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.