"The anointing that you have received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie - just as it has taught you, abide in him" (1 John 2:27).
John is speaking about spiritual knowledge. This is the sort of knowledge Yahweh speaks of in Hosea: "I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know Yahweh" (Hosea 2:20).
This knowledge is different than mere intellectual knowledge. There is a distinction between knowing the fact that God is a loving Father, and knowing that God is a loving Father. This is the distinction between real faith and dead faith (James 2).
As Karl Barth says, "Wisdom is the knowledge by which we may actually and practically live."
But Jesus has commanded us to love the Lord our God with all of our mind.
Why? What is the necessity of pursuing academic, intellectual, factual, systematic knowledge about God?
The reason, I suggest, is because intellectual knowledge is a type of spiritual knowledge.
To understand this better, I think it's helpful to observe a similar relationship between earthly marriage and the heavenly marriage; earthly marriage is a type of the heavenly marriage.
Why should we respect the covenant of marriage here on earth? Jesus says that we will be like the angels, that earthly marriage will not be important after the resurrection; rather, we will all - as the Bride of Christ - be united to to Jesus, the great Bridegroom.
So why must we pursue earthly marriages with holiness and purity?
Because we have not reached the eschaton, and now we must proclaim the truth of Christ and his Church through the covenant of marriage:
"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her..." (Eph 5:25).
In the same way, we are to pursue intellectual, academic, factual, systematic knowledge to dramatize spiritual, relational knowledge.
A Christian must discipline himself to study the Pentateuch and reach the conclusion that God is a Father who loves his children (Gen 5:1-3, Deut 32:6). When he comes to that conclusion, when he understands the fact that God is a Father, it is a proclamation - a dramatization - of the reality of a human being coming face to face with the spiritual reality of the truth that God is Abba Father, and that he may trust his whole life to his care.
Of course, these two types of knowledge are inextricable. When we reach the intellectual conclusion that God is a Father, the Holy Spirit will likely bring us into the spiritual knowledge that God is a Father in and through our efforts to gain this earthly knowledge.
But that is the whole point of types and images, namely, to teach us who Christ is in our innermost being.
When we engage in a marriage driven by holiness, purity, intimacy, self-sacrifice, unconditional love, etc., we will understand more clearly and truly the spiritual reality of Christ's love for his Church.
The spiritual realities transcend the metaphysical realities.
So we should pursue earthly, tangible obedience to Jesus; we should pursue intellectual knowledge of God (theology, exegesis) as a dramatization of spiritual knowledge. He is faithful; he will bring us into spiritual knowledge of God.
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