“The anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone teach you… His anointing teaches you concerning all things and is true and is not a lie.” — 1 John 2:27
“We must obey God rather than men.” — Acts 5:29
The New Testament holds a glory the Old did not: God has written His law inside man. Through Jeremiah He promised, “I will put My law within them, and on their heart I will write it… And they will no longer teach, each man his neighbor… saying, Know Jehovah; for they will all know Me, from the little one among them even to the great one” (Jer. 31:33-34; quoted in Heb. 8:10-11). The meaning is earth-shaking: under the new covenant, knowing God is no longer the privilege of a few — from the smallest believer to the greatest, each can personally, directly know God. John calls this direct knowledge “the anointing.”
This inner anointing carries a weight all its own — it does not abolish human teachers, yet above all human teaching and command it sets the believer’s last line of defense.
An Indwelling Teacher
John, writing to believers surrounded by false teachers, says: “You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know” (1 John 2:20); “the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone teach you… His anointing teaches you concerning all things” (1 John 2:27). “Anointing” (χρῖσμα, chrisma) shares its root with “Christ” (Χριστός, the Anointed One) — it is not a dead, motionless ointment but the Spirit of the Anointed One, living, moving, anointing, and teaching within the believer (Blue Letter Bible G5545).
The Lord Jesus long ago promised this indwelling Teacher: “He will teach you all things” (John 14:26); “when He, the Spirit of reality, comes, He will guide you into all the reality” (John 16:13). So Paul says, “the Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16). This is not a private inspiration that goes around God’s word; it is God Himself dwelling in each of His children, conveying His mind to them through an inner sense. It is the birthright of every New Testament believer — and the right that should least of all be taken from them.
This Teacher Does Not Abolish Other Teachers, but Vets Them
Here the balance must be kept at once, lest anyone twist this verse. When John says “you have no need that anyone teach you,” he does not mean that henceforth teachers are unnecessary and each may become his own kingdom by his inner feelings. Do not forget the context: John is warning the believers against “many antichrists,” against “those who are leading you astray” (1 John 2:18, 26). His point is that the inner anointing keeps you from being deceived by false teachers — not that all teaching is superfluous.
The saints through the ages have kept this balance. Augustine, expounding this verse, said, “The sound of our words strikes the ears, but the Master is within” — outward teaching gives real “aids and admonitions,” while the inner unction gives true understanding (Augustine, Homilies on the First Epistle of John, Homily 3, New Advent). John Calvin put it more sharply still: “Absurdly, then, do fanatical men lay hold on this passage, in order to exclude from the Church the use of the outward ministry” (Calvin, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles, on 1 John 2:27, CCEL). God gave apostles, prophets, shepherds, and teachers precisely to perfect the saints (Eph. 4:11-12). The inner anointing and the God-given teachers are never enemies.
The key is this: the anointing and true teaching can agree because both point to the same objective standard — the word of God. The true anointing “is true and is not a lie” (1 John 2:27); it always accords with Scripture and never contends against it. The measure Isaiah set stands to this day: “To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light of dawn in them” (Isa. 8:20). The Bereans were called noble precisely because they “examined the Scriptures daily,” testing even what the apostle preached against the word (Acts 17:11). The inner Spirit and the outer word are two witnesses that confirm each other — never two rivals.
The Teaching of the Anointing Is an Inner Sense
How, then, does this inner teaching actually come to a person? The ministry of the Lord’s recovery has a careful apprehension here. Brother Witness Lee points out: “The teaching of the anointing is a feeling rather than something clearly spoken” (“The teaching of the anointing is a feeling rather than something clearly spoken”); it is not “an ointment in a quiescent state, inactive and motionless, but… in a state of motion and activity” (Brother Witness Lee, The Experience of Life, ch. 7, bibleread.online). He also says, “The anointing is the moving and working of the indwelling compound Spirit” (“The anointing is the moving and working of the indwelling compound Spirit”) (Brother Witness Lee, Life-Study of 1, 2, & 3 John, Jude, msg. 22, bibleread.online).
This is a precious apprehension: when we bring a matter to the Lord in prayer, if within there is peace and the flow of life, we know the Lord agrees with it; if within there is heaviness, blockage, a loss of peace, it is the compound Spirit (see The Compounded Spirit) within saying no to us. This sense often precedes any clear word, even before we can voice a reason. This is how God, through this living Teacher within His children, guides them step by step into the knowledge of His mind.
The Final Failsafe: The Inner Witness Holds Veto Power
Put these three things together, and the full weight of the inner anointing emerges. Since God Himself teaches every believer, and since this anointing always accords with His word — then a believer’s conscience, illumined by the Spirit and rooted in Scripture, holds the final veto over any human directive or doctrinal innovation. When a human command contradicts what God’s word and God’s anointing witness, the believer’s duty is not to submit but to “obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29; cf. 4:19). The grounds for this veto run all through the New Testament: even if an apostle or an angel out of heaven preaches another gospel, he is to be rejected (Gal. 1:8); those who lead “do not lord it over your faith” (2 Cor. 1:24); “prove all things; hold fast to what is good” (1 Thes. 5:21), and “test the spirits” (1 John 4:1).
From this follows one conclusion: any systematic operation to bypass or suppress this inner witness — to make a believer, on the strength of human authority alone, swallow as spiritual the “no” that his Scripture-anchored conscience is speaking — is at root unbiblical. It amounts to asking a priest to hand back the very right of bold access into God’s presence that the torn veil gave him. The law God has written on a heart, no human system has the authority to erase.
Yet here, once more, the balance must be kept, for this line of defense is easily abused. This veto is not the banner of the self-willed, stamping his preferences, his temper, his refusals all with the seal “this is my inner sense.” The anointing that is “true and no lie” (1 John 2:27) never contends against God’s word, never endorses the flesh, never divides in pride. A true inner witness makes a person more teachable, not more stubborn; it bows beneath Scripture, not around it. This last failsafe is to resist tyranny, not to shrug off fellowship. Whoever keeps “obey God rather than men” on his lips yet cannot say which passage of Scripture that “human command” actually violates is most likely not the anointing speaking, but the self.
Brothers and sisters, Christ is the Anointed One, and His anointing abides in us as our inner Teacher. The glory of the new covenant is that from the least believer to the greatest, each can personally know God — no human system has the right to stand between you and your Lord. May we abide in Him and let the anointing teach us; may we prove all things by His word; and where His word and His anointing together say “no,” may we, with a heart humble yet unshaken, obey God rather than men.