Scripture Reading: 1 John 2:20-27
In this message we shall consider 2:20-27. Verse 20 says, “And you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.” This verse speaks not of the ointment but of the anointing. The word “anointing” denotes something experiential that is taking place within us. The anointing is the moving and working of the indwelling compound Spirit. This all-inclusive life-giving Spirit from the Holy One entered into us at the time of our regeneration and abides in us forever (v. 27).
Verse 20 says at the end, “you all know.” Some manuscripts read, “you know all things.” I believe that the proper rendering should be “you know all,” not “you all know.”
In verse 21 John says, “I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth.” In this verse the word “truth” is used twice. If we consider verses 20 and 21 together, we shall realize that the anointing surely must have something to do with the truth. Verse 20 says that we have an anointing, and verse 21 says that we know the truth. In this verse the truth is closely related to the anointing. Actually the anointing is the moving and working of the truth, which is the reality of the Divine Trinity, especially of the Person of Christ (vv. 22-25).
The knowing in verse 21 is the knowing by the anointing of the indwelling and life-giving Spirit. This is a knowledge in the divine life under the divine light, an inner knowledge initiated from our regenerated spirit indwelt by the compound Spirit, not mental knowledge exercised by stimulation from without.
In verse 22 John goes on to say, “Who is the liar if not he who is denying that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, who is denying the Father and the Son.” The statement that Jesus is the Christ is related to the truth, and the truth is related to the anointing. These three matters are all related to one another. First we have the anointing, then the truth related to the anointing, and then the statement that Jesus is the Christ related to the truth.
Verse 22 indicates that the antichrist is the one who denies the Father and the Son. After speaking of Jesus being the Christ, John speaks concerning the Father and the Son. This indicates that the Father and the Son are related to Jesus being the Christ.
In these three verses we have four crucial matters: the anointing, the truth, Jesus being the Christ, and the Father and the Son. The anointing teaches us the truth, the truth is that Jesus is the Christ, and Jesus being the Christ is a matter that includes the Father and the Son. According to verse 22, to deny that Jesus is the Christ is to deny the Father and the Son. If we deny that Jesus is the Christ, this means that we deny the Father and the Son. This indicates strongly that Jesus, Christ, the Father, and the Son are one.
Here I would like to point out that when we speak of these matters, we are not fighting for doctrines. However, we are fighting for the genuine experience of Christ so that Christians may enjoy Christ in order to grow in life.
Not many today teach concerning Christian growth in the proper way. What is emphasized among Christians is growth in knowledge. But the New Testament teaches us that we need to grow in life. As newborn babes, we should desire to drink the milk of the Word so that we may grow in life (1 Pet. 2:2).
From experience we know that to grow in life is to grow by the ingredients of what the Lord is as our nourishment. We need to take this nourishment into our being as food and then assimilate it. The Lord Jesus told us definitely that He is our food. In John 6:35 He said, “I am the bread of life.” For the Lord to be bread to us means that He is our food. In John 6:57 the Lord Jesus said that he who eats Him will live because of Him. The food by which we live is also the food by which we grow. If we do not grow by the food we eat, how can we live by it? Children grow by what they eat. Then they live by it. Hence, when the Lord Jesus said that he who eats Him will also live by Him, this implies both living by Him and growing by Him.
In the Lord’s recovery we are wholly for the experience of the growth in life. This growth in life depends on our enjoyment of the Lord Jesus in a subjective way. If the Lord were not the Spirit, He could not be subjective to us, and He could not be our life. If the Lord could not be our life, then He could not be our nourishment.
Many Christians today emphasize objective teachings concerning the improvement of character and behavior. These teachings are ethical and are comparable to the teachings of Confucius. The teachings in the New Testament, however, are different. The New Testament teaches that after being processed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, the Triune God becomes the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit in order to enter into our being to be our life and also our life supply so that we may live and grow by Him. This is the central line of the New Testament revelation.
The Lord Jesus declared that He is life. In John 14:6 He said, “I am...the life.” If He were only on the throne in the heavens, how could He be our life? This would be impossible. In order for Christ to be our life, He must be the Spirit living within us. It is crucial that Christians experience Christ as their subjective life. We are fighting not for doctrines, but for the Christian experience of Christ as life.
We have pointed out that, according to verses 21 and 22, the truth is that Jesus is the Christ. However, this truth was denied by certain heretics who said that Jesus was not the Christ. Denying that Jesus is the Christ is 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 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. Then He announced the unknown Father and did miracles, but 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. This heresy denied that Jesus is the Christ. According to John’s word, anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ is the antichrist. Cerinthus was an antichrist, and his followers also were antichrists.
In verse 22 John says that the antichrist denies the Father and the Son. To confess that Jesus is the Christ is to confess that He is the Son of God (Matt. 16:16; John 20:31). Hence, to deny that Jesus is the Christ is to deny the Father and the Son. Whoever so denies the divine Person of Christ is an antichrist.
The fact that to deny Jesus being the Christ equals denying the Father and the Son implies the thought that Jesus, Christ, the Father, and the Son are all one, all of whom are the elements, the ingredients, of the all-inclusive compound indwelling Spirit, who is now anointing the believers all the time. In this anointing, Jesus, Christ, the Father, and the Son are all anointed into our inner being.
In verse 22 John indicates that to deny that Jesus is the Christ is equal to denying the Father and the Son. Here John regards Jesus, Christ, the Father, and the Son as one. Surely Jesus and Christ are one. But if we deny that Jesus is the Christ, we deny the Father and the Son. This indicates strongly that the Father and the Son are one with Jesus and Christ. Since the Father and the Son are one with Christ and since Jesus and Christ are one, Jesus, Christ, the Father, and the Son are all one.
We all have heard that Jesus is the Christ, but have you ever heard that, according to 2:22, Christ is both the Father and the Son? We need to be impressed with the fact that here John says that to deny that Jesus is the Christ is to deny the Father and the Son. However, some claim that we should say only that Christ is the Son, not that Christ is both the Father and the Son. Nevertheless, in this verse John indicates that if we deny Christ, we deny both the Father and the Son. If Christ were only the Son and not also the Father, how would denying Christ mean that we deny both the Father and the Son? According to this understanding of Christ, to deny Christ would only mean to deny the Son, and this denial would have nothing to do with the Father. But John says that if someone denies Christ, he denies first the Father and then the Son.
In verse 23 John continues, “Everyone who denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who confesses the Son has the Father also.” Since the Son and the Father are one (John 10:30; Isa. 9:6), to deny the Son is to be without the Father, and to confess the Son is to have the Father. To deny the Son here refers to the heresy that denies the deity of Christ, not confessing that the Man Jesus is God.
In verse 23 John first says that anyone who denies the Son does not have the Father either. If the Son and the Father were not one, how could those who deny the Son not have the Father? In this verse John goes on to say that he who confesses the Son has the Father also. Whoever denies the Son has neither the Son nor the Father. But whoever confesses the Son has both the Son and the Father. Both the negative side and the positive side of this verse indicate that the Son and the Father are inseparable. Because the Father and the Son are one, we cannot separate the Son from the Father nor the Father from the Son.
I would call your attention to the words “either” and “also” in verse 23. John says that whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either. Then he says that whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. These words indicate that the Father and the Son are one and inseparable. Therefore, to deny the Son is to deny both the Son and the Father, and to confess the Son is to confess both the Son and the Father.
Verse 24 says, “As for you, that which you heard from the beginning, let it abide in you. If that which you heard from the beginning abides in you, you will abide both in the Son and in the Father.” “That which you heard from the beginning” refers to the Word of life — the eternal life which the believers heard from the beginning (1:1-2). Not to deny but confess that the Man Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (v. 22) is to let the Word of the eternal life abide in us. In so doing we abide both in the Son and in the Father, and we are not led astray by the heretical teachings concerning Christ’s Person (v. 26). This indicates that the Son and the Father are the eternal life for our regeneration and enjoyment. In this eternal life we have fellowship with God and with one another (1:2-3, 6-7), and in it we have our being in our daily walk (2:6; 1:7).
In verse 24 John says that if we let that which was from the beginning, that is, the Word of life, abide in us, we shall abide both in the Son and in the Father. This indicates that the Word of life is actually the Son and the Father.
Notice that here John speaks of our abiding in the Son and in the Father. In John 15:4 the Lord Jesus says, “Abide in Me and I in you.” This verse speaks of a mutual abiding: we abide in the Lord, and the Lord abides in us. But in 2:24 John refers to the Word of life abiding in us, and says that if the Word of life abides in us, we abide in the Son and in the Father. By this we see that the Word of life is actually the Lord Himself. According to John 15:4, when we abide in the Lord, the Lord abides in us. Here it says that when the Word of life abides in us, we abide in the Son and in the Father. Once again, John puts the Father and the Son together as one, for the Father and the Son are one.
The New Testament does not separate the Father and the Son. Especially in the Gospel of John we see that the Son is always one with the Father. The Son came in the name of the Father (John 5:43). Furthermore, the Son did not do His own work and will, He did not speak His own word, He did not seek His own glory, and He did not express Himself (John 4:34; 5:30; 6:38; 7:18). Rather, He always did the Father’s work and will, spoke the Father’s word, sought the Father’s glory, and expressed the Father. The Son was one with the Father and could not be separated from the Father, neither could the Father be separated from the Son. Hence, in this Epistle John emphasizes strongly the fact that if we have the Son, we have the Father. But if we do not have the Son, we do not have the Father. This indicates that the Father and the Son truly are one (John 10:30).
In verse 25 John continues, “And this is the promise which He promised us, the eternal life.” The singular pronoun “He,” referring to both the Son and the Father in the preceding verse, indicates that the Son and the Father are one. As far as our experience of the divine life is concerned, the Son, the Father, Jesus, and Christ are all one. It is not that only the Son and not the Father is the eternal life to us. It is that Jesus being the Christ as the Son and the Father is the eternal life to us for our portion.
According to the context of verses 22 through 25, the eternal life is just Jesus, Christ, the Son, and the Father. All these are a composition of the eternal life. Hence, the eternal life is also an element of the all-inclusive, compound, indwelling Spirit who moves within us.
The eternal life in verse 25 is the Word of life, and the Word of life is Jesus, Christ, the Father, and the Son. Here we have six matters: Jesus, Christ, the Father, the Son, the Word of life, and eternal life. From the Bible, especially from 1 John, we know that Jesus is the Christ, that Christ equals the Father and the Son, and that this One is also the Word of life and the eternal life.
Together Jesus, Christ, the Father, the Son, the Word of life, and eternal life are a divine compound. All these six are elements that have been compounded into a single ointment. In Jesus we have humanity, with the Father we have divinity, and with Christ we have the anointed One. With Jesus we have the incarnation, with Christ we have the resurrection, and with the Son we have life. Therefore, with these elements we have all the ingredients of the compound ointment: divinity, humanity, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, and life.
If we study these verses in 1 John along with the record of the elements of the compound ointment in Exodus 30, we shall see that all the elements in Exodus 30 are found in these verses. To be sure, here we have the olive oil, the myrrh, the cinnamon, the calamus, and the cassia. We also have the numbers five and three (see Life-study of Exodus, Messages 157-163).
In chapter two of 1 John we certainly have the compound ointment, the all-inclusive Spirit. However, here we do not have the ointment merely in an objective way; instead, we have the subjective anointing, that is, the subjective moving and working of the ointment. This subjective anointing is the processed Triune God experienced by us. Furthermore, this anointing teaches us concerning the processed Triune God. For example, if someone should say that Christ is not in us, we should reply, “From my experience of the anointing I know that Jesus Christ is in me.” Moreover, if someone should try to teach you that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three separate Persons, you may say, “I don’t have three separate Persons within me. From my experience of the anointing I know that I have only One in me, and this One is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.”
In Matt. 28:19 the Lord Jesus gave this charge to His disciples: “Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” However, when the apostles carried out this charge in the book of Acts, we are not told that they baptized the believers into the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Rather, in Acts we are told that the believers were baptized into the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:38). This indicates that the name of Jesus Christ equals the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This indicates that Jesus Christ is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The apostles knew that Jesus Christ was equal to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Therefore, they carried out the Lord’s charge to baptize the believers into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit by baptizing them into the name of Jesus Christ. This is an illustration of the fact that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one. This is the Triune God, and we are in Him. To be in the Triune God is also to be in the divine compound, the compound ointment, which is the all-inclusive Spirit.
