And *ye* have [the] unction from the holy [one], and ye know all things.
Teachers who once belonged to this circle had walked out, and they kept pressing their teaching on the believers. John does not hand them arguments; he points to what they already have. (Quotes below that read "an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things" follow an older translation of this verse.)
The word behind "anointed" points back to an Old Testament practice.
The word translated "unction" here is the same word translated "anointing" in verse 27. In the Old Testament, priests and kings were anointed with oil, and in one case at least a prophet. Each of these involves a place of dignity as representing God in some way. The anointing pictures the giving of the Spirit of God as necessary to equip the individual for his holy and responsible position. The anointing involves the wonderful capacity the Spirit of God gives to every renewed soul, for receiving and understanding the truth of the Word of God.
The wording itself rules out one obvious reading, since the anointing is said to come from someone.
Attention to the exact language used will at once show that the "Holy One" in verse 20 cannot be the Holy Spirit. It is an unction "from the Holy One." Every believer knows that the Spirit of God is Himself the anointing. So we could not say, as verse 27 does, that we received it from Him. The "Holy One" must therefore mean either the Father or Christ. John's Gospel tells us that both the Father and the Son send the Comforter.
Notice who John comforts here.
How striking that he comforts the least mature part of the family, and not the whole family! He assures them that they have the great distinctive privilege Christ went on high to send down, to be in and with them. They wait for His coming, and all the power of the world and the schemes of Satan stand against them. If the babes have an unction from the Holy One, as he says, and by His indwelling energy can be said to know all things, how could it be denied to the young men and the fathers in the household of faith?
The phrase does not mean a young believer has nothing left to learn. The difference is between capacity and content.
The word for know is the one meaning inward, conscious knowledge. If it is a question of acquired knowledge, there are ten thousand details of which the babe is at present ignorant, but the Anointing gives him that inward capacity which brings all things within his reach. He knows all things potentially, though not yet in detail.
This capacity shows first in what it refuses. A believer may not be able to answer a false teacher, and yet not be fooled by him.
The antichristian teachers had left the Christian circle, but they still tried to influence the saints of God with their harmful teaching. Not every child of God was able to refute that teaching. Yet every one had the ability to know the teaching was false, for, says the apostle, "you have an unction from the Holy One, and you know all things." They had the Holy Spirit, so they had a capacity for entering into all the truth, but they had the ability to discern all that was not the truth.
The anointing does not stand alone. John pairs it with the truth they had held from the start.
Two things kept them safe from deceivers and deceptions. One was the Holy Spirit living in them as an unction and spiritual intelligence. The other was the truth they had received at the beginning — the perfect revelation of Christ. If the unction of the Holy One is in us to judge them, we will find that all heresy, all error and all corruption strike at that first and divine revelation of the truth.
So are teachers of no use? One writer draws a careful line.
The Lord has gifted some as teachers, and He uses them; but you do not depend on them completely. Believing that teachers are essential is where many dear children of God go wrong, and why they make no more progress in divine things. They lean on their minister, or their teacher, on this man's commentary or that man's book. I am thankful to be taught anything of God through any person or channel He pleases. Notice, through, but not from, any person. The distinction is obvious.
- Cause — Teachers had left the circle but kept pushing their teaching; this verse is John's answer.
- Gift — The anointing is the Spirit Himself, the same word as in verse 27, received from the Holy One — the Father or Christ.
- Reach — God gives it to the babes, not only to the mature; if they have it, the fathers surely do too.
- Result — "Knowing all things" is capacity, not a catalogue. The babe knows all things potentially, and can spot what is not the truth even when he cannot argue against it.
- Test — The anointing works alongside the truth heard at the beginning. Teachers still help, but truth comes through them, never from them.
I have not written to you because ye do not know the truth, but because ye know it, and that no lie is of the truth.
John has just warned about many antichrists. That warning could shake the youngest believers, so he stops to say why he wrote. It was not because they lack the truth. It was because they already have it, and because a lie can never belong to the truth.
John's warning is aimed at the least experienced believers. He starts by reminding them what grace has already given them.
Verses 20, 21. It is moving to see the way John goes about sheltering the babes in the faith from the danger of the seducers. Their weak condition called for this help. But in giving it, John's first care is to remind them of what they are through grace: You have been anointed by the Holy Spirit, you know the truth.
Strong words about deceivers can make young believers wonder if John means them. John removes that fear.
In verse 21 the apostle writes strongly about these antichrists. He assures the inexperienced babe that this is not because he suspects them of being such. He sets them fully at ease and states his confidence in them without reserve. The babes, inexperienced as they may be, are in the light, and the light is in them. They know the truth. They have it as from God. They live in the reality of their link with God, holding and enjoying it through what they had heard from the beginning — the truth... It is not that babes have taken in the full range of God's thoughts, or fully understood the counsels of His will, or grasped the purposes He has revealed. But the knowledge of God is in their souls. By this knowledge, whatever their measure of it, they sense that no lie is of the truth.
This knowing is not a matter of education or years.
"I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth" (1 John 2:21). Is that not very striking? It is a remarkable word. There is a divine competency by the Spirit of God, even in the heart of the youngest saint, to detect what is of God and what is not of God. The Spirit of God, of course, is that divine and blessed competency.
One false claim can expose the whole system it belongs to. So the teaching to watch is the one that offers itself as an advance on Christ.
How full of cheer and comfort! The teaching of tradition is always vague. It leaves the soul uncertain even about what we most need — assurance, so that we may have settled peace with God. But where believers have simply received Christ and fully enjoy Him, the claim to new truth opens the door to the evil one; and he soon appears. This is a signal for the babes to beware. No lie is of the truth. Since the truth is a consistent whole, one obvious lie may betray the falsehood of the entire system. And God makes this known even to the babes.
If the truth is already yours, investigating every rival claim is not the path to safety.
This is a great safeguard for the saints when errors in attractive disguises are on the move. If we have the truth we may well be satisfied, and we do not need to examine everything else that claims to be a truth. The Lord would spare us both the defilement and the trouble... We can make no greater mistake, when we know we have the truth, than to examine an error which claims to replace what we already have. Teachers may have a duty to do this, to expose the tricks of Satan. But it is enough for the "babes" to rest in the certainty of the truth itself, and in the knowledge that no lie is of the truth.
The context here is teaching about Christ, and only two verdicts are open.
Any lie puts things out of right proportion and is therefore not of the truth. This is true in general, but the context here has to do with any teaching about Christ. We are in the habit of calling doctrines either truth or error. This passage would suggest that we should be bolder – is it truth, or is it a lie?
Writers applying this verse elsewhere reach the same conclusion about what protects a believer under pressure.
The knowledge of the truth is the appointed safeguard against every lie (1 John 2:21), and the only effective one.
- Anointing — this knowledge is not earned by study. It comes from the Spirit, given to every believer, even the youngest.
- Assurance — John writes with confidence in his readers, not suspicion. They already stand in the light.
- Instinct — even a small grasp of the truth is enough to sense that a lie does not belong to it.
- Refusal — the truth is one whole, so one clear lie condemns the whole system. You need not examine what claims to replace what you have.
- Verdict — there is no middle ground between truth and a lie. Of any teaching about Christ, ask: is it truth, or is it a lie?
Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? *He* is the antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.
John is writing about people who once confessed Christ and now deny Him. This verse names the lie they carry — and it names two denials, not one.
This is sharper than a general complaint about dishonesty. John does not say "a liar." He says "the liar" — and he has one kind of person in mind.
"Who is the liar?" says the indignant apostle. "Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ?" One way or another, they undermined and destroyed His person. How terrible that people who once confessed Him now count such a lie as new and great truth! For "the liar" here is not Satan. It is someone who once passed as a Christian. They now deny that Jesus is the Christ.
The verse names two refusals, and they belong to two different settings.
Here we learn that there are two steps. First comes the denial of the Jewish confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. That is the fatal unbelief of that nation. Then comes the denial of the Father and the Son. That is the equally fatal rejection of the Christian confession. The antichrist will be the chief outcome of this double blasphemous unbelief, this spirit of falling away, found not only among the Jews but in Christendom. He will be the head of both. That unbelieving Jews and Christians can and will have one common head is enough to show how complete the falling away must be.
The denial is not that a Christ exists at all. It is more targeted than that.
So the antichrist completely denies the Christian revelation. He does not deny the Jewish hope; he claims to fulfil it. He does not say there is no Christ; he says that Jesus is not the Christ. In both ways he is the head of Jewish unbelief.
The second denial goes further than the first. It throws away truth the Jewish nation never had.
The word antichrist assumes that more truth has been given up than the Jews ever knew. In a general way even a Jew who heard of the Lord Jesus and rejected Him might be "the liar." The Law, the Psalms and the Prophets all pointed to Jesus. But the Jew would not have a Messiah who suffered for sins on the cross instead of setting up His world-kingdom. He preferred what the devil offered — the very thing the Messiah refused.
The two titles do not carry the same weight.
Jesus was the Messiah, and much more: the Father was displayed in Him. If I look at the Messiah as such, I do not fully see the Father there. But there is something far more blessed than the kingdom. When I think of the Father, I rise not merely into the region of divine power, but into that of the highest, holiest and most intimate affections. So it is not merely the rejection of the Lord Jesus as Messiah that brings in antichrist, but the rejection of His divine glory as the Son.
An imitation only works where there is something real to imitate. That is why this evil grows among people who profess Christ, not outside them.
There could not be an antichrist unless there had been some earlier profession of Christ. There must be some truth there, because Satan cannot invent. He can imitate. He can corrupt God's truth, use it for his own ends, and put it into new and evil forms, so that plain error looks like truth.
That leaves one test for any teaching you meet.
We can be fooled if we judge such systems by the Christian words they use and the way they behave. The real test is this: where do they stand on the truth about the Person of Christ? You will find that every false system denies the truth of His Person in some form. And denial of the truth of the Son will lead to denial of the truth about the Father.
The open denials of John's day have not disappeared, but they have learned to travel by quieter routes.
In the Apostle's day he aimed at the centre openly. The antichrists boldly denied that Jesus was the Christ: they denied the Father and the Son. In our day some of them are still doing this. Many more however hardly do this; they introduce teachings of a more subtle kind, not so harmful on the surface but ultimately leading to just the same denials, whereby the centre of the target is hit.
- One target. Every lie aims at the Person of Christ. Deny that Jesus is the Christ, and you are not one liar among many — you are the liar.
- Two denials. The first throws away the Jewish hope. The second throws away the Christian truth of the Father and the Son. Both aim at the same Person.
- One head. In the antichrist the two denials merge. Unbelieving Jews and unbelieving Christendom will share one leader.
- Inside, not outside. There could be no antichrist without an earlier profession of Christ. Satan cannot invent. He can only imitate and corrupt.
- One test. Judge no system by its Christian words or clean conduct — ask only where it stands on the Person of Christ.
Whoever denies the Son has not the Father either; he who confesses the Son has the Father also.
The verse stands in the middle of John's warning about antichrists, and it turns a doctrinal dispute into a personal test. Everything depends on where a person stands towards the Son — and John says the Father comes or goes with Him.
Christian words and Christian practice can fool us. Hamilton Smith names the one question that settles it:
Having the Spirit and the truth, we at once learn that the Person of Christ is the great test of every antichristian system. We may be deceived if we judge them by the Christian terms they may use and the practice they may pursue. The real test is this: where do they stand on the truth about the Person of Christ? Every false system denies the truth of His Person in some form. There are, however, two main forms of error and opposition to the truth. One of them, found mainly among the Jews, denies that Jesus is the Christ — the Messiah who is to come. The other rises among those who profess Christianity, and it denies the truth of the Father and the Son.
William Kelly turns to people who claim to honour God the Father while denying the Son:
The Unitarians claim to honour the Father, but they deny the Son. The result is that their claim to the Father, according to this verse, is worth nothing at all. The Father is not the test of the truth; the Son is. So if anyone acknowledges the Son, he has the Father also. They go together. But the Son is the only test, and the one Mediator.
The first half of the verse looks obvious until you see who it targets. Darby says why John had to write it:
It is also important to note this word in verse 23, "No one who denies the Son has the Father." Many who reject Christ pretend that they do not reject the Father.
Another writer shows what that pretence is really after:
Men will pretend to honour the Father while they try to dishonour the Son. But Scripture is plain: "No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also." Those who deny the eternal Sonship of Jesus are known for boasting of their worship of the Father. The enemy will attack any and every part of the truth, but his real object is the Person of the Son.
Edward Dennett takes up the claim to believe in God without Christ:
So God — God the Father — cannot be known apart from the Son. He cannot be known apart from the truth of what He is in His own essential dignity, or apart from the truth of His person, as Jesus Christ come in the flesh… To claim faith in God apart from Christ amounts to rejecting the true God. God has made Himself known only in Christ, and He can be known nowhere else.
Saying the words is not the same as knowing God. J. G. Bellett makes the point:
I may say, "Abba, Father," in the spirit of adoption. A poet may say, "We are also His offspring." But no one knows God as the Father unless the Son is acknowledged in the glory of the Godhead.
The second half of the verse is the promise. H. J. Vine lists what comes with the Son:
We are to leave alone those who do not confess the Son. They have not the Father. "Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also" (v. 23). He knows the Father. He has the Father. He has eternal life. And all this is because he "has the Son" (5:12). These vital possessions are abiding, enduring, and eternal.
James Boyd adds that no believer before Christ came had this:
To have the Son, then, is to have the Father. No believer in past times had this, for the Father had not come to light. The revelation of the Father waited for the Son to be shown. Both came to light together, and both are known together. To have the One is to have the Other.
Some older Bibles print the second half of the verse in italics, as if the translators doubted it. One writer explains why, and why the words belong:
An example is 1 John 2:23. In our New Testament the last half of the verse stands in italics, as if it were not in the Greek. But it is in many Greek copies (except the word 'but'), and it is genuine beyond doubt. It was probably left out because both halves of the verse end with the same Greek words, 'has the Father.'
- Test — the real measure of any teaching is not the Christian words it uses but where it stands on the Person of the Son.
- Pretence — many who reject Christ still claim the Father. John cuts that claim off. The enemy's real target is the Son.
- Access — there is no way to the Father around the Son. God has made Himself known only in Christ.
- Gift — whoever confesses the Son has the Father, knows Him, and has eternal life. The Father and the Son come together, never apart.
- Wording — older Bibles italicise the closing clause, but it is genuine. A copyist's eye slipped, because both halves end with the same words.
As for *you* let that which ye have heard from the beginning abide in you if what ye have heard from the beginning abides in you, *ye* also shall abide in the Son and in the Father.
John writes to people surrounded by teachers who deny the Son. His answer is not a new argument but an old one — hold on to what you already have, because what abides in you decides where you abide.
The phrase is easy to misread as a person. One commentator notes the exact wording and where it sends us back to:
"Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you." It is not "Him that is from the beginning," but "what (or, that which) you heard from the beginning." He goes back as far as the opening words of the first chapter. The difference between "Him that was from the beginning" and "that which" is very small. In fact both are true, each perfect in its own place. But an emphasis is lost in the Authorised Version. It should be brought out at the start of verse 24, as newer translations do: "As for you, let that which you heard from the beginning abide in you." What he presses is this: abiding in what they heard from the beginning.
So the message and the Person are not rivals. What they first heard was itself the revelation of the Son:
If the truth that we have received from the beginning abides in us, we abide in the Son and in the Father; for this truth is the revelation of the Son, and is revealed by the Son, who is the truth. It is living truth, if it abides in us; so, by having it, we have the Son, and in the Son, the Father also. We abide in it, and by that we have eternal life (compare John 17:3).
If the first message was the Person of Christ, then Christian truth has no later editions. That is the reason the verse can command us simply to stay:
"From the beginning" is Christ in flesh, the beginning of God's ways in grace… Man develops, progresses, changes. What was from the beginning in what God does is perfect. This is a root principle of Christianity. It makes the Person of Christ the foundation of everything. His work displays God's moral nature to others, but His Person is that in which He is. We hold to Him. This cannot change. The essence of Christianity is, therefore, that there is no development in it.
The Antichrist denies the Father and the Son. The refuge of the youngest believers is what they heard at the start, and holding it keeps them in true communion:
The Antichrist will deny the Father and the Son, and that Jesus is the Christ. Now these are terrible falsehoods, and the faithful in the last days will be kept from believing them. Meanwhile, evil ripens and the spirit of falsehood spreads further. The sure refuge of the babes is that what they had heard from the beginning should abide in them. Then they would abide, in true communion, in the Son and in the Father. No one will deceive them with talk of the "universal fatherhood" of God, or anything like it. They will not settle for anything less than the true confession of the Son: "whoever denies the Son does not have the Father."
The verse names the Son first, then the Father. That order is deliberate:
In 1 John 2:24, it is abiding "in the Son and in the Father." The whole treatment of this matter here is meant to teach us how truly the Son is one with the Father. We cannot be in the Son without being in the Father, and we can only be in the Father by being in the Son. For that reason the Son comes first in 1 John 2:24.
What John gave the babes has a long reach beyond their crisis:
The "babes" had the anointing of the Holy One, and they knew the truth. But now the apostle adds an exhortation… This is the third source or means of their safety, and in it lies a principle of lasting importance. Once corruption has come in and produced confusion on every hand, there is no other remedy than to go back to the beginning. The apostle Paul urges Timothy in the same way. In the difficult days he faced, Timothy was to continue in the things he had learned and been assured of, knowing who taught him (2 Timothy 3:14-17).
- Heard. The command fixes on what you heard at the beginning. That first message is itself the revelation of the Son.
- Held. Christianity has no development. What God gave at the start is perfect, so holding on is safety, not backwardness.
- Housed. The truth kept in you is living truth. Hold it, and you have the Son — and in the Son, the Father.
- Home. You cannot be in the Son without being in the Father, and you reach the Father only through the Son. So John names the Son first.
- Return. When confusion spreads, the remedy is not a new answer but the old one: go back to the beginning.
And this is the promise which *he* has promised us, life eternal.
John has just warned his readers about deceivers, and told them to hold on to what they heard from the beginning. Here he names what God has promised them: eternal life. But how can a life that believers already have still be called a promise?
One writer ties this promise to the verse before it, and to how Jesus Himself described eternal life.
This continuing in the Son and in the Father is eternal life. The Lord Jesus spoke of eternal life as, "that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent" (John 17:3). Verse 25 of our chapter carries this a step further. He who abides in the Son and in the Father is abiding in the life which is eternal. The Eternal Life had been shown and seen, but that was the privilege of the apostles only. Now we may have that life and be in it; and this is for all of us, for these things were written to the babes in the family of God.
One writer asks where the truth is found, and whether anything can be added to it.
Where then is the truth, and what is it? It is Christ; and it is Christ as He was shown here. How can there be any development of Him, or of God's written word which reveals Him? Nothing can be added to make the truth more perfect than it is... The truth cannot be separated from Christ, and from Christ as God has revealed Him in His word.
John writes to the youngest believers. Another writer shows what the enemy was aiming at.
God's safeguard for the babes of His family is that they hold fast the truth they have heard. What had come out in Jesus was to have a lasting place in the heart. They were to treasure it there, and it was to form them in the truth about the Father and the Son. This was the real substance of Christianity, that in which eternal life consisted... The enemy sought to rob the babes of the enjoyment of eternal life by taking from them the truth of the Person of the Son. If they lost the truth about the Son, they lost the truth about the Father. They would also lose the joys that these great truths bring to the soul.
The deceivers made promises of their own. One writer sets them against God's promise, and names the error they were pushing.
The babes need and receive the most watchful warning against innovators who overturn the truth by promises as false as God's promise is true... The recent deceivers tried to persuade themselves and others about eternal life. They said we do not have it now in the Son, and can only receive it at the resurrection. But this is to forget and abandon what we heard from the beginning; it was a lie, and no lie is of the truth.
Two things stand behind the word "promised": the character of God who gave it, and the coming of His Son.
"God cannot lie." Every promise of His shall be fulfilled, not a word of His shall fail. And He has promised eternal life, and He did it before the ages of time. The promise was made before time began, but it had to be brought into time and shown there. When the ages of time have passed away and ended, full blessedness will remain in glory and love for ever. But the fulfilment of the promise depended on one thing: the Son coming out of eternity into time.
Scripture speaks of eternal life as something believers have today, and also as something still ahead. One writer shows where each emphasis comes from.
This eternal life is in God's Son, and true believers have it in Him now, and shall have it in Him and with Him for all eternity (1 John 5:11). Through John the Spirit of God presents eternal life as something the saints in Christ have even now. Through Paul the Holy Spirit presents it as tied to our glorified condition with Christ in a coming day. So it is a "blessed hope", the "hope of eternal life" (Titus 1:2; Titus 2:13; Titus 3:7).
- Promised — a God who cannot lie promised eternal life before time began. Its fulfilment waited on the Son stepping out of eternity into time.
- Given — the life once seen only by the apostles now belongs to every child of God, down to the youngest.
- Held — the way to hold the promise is to abide: continuing in the Son and in the Father is itself the eternal life.
- Guarded — the truth heard from the beginning keeps the promise safe. Nothing can be added to Christ as God revealed Him, and deceivers make promises as false as God's promise is true.
- Completed — John shows the life as ours today. Paul shows it as our hope. It is one life, held now and enjoyed in full in glory.
These things have I written to you concerning those who lead you astray
John gives the youngest believers in his family a warning. He has been writing about people who are trying to pull them off course. Who were these deceivers? And why did John think the least mature Christians needed to hear about them?
Much of the New Testament exists because error broke in first. One writer sets this verse inside that larger pattern.
The greater part of the New Testament — the letters — owes its origin to the damage Satan did in the Church. God allowed the damage only so that the folly of these things would be shown up, and so that the full glory of the truth would come out. "I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you." What he writes about here is what certain pretenders held. They made the highest claims for themselves, and they would lead these believers astray.
John aims this warning at the "babes" — the newest believers. One writer draws a pointed lesson from that choice about how we treat new converts.
Notice that it is the babes John warns about this danger and trap. That matters greatly. In our day people too often think it needless — or even unwise — to warn young converts about common errors. John, on the other hand, speaks plainly, and prepares them for the dangers that lie all around their path. Even a worldly proverb says, "To be forewarned is to be forearmed." Many a shipwreck would have been spared us if those who lead in the Church of God had copied John's example.
So how did they work? One writer describes their method: a promise of something more than these young believers already had.
Seducers raise doubts even more than other unbelievers do, to spread their own errors and lead astray the simple who enjoy the truth of God. One of the great aims of this letter is to arm even the youngest believers against their evil and dangerous tricks. One way these seducers worked was to make the immature doubt whether they had the full truth. The antichrists claimed there was far more to know than anyone had known before. This new light of theirs was the great prize, they said. And if you did not have it, that raised the question whether you were a real Christian at all.
Calling such people liars sounds harsh. One writer answers that objection, and links plain speech to where our hearts really are.
It was an evil at work from the very beginning. And what mercy there is even in this! The evil did exist, and it had to come to light at some point. So God allowed it to break out then, and put His own revealed verdict on it. We would never have dared to say such strong things about people we had known as friends, or as so-called brothers. Call them liars! How shocking and unloving, people would say. But the moment anyone sets himself against the full revelation of the Son of God — or rather, denies it — the Holy Spirit makes no allowance for it. I believe we ought not to either. If the heart is unprepared for this, you will find something else goes along with it. Where self-love, touchiness and stubbornness rule unchecked in what touches ourselves, there is little care for the Lord Jesus.
John does not leave the warning alone. One writer points to the safeguard that follows, and to a common misuse of it.
Here we have the reason the apostle speaks to the babes this way. We must not shut our eyes to the seduction all around us. But their safeguard comes right after: the anointing they have received. Let us not misunderstand that, because I have heard it said, "Oh, I can get on without teaching." I do not think you will. If someone despises teaching, you may be sure that person never grows or gets on. The Lord has given helps and teachers. But the point is this: the young soul has an anointing of the Holy Spirit, and there is no need for the teaching of new things.
Why can the anointing be trusted when a teacher may not be?
They did not rely on teachers to tell them what was true and what was false. That was the work of the anointing of the Spirit. Teachers may be true or false, but the anointing is always true; nothing false comes from this divine teacher.
- Cause. Error came in, and God allowed it so its folly would be shown up and the truth would shine out. Much of the New Testament exists because of it.
- Target. John aims the warning at the youngest believers. He prepares them for danger instead of hiding it from them.
- Tactic. The deceivers promised new light beyond the truth held from the beginning. They worked by making young believers doubt they had the whole truth.
- Plain speech. Where people deny the Son of God, Scripture makes no allowance. A heart full of self finds that plainness offensive; a heart set on Christ does not.
- Safeguard. The anointing inside the believer tells truth from lie. Teachers may be true or false; the anointing is always true.
and *yourselves*, the unction which ye have received from him abides in you, and ye have not need that any one should teach you; but as the same unction teaches you as to all things, and is true and is not a lie, and even as it has taught you, ye shall abide in him.
Teachers were pulling these believers away from Christ, and John answers by pointing to something they already hold. So what is this anointing, and does the verse really mean a Christian needs no human teacher?
John comforts the least mature part of the family, not the most advanced. One writer weighs what that means for every believer further along:
How striking that he comforts not the whole family, but the least mature part of it! He assures them that they possess the great, distinctive privilege Christ went on high to send down, to be in them and with them. They wait for His coming, with all the power of the world and the schemes of Satan set against them. The babes, he declares, have an anointing from the Holy One, and by His power living in them we can say they know all things. If that is so with them, how much less can anyone deny it to the young men and the fathers in the household of faith?
The anointing is the Holy Spirit Himself, given to them and staying. One writer sets it beside the other thing that abides — the word they heard:
He had said that the word they heard was to abide in them — the one written standard of the truth. Now he repeats the other blessed truth. The holy anointing, the Spirit given to them, abides. His anointing abides in you, "little children": this He faithfully continues. And the anointing of the Spirit is for understanding and enjoying, in power, the truth of God in Christ.
The anointing gives capacity, not a ready-made store of facts:
John teaches the "babes" that since the Holy Spirit has anointed them, they are themselves at the source of all knowledge. He does not mean that they in fact know all things. He means that, in having the anointing, they have within themselves the possibility of knowing, and so of telling truth from error.
Some have used this clause to dismiss human teachers altogether. One writer answers that directly:
I hardly need to say this does not refer to Christian teaching. Some have abused this text to deny the need of God-given teachers. That is not the thought at all. But we have received an anointing from God — we need no human teaching, only divine. Suppose someone comes to you claiming he has found some wonderful truth in Theosophy, Spiritism, or Christian Science. Do not be tempted to look into it. The anointing you have already received teaches you. There is nothing beyond that.
The word itself points back to oil, and to the difference between a channel and a source:
Oil is clearly a picture of the Holy Spirit. It was called the anointing oil, and the Spirit given to believers is called "the anointing." Man, as man, cannot teach his fellow man the things of God. Man, as a vessel of the Holy Spirit, may serve as a gracious channel, but the source of the teaching is always and ever the Holy Spirit.
Teachers can be right or wrong. This teacher carries no such risk:
Teachers have their work to do. They bring the word of God before the saints, and it carries its own authority and conviction to the soul. But it is the Spirit of God who makes divine truth good to us. Teachers may be true or false; the anointing is always true. Nothing false comes from this divine teacher.
And this safeguard belongs to the youngest believer, not the seasoned one:
Notice, too, it is the babe who has this anointing. It is not a matter of attainment, or even of experience. It is a divine instinct that lets us detect error and refuse it. We recognise it as not truth, because it does not give us the Christ of God; therefore we reject it.
The verse ends not in knowledge but in staying with Christ, and the order matters:
This order is very beautiful. First the anointing. Then this anointing teaching them all things. And last, abiding in Him. What could lead us astray, if the anointing of the Holy Spirit worked mightily in our souls, if we kept receiving His teachings, and if we were abiding in Christ! We should then be in the living enjoyment of the source of all knowledge, power, and blessing.
- Anointing — The anointing is the Holy Spirit, given and staying, so that we understand and enjoy the truth of God in Christ.
- Given to babes — John presses it on the least mature believers first; if they have it, no one further along lacks it.
- Teaches — It supplies capacity to know and to tell truth from error, not a finished store of knowledge.
- Not against teachers — Teachers stay God's gift and God's channel. What the verse rules out is human teaching as the source.
- Abide — The order is anointing, then teaching, then abiding in Him — and a soul kept in that order is not led astray.