[CHAPTER 2] THE ANOINTING WITHIN BY KENNETH HAGIN



The Anointing Within
Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath ANOINTED us, is God;
Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.
2 Corinthians 1:21,22
But ye have an UNCTION from the Holy One, and ye know all things . . . .
But the ANOINTING which ye have received of him abideth IN you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same ANOINTING teacheth you o f all
things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.
1 John 2:20,27
In these two verses from First John, the terms “unction” and “anointing” are used. The Greek word is the same in both verses.
Every believer has an anointing—an unction—that abides within him, because the Holy Spirit comes in us in the New
Birth. Romans 8:9 says, “Now i f any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” The Spirit of Christ is the Holy
Spirit.
We’re not referring here to being baptized with the Holy Spirit, or being filled with the Holy Spirit, as the Bible terms it. That is a separate experience from the New Birth.
Two Spiritual Experiences
There is a dual working o f the Spirit o f God in the life of a believer: the New Birth and the baptism in the Holy Spirit.


In His teaching to the woman at the well of Samaria, Jesus said, “…the water that I shall give him shall be IN him a well o f
water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14).
In the seventh chapter of John’s Gospel, Jesus said, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, OUT o f his belly
shall flow rivers of living water” (v. 38).
Jesus told His disciples, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you
for ever; Even the Spirit o f truth… for he dwelleth WITH you, and shall be IN you” (John 14:16,17).
Later, Jesus told the disciples, “But ye shall receive power AFTER that the Holy Ghost is come UPON you: and ye shall be
witnesses unto me….” (Acts 1:8).
It’s obvious that these are two different experiences Jesus is talking about. One—the New Birth—blesses you. It’s water IN
YOU springing up into everlasting life.
The other experience—the baptism in the Holy Spirit—makes you a blessing to others. It is those rivers flowing OUT of
you; it is the enduement of power Jesus promised in Luke 24—and it is available to every believer.
LUKE 24:49
49 And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high.
Life in the Spirit
In studying the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer who has been born of the Spirit and baptized with the Holy Spirit, we see
many things. We find that the Holy Spirit in us bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God (Rom. 8:16).
We find that “as many as are led by the Spirit o f God, they are the sons o f God” (Rom. 8:14).
We also find it is the Holy Spirit who quickens: “If the


Spirit o f him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken [or make full of life] your mortal bodies [your death-doomed bodies] by his Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom. 8:11).
We find how the Holy Spirit helps us pray. For example, in First Corinthians 14:14, Paul said, “For i f I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth….”
Or, as The Amplified Bible has it: “For if I pray in an

[unknown]

tongue, my spirit [by the Holy Spirit within me] prays, but my mind is unproductive—bears no fruit and helps
nobody. Then what am I to do? I will pray with my spirit—by the Holy Spirit that is within me; but I will also pray intelligently—with my mind and understanding; I will sing with my spirit—by the Holy Spirit that is within me; but I will sing (intelligently) with my mind and understanding also” (vv. 14,15).
Then we read in Romans 8:26,27: “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities [or weaknesses]: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought….” One of our weaknesses is
that we know not for what to pray as we ought!
“…But the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he
maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”
By putting these verses together, we can see that in groanings and in praying with other tongues, it’s the Spirit helping us pray for things we don’t know how to pray for as we should. But, thank God, He knows. Thank God for the Holy
Spirit in the life of the believer!
Let’s look again at what Jesus said to the disciples about the Holy Spirit in the fourteenth chapter of John:
JOHN 14:16,17
16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another
Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;


17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth WITH you, and SHALL BE IN YOU.
Many translations read, “I’ll not leave you helpless. I’ll send you another Helper.” The Greek word parakletos that’s
translated “Comforter” here means “one called alongside to help.”
The Amplified translation brings out the sevenfold meaning of the Greek word in this sixteenth verse: It means Comforter,
Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby—and He’s all of these.
The Holy Spirit as Teacher
In addition to helping us pray and witness, that anointing helps us by teaching us.
In verse 17, Jesus called the Comforter the Spirit of truth. He said in John 15:26, “But when the Comforter is come, whom
I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit o f truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify o f me.”
The Holy Spirit never testifies o f Himself. He testifies of Jesus.
Jesus speaks to us by the Holy Spirit. Jesus is not here on earth today with a flesh-and-blood body, because His body was resurrected, and it’s now flesh and bone (Luke 24:39), the blood having been shed for our sins. With a flesh-and-bone body, Jesus is seated at the right hand of God (Rom. 8:34) and “ever liveth to
make intercession” for us (Heb. 7:25).
So He’s not here in the natural, but, thank God, the Holy Spirit is, and Jesus speaks to us by the Spirit. When the
anointing teaches you, that’s Jesus teaching you, because He said, “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever” (John 14:16);
and when He—the Comforter, the Helper, the Paraclete—has come, “he will guide you into all truth….” (John 16:13). Thank God He does.


This verse continues, “…for he shall not speak o f himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.”
Jesus said more in the 15th verse: “…he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.”
So these are other works of the Holy Spirit: to guide us into all truth; to take the things of Jesus and show them to us; and, in John 14:
JOHN 14:26
26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
Did you ever notice how the Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance Scriptures that you hardly knew—maybe you read them once? Praise God, that’s His work in the believer.
John, writing in his first epistle, First John 2:20, calls this anointing “an unction.”
1 JOHN 2:20
20 But ye have an UNCTION from the Holy One, and ye know all things.
The Spirit of Revelation
The Holy Spirit is supposed to show you all things. In First Corinthians, Paul talks about the fact that “Eye hath not seen,
nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart o f man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Cor. 2:9).
Often we read that verse—I guess we’ve all been guilty of it sometime or other—and said, “Now isn’t that wonderful? He’s
going to provide things we’ve never seen and don’t know about.”
But that’s not what God’s talking about at all. The very next verse says, “But God HATH revealed them unto us by His Spirit:
for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things o f God” (v. 10).
Hallelujah! The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of revelation. He’ll


“take o f mine, and shall shew it unto you.” John said, “You’ve received an unction, and you know all things.” The reason we don’t know more than we know is because we haven’t listened to that Teacher—the Holy Spirit is a
Teacher.
Then in the 27th verse of First John 2, John writes, “But the ANOINTING which ye have received o f him ABIDETH IN
YOU, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same ANOINTING teacheth you o f all things, and is truth, and is no
lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.”
Notice that the anointing which you’ve received of Him
abideth in you. Where is the anointing? IN YOU. Doesn’t that sound like what Jesus said in John 14:17?
JOHN 14:17
17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be IN YOU. He shall be where? IN YOU. Automatically we think of
First John 4:4: “…greater is he that is IN YOU….” Here John calls that anointing “he,” because He is a divine personality.
“Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world ” I doubt seriously if any of us have ever taken advantage of Him who dwells in us, living in the fullness of what that means. If this is the case—if He dwells in us—then immediately we don’t have to be afraid o f anything that’s in this world, because we
have Someone in us who’s bigger than anything in the world! “Yes,” people complain, “but you don’t know what I’ve got to put up with!”
I don’t care what you’ve got to put up with. He’s bigger! He’s
greater!
In First John 2:27 we saw the phrase, “ye need not that any man teach you.” That doesn’t mean that God hasn’t set teachers
in the Church! That doesn’t mean we don’t need teachers! The Holy Spirit will not contradict Himself. Did you ever stop to think that when a man teaches under


the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it is not man teaching us something—it’s the Holy Spirit teaching us? The Holy Spirit will teach us, and when we hear the Word taught, the Holy Spirit also will bear witness with our spirit if the teaching is right.
Beyond the Bible
A certain teacher caused a lot of trouble once for a friend of mine, a man who had been a Bible teacher for 35 years. My friend had taken his Bible class to this man’s meetings, but found his teaching began to be increasingly in error.
Finally he handed the man his Bible, saying, “You’re going to have to give me chapter and verse for that. You’re going to have to show that to me in the Bible.”
The traveling teacher handed the Bible back to him, saying, “Oh, you won’t find what I’m preaching in that thing.” (When
you start calling the Bible “that thing,” you’re in trouble.) “Oh, no,” he said, “I’m way out beyond that thing.”
If you’ve gotten out beyond the Bible, you’ve gotten out beyond the Holy Spirit, because the Bible says that the Spirit
and the Word are one [agree], as John states in First John 5:7.
What was amazing to me was that my friend, a man who was saved, baptized in the Holy Spirit, and a Bible teacher in a
Full Gospel church, got taken in by this false teacher and lost half his class!
On the other hand, a young Chinese woman, who had been converted only two weeks earlier in a tent meeting, went to the same teacher’s meetings one night but realized he was in error. She told me, “You know, something on the inside of me told me, ‘Don’t go back.’ So we never went back.”
She was just a baby Christian—she didn’t even have the baptism in the Holy Spirit yet—but she listened to the Spirit
who was in her. I think what happens to us is we go by our heads instead of


our spirits after we have been Christians for many years. Often our heads have been educated at the expense of our spirits.
The Spirit of God will teach us. That’s what the Spirit of God was teaching the Chinese woman: “That’s not right. Don’t
go there.”
Of course God put teachers in the Church—teaching is one of the fivefold ministries, and that’s one way God teaches us. On
the other hand, the Teacher is also in us. He’ll let us know when it’s right and He’ll let us know when it’s not right. And every believer has that anointing in him or her. We don’t need to pray for it. We’ve got it.
Why Christians Are Defeated
Oh, how real He is! If people would start developing that consciousness of the indwelling Spirit when they first become
Christians, He would manifest Himself. But too often they haven’t been taught correctly.
They thought they got an “experience.” They kept trying to have another experience like that one, but it wasn’t an experience at all; it was Someone—a divine Personality—who
came to live in them. He is a heavenly Being: the Holy Spirit.
So often we have been defeated because we weren’t taught this—or we were taught something that isn’t so, and we have had
to “unlearn” it. It’s a lot harder to “unlearn” than it is to learn. Before we can walk on with God, sometimes we’ve got to “unlearn” some things.
We must learn to look to our (human) spirit, even when our mind can’t grasp what we’re hearing. I’ve heard men preach, I’ve listened to tapes, and I’ve studied books—and my head just
couldn’t grasp it. But on the inside of me, it felt like something was turning flips. I knew my spirit, because of the Holy Spirit
within me, was telling me, “That’s so.” But even with this witness, I’ve had problems accepting these things. Have you ever had such problems, or am I the only one? What we think, or the way we’ve been taught often hinders


us from moving into the Spirit realm. It also will keep us from praying in tongues.
Paul said, “For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit

prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful” (1 Cor. 14:14). Our understanding, or, we might say, our mind—it would be the same thing—wants to get in on everything, but it can’t get in on praying in the Spirit unless God gives the interpretation.
Therefore, our mind will try to talk us out of praying in tongues. Even after we’ve prayed a while, our mind will say,
“Well, what good did that do?” Then, of course, the devil will side in with that unrenewed mind, agreeing, “What good did you get out of that? You don’t
know one word you said! Isn’t that foolish? Anyway, that didn’t
sound much like a language.” That’s our problem: We pass judgment on something instead of listening to what God’s Word says about it. God even said in Isaiah 28:11, “With stammering lips and another tongue will he [God] speak unto this people.” So, bless God, if you just
stammered, that’s the Holy Spirit, too! Accept it and go on with God. Expect more, and He’ll give you more.
The Temple o f God
We saw earlier the text from First John 4:4: “…greater is he that is IN YOU, than he that is in the world.” Here John is
talking about the Holy Spirit who is in us—”Christ IN YOU, the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27). He dwells in us by the power of the
Spirit. In First Corinthians 3, Paul uses different terms to say the same thing John said. John said, “…the anointing which ye have received o f him abideth IN YOU.. . . ” (1 John 2:20). Here Paul
is saying, “Know ye not that ye are the temple o f God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth IN YOU?” (1 Cor. 3:16).
Look at First Corinthians 6:19: “What? know ye not that your body is the temple o f the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have o f God and ye are not your own?”


Then notice this second letter Paul wrote to the Corinthians.
He must have wanted to reemphasize this truth:
2 CORINTHIANS 6:14-16
14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell IN them, and walk IN them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. The believer is called a “believer,” and the unbeliever is called an “unbeliever.” The believer is called “righteousness,” and the unbeliever is called “unrighteousness.” The believer is called “light,” and the unbeliever is called “darkness.”
The believer is called “Christ,” and the unbeliever is called “Belial.”
The believer is called “the temple of God,” and the unbeliever is called “idols.”
That’s shouting ground, isn’t it? “Ye are the temple o f the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them [live in them, in other words] and walk in them….”
So there is an individual (or personal) anointing of the Holy Spirit that abides IN each one o f us. We need to learn to take advantage of it.

Henotace Team

David Oshin is a Content Creator || Full stack Web Developer||Podcast Host || Digital Marketing Strategist. He is very passionate about UNITY of the body of Christ.

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. Yusuf Ayuba

    the anointing within is the one, one recieves when he believes in Jesus and so he abideth IN YOU, looking from the brief story there which he gave about the Chinese woman, she listened to the one IN her though she’s a baby christian, our problem is the we don’t listen to the one in us when faced with any challenge, the one within give instructions where to go and where not to go, what to do and what we ought not to do, what to wear and what not to wear, what to eat and what not to eat, the one within reveals, teaches, comforts, helps, intercedes, strengthens and many more activities which he here’s of HIM testifies of JESUS CHRIST, leads you in the parts of righteousness and many more the holy spirit does when we allow him flow through us, he is the river of living waters IN YOU

  2. Anointing Paschal

    The Anointing within is stirred by the word of God.. But the anointing upon is stirred by Prayer..

    The Anointing upon comes for people and operation, but the anointing within comes to sustain the Anointing upon us.

  3. Anointing Paschal

    The Anointing within is stirred by the word of God.. But the anointing upon is stirred by Prayer..

    The Anointing upon comes for people and operation, but the anointing within comes to sustain the Anointing upon.

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