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Scripture Reading: 1 John 2:12-27
The Epistle of 1 John is composed of three main sections: the fellowship of the divine life (1:1—2:11), the teaching of the divine anointing (2:12-27), and the virtues of the divine birth (2:28—5:21). In the foregoing messages we have covered the first section of this Epistle and the first basic matter revealed in this book — the fellowship of the divine life. In this message we come to the second section and to the second basic matter — the teaching of the divine anointing.
The fellowship of the divine life is divine and mysterious. However, the divine anointing is even more mysterious. It is very difficult to give an adequate definition of the divine anointing. The anointing is the function of the all-inclusive, compound, life-giving Spirit, who is the processed Triune God. In this definition we can see the different elements, or ingredients, of the anointing. The anointing is the function, the moving, of the compound ointment.
The first mention of the anointing in the Bible is in Exodus 30. In that chapter we have a revelation of the compound ointment that was used to anoint the tabernacle and the priesthood.
In principle, John’s writings are based on what is written in the Old Testament. For example, in his Gospel John uses the word “tabernacled” in 1:14 and the phrase “Lamb of God” in 1:29. Furthermore, John 1:51 refers to Jacob’s dream about the heavenly ladder at Bethel. Moreover, many of the signs in the book of Revelation can be found in the Old Testament. In the same principle, John’s first Epistle is based on the Old Testament. In keeping with this principle, the word “anointing” used by John in chapter two refers to the ointment in Exodus 30. In the Life-study of Exodus, Messages 157-163, we considered the basic elements of the compound ointment and the measure of these elements. The ointment in Exodus 30 is a full type of the all-inclusive, compound, life-giving Spirit, who is the processed Triune God. The anointing is actually the function, the moving, of such a Spirit.
The anointing is very mysterious, but it is also real and experiential. Instead of using the noun “ointment,” John uses the verbal noun “anointing.” This word refers to the moving of the all-inclusive Spirit within us. If we carefully read 2:12-27, we shall realize that the anointing is actually the personification of the all-inclusive, compound, life-giving Spirit, who is the processed Triune God.
First John 2:12-27 is a section concerning the Divine Trinity according to the believers’ growth in life. In these verses the Trinity is covered in a very positive and meaningful way. But if we do not have a spiritual and heavenly view of these verses, we shall not see that the Trinity is covered here. The teaching of the divine anointing concerns the Divine Trinity, but this teaching is according to our growth in life. This means that the more we grow in life, the more we shall be concerned with the Trinity.
The entire New Testament is structured with the Trinity. In Ephesians, for example, every chapter is structured with the Trinity. Second Corinthians 13:14 says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” This verse at the very end of 2 Corinthians indicates that the whole book of 2 Corinthians is concerned with the grace of Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. We also see the Trinity in the book of Revelation: “Grace to you and peace from Him Who is, and Who was, and Who is coming, and from the seven Spirits Who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful Witness, the Firstborn of the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth” (1:4b-5a). Here we see that the mysterious book of Revelation opens with the Trinity, for in this book also the Trinity is the basic structure.
I wish to emphasize the fact that the Divine Trinity is the basic structure of the entire revelation in the Bible. If the Divine Trinity were removed from the Scriptures, there would not be any reality of the divine revelation in the Scriptures.
In 1 John only sixteen verses are devoted to the mysterious, all-inclusive, compound anointing (2:12-27). If we study these verses carefully and get into the depths of them, we shall see that the Divine Trinity is here, and that the Trinity is covered according to the growth in life of the believers.
These sixteen verses are also very polemical. These verses are the most polemical section of this Epistle. We have already mentioned that John’s writings are polemical, for he was fighting against heresies, including Gnosticism, Cerinthianism, and Docetism. These heresies were related to the Person of Christ, and they caused damage and confusion to the church life. Therefore, it was necessary for the apostle John to be polemical and to fight against these heresies, inoculating the saints against the poison of the heresies concerning the Person of Christ.
In these sixteen verses John gives a word regarding the deep truth of the Trinity. But John’s way of writing is based on the growth in life of the believers. For this reason, John classified the believers into three groups: children, young men, and fathers.
In verse 12 John refers to the recipients of this Epistle as “little children.” This is a general address and does not refer to any specific class of believers. As we have already mentioned, according to verse 1 of chapter two, the aged apostle considered all the recipients of his Epistle his dear little children in the Lord. We shall see that later in verses 13 through 27 John writes to the young children, young men, and fathers. But here he addresses all the believers as little children, no matter what their spiritual age may be. On the one hand, all the believers are God’s children. On the other hand, in the church life God’s children were also John’s children.
John considered the believers his children, not his students or his followers. To be a student is a matter of knowledge, and to be a follower is a matter of participating in a certain activity. But the word “children” indicates life. In this Epistle John refers to the believers in a way that indicates life. John did not even say “my dear children.” Instead, he used the more intimate expression “little children.”
Sometimes an elderly parent will refer to his mature son as his child. For example, a man may be in his eighties and his son, in his sixties. Nevertheless, the father may still refer to his son as his child. This is a sign of a tender, intimate relationship. In this Epistle, John, an elderly father, addresses all the believers as little children. Writing in an intimate manner, he says, “I write to you, little children....” This term of address also indicates that in writing these verses John is concerned with the believers’ growth in life.
In verse 12 John says, “I write to you, little children, because your sins have been forgiven you because of His name.” The forgiveness of sins is the basic element of God’s gospel (Luke 24:47; Acts 5:31; 10:43; 13:38). Through this, the believers who receive Christ become the children of God (John 1:12-13).
John realized that forgiveness of sins is a basic factor in our becoming God’s children. In verse 12 John tells the little children that their sins have been forgiven because of the Lord’s name. They have believed in this precious name and have received the forgiveness of sins. The forgiveness of sins is the first basic element in the gospel. If we believe in the name of the Lord and call on His name, the first blessing we receive is the forgiveness of sins. Through forgiveness, we have been justified and have become the children of God. Regeneration, therefore, is based on the forgiveness of sins. This is the reason the apostle John regards forgiveness of sins as the basic factor in addressing the recipients of this Epistle as little children.
In verse 13 John goes on to say, “I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, young children, because you have known the Father.” Now we see that some of John’s little children are fathers, others are young men, and others are young children.
The fathers are those believers who are mature in the divine life. They are classified by the apostle as the first group among his recipients. These believers are fathers because they “have known Him who is from the beginning.” The words “have known” are in the perfect tense. This denotes that the state produced continues. These mature believers have known; therefore, they know all the time. Such living knowledge is the fruit of the experience of life.
John says that the fathers have known Him who is from the beginning. Here “from the beginning” is used in the absolute sense. The One who is from the beginning is the eternal, preexisting Christ, who is the Word of life from the beginning (1 John 1:1; John 1:1). Knowing in the way of life such an eternal Christ is the characteristic of the mature and experienced fathers, who were not and could not be deceived by the heresies that claimed Christ was not eternal. As the eternal, preexisting One, Christ existed from eternity. This eternal One existed before all created things came into existence. Truly He is the eternal and preexisting One.
Here John does not say that the fathers know the Son of God or Jesus Christ. Rather, he says that they have known the One who is from the beginning; they have known Christ as the eternal, preexisting One. This knowing is a matter of experience, not merely a matter of doctrinal knowledge. If we would know Christ as the eternal, preexisting One, we need to experience Him. The apostle John did not ascribe this qualification to the young ones. It was to the fathers that he ascribed the qualification of knowing through experience the One who is from the beginning.
Among us there are some fathers, those who have come to know the Lord through their experience of Him. To know the Lord in this way of experience takes many years. This is the qualification of those who can be called “fathers.” The criterion that determines who is a father is the experiential knowledge of the Lord as the eternal One, a knowledge that is gained through the life course of many years.
In verse 13 we also have the second category of believers — the young men. These are the believers who are grown up in the divine life. One characteristic of these grown-up and strong young believers is that they overcome the evil one. This is possible because the young men are nourished, strengthened, and sustained by the word of God which abides in them and operates in them against the Devil, the world, and its lust (vv. 14b-17).
Overcoming the evil one is a strong evidence that a believer has grown to be a young man. I can testify that in the church life today there is a group of young ones who overcome the evil one and also overcome evil things.
The third category of believers mentioned by John is that of the young children. These are the believers who have just received the divine life. They are classified by the apostle as the third group of recipients.
John says that the young children have known the Father. The Father is the source of the divine life, of whom the believers have been reborn (John 1:12-13). To know the Father is the initial issue of being regenerated (John 17:3, 6). Hence, such an experiential knowledge in the youth of the divine life is the basic qualification of the young children, who are the youngest in John’s classification.
Just as a child of a human father knows his father, so the young children in the divine life know their Father. The New Testament tells us that we have received the Spirit of sonship, in which we cry, “Abba, Father.” All the young children know their Father; they know the One who has begotten them with the divine life.
In verse 13 John says, “I write to you, young children.” Here the Greek word is egrapsa, have written; in other manuscripts, it is grapho, write. Although egrapsa, according to more recent manuscript discovery, is more authentic, grapho, which is taken by the King James Version and J. N. Darby’s New Translation, is more logical according to the context. The apostle in this verse addresses his writing to each of the three classes of his recipients, all in the present tense. In the following verses, verses 14 through 27, he addresses each of the three classes again, but all in the aorist tense (v. 14 to the fathers and young men; v. 26, see also v. 18, to the young children).
In verse 14 John continues, “I have written to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” Although the Greek word rendered “have written” is aorist, it does not indicate that any previous epistle was written by the apostle to the recipients. It means that he repeats what he has written to them in the preceding verse to strengthen and develop what he has said. By repeating certain matters, John confirms what he has already written.
In verse 14 John again refers to the fathers as knowing Him who is from the beginning. Because the fathers are full of experience, there is no further advancement.
Concerning the young men, in verse 14 John not only says that they have overcome the evil one, but also says that they are strong and that the word of God abides in them. This word, ending with “abides in you,” strengthens the word “you have overcome,” which was written in the previous verse to the young men. Many among us are strong young men who have overcome the evil one and who have the word of God abiding in them. Through the word of God that abides in them, they are strengthened, nourished, sustained, and invigorated.
We have seen that in verse 13 John addresses the fathers, the young men, and the young children, and that in verse 14 he again addresses the fathers and the young men. Where is John’s second address to the young children? It is in verse 18: “Young children, it is the last hour, and even as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come; whereby we know that it is the last hour.” Here “young children” refers to the young children in verse 13 as the third class of recipients. In the verses that follow John goes on to speak to the young children concerning the anointing.
We have seen that in 2:12-27 John writes concerning the Divine Trinity according to the believers’ growth in life. First, he addresses all the believers as his little children, those whose sins have been forgiven because of the Lord’s name. Then John goes on to speak to the fathers, those believers who are mature in the divine life. Through the divine anointing, these believers have known Him who is from the beginning, that is, the eternal, preexisting Christ who is the Word from the beginning. The young men are the believers who are grown up in the divine life. Through the divine anointing, they have overcome the evil one. Furthermore, they are strong and the word of God abides in them. Another characteristic of the young men is that they do not love the world. The young children are the believers who have just received the divine life. Through the divine anointing, they have known the Father. They have also heard that antichrist is coming. But they have an anointing from the Holy One and they know all things.
The fathers, young men, and young children have different degrees of the growth in life. John’s classification of the believers is according to their spiritual age, not according to any other criterion. Some are fathers, and others are young men or young children. The use of these terms indicates strongly that these verses in particular were written by the apostle John based upon the growth in life.
The fact that John’s writing is based on the believers’ growth in life should cause us to realize that if we would understand the Trinity, especially as the Divine Trinity is covered in this portion, we must be in the process of the growth in life. This means that we must be in the line of life. If we are not in the line of life pursuing the growth in life, we shall not be able to understand anything concerning the Divine Trinity.
When the Triune God as revealed in this portion is ministered to believers who are not growing in life, they do not have any understanding or appreciation of what they hear. But when this is ministered to the seeking ones who are growing in life, they can understand what is ministered and are helped by it. They appreciate the “music” that is “played” concerning the Triune God. They are very responsive when we speak concerning the all-inclusive, compound, life-giving Spirit, who is the processed Triune God. However, those Christians who are not in the line of life and who are not growing in life may wonder what we mean by such terms as all-inclusive, compound, life-giving, and processed. Praise the Lord that we have the all-inclusive, compound, life-giving Spirit, who is the processed Triune God, living, moving, and working within us! When we hear the heavenly melody regarding this wonderful Triune God, we rejoice, and we are very happy in the Lord.
