“BUT THE ANOINTING which you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that any one should teach you; as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him” (1 John 2:27). Yesterday we saw the emphasis laid upon the revelation of God and life through the Incarnate Jesus. To abide in Christ meant to abide by this revelation in history of the Incarnate Jesus, and not to wander off into vagaries and philosophical myths. Anchor to Jesus was the emphasis.
Here John goes a step further and says that the anointing abides in you and that anointing teaches you everything. This provides for a continuous unfolding revelation. If yesterday we emphasized the static, this emphasizes the dynamic. This goes beyond Jude with his emphasis on “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (v. 3). There is a truth in this faith once for all delivered, but that truth must be supplemented by this dynamic unfolding through the anointing. Jesus provided for this unfolding: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth . . . He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16:13–14). So the Christian faith is “once for all,” and yet an unfolding of that which was infolded in Jesus.
This anointing which teaches everything must be the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit dwelling within. He becomes the Counselor, or as one commentator well puts it, the Interpreter. The Holy Spirit interprets the teaching, the life, the death, the resurrection, the ascension to the place of final authority, and the return of Jesus. New meanings, new applications, new depths, new heights, new breadths, new lengths—new everything is constantly being revealed through the Spirit, the anointing.
O blessed Holy Spirit, Thou art teaching me according to the Textbook, Jesus. I thirst to know more and more of Him, for He satisfies me and sets me on fire to know more of Him. I thank Thee for Thy unfolding. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: The Holy Spirit abiding in me reveals Jesus and ever more of Jesus.
