What Is the Unction of the Holy One in 1 John 2:20?

Question 4128. The phrase “unction of the Holy One” appears in the King James Version of 1 John 2:20 (“But ye have an unction from the Holy One”), and it is a phrase that has lodged itself in Christian consciousness in a way that more modern translations of the same verse – “you have been anointed by the Holy One” (ESV) – have not quite replicated. The word “unction” has a richness to it. But the question is not really about translation preferences; it is about what John is actually teaching in this passage, and why he uses the concept of the unction of the Holy One as his pastoral response to a congregation facing serious theological pressure.

The Unction of the Holy One: Reading 1 John 2:20 in Context

The immediate context of 1 John 2:20 is one of the most urgent passages in the letter. In verses 18-19, John has described the appearance of “antichrists” in the community – false teachers who had been part of the fellowship but have now departed from it (“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us,” v.19). These teachers are not abstract theological threats; they are former members of the congregation who are now propagating teaching that John regards as a denial of the apostolic gospel, specifically a denial of the reality of Jesus as the Christ in bodily form (a concern that runs throughout 1-3 John and reaches its climax in 4:2).

John’s response in verse 20 is remarkable: “But you have an unction from the Holy One, and you all know.” The structure is deliberately contrastive. The antichrists claim superior knowledge; they have presented themselves as spiritually enlightened, as possessing a deeper understanding of the truth than ordinary believers. John’s counter is not to produce a more impressive theological argument. It is to remind his readers of what they already have: the unction of the Holy One, given to them not by the false teachers but by the Holy One, and it has given them a knowledge of the truth that is already sufficient to recognise and resist the deception being offered to them.

What Does the Word “Unction” Mean?

“Unction” is simply an older English rendering of the Latin unctio, meaning anointing. The Greek word John uses is chrisma – the same word that appears in verse 27 where the ESV translates it “anointing.” So the unction of the Holy One and the anointing of verse 27 are the same thing, approached from slightly different angles: verse 20 establishes that every believer has it; verse 27 establishes that it abides and teaches. The word chrisma is related to christos (Christ, the Anointed One) and to chrio (to anoint). John is drawing on the rich Old Testament background of anointing – the consecration of priests, kings, and prophets with oil as the symbol of the Spirit’s equipping – and applying that background to every believer in Christ.

The specific form of words “unction from the Holy One” directs our attention to the source of the anointing. “The Holy One” here is most likely a reference to Christ rather than the Father, consistent with the Johannine pattern of describing Jesus as “the Holy One of God” (John 6:69). It is Jesus who sends the Spirit (John 15:26; 16:7), and it is the Spirit whom He sends who constitutes the unction of the Holy One. The anointing comes through the Spirit, but it comes from Christ, and to possess it is to be in living connection with the Anointed One Himself.

Who Is “the Holy One” in 1 John 2:20?

The identification of “the Holy One” in this verse is a genuine exegetical question. Some commentators take it as a reference to the Father (consistent with Old Testament usage where YHWH is “the Holy One of Israel”). Others take it as a reference to Christ (consistent with the Johannine usage in John 6:69 and with the argument of 1 John that the anointing comes through the Son). There is a real case to be made for either reading, and the difference is not massive theologically since the Trinity act inseparably. My own reading is that “the Holy One” here refers to Christ, who throughout John’s writings is the one who “gives” the Spirit (John 3:34) and who “will send” the Spirit from the Father (John 15:26). The unction of the Holy One is the Spirit given by and from Christ to His people.

What is not in question is the identity of the anointing agent: it is the Holy Spirit. John’s point is that the Spirit who proceeds from and is sent by Christ takes up residence within every true believer, and this Spirit-given unction of the Holy One is what enables the believer to know the truth. Not a second-hand knowledge received through religious intermediaries; not an elite gnosis available only to the spiritually advanced. A direct, immediate, Spirit-enabled knowledge of the truth that belongs to every member of the body of Christ without exception.

The Unction and the False Teachers

The pastoral urgency of John’s appeal to the unction of the Holy One becomes clearer when we understand the nature of the threat the false teachers posed. Their implicit (and perhaps explicit) claim was that there was a level of spiritual knowledge beyond what the ordinary members of the congregation possessed, a deeper insight into the things of God that the congregation needed to receive from them. This is the characteristic move of every form of Gnosticism (from the Greek gnosis, knowledge): the claim that salvation or spiritual progress depends on the possession of a special knowledge available only through particular channels of transmission.

John’s response to this claim is not to match it with a higher claim of apostolic authority, though he certainly possesses that (1 John 1:1-4). It is to point to what every believer already has from the Spirit Himself. The unction of the Holy One is the Spirit’s direct presence and teaching work within every genuine Christian, and it means that the believer does not need to go to the false teacher to receive what the Spirit has already given. This is not to say that believers do not need teachers at all – Ephesians 4:11-12 is clear that Christ gave teachers as gifts to the church for its equipping. It is to say that the Spirit who illuminates truth from within is the only absolutely indispensable source of spiritual knowledge, and every true believer has access to Him directly.

“You All Know”: What the Unction Gives

The phrase “you all know” at the end of verse 20 is emphatic. Some manuscripts read “you know all things,” which makes the universality of the unction of the Holy One‘s knowledge even more striking. Either way, the emphasis is on the all-ness of both the recipients and the knowledge. Not some of you. All of you. Not a partial or conditional knowledge that you might not have managed to access yet. A genuine, Spirit-given knowledge of the truth that every believer possesses by virtue of the unction of the Holy One they received when they received Christ.

What specifically does the unction of the Holy One enable believers to know? In context, John’s emphasis is on the ability to recognise truth from error, genuine teaching from false teaching, the Jesus of the apostolic gospel from the false christs being presented by the antichrists. The Spirit who is given to every believer is the “Spirit of truth” (John 14:17; 16:13), whose specific function is to guide believers into truth and to enable them to recognise and reject falsehood. The unction of the Holy One is the practical, experiential reality of that promise operating within each member of the community.

The Unction and the Spirit’s Illuminating Work

The unction of the Holy One is one expression of what we describe more broadly as the Spirit’s illuminating work – His ministry of enabling believers to understand and receive the things of God. Paul describes this work in 1 Corinthians 2:10-16: the Spirit knows the deep things of God, and it is through the Spirit that those things are made available to the believer. “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God” (v.12). The Spirit’s illuminating ministry is not identical to the inspiration of Scripture, which was a unique and completed work; it is the ongoing work of enabling believers to receive, understand, and apply what Scripture teaches.

This illuminating work does not guarantee that every believer will arrive at correct interpretations of difficult passages without study, careful thought, or the benefit of teaching. John is not commending theological laziness. The unction of the Holy One works through engagement with the Word, through prayer, through the community of believers who reason together from Scripture, through faithful teaching ministry, and through the kind of humble attentiveness to the Spirit that characterises the person who genuinely desires to know the truth rather than simply to confirm what they already believe. See the article on the Spirit’s role in illumination and teaching Scripture for the fuller picture.

The Unction, Abiding, and Eternal Life

Verse 27 connects the chrisma with the call to “abide in him.” The anointing does not function independently of ongoing fellowship with Christ; it operates within a relationship of abiding. This is consistent with John’s wider theology in the Gospel: “Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me” (John 15:4). The unction of the Holy One is the Spirit’s presence within the believer, but the effectiveness of His illuminating work is tied to the quality of the believer’s fellowship with Christ. The anointing is there; abiding is the condition for its full operation.

There is also an eternal security dimension to John’s language worth noting. The fact that the unction of the Holy One “abides in you” (v.27) speaks of a permanence that is consistent with the wider Johannine teaching on the Spirit’s sealing work. The sealing of the Spirit that Paul describes in Ephesians 1:13-14 and the abiding unction of the Holy One that John describes in 1 John 2:27 are complementary testimonies to the same reality: the Spirit who has been given to the believer does not abandon His post. His presence is God’s own guarantee of the believer’s belonging to Christ, and this belonging is not conditional on the believer’s sustained spiritual performance.

One more dimension of the unction of the Holy One is worth exploring: its relationship to the believer’s assurance. John’s first letter is written explicitly to give believers assurance of eternal life: “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). The unction of the Holy One plays a role in that assurance. Not as the basis of salvation – that basis is entirely the finished work of Christ, received through faith – but as one of the evidences by which the genuine believer may recognise their own faith. The person who has the chrisma recognises the truth when they hear it, turns instinctively from the lie, and finds the apostolic gospel confirmed in their own spiritual experience. This is the Spirit’s own testimony described in Romans 8:16: “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” The unction of the Holy One is part of that witnessing work.

It is also worth noting what John does not say: he does not say “you have the anointing, therefore you do not need to continue in the truth.” The anointing is always paired in 1 John with active, continuing response: “abide in him” (v.27), “let what you heard from the beginning abide in you” (v.24), “practise righteousness” (2:29). The unction of the Holy One is not a passive static possession that works regardless of what the believer does with it. It is the Spirit’s enabling presence within a person who is actively engaging with the truth, the community of believers, and the call to walk in what they know. The Spirit enables; the believer exercises what the Spirit enables. Passive reliance on the anointing without active engagement with Scripture and community is a recipe for the very kind of drift that John’s letter is written to prevent.

A final pastoral note: the unction of the Holy One is one of the most quietly encouraging doctrines in the New Testament for the ordinary believer who feels intellectually outmatched by sophisticated false teaching. John is writing to people who were being told, in effect, that they did not know enough, were not spiritual enough, and needed the false teachers to fill in the gaps. His response is to point them to what they already have: the Spirit of truth, resident within them, who is entirely sufficient to enable them to recognise the truth and hold fast to it. You do not need a higher-level spiritual experience to be safe from deception. You need to use the unction of the Holy One you have already been given – staying in the apostolic word, staying in the community of believers, staying in prayerful, attentive fellowship with Christ. This is not a counsel of complacency but of confidence: the Spirit who was given to you at conversion is the same Spirit who “searches everything, even the depths of God” (1 Corinthians 2:10), and He is with you and in you.

It is worth ending where John himself ends: in the call to abide. “Now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming” (1 John 2:28). The unction of the Holy One does not ultimately serve a simply intellectual purpose – keeping us informed about theological truth. It serves a relational one: keeping us in living connection with Christ, so that when He returns we will recognise Him as the One we have known and in whom we have abided. That is the goal of all true pneumatology: not the accumulation of spiritual experience or knowledge, but the deepening of our relationship with the Person who gave the Spirit in the first place.

So, now what?

If you have trusted in Jesus, you have the unction of the Holy One. You already have the Spirit’s truth-giving, truth-recognising, abiding presence. The question is not whether you have it; the question is whether you are making use of it. A Spirit-given capacity for discernment is not an automatic immunity from deception; it is a resource that requires activation through engagement with Scripture, through prayer, through the accountability of a faithful local church, and through the kind of honest, humble attention to the Spirit that is willing to be corrected as well as confirmed. The false teachers John warns against were dangerous precisely because they were persuasive. The unction of the Holy One does not make careful thinking unnecessary – it makes careful thinking spiritually fruitful. Use it.

“But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all know.”

1 John 2:20 (ESV)