EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/3/2024 10:05 PM
My Worship Time Focus: “Christians
Accept the Faith”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1 John 2:20-21,27
Message of the verses: “20 But you have an
anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. 21 I have not written to you
because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no
lie is of the truth…. 27 As for you, the anointing which you 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.”
In my last SD I stated that it would take us a while
to get through this section and the next, but I have to say that I got mixed up
and the reason is because I am working with four different books of the Bible
that I have written Spiritual Diaries on.
I post one on my Facebook page, and one on my other blog, and then two on
this blog, one in the morning which is from 2Timothy, and one in the evening
from 1John. Bottom line this should be a
sort section that we are looking at tonight, but I will see how far I get.
Now
going back to two SD’s before this one we learned that the false teachers who
threatened John’s readers employed the terms for knowledge and anointing to
describe their religious experience.
That was a problem as they arrogantly saw themselves as possessing an
elevated and esoteric form of diving knowledge, and as the recipients of a
special, secret, transcendent anointing, on that the “common people” could not
obtain. So this led them to believe they
were privy to truth that the uninitiated lacked. So John’s response, which was both as a
rebuttal to the antichrists and a reassurance to the believers was to assert
that, in reality, all true Christians have an anointing from the Holy One.
John was stepping on their toes and that is exactly
what they needed.
John
MacArthur writes “Because believers have received that anointing, they have the
true understanding of God that comes exclusively through Jesus Christ (2 Cor.
4:6), ‘in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ (Col.
2:3). They do not need any secret,
special, or transcendent understanding or esoteric insight. Anointing (chrisma) literally means ‘ointment’ or ‘oil’ cf. Heb. 1:9.” “You have loved righteousness, and hated
iniquity; therefore God, even your God, has anointed you with the oil of
gladness above your fellows.” “In this
text it refers figuratively to the Holy Spirit (cf. 2 Cor. 1:21-22), who has
taken up residency in believers at the behest of Jesus Christ, the holy One (Cf.
Luke 4:34; Acts 3:14), and reveals through Scripture all they need to know
(John 14:26; 16:13; 1 Cor. 2:9-10).”
Now
in verse 21, John reiterates that believers have true knowledge of God by
saying he had not written to them because they did not know the truth, but
because they did know it. John then
closes that verse with the axiomatic statement that no lie is of the truth—something
cannot be simultaneously true and false.
I guess if you’re a politician you would not say that something could
not be false and true depending on who you were trying to impress. No because Christians are taught by the Holy
Spirit to know the truth, they can recognize doctrinal error for what it really
is. “10 For to us God revealed them
through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.
11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of
the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except
the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but
the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by
God, 13 which things we also speak, not
in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining
spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 14 But a natural man
does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to
him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. 15
But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no
one. 16 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But
we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:10-16).
MacArthur writes “The apostle wrote as he did because his readers
already knew the gospel and its attendant truths and would understand his
appeal to the exclusivity of biblical truth.”
It
looks like I will finish this section in tomorrow’s SD, Lord willing. Like I said in the last SD John does not use any really big
words, but it surely takes an effort and certainly the help of the Spirit of
God to understand what he is writing.
12/3/2024 10:49 PM
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