Humans are born spiritually dead, in a state of total depravity. Total depravity means we are helpless to do what is right, incapable of pleasing God with even our own best efforts. We lack this capacity because we are sinners by nature. Man is a sinner by nature like a cat is a scavenger by nature—we simply could not stop sinning if we tried. It would be like asking a cat to read a book instead of dig through dumpsters. Humans may be compared to cats in this way. Some people are mangy alley cats, others are pampered house cats, but we all possess this innate tendency to want to scavenge around and dig through dumpsters, a repressed urge to sin.
God’s solution to total depravity is found in the new birth and the anointing of the Holy Spirit: “But the anointing which you have received abides in you, and you do not need that anyone should teach you” (Jn. 2:27). God re-creates a new heart and quickens to life a spiritual identity within the believer: “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean… I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you” (Ezek. 36:25-26).
The Anointing pictures these scriptures. God sprinkles clean water from a garden hose extending from heaven. The water showers the anointed believer at right. He receives a new heart from the confluence of two streams of hearts that converge through a tuning fork. One of the streams of hearts sprinkles from a water bottle in the sky, while the other stream originates from the breath of a man at the bottom left. The water bottle, the garden hose, and the man’s breath all portray the Holy Spirit in the form of water and air (Jn. 7:37; 20:22; Isa. 11:4; 12:3). The Holy Spirit washes the anointed believer clean and re-creates that new heart and spirit within him.
The tuning fork represents a changed reality, a new harmonic resonance. The re-created divine nature oscillates at a higher frequency to the sin nature, empowering believers to overcome the flesh and reside in the Spirit (Col. 3:9; Gal. 5:16). We may still sin, but we are no longer helpless against our former nature. We are attuned to Christ, operating in a different octave, proceeding forth upon a new paradigm and internal frame of reference. The tuning fork represents expanded consciousness and deeper spiritual awareness, the newly opened divine perspective illuminated by the Holy Spirit in the anointing.
The baby who washes ashore onto the beach also portrays the new birth. The infant is born out of an ocean of Living Waters, another reference to the Holy Spirit. Full of delight and wonder, he lies on his back, watching the angels dance for joy in the sky. Above him, a miniature figure climbs the descending stream of hearts as if they were a staircase. He journeys back to the Father in heaven as a prodigal son. The elated angels, pictured at top center, swirl above him in a dance of revelry, fulfilling the scripture: “there is joy in heaven in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10).
The prodigal son who climbs the stairway of hearts contrasts with the exotic woman who slides down this same trail. This illustrates the dynamic quality of the anointing. Part of the believer returns to heaven, while a part of heaven comes to abide in the believer on earth.
The adjacent text reads, “Romancing the Divine.” The believer and Christ share an intimate and personal relationship, not unlike a romance. In the anointing, the believer is baptized into Christ and the Holy Spirit indwells the body. The twain becomes one flesh, such as in marriage. Believers are said to collectively compose the body of Christ. We are referred to as His bride, His body, His instruments on earth, and the conduits through which He operates. The relationship is personal, intimate, and most romantic.
The two women who slide on the streams of hearts are associated with the feminine archetype, the personification of Love, and the perfection of the passive principle in the re-created believer. Like a husband and wife that become one flesh, the women are infused into the anointed believer, portraying the believer and Christ becoming one in marriage, the masculine and feminine principle in harmony.
The Holy Spirit opens enlightenment of divine viewpoint. Without the re-created new nature, humans lack the capacity to comprehend spiritual matters. The Old Testament spoke of this spiritual blindness: “Hear ye indeed, but (you) understand not; and see ye indeed but perceive not; make the heart of this People fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed” (Isa. 6:9-10). The Lord quoted this scripture three times to the unbelievers of His day (Mat 13:14-15; Jn. 12:40; Acts 28:26-27).
Total depravity causes this spiritual blindness, for the natural man “receives not the things of the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:14). Our ways and thoughts are totally and completely corrupted: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways… My ways (are) higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Hence, the anointing and its associated spiritual regeneration (the new birth) is essential for bringing our thoughts and ways into alignment with God.
The man depicted at far left pictures the new paradigm of divine viewpoint. A dove flies out the center of his forehead, the location of our spiritual sealing: “… we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads” (rev. 7:3). The wings of the dove are also sketched upon the believer’s face. When we are anointed with the Spirit, God reveals His thoughts and ways. In ephemeral moments, His Spirit even speaks through us, provided we yield to Him: “…for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you” (Mat. 10:20).
The dove opens the door to an encaged light bulb in the man’s mind. The adjacent caption reads, “open your mind.” A hand grasps the light bulb from the cage, representing that new thought paradigms, new modes of thinking, and the divine viewpoint are now within reach of the believer. The Holy Spirit opens our understanding to “His thoughts” and “His ways.”
Nobody volunteers to be Christian in life. I, for example, was drug in to the Kingdom of Heaven kicking and screaming in protest. I did not want to give up my former ways. But God’s sovereign election prevailed, and after much chastisement to set me straight, I could no longer resist Him who Loved me: “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 Jn. 4:19). This Love of His is as an overwhelming, extraterrestrial force with an intelligence working from the inside out. God was inapproachable without having made the first move to help us in our total depravity: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (Jn. 6:44). Believers are in effect “drafted” into His cause, enlisted by a Higher Power for a Great Work and purpose in life: “…that he may please him who enlisted him to be a soldier.” Grace must claim the believer before the believer can claim grace.
Total depravity precludes anything good coming from the sin nature. Salvation must be received as an undeserved, free gift. This is portrayed in the upper right corner: “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us” (Tit. 3:5). To even have the capacity to come to Christ or consider God requires a little divine assistance. The caption at the bottom left depicts God’s sovereign election apart from man’s free will: “You did not choose Me, but I choose you, and appointed you” (Jn. 15:16).
Believers have been anointed to His cause, ordained to share the Gospel message. The caption in the bottom right corner states, “The Great Commission is not a suggestion.” We are endued with the power and the wherewithal to accomplish His will. In submitting to His Spirit, Christ states that, “you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
The full spectrum of Christian teaching ranges from extreme Calvinism on one hand, which holds to complete predestination and God’s sovereign election in all things, and extreme Armenianism on the other hand, which holds that man’s free will creates his own destiny in whether to accept or reject Christ. Whatever the case, we all must agree that God is fair, just, and perfect. The Anointing emphasizes a Calvinist message but with the disclaimer that there are other points of view. Believers are encouraged to search the scriptures to verify all Truth. May Christ and the Holy Spirit enlighten your heart.
Larry Word
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