Today, we shall consider 1 John 2:20-21, which reads, 20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. 21 I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.
We must keep in mind that we are in the middle of the Apostle John teaching about the enemies to our daily walk with the Lord Himself. And in that context, he reminds us why we do not fall for the lies of the False teachers. In v. 20, we read, "But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth." The anointing is none other than the Holy Spirit. The moment you and I believed in the Lord Jesus and received Him to be our Lord and Savior, we received the Holy Spirit. Now, having received him, John says, "you know the truth," you have now been made capable of knowing as God intended you to know from the beginning. Now, you have the very presence of God through the Holy Spirit, in you, enabling you to know the truth.
Notice how John uses the word "know" in this passage. In v.20 he writes "... you know the truth." And in v.21 he writes, "I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it." The word that John uses here is the Greek word "oida", which means to fully recognize and to be able make sense of something. oida is from the same root as eidon, “to see, “ is a perfect tense with a present meaning, meaning “to have seen or perceived”; hence, “to know, to have knowledge of,” to know from observation, …
One might think that John would have used the word ginosko which suggests progress in “knowledge,” while oida suggests fullness of “knowledge,”… ginosko frequently implies an active relation between the one who “knows” and the person or thing “known” … oida expresses the fact that the object has simply come within the scope of the “knower’s “ perception;…” This happens, as suggested in this passage, as the indwelling Holy Spirit, in tandem with His Word, enables the Believer to recognize what is true, real, worth investing in.
