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The Necessity of Unction in Preaching
Search the Scripture, study biographies, the lives of past and present preachers (men and women), scan through church history, and you will come to one ineluctable conclusion: preaching that produces results is invariably connected with the Holy Spirit. In conjunction with the work of the Holy Spirit in our preaching, I like to introduce a homiletical truth: unction (used greatly in puritan times). Some call it anointing, filling of the Holy Spirit, and baptism in the Holy Spirit. It doesn’t matter what you call it as long as you know what it is.
I remember what R. A. Torrey said: “I rather use the wrong term and have the right experience than having a wrong experience and use a right term.” In any case, it’s all right to disagree with me concerning his term but when you get to heaven you will know I am right! The bottom line is, is there power in our preaching? Are lives of the listeners changed under our preaching ministry? If not, something needs to be done. I am also often reminded of the statement of the New Testament scholar C. F. D. Moule who said so graphically,
Words are feeble things never adequate for the job; yet priceless things, seldom dispensable. They are dangerous things, for they are so fascinating that they tempt the user to linger with them and treat them as ends instead of means. . . . But if it has only confused the reader, or tempted him to go on weaving words instead of entering more richly into the experience they serve to define—God forgive us both!
All our eloquence and rhetoric skills can touch and move people but not raise them from the dead. Only the power of the Holy Spirit can do that.
What is unction? It is difficult to define. One thing is sure either you’ve got or you ain’t got it! It is the X-factor (umph!) in preaching that makes a difference between preaching that is full of vim, verve, and vitality and preaching that is dull, boring, and lifeless. Preaching that produces results is ‘unction-ised’ preaching. It is much like falling in love—it is easier to experience than explain.
Unction is like dew from the Lord, a divine presence. It is indescribable. He who preaches it knows its presence, and he who hears it detects its absence. Unction is a thing which you cannot manufacture nor counterfeit it; yet it is in itself priceless, and beyond measure needful if you would edify believers and bring sinners to Jesus. (Charles Spurgeon)
That mystic plus in preaching which no one can define and no one (with any spiritual sensitivity at all) can mistake. Men have it or they do not have it. . . . It is rare, indefinable, and unmistakably precious. (William Sangster)
It is the Holy Spirit falling upon the preacher in a special manner. It is an access to power. It is God giving power, and enabling, through the Spirit, to the preacher in order that he may do this work in a manner that lifts up beyond the efforts and endeavours to a position in which the preacher is being used by the Spirit and becomes the channel through whom the Spirit works.
With unction there is a fire that lies not in words or in tones, but which comes from the heart and is inflamed from above; a mysterious, irresistible fire which turns sinners into saints and compels saints to claim sanctification. (Unknown Christian)
There is all the difference in the world between preaching merely from human understanding and energy, and preaching in the conscious smile of God. . . . There is an eternity of difference between the two things. To me there is nothing more terrible for a preacher, than to be in the pulpit alone, without the conscious smile of God.
It is an empowerment from God which allows a natural man—body, soul, and spirit—to act supernaturally. (Bagwell)
Essentially, it is an impartation of power of God coming upon the preacher mightily during his preaching that enables him or her to preach with power, authority and liberty leading to the conviction of the conscience and conversion of the listeners. This unction has been called “heaven’s knighthood” given to those who wrestle in prayer. It has nothing to do with oratory or personality of the preacher.
Interestingly, it is difficult to describe what unction is. Somehow, the preacher knows by its presence at the time of preaching, whether he has it or not while the congregation knows by its absence.
A preacher cannot have unction and yet not know or recognise it (see Paul in 1 Cor. 2: 4). When there is unction in a preacher’s preaching, he or she is possessed (overwhelmed), taken hold of, and taken up in the preaching. A preacher’s preaching is characterised by freedom, authority, and boldness. That preacher is not in a trance but on fire.
Unction is that which makes God’s Word come alive and active. It cuts more keenly than any two-edged sword piercing so deeply that it divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it discriminates among the purposes and thoughts of the heart (Heb. 4:12). Unction cannot be manufactured or faked.
It is the sweetest exhalation of the Holy Spirit. It impregnates, suffuses, softens, percolates, cuts, and soothes. It carries the Word like dynamite, like salt, like sugar; makes the Word a soother, an arraigner, a revealer, a searcher; makes the hearer a culprit or a saint, makes him weep like a child and live like a giant; opens his heart and his purse as gently, yet as strongly as the spring opens the leaves (E. M. Bounds)
Unction is not to be confused with oratorical gifts. A preacher may have oratorical skill that can impress a congregation yet has no unction while another preacher may have no oratorical skill but yet he has unction. Unction has nothing to do with eloquence or intellectual or moral power. The apostles were “ignorant and unlearned.” Think of preachers like Moody and others in the previous century. Unction cannot be faked. It cannot be worked up but can be brought down.