The Inner Anointing
Dr. Allen M. Barber
August 30, 2010

1 John 2:20-28 NASB

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. 22 Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. 23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also. 24 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. 25 And this is the promise which He Himself made to us: eternal life. 26 These things I have written to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you. 27 And 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.

How do we know if God or Satan is leading us as both operate in the supernatural realm?  If God is leading us, the Holy Spirit will guide us; if Satan is trying to lead us, he will drive us.

What is John implying when he says believers have an anointing within them and do not need anyone to teach them? Do we not need teachers in the Church? What is this anointing that teaches us all things? If you watch TBN (I seldom watch it), Benny Hinn teaches a so-called anointing that gives him the power to make people fall down backwards at the touch of his hands or the command of his voice or the swing of his arms over a gullible mesmerized crowd. He calls this "the anointing." No doubt Mr. Hinn operates by some power, but I assure you it is not the power of the Holy Spirit no matter how all dressed up he is in his white guru uniforms.  Furthermore, the anointing he advocates is foreign to what John meant in this passage.

First, John tells us the anointing is the Holy Spirit, that is, it comes from Him.  Where is the Holy Spirit today? He dwells within every true born again believer in Christ Jesus (he actually dwells in our human spirit). Therefore, the Holy Spirit's anointing is as John says - within us - in our reborn spirits. The Greek word for anointing is "chrisma" and sounds like "charisma," but it is a different word. The meaning of chrisma (anointing) is to rub or smear like rubbing oil on the body as a lubricant.  The following definition of anointing from the International Standard Encyclopedia gives good insight into the proper biblical meaning of the term:

ANOINTING

(3) The most significant uses of mashach (anointing) however, are found in its application, not to sacred things, but to certain sacred persons. The oldest and most sacred of these, it would seem, was the anointing of the king, by pouring oil upon his head at his coronation, a ceremony regarded as sacred from the earliest times, and observed religiously not in Israel only, but in Egypt and elsewhere (see Judg. 9:8,15; 1 Sam. 9:16; 10:1; 2 Sam. 19:10; 1 Kings 1:39,45; 2 Kings 9:3,6; 11:12). Indeed such anointing appears to have been reserved exclusively for the king in the earliest times, which accounts for the fact that "the Lord's anointed" became a synonym for "king" (see 1 Sam 12:3,5; 26:11; 2 Sam 1:14; Ps 20:6). It is thought by some that the practice originated in Egypt, and it is known to have been observed as a rite in Canaan at a very early day. Tell el-Amarna Letters 37 records the anointing of a king.

(4) Among the Hebrews it was believed not only that it effected a transference to the anointed one of something of the holiness and virtue of the deity in whose name and by whose representative the rite was performed, but also that it imparted a special endowment of the spirit of Yahweh (compare 1 Sam 16:13; Isa 61:1). Hence the profound reverence for the king as a sacred personage, "the anointed" (Hebrew, meshiach YHWH), which passed over into our language through the Greek Christos, and appears as "Christ".

(5) In what is known today as the Priestly Code, the high priest is spoken of as "anointed" (Ex 29:7; Lev 4:3; 8:12), and, in passages regarded by some as later additions to the Priestly Code, other priests also are thus spoken of (Ex 30:30; 40:13-15). Elijah was told to anoint Elisha as a prophet (1 Kings 19:16), but seems never to have done so. 1 Kings 19:16 gives us the only recorded instance of such a thing as the anointing of a prophet. Isa 61:1 is purely metaphorical (from International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Electronic Database Copyright © 1996, 2003 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved).

When Jesus told the Church of Laodicea it needed to anoint its eyes with eye salve because it was a blind Church, the Greek word for anoint is a derivative of "chrisma" and means to smear or rub vigorously.  Jesus was not talking about physical eyes, but spiritual.  The Laodicea Church was blind because it had no spiritual revelation. It was a carnal worldly religious organization.  Notice in point 4 in the above definition, the Hebraism of the anointing has more to do with people than things. In addition, the Hebrews believed the anointing with oil represented a transference of the holiness and power of Yahweh. In other words, the one being anointing such as a king or prophet was set apart as sanctified by God for His purposes not the purposes of the one anointed.  This is basically what John is saying in his letter. Because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the believer's reborn spirit, His inner anointing rubs off and becomes part of the believers spirit. The Holy Spirit's anointing is constantly being poured into the believer's spirit providing the capacity to receive and know the revelation of God's Word. This is why John says that we do not need anyone to tell us what is the truth or whether something we hear is from God for we have the mind of the Spirit.

Any knowledge a believer has about the things of God begins in the inner man where the Holy Spirit is constantly rubbing our spirits with His anointing -  presence and power. Real spiritual knowledge is never from external sources, but from the inside. What we hear taught must pass the scrutiny of the inner working of the Holy Spirit's anointing. This is how we know if something is from God or the evil one. If a teaching is from God, the Holy Spirit will bear witness of it and rub it into our spirits, then what the spirit knows the mind understands. The Holy Spirit constantly works in the sanctified saint to guide him into all truth and to guard him from error. If all we know is from external sources - what we hear from teachings that are dependent upon man in determining if it is true or false, then we have yet to avail ourselves of the true anointing of the Holy Spirit. His primary ministry in us is to impart the truth of God's Word whereby we know the will of God and are not deceived.

The anointing John's speaks of has nothing to do with a Benny Hinn type phenomenon whereby the attention is on Mr. Hinn and his flamboyant style of a "touch and fall down" display of carnal power and showmanship. No, the kind of anointing John is talking about is the inner voice of the Holy Spirit in our spirits rubbing our spiritual eyes with His anointing so we see through all the darkness and follow the true light - Jesus Christ.

May the Lord give you the true inner anointing so you will not be dependent only on what someone tells you is the truth, but you will recognize it in your inner man.

God bless.

Dr. Allen M. Barber, a Servant of the Lord Jesus.