmly as he loves the one he abhors the other. What qualifications for a sovereign! what grounds of confidence for a people!

Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness. Christ Jesus is not neutral in the great contest between right and wrong: as warmly as he loves the one he abhors the other. What qualifications for a sovereign! what grounds of confidence for a people! The whole of our Lord's life on earth proved the truth of these words; his death to put away sin and bring in the reign of righteousness, sealed the fact beyond all question; his providence by which he rules from his mediatorial throne, when rightly understood, reveals the same; and his final assize will proclaim it before all worlds. We should imitate him both in his love and hate; they are both needful to complete a righteous character. Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. Jesus as Mediator owned God as his God, to whom, being found in fashion as a man, he became obedient. On account of our Lord's perfect life he is now rewarded with superior joy. Others there are to whom grace has given a sacred fellowship with him, but by their universal consent and his own merit, he is prince among them, the gladdest of all because the cause of all their gladness. At Oriental feasts oil was poured on the heads of distinguished and very welcome guests; God himself anoints the man Christ Jesus, as he sits at the heavenly feasts, anoints him as a reward for his work, with higher and fuller joy than any else can know; thus is the Son of man honoured and rewarded for all his pains. Observe the indisputable testimony to Messiah's Deity in verse six, and to his manhood in the present verse. Of whom could this be written but of Jesus of Nazareth? Our Christ is our Elohim. Jesus is God with us.

DURING THE LAST FEW SABBATH-DAYS we have been considering the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. We followed him through the agony of the garden, the sorrows of the betrayal, the weariness and slander of his various trials, the shame and mockery of the soldiery, and the sorrows of his cross-bearing progress along the streets of the city. It seems fit this morning to make a pause that we may take breath awhile in this our pilgrimage of sorrow, and be comforted by a view of the glory-land to which the thorny pathway leads. A festive occasion like the present may have unfitted your minds for deep contemplations upon the Passion, and it may be more congenial with our present mood of gladness to meditate upon the glory which followed the shame. The same person will be before our eye, but we shall view him in a brighter light, we shall see the silver lining of the black cloud of anguish, the rich pearls hidden in the stormy deep of his sufferings, and the days of heaven which were conceived in the womb of the black night of his agony. The Man of Sorrows is the fountain of all joy to others, and is the possessor of all the joys of heaven and earth, by virtue of his triumphs. He has experienced joys in proportion to his sorrows; as he once waded through deep waters of grief he has now climbed to the highest mountains of happiness. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross despising the shame, and now having sat down at his Father’s right-hand he enjoys pleasures for evermore.

WE KNOW THAT THE ANOINTING received by our Lord Jesus Christ was the resting of the Spirit of God upon him without measure. We are not left to any guesswork about this, for in Isaiah 61 we are told, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me." Our Lord appropriated these very words to himself when he went into the synagogue at Nazareth and opened the book at the place wherein these words are written, and said, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears." The Apostle Peter also, in Acts 10:38, speaks of "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power": so that we know both on Old and New Testament authority that the anointing which rested upon the Lord Jesus Christ was the unction of the Holy Ghost. Therefore, by the "oil of gladness" which we have before us in the text is intended the Holy Spirit himself, or one of the gracious results of his sacred presence. The divine Spirit has many attributes, and his benign influences operate in divers ways, bestowing upon us benefits of various kinds, too numerous for us to attempt to catalogue them. Amongst these is his comforting and cheering influence. "The fruit of the Spirit is joy." In Acts 13:52 we read, "The disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost." Wherever he comes as an anointing, whether upon the Lord or upon his people, upon the Christ or the Christians, upon the Anointed or upon those whom he anoints, in every case the ultimate result is joy and peace. On the head of our great High Priest he is joy, and this oil of gladness flows down to the skirts of his garments. To the Comforter, therefore, we ascribe "the oil of gladness." From this great truth we learn another, namely, the perfect co-operation of the three persons of the blessed Trinity in the work of our redemption.

DURING THE LAST FEW SABBATH-DAYS we have been considering the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. We followed him through the agony of the garden, the sorrows of the betrayal, the weariness and slander of his various trials, the shame and mockery of the soldiery, and the sorrows of his cross-bearing progress along the streets of the city. It seems fit this morning to make a pause that we may take breath awhile in this our pilgrimage of sorrow, and be comforted by a view of the glory-land to which the thorny pathway leads.

Oil of gladness - As an evidence that all causes of mourning, sorrow, and death, were at an end; as in the state of mourning the ancients did not anoint themselves. I have mentioned above that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Heb 1:8, Heb 1:9, quotes Psa 45:6, Psa 45:7, of this Psalm. I shall subjoin the substance of what I have written on these verses in that place: - Heb 1:8 Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever - If this be said of the Son of God, i.e., Jesus Christ, then Jesus Christ must be God; and indeed the design of the apostle is to prove this. The words here quoted are taken from Psa 45:6, Psa 45:7, which the ancient Chaldee paraphrast, and the most intelligent rabbins, refer to the Messiah. On the third verse of this Psalm, ‘Thou art fairer than the children of men,’ the Targum says: ‘Thy beauty, מלכא משיחא malca Meshicha, O King Messiah, is greater than the children of men.’ Aben Ezra says: ‘This Psalm speaks of David, or rather of his Son the Messiah, for this is his name, Eze 34:24: And David my servant shall be a prince over them for ever.’ Other rabbins confirm this opinion. “This verse is very properly considered a proof, and indeed a strong one, of the divinity of Christ; but some late versions of the New Testament have endeavored to avoid the evidence of this proof by translating the word thus: ‘God is thy throne for ever and ever;’ and if this version be correct, it is certain that the text can be no proof of the doctrine. Mr. Wakefield vindicates this translation at large in his History of Opinions; and ὁ Θεος being the nominative case is supposed to be sufficient justification of this version. […]

Thou lovest righteousness ... - See this verse explained in the notes at Heb 1:9, where it is applied to the Messiah. The word “God” is rendered in the margin “O God”; “O God, thy God, hath anointed thee,” etc. According to this construction, the thought would be carried on which is suggested in Psa 45:6, of a direct address to the Messiah as God. This construction is not necessary, but it is the most obvious one. The Messiah - the Lord Jesus - though he is described as God himself (Joh 1:1, et al.), yet addresses God as “his” God, Joh 20:17. As Mediator, as appearing in human form, as commissioned to perform the work of redemption, and to subdue the world to the divine authority, it was proper thus to address his Father as “his” God, and to, acknowledge Him as the source of all authority and law.