1 John 2:27Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

“And you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as this very anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true and is not a lie, abide in what it has taught you.”

The Apostle says this to show how important the Anointing they have is, and how highly they must value this gift and the knowledge they received together with it.

John speaks as if to say: why admit new teachers who speak something other than what you were taught? Why listen to them when you have been taught the truth? You have no need of new teachers.

By the gift of the Anointing you know everything you need to know for obtaining salvation. Everything you know by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and through the sound instructions you have received is pure truth.

There is nothing false in it that would need to be changed or corrected. The Apostle wrote his epistle not to one person, but to those who believe in Christ.

Therefore his words must be understood not in relation to each member of the Church individually, but in relation to the Church of Christ in general, or the community of believers in Christ.

“You have no need that anyone should teach you, but this very anointing teaches you concerning all things.” This must not be applied separately to every member of the Church.

There are children in the Church who need instruction. There are also the weak, who, according to the nature of their weaknesses, need healing by means of spiritual edification fitted to their infirmities.

For this the Church has her own fathers, teachers, and educators of children. She has her own physicians for the healing of spiritual illnesses.

But the Church of Christ, planted by the Apostles with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, has so much saving knowledge that she has no need of new teachers.

Such teachers would wish to teach something new, something not in accord with the apostolic teaching preserved in the Church by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

This teaching is true and is not a lie. Its truth has been testified and confirmed by all the proofs upon which the undoubted truth of the Orthodox Christian Faith rests.

The Apostle John, in testifying to the importance of the Anointing which teaches everything believers need to know for salvation, himself served as an evident proof of the truth of the teaching offered to those Christians to whom his epistle belonged.

In him the light of the anointing from the Holy One shone brightly. John “bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, and to all things that he saw” (Rev 1:2).

John himself wrote at the end of his Gospel: “This is the disciple who bears witness of these things, and wrote these things; and we know that his testimony is true” (Jn 21:24).

“Abide in what it has taught you.” What the grace of the Anointing first taught through the holy Apostles, and what it now teaches through their successors, pastors and teachers, in this abide.

What it also teaches each one separately through the word of God and through the saving mysteries, with the cooperation of reverent prayer and zeal in fulfilling Christ’s commandments, in this abide.

Preserve this apostolic and divine teaching by living faith. Make it fruitful through your piety and virtuous life according to the commandments of Christ. Be constant, firm, and unshaken in this faith, in this piety, and in this virtuous life.

The Apostle teaches: “The anointing which you received from Him,” the Lord and Savior, “abides in you; and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as this very anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true and is not a lie, abide in what it has taught you.”

All this applies also to us. All we Christians, regenerated in the font of holy baptism, received an anointing from the Holy One, being sealed by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

We were instructed in the truths of salvation through the word of God, handed down to us by the holy Apostles and their successors, pastors and teachers.

This anointing does not leave us. The grace of the Holy Spirit is always present in Christ’s Church and acts through the Word of God and through the saving mysteries.

It is also present in each member of the Church who has been sealed with the seal of her saving gifts.

And we, brethren, have no need that anyone should teach us anything new that is contrary to the teaching of Christ. What the holy Church has taught us, we must remember and keep as immutable truth, as divine teaching, as a great and precious treasure.

There are also those who do not know, yet are ready to learn from those who know, according to their ability and receptivity. The knowledge of some is ascribed to all because of the universal and inseparable unity.

The ignorance of some is passed over in silence. It will be replaced by knowledge that does not come from outside, but abides within the Church.

The words, "you have no need that anyone teach you," must be understood in relation to those false teachers who left the Church, or who were never in her. They strive to bring into the Church their falsely named truth and their falsely named reason.

The holy Apostle warns against them when he says: you have no need that anyone, meaning someone coming from outside, a stranger to Christ's fold, should teach you. In the same way he warned above against the antichrists.

According to him, "they went out from us, but they were not of us" (v. 19). Members of Christ's Church must certainly beware not of their own teachers, but of these outsiders and impious men.

After this, the "anointing from the Holy One" should not be understood as the anointing proper to each believer individually, given in the second mystery, chrismation. Rather, it means the Holy Spirit who abides in the Church and instructs her pastors to rightly divide the word of truth.

If one understood here the anointing given to each person separately, it would follow that it had already taught everyone. Then there would be no distinction between children and fathers.

But if one understands the Spirit dwelling in the whole fullness of the Church, then it is clear that, while teaching the whole Church, He diversifies His gifts among her individual members. He divides operations and ministries (1 Cor 12:4-11).

As a result, you have no need that anyone should teach you, since from the anointing you know everything you need to know for obtaining salvation and for being guarded from false teachers.

This does not mean that all believers, the whole community, or the whole Church should not themselves learn and teach the truths of faith by those ways and means through which instruction in the truths of faith is usually accomplished.

The apostle speaks of the whole Church according to her essence or idea, in her general relation to her understanding and knowledge of the faith of Christ.

His words must not be understood in relation to each member of the Church separately. There are children in her who need instruction, children both in age and in knowledge, who require guidance, admonition, and teaching.

There are also the weak and those not strong in understanding and knowledge, who require spiritual edification, strengthening, and instruction. There are needs and requirements for knowledge and instruction among children, young men, little children, and fathers; 1 Jn 2:12-14 and note.

For all this there are, and must be, fathers, teachers, educators, and spiritual physicians in the Church. Yet in general, and in essence, the Church of Christ possesses so much saving knowledge and so many saving means of knowing the faith that she can have no need of any other teaching.

Nor does she have any need of any other teachers who would undertake to teach something different, something not in accord with the apostolic teaching preserved in the Church, or to correct or alter anything in it.

“This very anointing teaches you concerning all things.” It does so as an active and creative power, or more precisely, as the source of this power. The notion of anointing is obviously personified, and the action is attributed to the one who acts.

Briefly stated, the Holy Spirit teaches believers. He symbolically pours out His gifts upon believers and thus teaches them all things, guiding them into all truth; cf. Jn 15:15; Jn 16:12-13 and notes.

The Lord Himself told His disciples that He had said all things to them, that is, the whole will of God concerning the great work for which He came to earth.

The Spirit of truth promised by Him was to guide them into all truth, or, what is the same, to teach them all things.

“And it is true and is not a lie.” That is, the anointing itself is true and is not a lie. So, of course, is the teaching that it teaches. Therefore true and without falsehood is also the Comforter, the Spirit, who grants or communicates this anointing to believers.

“Abide in it.” If it teaches all things, if it is true and is not a lie, and if therefore its teaching is divine teaching, then abide in it.

That is, keep it in your heart and make it fruitful by living faith. Be constant, firm, and unshaken in this teaching. Do not yield to any deceptions and false teachings.

“Therefore, if you firmly preserve within yourselves the Holy Spirit whom you received, you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as this very Spirit teaches you all things, abide in what He has taught you, for what He has taught you is true and not false” (Theophylact).

Thus the action toward believers which the apostle here calls anointing, teaching and confirming believers from within, is the creative action of the entire Most Holy Trinity.

For in Christ and the apostles it is attributed to the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. This is clear from the cited words in the Gospel of John and in the passage under consideration.

It is expressed briefly and characteristically in these words of the holy Apostle Paul: “He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God” the Father, “who also sealed us and gave the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Cor 1:21-22).

If those who have received the anointing from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are God’s anointed ones, then those who are not anointed are not God’s, but antichrists.

“Therefore,” more precisely, as also in the Slavonic translation, “and now.” In this last time, when many antichrists, deceivers or false teachers, have appeared in the world (verse 18), it is especially necessary to care for your confirmation in the teaching you received in the anointing.

Therefore abide in Christ with His teaching and in the fulfillment of His commandments. Abide in communion with Him (verse 24).

“Having spoken about the appearance of antichrists, and that all their teaching is corrupt, and having sufficiently persuaded the faithful to hold unchangeably the teaching in which they were instructed, the apostle then mentions the reward appointed for this.

By the brightness of the reward, as it were, he strengthens them still more and says: abide in Him. Why? So that, when He appears, we may have boldness before Him.

For what can be more glorious or desirable than boldness? That is, when we reveal our labors in the present life, we may do so with boldness and without any shame at His coming” (Theophylact).

The words of the Apostle John do not favor such false teaching at all. The Apostle speaks of the gracious anointing in inseparable connection with the teaching that has been preached.

According to his words, this teaching must be held exactly as it was handed down from the beginning (above, 1 Jn 2:24). That is, it must be held as we were taught it by the Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles.

Therefore, according to the Apostle John, the inward anointing from the Holy One is by no means a source of new revelations. Its instructive action takes place, so to speak, within the limits of the revelation already proclaimed once for all to men by God.

God spoke of old to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways. In these last days He has spoken to us in His Only-begotten Son (Heb 1:1). His teaching was written down and set forth in detail for all times by His disciples and Apostles.

By contrast, whoever confesses Jesus Christ as the Son of God acknowledges God the Father also. "He who has seen Me has seen the Father. I am in the Father and the Father in Me," says Jesus Christ (Jn 14:9-10).

From this the Apostle's transition to the thought of Christians' union with the Father Himself is understandable (v. 24). This was also clearly expressed by Jesus Christ Himself.

"As You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us," He said in the so-called high-priestly prayer to the Father (Jn 17:21).