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Scripture Reading: 1 John 2:20-27; 3:24; 4:2, 13; 5:5-12; Jude 20-21
First John 2:20-27 unveils the teaching of the divine anointing for the abiding in the Triune God.
John tells us that the anointing Spirit is received by the believers from the Holy One (v. 20). John also charges us to abide in the Lord by this anointing (v. 27). If we did not have this anointing, it would be impossible to abide in the Lord. The anointing is like a switch that enables us to turn on the lights. If the switch is off, everything is in darkness, but if the switch is on, everything is in the light. We all need to be full of the anointing. According to grammar, the word anointing is a gerund, a verbal noun. Such a noun always conveys an action with it. The anointing is the moving of the Spirit within us.
The unbelievers do not have the anointing, but as regenerated believers, we possess this anointing. We have something within us that is hard to designate or entitle. Something is within us moving and acting in a gentle way. It is somewhat similar to the very comfortable, nice, sweet, and gentle sensation we experience when some soothing oil is rubbed on our hand or on our face. Some kind of moving, or action, is always going on within us, soothing us, comforting us, watering us, supporting us, sustaining us, and nourishing us. This is the anointing. This is the moving, or acting, of this wonderful person — the Spirit as the Son with the Father. This is the One who is moving, acting, and soothing our entire being from within us.
First John 2:20-27 also unveils that Jesus is Christ and that Christ is the Son and the Father. The totality of Jesus, Christ, the Son, and the Father is the eternal life. Verse 22 tells us that the antichrist denies that Jesus is the Christ. The apostle John wrote such a verse because of the heresy of Cerinthus, a first-century Syrian heresiarch of Jewish descent, educated at Alexandria. His heresy was a mixture of Judaism, Gnosticism, and Christianity. He distinguished the maker (creator) of the world from God and represented that maker as a subordinate power. He taught adoptionist Christology (Adoptionism), saying that Jesus became the Son of God by exaltation to a status that was not His by birth, thus denying the conception of Jesus by the Holy Spirit. In his heresy he separated the earthly man Jesus, regarded as the son of Joseph and Mary, from the heavenly Christ and taught that after Jesus was baptized, Christ as a dove descended upon Him, and then He announced the unknown Father and did miracles, but that at the end of His ministry Christ departed from Jesus, and Jesus suffered death on the cross and rose from the dead, while Christ remained separated as a spiritual being and will rejoin the man Jesus at the coming of the Messianic kingdom of glory. Basically speaking, Cerinthus denied that Jesus is Christ and that Jesus is God. It is a great heresy to deny the deity, the Godhead, of Jesus.
First John 2:20-22 tells us that if you deny that Jesus is the Christ, you are denying the Son and the Father. Then verse 23 tells us that if you deny the Son, you do not have the Father, and if you confess the Son, you have the Father. Then verse 25 tells us that God promised us the eternal life. These verses show that Jesus is Christ, that Christ is the Son, and that the Son is always with the Father. When Jesus, Christ, the Son, and the Father are added together, this is the eternal life. The eternal life is the aggregate of Jesus, Christ, the Son, and the Father. The eternal life is this wonderful person. Jesus, Christ, the Son, the Father, and the eternal life when totaled together are the aggregate all-inclusive Spirit.
The anointing is the moving and working of the indwelling compound Spirit, which is fully typified by the anointing oil, the compound ointment, in Exodus 30:23-25. This compound ointment was compounded with four spices plus a hin of olive oil. Five elements were compounded together into an ointment. The great teachers among the Brethren agree that the compound ointment in Exodus 30 typifies the Holy Spirit. I was taught this, but these teachers never went further to see the ingredients of this compound ointment. Any kind of compound has different elements as the ingredients. Since the compound ointment is a type of the Holy Spirit, this indicates that the Holy Spirit is a compound Spirit. It is not merely the Spirit of God, which is typified by the olive oil. After Christ’s resurrection the Spirit of God became compounded with the divinity of the Godhead plus the humanity of the man Jesus, with His human living, with His crucifixion (the all-inclusive death), and with His resurrection. These five elements are all compounded in this all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (see Life-study of Exodus, Messages 157-163 and footnote 194 in Phil. 1, Recovery Version). By reading the Life-study messages on the compound ointment, you will be able to see the compound, all-inclusive, processed, aggregate, life-giving, indwelling Spirit. This is the One who moves and acts in us. His moving and His acting are the anointing, which anoints us all the time.
The anointing can be exemplified by the painting of a table. The more the table is painted, the more coating it receives. After many coats of paint have been put on the table, this table becomes full of paint. We can say that the anointing Spirit is the “divine paint.” This wonderful person, the Triune God, is the heavenly, divine paint full of elements. Actually, any kind of paint is composed of different elements compounded together. The divine paint is not a teaching or a kind of inspiration but a wonderful person, the Spirit as the Son with the Father who is full of elements, ingredients. We all have to say, “Lord Jesus, thank You for the painting. I am here, Lord, and I open to You for more painting. Give me another coating of the compound ointment.” What kind of person would you be if you received a coating of this divine paint every day for three hundred sixty-five days? You would be a person full of the divine paint, a person of the Spirit, a wonderful person.
This anointing teaches us concerning all things pertaining to the person of Christ related to the Divine Trinity. The anointing teaches us that Jesus is Christ, that Christ is the Son, and that the Son is with the Father. If you have these four — Jesus, Christ, the Son, and the Father — you have eternal life. We all should declare, “Hallelujah! I have the eternal life!” Because the Christians have the eternal life, nothing can stop them. The Roman Empire did their best to kill all the Christians, but they failed. This shows that the more the opposers try to “bury” the Christians, who are the many grains of wheat, the more these grains flourish and produce many more grains. The blood of the martyrs grows and produces. According to history, any government that persecutes Christians is unwise.
We must realize that the more we prosper outwardly, the less we grow. In this sense, sufferings are lovable and dear. None of us, however, likes to suffer. If all your children were “straight A” students and grew up to be lawyers and doctors, would this help your growth in life? On the other hand, what if your children were naughty and not so bright? You might kneel down to pray, “Lord, have mercy upon me.” When you pray in this way, the Lord as the divine breath gets into you. The breath is this wonderful One. When you pray in this way, you may not understand what you are praying, but as long as you pray, the breath gets into you.
We all need the deep breathing of this wonderful One into our being. If a father’s son graduated to be a medical doctor, he might not pray that much. He might only pray, “Lord, how good You are. Thank You for my son who is a medical doctor.” He might pray this prayer without really breathing the Lord deeply into his being. If his son, however, got sick and was sent to the hospital, he probably would cry out to the Lord, “O Lord Jesus! I do not understand this situation. Have mercy upon me, Lord.” This cry to the Lord is the deep breathing. This kind of desperate prayer affords the Lord a way to dispense Himself as the eternal life into our being. All the sufferings and persecution are an aid to this dispensing.
We should abide in the Lord according to the anointing Spirit, who is the wonderful One as the compound, processed, aggregate, all-inclusive, life-giving, indwelling Spirit. Then in the fact that God has given us of His Spirit, we know that we abide in Him and He in us (1 John 4:13; 3:24). This indwelling Spirit then becomes a reality to us, a testimony. The Spirit being the truth, the reality, testifies that Jesus is the Son of God, in whom is the eternal life (5:5-12). First John 5:7-8 tells us that there are three who testify — the Spirit, the water, and the blood. Jesus, the man of Nazareth, was testified to be the Son of God by the water He went through in His baptism (Matt. 3:16-17; John 1:31-34), by the blood that He shed on the cross (19:31-35; Matt. 27:50-54), and also by the Spirit whom He gave not by measure (John 1:32-34; 3:34). By these three, God has testified that Jesus is His Son given to us (1 John 5:7-10), that in Him we may receive His eternal life by believing into His name (vv. 11-13; John 3:16, 36; 20:31). By thus testifying, He imparts the Son of God into us to be our life (Col. 3:4). First John 5:12 tells us that if we have the Son, we have the eternal life, and if we do not have the Son, we do not have the eternal life. We all need to praise the Lord that we have the Son, and thus we have the eternal life. This eternal life, this wonderful person, is our capital, our profit, our victory, and everything to us as Christians.
Jude 20 and 21 instruct us to pray in the Holy Spirit in order that we may be preserved in the Triune God. We should keep ourselves in the love of God by building up ourselves upon our holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit (v. 20); thus, we await and look for the mercy of our Lord so that we may not only enjoy eternal life in this age but inherit it for eternity (Matt. 19:29). The entire blessed Divine Trinity is employed and enjoyed by the believers in their praying in the Holy Spirit, keeping themselves in the love of God, and awaiting the mercy of our Lord unto eternal life. The enjoyment and inheritance of eternal life, the life of God, is the goal of our spiritual seeking. Because we aim at this goal, we want to be kept in the love of God and await the mercy of our Lord.
Our God, our Savior, and our Redeemer is such a wonderful person. He is the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — mingled with man. This Triune God-man died an all-inclusive death on the cross and resurrected to become the life-giving Spirit. This Spirit is compounded with divinity, humanity, human living, the all-inclusive death, and the marvelous resurrection. This is the wonderful One as the compounded Spirit indwelling us to move and to act within us. This moving and acting within us is the anointing to anoint the Triune God with His uplifted humanity, His human living, His all-inclusive death, and His wonderful, excellent resurrection into our being. We are receiving coating upon coating of this compound ointment. The more coating we receive, the more we grow in life. This is not merely a teaching but a ministering of the wonderful One into all of us.
