Tuesday, December 3, 2024

PT-1 "Christians Accept the Faith" (1 John 2:20-21, 27)

 

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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