Get Real
Part 4
Chapter 6: The Anointing
Last time we saw that John addressed the little children (baby Christians) regarding what they had received, the fathers about what they had known, and the young men concerning what they had conquered.
And we closed out with John addressing the Antichrist, an antichrist spirit, and little antichrist types that were already infiltrating the church.
And that’s where we want to pick it up today and finish out 1 John 2. Verse 19 begins with John describing false Christians that had eventually walked away from the church and God Himself:
“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.”
These false teachers, or those manifesting a spirit akin to the ultimate antichrist, went out from the true believers in the sense that they departed doctrinally from the position of the Church regarding the person of the Lord Jesus. Hence, he says, “they were not of us.”
Then John brings a word of comfort and assurance:
Vs. 20 “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.”
1 John 2:20, NKJV
The word anointing or unction is the Greek term chrisma. In its original, every day, secular usage it meant “the act of applying a thing to something else for a certain purpose.”
For instance, anointing was used to describe the act of applying grease to the yoke band of an ox so that it would not irritate the hide of the ox. It was also used to describe the application of a lotion to a sick horse.
So, the anointing with the Holy Spirit refers to the act of God the Father sending the Spirit in answer to the prayer of God the Son to take up permanent residence in the believer. This is the sign of true salvation — the pouring of the Spirit into the heart of a believing sinner at the moment he places his faith in the Savior.
Paul wrote to the Romans, “If anyone doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ living in him, he is not a Christian at all!”—Ro. 8:9
Then John speaks a vote of confidence in the authenticity of their salvation:
Vs 21 “I have not written to you because you do not know the truth but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.”
1 John 2:21, NKJV
John is saying, “You know that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Christ.” The word he uses for know here is oida, meaning “to know absolutely and finally”. He is specifically pointing out that these believers were not gradually coming to know, but instead they knew absolutely beyond dispute that Jesus was the Christ. He is contrasting them to the false antichrist teachers, who denied the truth and divinity of Jesus.
Vs. 22-23 “Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”
1 John 2:22-23, NKJV
In the original Greek, this verse reads, “Who is the liar but he who habitually denies that Jesus is the Christ.” Here John is GETTING REAL!
If you don’t acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, God’s only begotten Son sent into the world to shed His blood for our sins, you don’t know God either!
John addresses the Lord with the name “Jesus” and the title “the Christ.” So let’s look for a moment at the important distinction between the name “Jesus” and the title “Christ”.
The English name Jesus comes from the Greek name Iesous, which in turn is taken from the Hebrew word Jehoshua , literally translated Jehovah saves. So the very name of Jesus confers both deity and atonement. Jesus, the Bible says, was Jehovah God saving us by atoning for our sins. He is, to us, literally, “Jehovah saves!”
Then the title Christ is the translation of christos, a Greek word meaning “the anointed one”. This Greek word corresponds to the Hebrew word from which we get the term Messiah. The many antichrists (false teachers) John was so strongly warning against were teaching that the person called Jesus the Christ was neither God (Jehovah Who saves) nor man (the promised Messiah) and that there was no atonement for sin on the cross.
John cuts this teaching to the bone by saying that anyone who denies the Son does not even have the Father. He is not God’s child, but an unsaved person.
Then John assures us that those who do acknowledge the Son as the Christ have the Father also.
“Anyone who denies the Son doesn’t have the Father, either. But anyone who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”
1 John 2:23, NLT
The word translated here as acknowledges comes from a Greek word meaning “to speak the same thing that another does.” When we confess Jesus as the Christ, we are agreeing with the testimony of God through His Word concerning the sonship of Jesus who is called the Christ.
Vs.24-26 “Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning [of your salvation experience] abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that He has promised us—eternal life. These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you.”
1 John 2:24-26, NKJV
Notice the word abide is used three times in these verses alone. As we know, this word means “to remain in” or “to dwell in”. The believers were to remain in the truth that saved them in the beginning, the truth that Jesus is the Christ, God’s only begotten Son, who came to die for our sins on the cross and rose from the dead on our behalf. Those who continue to abide in that truth will enjoy eternal fellowship with the Father and the Son.
Vs. 27 “But the anointing (the application of the Spirit) which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.”
1 John 2:27, NKJV
The Holy Spirit is the anointing we received at salvation, and He stays with us forever. John said He abides, or remains, in us. We find David the Psalmist praying, “take not your Holy Spirit from me” because in the Old Testament the Spirit came upon an individual for the specific period of that person’s ministry and then left when that ministry was complete, without affecting the person’s salvation.
Today, as in New Testament times after Pentecost, the Spirit lives in the believer permanently. John tells us that because believers have the Holy Spirit living within them, they have no need to constantly have someone else teaching them because this is one purpose the Holy Spirit serves in the believer.
Understand, he is not setting aside the usefulness and necessity of God-appointed and equipped teachers in the Church. As the Apostle Paul wrote:
“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers.”
Ephesians 4:11, KJV
John is simply telling them that they are not at the mercy of false teachers because they have the Holy Spirit and the Word to instruct them.
Vs. 28 “And now, little children, abide in Him, that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming.
1 John 2:28, NKJV
John reminds them to be constantly abiding in Him…” In other words, he is telling them to continue reading God’s Word, walking in the Spirit, and holding fast to the truth that saved them in the beginning. Appears is derived from a word meaning, “to be made manifest or visible.” The invisible Lord Jesus will someday be made visible as he comes from heaven into the atmosphere of this earth to catch up his bride, the Church.
Confidence comes from a word meaning “cheerful courage, free and fearless confidence, boldness and assurance.”
This is to be the heart attitude of the saint who lives so close to the Lord Jesus that there is nothing between him and his Lord when Jesus comes; no known sin in his life when the rapture occurs.
The term be ashamed means “to make ashamed” or “to fill through and through with shame.” John encourages believers to abide in him so that they do not need to shrink from him, filled with shame, when he returns.
Coming in the phrase “at his coming” derives from a word meaning, “to be beside” and speaks of the personal, tangible presence of a person. When Jesus returns we will literally be “beside Him!”
John closes this section of his letter with these words:
Vs. 29 “If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.”
1 John 2:29, NKJV
Here again John gets real. One of the proofs that a person has been truly saved is a change in their lifestyle. At the moment of their conversion they will begin living a different life, one that is dedicated to God and that desires to be pleasing to the Lord. Not perfectly, but sincerely.
This is one of John’s mantras in this book. He said in:
1:6, “If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness we lie…”
In 2:3 “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”
2:6 “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”
2:15 “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
And now in vs. 29 John hits it again—If you are truly born of Him, you will practice a Christ honoring lifestyle—not perfectly, but sincerely, growing daily toward maturity.
The Apostle Paul wrote of what our Christian life should look like in Ephesians 4:13-15:
That we would “…all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be immature like children.”—Vs 13-14a (MATURITY)
“We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth.”—vs 14 (STABILITY)
“Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.”—vs 15 (INTEGRITY)
Let’s pray!