Numbers 27:18-23 “And the Lord said to Moses: "Take Joshua the son of Nun with you, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him; (19) set him before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation, and inaugurate him in their sight. (20) And you shall give some of your authority to him, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient. … (22) So Moses did as the Lord commanded him. He took Joshua and set him before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation. (23) And he laid his hands on him and inaugurated him, just as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses.”
There are two aspects to the laying on of hands that we see in the above quoted passage of scripture. The one is inauguration and the other is the transference or impartation of the anointing. In this section of the teaching we want to look at the aspect of transference of the anointing. The context of this passage of scripture is that Moses was about to leave the children of Israel, for his time to die had arrived. And so God had raised up Joshua in his place to carry on leading the children of Israel into their promised land. In this passage God instructed Moses to lay his hands on Joshua to invest him with the new office in which he now had to stand, i.e. to become the new leader of Israel. I want you to notice that even before Moses laid his hands on Joshua however that Joshua already had the Holy Spirit resting upon him, for God mentions that Joshua was a man in whom was the Spirit. In other words God had already called Joshua and recognized him by giving him the Holy Spirit. Now that Joshua was about to take on a new role however, he needed the appropriate anointing to fulfil that role, which is why God instructed Moses to give Joshua some of his authority.
Deuteronomy 34:9 “Now Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him; so, the children of Israel heeded him, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses.”
In the instance when Moses laid his hands on Joshua there was a definite transference of anointing from the one to the other. We see that because in the above quoted passage of scripture the Holy Spirit reveals to us that Joshua was full of the spirit of wisdom, specifically because Moses had laid hands on him. And so because Moses had that anointing on his ministry he was used by God to impart that same anointing to Joshua. This account in the Old Testament, of the laying on of hands for the impartation of God’s power, gives us some insight regarding how this ministry operates in the New Testament. One of those insights is that the one who is being used to impart the anointing must have that same anointing themselves, because as we have read in these two passages, Moses gave Joshua of the authority and wisdom that he himself had.
Michael E.B. Maher
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