49 - Doctrine of Anointing

Doctrine of Anointing; 1 John 2:19

1 John 2:19 ^NASB "They went out from us, but they were not {really} of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but {they went out,} so that it would be shown that they all are not of us."

When John gets into this he is emphasising the basis of fellowship. He says here that there were those who "went out from us" and they "were not of us." In other words, there is a break in fellowship with these false teachers. There are three principles we have to remember from our previous study of 1 John, especially in the first four verses. First, John is going to emphasise that fellowship with God is based first, if not exclusively, on doctrinal truth. The problem with the break in fellowship here isn't because of behaviour, because they have become immoral, because they have become involved with some sort of sin; it is because they have adopted a false view of the person of Jesus Christ. These were people who taught that Christ really had not come in the flesh. When they denied the physical humanity of Jesus Christ it affected a number of doctrines, not the least of which were doctrines related to the spiritual life, because it was in the physical humanity that Jesus Christ also struggled with every category of testing and temptation and was a victor in that because of His reliance upon God the Holy Spirit. And it is in that that He set the precedent for the spiritual life of the church age. So an attack on the real humanity of Jesus Christ is an assault on humanity in itself, an assault on Jesus Christ and the incarnation, and it is an assault on the spiritual life of the church age. So if we don't have our doctrine right Christologically we can't have fellowship with the apostles and we can't have fellowship with God. John is making the point that fellowship is based on right doctrine.

Three principles:

a)  Right doctrine alone, though, doesn't mean we are in fellowship.

b)  Right behaviour alone doesn't mean we are in fellowship.

c)  Both correct behaviour and right doctrine are necessary to maintain fellowship with God.

The antichrists that John mentions in verse 18 are those who had rejected the truth about Jesus' true humanity, and those are mentioned in the first four verses of 1 John chapter one. The message of the gospel is what is at issue here because if Jesus is not fully God and fully man then He does not fulfil what John says is the essence of His Messiahship, and that is the crucial point in the gospel, according to John 20:31. This is the essence of what John sees as the gospel: believing that Jesus is the Messiah, the God-Man who has come into the world, the one who has become flesh and dwelt among us. So for anyone to deny that Jesus is the Messiah is to undercut the very content, the core content, of the gospel.

In verse 19 John goes on to characterise the origin of these antichrists. He says, "they went out from us… they were not really of us…" The clause "they would have remained with us but {they went out}," is not repeated in the original, but it is usually added in most English translations in order to make the verse make a little more sense when we read it. This is a fascinating verse in the Greek because there are several little different word plays that John is very fond of uses to make his point. What we need to pay attention to here is the use of the pronouns they and us. Then, if we look at verse 20, we will notice that he adds the second person plural pronoun, "But you have an anointing." So to get the thrust of this verse we have to pay attention to the pronouns—they, us, we, and you.

There are two ways that we can understand the "us" or the "we" in these verses, the first person plural. This could refer to we Christians or us Christians; we apostles or us apostles. We have to be consistent with the author's use of this first person plural pronoun all the way through. At the very beginning he did not include his audience in the "we" or the "us." It is only in a secondary way that we are brought in by application, but in the primary sense he is only talking about "we" the apostles. He says, "they went out from us." The "us" there is not talking about us in general; they went out specifically from the apostolic body. This suggests that these false teachers had some kind of historical roots back in Jerusalem, that they had been involved in the early stages of Christianity and the church back in Jerusalem. They were probably believers. (Believers can get involved in any sin and false doctrine imaginable, and they have)

"They went out from us" is the main verb of the sentence exelthan [e)chlqan] which is the third person plural, aorist active indicative of exerchomai [e)cerxomai]which means to come out or to go out from. The aorist tense is a culminative aorist which is used to stress the cessation of an act or state. John uses the preposition ek [e)k] here. He uses it twice but it has two different emphases. ek can emphasise separation and source, so he uses the same preposition in both places as a sort of play on words to get our attention and to cause us to think about just exactly what it is he is saying. He says "they went out from us," i.e. they separated themselves from us, and then he says, "they were not from us." The second use of ek indicates source, that they were not from the same source as us. In other words, they were different, they did not go out from us with our blessing, with our authorisation; they separated from us, they left us, because they had a different doctrine. Expanded translation: "They [false teachers; antichrists] departed from our midst, but they were not really of us because they were not in agreement with us; for if they had been in agreement with us [and they were not] they would have remained in fellowship with us." That is what John is saying in this verse.

The next clause, "for if they had been of us." We have an "if" clause there which is a conditional clause, a second class condition which assumes that the condition is not true. It should be understood as "if they had been of us, and they weren't." It is an assumption of unreality. Then, "they would have continued with us." In other words, if they had had the same doctrines then they would have continued with the apostles, i.e. remained in fellowship with the apostles. That is the impact of the word meno [menw]. It is to bring in as part of its nuance the idea of fellowship. Because they had false doctrine they could not remain in fellowship with the apostles and, of course, they weren't in fellowship with God. Then at the end of the verse he gives the reason for this, and this is expressed through a hina [i(na] clause plus the aorist passive subjunctive of phaneroo [fanerow] which means to reveal, to make manifest, to make visible or conspicuous, or to make known. The reason this happened was in order to in the course of time demonstrate that their false doctrine led to false or wrong behaviour and to show that they really weren't ever a part of us. They never really understood the right doctrine. "… for if they had been of us [been in agreement with us] they would have continued fellowship with us: but they went out from us that it might be made manifest [revealed, been made conspicuously clear] that none of them were of us." The last phrase should be translated "not all of them were of us." Not all of them in Jerusalem were in agreement. There were certain false teachers operating there.

1 John 2:20 ^NASB "But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know." That doesn't tell us a lot about anointing, so we will look at verse 27: "As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him."

Notice two things that are associated with the anointing in v. 27. First of all, "the anointing which you received from Him abides [menw] in you." meno always relates to something to do with fellowship with God—not positional truth but experiential truth. This same anointing "teaches you," so it has to do with teaching. When we look at this verse we are going to say that this seems to indicate the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit. But wait a minute. Haven't we always said that anointing only occurs one time and is not repeated (the filling of the Holy Spirit is repeated). If we look at the Old Testament background anointing only occurs once at the initiation of a person's ministry or role or function. A king is anointed once at the beginning of his reign. A prophet is anointed once at the beginning of his ministry. A priest is anointed once at the beginning of his ministry. So if anointing was related to teaching and to fellowship that would seem is if it was related to the filling ministry of the Holy Spirit in v. 27, but that is a repeated ministry; only the indwelling ministry takes place first. Why we get into confusion here is that we try to use a Johannine term, John's term "anointing," into Paul's terminology. Paul never uses the term "anoint," it is only used in these verses. Anointing here has to do with everything that the believer was given at the point of salvation. At that point it is positional reality but it is potential to growth based on fellowship and the filling of the Holy Spirit. To use Paul's terminology, it is only when we are being filled by the Holy Spirit that that potential is activated so that we are being taught by the Holy Spirit and we are advancing and growing in the spiritual life. So anointing for John refers to everything that we were given potentially in relationship to the ministry of the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation, but that potential is only activated when we are in fellowship, in right relationship with the Holy Spirit and studying His Word. John is reminding them in v. 20 that this anointing is something they have, present tense. The "Holy One" is not the Holy Spirit here, it just says "from the holy." Then, correctly translated: ^NKJV "and you know all things." Why is it that you can say that you know all things? Remember what Jesus promised the disciples in John 14:26 ^NASB "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you." John 16:13 ^NASB "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come."

What we see here is "you know all things" is not talking about the fact that they know everything, it is that the anointing gives us the potential to understand everything in Scripture.