What is the anointing?
The word "anointing" appears where John is warning believers about people trying to mislead them, and his answer is not a new argument but something they already have. The question is what this anointing is, where it comes from, and why it makes even the youngest believer safe.
The Anointing Is the Holy Spirit
Writers consistently identify the anointing with a Person, not an experience. One commentator sets it alongside two other pictures of the same gift:
F. B. HoleIf we ask more closely how the Spirit of God lives in the individual believer, we find that He comes bearing a threefold character. He is the Seal, the Earnest, and the Anointing, as stated in 2 Corinthians 1:21-22. As the Seal He secures us for God and marks us out as His. As the Earnest He is the pledge and foretaste of all those blessed realities which are yet to be ours in the day of glory. As the Anointing, or Unction — this word is used in 1 John 2:20 — He gives the believer the capacity to grasp and enjoy the things of God, and also empowers for worship and the service of God.
Anointed Because Christ Was Anointed
The believer's anointing is an overflow from Christ's own. His name itself carries the idea:
A. J. PollockAnointed with oil pictures the day when our Lord was baptized and stepped into public service for God and man… The Hebrew word Messiah, and its Greek equivalent Christ, means the Anointed One. "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him" (Acts 10:38).
The order matters — first Him, then us:
J. N. DarbyChrist was anointed as man. When He ascended on high, there He received the promise of the Father, and sent down the Spirit to the saints, so constituting them the Church.
The Old Testament Picture
Under the law, a specially mixed oil anointed the tabernacle, its vessels, and the priests, and no one else was allowed to make or use it. Commentators read that oil as a picture of the Spirit — and they notice where it was placed:
A. J. PollockIn the setting apart of Aaron and his sons, the oil (a picture of the Holy Spirit) was put upon the blood (a picture of the atoning sacrifice of Christ applied in all its blessed power). This is why the Spirit is never withdrawn: the indwelling is granted on the righteous ground of the finished atoning work of our Lord on the cross.
The same picture explains what the anointing is for. Aaron stands for Christ, his sons for believers:
Frederick Edward MarshThrough the anointing oil they were set apart to worship God and to His service. We too are anointed with the Holy Spirit as priests to worship God and to minister for Him.
What It Does: Teaches and Detects
The anointing is what makes truth land inside a person rather than merely reaching the ears:
J. N. DarbyThere is real divine teaching. God may use an instrument to put it before us, but there is no real faith in the soul except where there is this unction of the Spirit of God. There may be convictions of sin before we get our souls clear about being saved. But the moment I am divinely taught the Person of Christ, I say I have got eternal life — the life that God sent into the world.
John says this to the youngest believers, which one writer takes as deliberate:
Samuel RidoutNotice too that it is the babe who has this unction. It is not a question of attainment, or even of experience. It is a divine instinct enabling us to detect and refuse error. We recognise it as not truth, because it does not give us the Christ of God, and so we reject it. This anointing abides in us and teaches us to abide in Christ our Lord.
Not a Licence for Independence
"You have no need that anyone should teach you" is easily misread. Commentators guard it from both sides. One notes that God still gives teachers:
Edward DennettJohn does not mean that these saints could do without the teachers who were gifts from Christ to the Church… but rather that, if they were attacked by antichrists, they had an all-sufficient resource in the anointing of the Holy Spirit, even if left entirely to themselves.
Yet the source of light is never the teacher himself:
A J PollockMan, as man, cannot teach his fellow the things of God. Man, as a vessel of the Holy Spirit, can be used as a gracious channel, but the source of the teaching is always and ever the Holy Spirit.
Summary
- Ground — the oil went on the blood: the Spirit is given on the righteous basis of Christ's finished work, which is why He is never withdrawn.
- Gift — the anointing is the Holy Spirit Himself, given by God alongside the seal and the earnest, granting capacity to grasp and enjoy the things of God.
- Pattern — Christ was anointed first, as man, and from heaven He sent the Spirit down to His people.
- Reach — even the newest believer has it; it is not attainment but a divine instinct that detects and refuses whatever does not give us the Christ of God.
- Result — teachers still have their place as channels, but the teaching itself comes from the Spirit, and where He teaches, the believer abides in Christ.