Eternal Life; Grace Learning Spiral; 1 John 2:25-27

In vv. 18, 19. John gives a warning about the reality and the identification of these false teachers. There he introduces them as antichrist’s, v.18, and then in v. 19 he states “they went out from us,” i.e. from the apostles, “that they were not really of us,” i.e. they really didn’t buy into the same doctrine that the apostles taught. Verse 19 is not a soteriological statement, not a statement about their salvation. So these two verses are a warning about the reality and the identification of these false teachers. Then vv. 20-27 describes the solution for the immature believer, the spiritual solution which is called the anointing from the holy one in v. 20. In passages like Acts 10:38 anointing is always related to the Holy Spirit and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Verse 20 introduces the subject of the anointing. Verses 21-24 contrast the knowledge of the truth with the lie that the false teachers are teaching. Verses 25-27 summarise this part of the introduction.

The problem apparently has to do generally with eternal life and the assurance of salvation, and dealing with the problem of sin after salvation. The problem of post-salvation sin has always bothered Christians. Ever since the days of the early church when the last of the apostles passed from the scene it seems that Christians haven’t been able to really understand and appreciate grace, that Christ did everything for us at salvation. In the second century the apostolic fathers (not the apostles) didn’t quite grasp the doctrine of grace and so there were several problems that entered in during the second and third centuries of the church. First of all, there were those who took baptism literally. That is, they thought that water baptism actually washed away sin. Second, there were those who introduced a second work of grace for forgiveness after salvation. This eventually developed into one of the seven sacraments in the Roman Catholic church, and that was the idea of penance. They were to confess their sins to a priest and then the priest would assign certain actions, depending on the severity of the sin, thereby earning grace. That is not found anywhere in the Scriptures. Then there was a third group who came along during the Reformation and they ignored any necessity of post-salvation cleansing. They emphasised the finished work of Christ to the exclusion of confession.

In verse 21 John says, “I have not written to you because you do not know the truth…” Here he uses the Greek verb oida [o)ida] which emphasises the fact of absolute knowledge. They have already learned this and they know it in their souls. He uses oida instead of ginosko [ginwskw] in order to emphasise the knowledge of absolute truth. This reminds us of John 8:31, 32 ^NASB “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, {then} you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’” He ties two things together that are important to recognise. He connects abiding, teaching and learning.

How do we come to know the truth absolutely in our souls? This is what we call the grace learning spiral. In the mentality of the soul there are two compartments. The overall thinking part of the soul is called the nous [nouj]. The innermost part of the thinking of our souls is called the heart, the kardia [kardia], and just as we use the term heart as the centremost part of something, the central part of an argument, the core of a tree, the word “heart” in terms of its metaphor isn’t something that refers to the organ in our body that pumps blood, it is talking about something that is at the core. So it is talking about the core belief that a person has. So these make up the two elements of out thinking: the nous and the kardia.

There is a gifted individual in the church called a pastor-teacher. The church has numerous pastor-teachers and God obviously has gifted these men so that we can learn the Word of God. If we could all sit down and learn the Word of God on our own it would not be necessary to have these communication gifts. No believer is going to get very far in his study of the Scriptures if he doesn’t have a trained individual to teach him. The pastor-teacher communicates the truth to us and then the Holy Spirit, when we are filled with the Holy Spirit, makes it understandable to us. He makes it understandable; He doesn’t understand it for us. The Holy Spirit is the divine leveller in terms of understanding. It doesn’t matter of you have a Ph D or barely a high school diploma, or if you dropped out. It doesn’t matter if your IQ is 100 or 150, spiritual truth is discerned through the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit. He makes it understandable, though not all at once because some aspects of spiritual truth are based on other aspects of spiritual truth. Like all fields of knowledge there are some elements of spiritual truth that are more basic and more fundamental, and there are other elements of spiritual truth that are more advanced. We have to master the basic information before we can then build on that with the advanced information. Knowledge of all doctrine is there potentially because of the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes doctrine understandable but the believer has to understand it. That comes under the Old Testament category of meditation—to think about Scripture, to think about the doctrine learned.

1 John 2:24 ^NASB “As for you, let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.” The point that he is making is that it is doctrine, “what you heard from the beginning,” that message that is key to fellowship. Remember, abiding has to do with fellowship. It is the Greek verb meno [menw]. “Let that abide in you” is the present active imperative of meno, and meno always has the sense of remaining and abiding, the connotation of fellowship. The present imperative here is a command, and when you have a command in the present tense it always emphasises something that should be an ongoing characteristic of the believer’s life. The imperative indicates that this is not an option, it is a mandate.

What is it that they are to have abiding in them? “That which you heard from the beginning.” There we have a relative pronoun plus an aorist active indicative verb which expresses the object of the command. The relative clause plus the verb indicates something they have heard in the past. The aorist tense is culminative and it indicates a complete message that they have previously heard and understood, i.e. the message about the person and work of Jesus Christ: that He is the Messiah, that the second person of the Trinity was incarnate through the virgin conception and virgin birth, that because of that He had no imputed sin, He committed no personal sins, and all of that qualified Him to go to the cross where He could die and pay the penalty for every sin. That is the ultimate issue because if sin isn’t really taken care of through the hypostatic union then there is no certainty of eternal life and no certainty of forgiveness for sin. So John says they are to let that abide in them, continue to believe the message they heard from the beginning. Then he uses a third class condition to express the believer’s options: he doesn’t have to do this. This emphasises the potential of failure in the believer’s life if he rejects sound doctrine and if he gets involved in carnality.

1 John 2:25 ^NASB “This is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life.” The false teachers by virtue of the fact that they have rejected the humanity of Christ and the hypostatic union, because they have rejected Jesus as the Messiah, are basically saying that you can’t know you are saved you can’t know that you have eternal life, you can’t have assurance of your salvation, and you can’t have assurance of forgiveness of sins. Note: 1 John 5:11, 12 ^NASB “And the testimony [witness] is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.” Here is an example of how John is using echo [e)xw] to refer to salvation. This is possession, not fellowship. [13] “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” So John’s clear statement is that we can know with certainty that we have eternal life. Cf. John 20:30, 31. Then in John 5:24 ^NASB “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”

1 John 2:26 ^NASB “These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.” The reason John is writing is because there is a very real possibility that can be deceived by these false teachers. Genuine believers can be deceived; genuine believers can reject Christ; genuine believers can become Moslems; genuine believers can become atheists; genuine believers can reject everything they ever once believed about the Scriptures and about the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet they are still saved because salvation is not based on them keeping themselves and maintaining any belief.

1 John 2:27 As for you, the anointing which you [plural] 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.” That anointing refers to everything they received at the instant of salvation in relationship to the ministries of God the Holy Spirit in the post-salvation life of the believer. We receive it at the instant of salvation and it continues and remains with us. The words “you received” is an aorist active indicative of lambano [lambanw], meaning the believer has received it actively (it is an active reception) at the instant of salvation. We received that in the past with the result that it is still ours; “from Him,” the preposition apo [a)po] plus the genitive of the third person singular pronoun “Him,” referring to Hod the Father. When he says “you have no need for anyone to teach you” he is not saying that we don’t need a pastor-teacher and that all you have to do is sit at home and read the Bible. What he is talking about here is the role of God the Holy Spirit in learning doctrine. The anointing is related to the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit; “about all things.” There is nothing in the Scripture that is too difficult for us to understand if we are operating under the filling of God the Holy Spirit. John concludes with “you abide in Him” because it is only when we abide in Him and His Word abides in us that we are going to advance.

We have to learn doctrine from the teaching of a pastor-teacher under the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit who makes it understandable. In these verses John has continued to emphasise that we have to remain in fellowship with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit if we are going to advance. The issue here is false doctrine. If we have a false perception of the person and work of Jesus Christ then there can’t be fellowship with the Holy Spirit or with God the Father, and there can’t be any spiritual growth. Doctrine in important.