1 John 2:27

And as for you, the anointing which ye received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you; but as his anointing teacheth you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, ye abide in him.

The anointing which ye received of him abideth in you ... Although this is speaking of the Holy Spirit (see under 1 John 2:20), it is clear from the last clause where the neuter pronoun and past tense are used that he is referring to the written records of the gospel. It was that which they had been taught; and it was that which was abiding in them, there being no difference whatever in the word of God dwelling in Christians and the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. See full discussion of this in my Commentary on Galatians, pp. 97-99. Moreover, it was that original gospel which was alone sufficient for all their needs, enabling John to say, "Ye need not that any one teach you." The holy gospel has already given (note the past tense) all of the teaching that Christians will ever need.

That it is that gospel (we now call it the New Testament) of which John taught in this verse is proved by a careful reading of it:

That gospel is no lie.

It is the truth.

It taught you.

As a consequence of its teachings, you abide in him.

From this, it is absolutely certain, as Roberts stated it, that, "It is obvious that John does not mean that each individual has his own channel of communications by means of the Holy Spirit."[60] Furthermore, John did not teach that Christians had no need of further study. The whole passage must be understood as a plea for the all-sufficiency of the gospel as the complete and effective refutation of heresies. "The only safeguard against lies is to have abiding in us both the Word that we heard from the beginning and the anointing that we received from him."[61]

[60] J. W. Roberts, The Letters of John (Austin, Texas: R. B. Sweet Company, 1968), p. 72.

[61] John R. W. Stott, op. cit., p. 115.