(1 John 2:24-29)
7. The Spiritual Anointing (1 John 2:24-29)
Therefore let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you too will abide in the
Son and the Father. This is the promise that he has promised us. You may be thinking about recompense and saying, *'See, what I've heard from the beginning I've kept safe in myself, I've complied with. I've suffered dangers, toils, temptations in order to remain faithful. What fruit does all this bring me, what recompense? What will God give me hereafter, because in this world I see myself toiling among temptations? I don't see that there is any rest here. Mortality is weighing on my soul, and my perishable body presses it down to what is beneath it. But I bear everything so that what I've heard from the beginning may abide in me, and I may say to my God, 'For the sake of the words from your mouth I have kept hard ways.' What will my recompense be?"
Listen and don't give up! If you are tending in your toil to give up, let the promised reward make you strong! What person works in a vineyard and lets the wage he's going to receive slip from his mind? If he forgets it his hands stop working. The thought of his promised recompense makes him persevere in his work. Now in that case the promise came from a human being, who can deceive you. How much more resolutely should you work on God's land when it is Truth who has made the promise? Truth can't be replaced or die or deceive the one he has promised. And what is his promise? Let us see. Is it gold, which people love here below, or silver? Is it possessions, for which people give their gold even though they love it so much? Is it delightful estates, spacious houses, hosts of servants, numerous beasts? No, it isn't for these wages that he exhorts us to perse-
THE SPIRITUALANOINTING /
vere in our toil. What does he call our recompense? Eternal life!
This is the promise he has promised us, eternal life.
Now you've heard me say it, and you've shouted aloud in your joy! Love what you've heard me say, and you'll find deliverance from all your troubles in the repose of eternal life. You know what it is God promises you: eternal life. You know what he threatens you with: eternal fire. What does he say to those he has placed on his right? **Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." And what does he say to those at his left? "Go into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels." If you don't yet love what he has promised, at least fear what he threatens.
Remember, then, dear friends, that it is eternal life that Christ has promised us. This, John says, is the promise that he has promised us, eternal life. I have written this to you about those who would deceive you. Don't let anyone deceive you unto death. Long for the promise of eternal life. What can the world promise you? Whatever it promises, it promises to one who may die tomorrow. And how, when you leave life, will you face the One who abides forever? Will you say to him, '"'Someone powerful was threatening me and so I did wrong"? What did this powerful person threaten you with: was it prison, chains, fire, torture, wild beasts? Did he threaten you with eternal fire? Dread what the Almighty threatens; love what the Almighty promises. Then the whole world, whether it is promising you or threatening you, becomes contemptible.
I have written this to you about those who would deceive you; that you may know that you have an anointing and the anointing which we have received from him abides in us. There is a sacrament of anointing; the power itself is invisible. It is an invisible anointing, and this is the Holy Spirit. This invisible anointing is love. It-will be for all those in whom it exists like a root that will preserve them from withering no matter how ardently the sun may burn. Everything rooted is nourished by the sun's heat, not withered by it.
And you have no need that anyone should teach you because his anointing teaches you about everything. Then what am I doing by teaching you? If his anointing teaches you about everything, then it seems as if there is no reason for me to work. Why should I raise my voice? I should leave you to the anointing and let it teach you. I'm asking myself and I question the apostle too (may he be patient with me). I say to John, "Did the people you were speaking to have the anointing? You said that his anointing teaches you about everything: why did you write this letter, then? Why were you teaching them? Why did you instruct and edify them?"
There is a great mystery here, my friends. The sound of my words strikes your ears: the Teacher is within you. Don't suppose that anyone learns anything from another human being. I can get your attention with the sound of my voice. But if there's no one within to teach you, then the sound I make accomplishes nothing. Do you want proof of this, my friends? Haven't you all heard this homily? And how many of you are going to leave here untaught? For my part, I've spoken to everyone; but those who are not spoken to from within by the anointing, who are not taught from within by the Holy Spirit, will leave untaught. Instruction that comes from without is a help, a call for attention. He who teaches hearts has his chair in heaven. That is why Jesus himself says in the gospel, **Call no one your master on earth; One alone is your Master, the Christ." Then let him speak to you from within, where no human being is present. Even if there is someone beside you, there is no one in your heart. But don't let there be **no one" in your heart. Let Christ be there! Let his anointing be in your heart, so that it doesn't thirst in the wilderness without a spring of water to refresh it. There is then an inner Master who teaches. Christ teaches; it is his inspiration that teaches. Words that sound from outside have no effect where his inspiration and anointing are lacking.
The words we speak from outside, my friends, are what a gardener is to a tree. He works from outside, he applies water and
THE SPIRITUAL ANOINTING / 35 care. No matter what he may apply from without, is it he who forms the fruit? Is it he who clothes the naked branches with their shady covering of leaves? Does he do anything of this kind from without? Who does it, then? Listen to a gardener, the apostle Paul, and then you'll know what I am, and will listen to your interior Teacher: "I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. Neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but it is God who provides growth." And so this is what I say to you: whether my speaking to you is a planting or a watering, I am nothing. The one who provides growth is God; his anointing teaches you about everything.
And this anointing is true, John says. What he means is that the Lord's Spirit that teaches people cannot lie. This anointing is true, and is no lie. As it has taught you, abide in it. And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence in his sight, and not be confounded by him at his coming. You see, dear friends, we believe in Jesus, whom we haven't seen. They who saw him, who touched him, who heard the words he spoke, they have proclaimed him to us; they didn't set out on their own, but he sent them to convince the whole human race of the truth of these things. And where were they sent? You've heard the gospel: "Go, preach the good news to the whole creation under heaven." So the disciples were sent everywhere. Signs and prodigies accompanied them, so that they would be believed because they were relating what they had seen. And we believe in one we have not seen, and we await his coming. Everyone who waits for him in faith will rejoice when he comes; those who are without faith will feel shame when he comes whom they don't now see. This confusion of mind won't last a day and then pass, as happens with those who are caught in some fault and are taunted by other people. This confusion of mind will lead those who experience it to the Lord's left hand to hear him say, ''Go into the eternal fire, which has been prepared for the devil and his angels."
Let us abide in his words, then, so that we won't be confounded when he comes. Christ himself says in the gospel to
36 / LOVEONE ANOTHER, MY FRIENDS those who have believed in him, "If you abide in my word you are truly my disciples." And then, as if they had asked what fruit this would bring them, he went on: *And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." For the time being our salvation is a hope, not a reality; we don't yet possess what has been promised, but we hope for it as something to come. *He who promised is faithful." He isn't deceiving you. Only you mustn't give up, but wait for the promise. Truth cannot deceive. Don't you be a liar, professing one thing and doing another. Keep your faith; he keeps his promise. If you don't keep your faith, it's you who've cheated yourself, not he who made the promise.
If you know that he is righteous, know that everyone who does right is born of him. At present our righteousness comes from faith. There is no perfect righteousness except among the angels, and scarcely there if the angels are compared with God. And yet if there is any perfect righteousness in the souls and spirits that God has created, it is among the angels. They are holy and just and good; no fall has turned them away from God, and pride hasn't cast them down. They remain always in contemplation of the Word of God and have no delight in anything but the One who created them. In them righteousness is perfect; in us it has begun to exist—by faith, according to the Spirit.
In the psalm we sing, ""Begin to make confession to the Lord!" **Begin," it says: that is, the beginning of our righteousness is our confession of sins. Have you begun not to make a defense of your sins? That's already the beginning of righteousness. Righteousness will be perfected in you when you don't want to do anything else, when death is swallowed up in victory, when you aren't tickled by wrong desires, when you no longer contend with flesh and blood, when the crown of victory and triumph over the enemy have come. At that time there will be perfect righteousness. For now we fight on. If we are fighting we are in a contest. We strike and are struck. Who'll win? We have to wait and see. But the one who winsis the one who, even when he strikes out at someone, doesn't count on his own strength but on God, who is urging him on. The devil fights against us all alone. If you are with God, you overcome the devil; but if you fight all alone, you will be beaten.
The devil is a well-practiced enemy. How many victories he wins! Consider what he has done to us: he cast our first parents out of paradise in the beginning, so that we should be born only to die. What are we to do then, because he is so skillful? Call on the Almighty against this experienced devil! There is One who can't be overcome. Let God dwell in you, and then you'll easily overcome the one who is used to winning. Who is it the devil conquers? Those in whom God doesn't dwell.
You know, my friends, that when Adam was in paradise he despised God's commandment. He raised himself up, desiring in some way to be his own master and refusing to submit to God's will. And he fell from his immortal state and his blessedness. But there was a certain man, one well trained to fight, one born subject to death; and while sitting on a dunghill eaten by worms he conquered the devil. Adam too conquered the devil—in the person of Job, because Job was of his race. And so it happened that Adam, who was overcome in paradise, overcame his enemy on a dunghill. When he was in paradise, he listened to the suggestion of the woman the devil had set against him; when he was on the dunghill, he said to Eve (in the person of his wife), You have spoken like one of the foolish women." In paradise he listened, on the dunghill he answered; in his happiness he gave in, when he was tormented he conquered.
See what follows then, dear friends, in the letter of John. He is exhorting us to overcome the devil, certainly, but not on our own. If you know that he is righteous, John says, know that everyone who does right is born of him—born of God, of Christ. When he says is born of him, he is urging us on. Already, then, because we are born of him, we are perfect.