Abide in the Anointing

Abide in the Anointing

“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.” 1 John 2:27. “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.” V. 20.

To abide in Him as the anointing teaches us is to abide in perfection.

Just as the anointing consists of a precise mixture of various ingredients, so also does our life. It must be a combination of divine virtues put together according to certain laws that are in perfect harmony with the light and the grace we have received.

It takes only one dead fly to putrefy the perfumer’s ointment, and it takes only a little folly to ruin a man who is respected for wisdom and honor. Eccl. 10:1.

“But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” Jas. 1:4. The lack of anything has a harmful effect, and the more a person has advanced on the way, the more harmful is the effect. It is like a pharmacy that lacks a certain kind of medicine, and as a result, you are unable to use it in a mixture that is meant to help the sick person. The one ingredient that was lacking made it impossible to produce the correct mixture—in spite of the fact that the pharmacy stocked all the other ingredients.

We have examples of this in the letters to the seven churches in Revelation. Some of them were in Him as the anointing had taught them, and others had not followed the anointing that was in them. Consequently, they were in danger of damaging their first-class relationship to God, if they did not repent.

We read the following in Revelation 2:2-3, and in verse 6: “I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. . . . But this you have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.”

Here we see a blend of the anointing of ten different ingredients, and everything was pleasing to God. But in verse 4 we see something that was damaging and, if it was not corrected, would cause God to judge him and punish him even though he possessed so many good virtues. “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”

He could have objected that he didn’t understand it. However, the Word states that the anointing abides in us and teaches us all things, so he ought to have understood it. The only thing that was left for him to do was to judge himself and to repent.

In the letter to the church in Pergamos (Rev. 2:12) we read that God gave the angel of the church a good testimony. V. 13. Yet there was something here as well that was harmful because he did not abide in the anointing as it had taught him. Vs. 14-15. Here it did not concern himself specifically, but it concerned some others. In other words, it was his ministry that was not blameless; he ought to have learned to keep the church pure from strange doctrines.

It is blessed that we have this in us that teaches us all things, so we can be kept perfect according to the conscience until the Day of Jesus Christ.