“But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.”
but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things,
The resource of the Holy Spirit indwelling each believer is all that anyone needs to discern true doctrine. The Holy Spirit teaches doctrine, any doctrine that a believer needs to grow in the faith or discern false teaching. The Holy Spirit will teach us everything we need to know about spirituality and false doctrine.
The scope of the Holy Spirit’s teaching ministry is “all things.” There is nothing more disgusting than a know-it-all. No teacher is infallible. The idea here is that there is nothing excluded from the teaching ministry of the Spirit. The indwelling Holy Spirit will help any believer anywhere to detect false teaching.
and is true, and is not a lie,
The phrase “is true, and is not a lie” contrasts truth and error. Believers can rest assured that what the Holy Spirit teaches is true. It is true as to its character; it is consistent with God and His Word. His teaching has no deception like that of the antichrists.
and just as it has taught you,
The Holy Spirit taught John’s readers from the point of their salvation.
you will abide in Him
Abiding in the Holy Spirit presupposes intimate fellowship with the Lord. The Holy Spirit abides in you, and you abide in Him. When you effectively relate to the Holy Spirit, you “abide in Him.” That is, your fellowship with Him.
PRINCIPLE:
It is the Holy Spirit who illumines the Word of God.
APPLICATION:
The Holy Spirit illuminates the Word of God to the child of God. He enables the believer to understand the Bible. When the Christian loses interest in the Bible, he loses interest in the Son of God. He does not lose his salvation, but he loses the dynamic of the Christian faith. We cannot love the Lord Jesus without thinking about Him. We put Him foremost on our minds by listening to His Word. The Holy Spirit will enable us to engage with the truth as it is in Jesus.
Jn 14:26, “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 things that I said to you.”
Jn 16:12-15, 12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 14 “He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. 15 “All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”
If the Holy Spirit does not teach you, you are not well taught. Unless the Holy Spirit speaks to your heart while you listen to Bible teachers and study the Bible for yourself, the Word of God will not have much effect on you. You do not have “ears to hear.”
Some believers conclude from this verse that they do not need a human teacher to teach them the Bible. No, the Holy Spirit uses human teachers to teach us (1 Co 12:28; Ep 4:11). He uses the apostle John to teach his readers.
Every Christian needs the Holy Spirit to enable him to understand divine truth. This is an intensely personal work of the Spirit.
1 Co 2:10-16, 10 “But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. 13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For ‘who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.”
