2 Peter Chapter 2
The False Teachers’ Ungodly Lifestyle
2:1 But false prophets arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. These false teachers will infiltrate your midst with destructive heresies, even to the point of denying the Master who bought them. As a result, they will bring swift destruction on themselves.
During the dispensation of the Old Testament and the Apostolic era, God communicated to the people through prophets. Satan would mix false prophets into the mix in order to confuse the people.
During the end of the Apostolic era, as the written Word of God was nearing completion, apostolic gifts and prophets began to disappear. In 2 Timothy, Paul no longer possessed the apostolic gift of healing. In 1 Corinthians 12-14, the Apostle Paul taught that tongues, prophecies, and words of knowledge would disappear. In Ephesians 4, Paul taught that spiritual growth now came about by the teaching of gifted teachers. Peter warned these Messianic believers that false teachers would seep into their local churches and attempt to deceive them.
These false teachers will claim that they were sent from God, but they will teach false doctrine. They will deny the Master who bought them. Notice that Jesus redeemed these false teachers, even though they rejected His atonement. This verse refutes five-point Calvinists, or Reformed theologians, who teach that Christ died only for the elect. Christ died for all, but only those who believe will receive salvation. Therefore, four-point Calvinism is the true doctrinal position of the Bible.
2:2 And many will follow their debauched lifestyles. Because of these false teachers, the way of truth will be slandered.
False teachers live an immoral life style. They will slander the truth of the gospel.
2:3 And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation pronounced long ago is not sitting idly by; their destruction is not asleep.
False teachers will make their congregation merchandise. They will teach for profit. They will burn in the Lake of Fire forever.
2:4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into hell and locked them up in chains in utter darkness, to be kept until the judgment,
At the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God predicted that a virgin-born Messiah would crush the head of Satan. There were fallen angels in Genesis 6 who attempted to destroy this virgin birth of the Messianic seed by impregnating all of the women on earth. God judged these fallen angels by placing them in Tartarus. Tartarus is a compartment of Sheol. These fallen angels will remain in Tartarus as a life-long prison sentence. They will be transferred to the Lake of Fire at the end of the Millennial Kingdom.
2:5 and if he did not spare the ancient world, but did protect Noah, a herald of righteousness, along with seven others, when God brought a flood on an ungodly world,
God judged the evil antediluvians by drowning all of humanity except for Noah and his family. There is evidence of this global flood of judgment in almost every ancient culture of the world, but the flood legends were perverted after the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel. The Biblical account is the true account, while all others are corrupted accounts.
2:6 and if he turned to ashes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah when he condemned them to destruction, having appointed them to serve as an example to future generations of the ungodly,
The homosexual life style was judged at Sodom and Gomorrah. These cities were destroyed as an example to future generations.
2:7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man in anguish over the debauched lifestyle of lawless men,
Many preachers teach that Lot compromised his faith by living in a homosexual city. However, Peter teaches that Lot was a righteous man. He stood up alone against the homosexual rape gangs of Sodom. There are many righteous men who live in San Francisco, even though it is an immoral city that glorifies the homosexual life style. Lot was a righteous man in an immoral city. God saved Lot out of this city before destroying it.
2:8 (for while he lived among them day after day, that righteous man was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)
Lot was tormented by the wickedness that he saw in Sodom.
2:9 – if so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from their trials, and to reserve the unrighteous for punishment at the day of judgment,
God judges the immoral and protects the righteous. He will continue in this manner until He judges all evil at the Great White Throne Judgment.
2:10 especially those who indulge their fleshly desires and who despise authority. Brazen and insolent, they are not afraid to insult the glorious ones,
False teachers despise authorities which have been established by God. False teachers are brazen and arrogant. They will even insult angels, who have much more power than themselves.
2:11 yet even angels, who are much more powerful, do not bring a slanderous judgment against them before the Lord.
It is not the role of angels to judge those false teachers who slander them.
2:12 But these men, like irrational animals – creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed – do not understand whom they are insulting, and consequently in their destruction they will be destroyed,
False teachers are like ignorant animals that were destined for instruction. They are moving on the human instinct of total depravity. Man is the most dangerous man in the world, because he is born with a sin nature that rejects God.
2:13 suffering harm as the wages for their harmful ways. By considering it a pleasure to carouse in broad daylight, they are stains and blemishes, indulging in their deceitful pleasures when they feast together with you.
The false teachers pretend to be believers, but this is just a deception to deceive true believers.
2:14 Their eyes, full of adultery, never stop sinning; they entice unstable people. They have trained their hearts for greed, these cursed children!
These false teachers look at every woman as a possible prey for adultery. They seduce people who are not grounded in Bible doctrine. They are greedy, as they teach for material gain. These false teachers are cursed to live in the Lake of Fire forever.
2:15 By forsaking the right path they have gone astray, because they followed the way of Balaam son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness,
Balaam attempted to curse Israel for money. When God forbid him to curse Israel, Balaam instead seduced them into the Moabite prostitution cult. False teachers are similar to Balaam, in that they will seduce weaker believers into immorality for the sake of money.
2:16 yet was rebuked for his own transgression (a dumb donkey, speaking with a human voice, restrained the prophet’s madness).
A donkey, speaking supernaturally by the power of God, rebuked Balaam for this endeavor. Liberals reject this teaching because of their bias against the Word of God. God can make a donkey talk, even if liberals disagree. God is higher than liberals.
2:17 These men are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm, for whom the utter depths of darkness have been reserved.
False teachers are like springs of water which are mirages that contain no water. They are like clouds that come during a drought, but they do not provide raindrops. They are reserved for “utter depths of darkness”, which is the eternal Lake of Fire. Usually, a fire would produce light, but it produces darkness in the Lake of Fire.
2:18 For by speaking high-sounding but empty words they are able to entice, with fleshly desires and with debauchery, people who have just escaped from those who reside in error.
The false teachers speak with eloquent words, but there is no truth behind these words. They are able to seduce those “who just escaped from error”. This group would be baby Christians who are not yet grounded in the Word of God. Many of the cults and isms are filled with either ignorant unbelievers or baby Christians who do not yet have enough doctrine to recognize truth from error.
2:19 Although these false teachers promise such people freedom, they themselves are enslaved to immorality. For whatever a person succumbs to, to that he is enslaved.
These false teachers promised liberty, but they actually trapped others into the same bondage in which they were trapped.
2:20 For if after they have escaped the filthy things of the world through the rich knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they again get entangled in them and succumb to them, their last state has become worse for them than their first.
These false teachers and their converts heard the gospel, but rejected the truth. It would have been better for them if they would have never heard the gospel.
2:21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment that had been delivered to them.
Their current situation is now much worse than their former situation, because they possessed more light. Those who reject more light will receive greater punishment. The degree of punishment issued at the Great White Throne Judgment depends upon the amount of light that the unbeliever received.
2:22 They are illustrations of this true proverb: “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and “A sow, after washing herself, wallows in the mire.”
Peter quoted from Proverbs 26:11. The dog was clean, until iy returned to its vomit. The pig was clean, until it returned to its pig pen. These false teachers will return to their filth.