2 Peter 2 analysis - continued
Continued...
Now think about it. How many of us have known the Lord long enough to get into some pretty bad sin? How did you feel while you were struggling in that debilitating lifestyle? I don't know about you, but I felt terrible. I hated to get up in the morning. I slept in and didn't want to get up and face reality. I was depressed and discouraged. I tried to act like everything was "cool" to my friends and co-workers, but I was miserable. Now when someone who has known the Lord falls back into the same sinful pattern of living as he was caught up into before it's much worse than if he had never known what it's like to live by faith in Christ - to know Him intimately. And IMO a Christian can indeed fall deeply into a pattern of sin. He can be "blind and shortsighted," and "forget that he was cleansed from his past sins" as Peter said earlier in this letter (chapter 1).
But at the time someone is struggling in sin, what if some well-intentioned Christians told them that they had never really been saved in the first place? Hah!
That wouldn't exactly inspire them to get out of that sin. Actually, at the time they often know that those who say such things are wrong.
Those last couple of verses in 2 Peter 2 are teaching that is that there are consequences for a life of sin,
but the consequences and frustration are even worse for believers! We are children of God. The Holy Spirit has taken up residence in us. So we become convicted by the Holy Spirit of our sin that the unbeliever may just shrug off. No doubt about it - we're really miserable when that happens. And the Lord will continue to discipline us more severely, not to punish us, but so that we may be drawn out of our sin and back into fellowship with Him.
It needs to be stated that some who hold to the Reformed eternal security teaching of "perseverance of the saints" say that the reference to dogs and pigs in verse 22 is proof that false professors are in view - that they were never REALLY regenerated, since dogs is a common reference to unbelieving Gentiles, and pigs - well, certainly would not be a reference to some Jew who was following the Lord. The sensual license alluded to here appeals to some people who are just learning the gospel and weighing its claim on their lives, it is said. These enticed people who are "escaping from those who live in error" are not believers, according to many.
But IMO they were and are indeed Christians. In the allegory it refers to a dog that had vomited - he then went back to it. And the pig was clean - a reference to his saved status - yet he went back to wallow in the mud. These proverbial expressions are parallel - they're teaching the same thing, and were probably well-known proverbs at the time something like, "it's all water under the bridge." Peter used both to illustrate a believer who was "cleaned" of his sins, then went back to wallow in it again. But to "go back" to that mud or vomit does NOT mean that the believer had lost their position in the heavenly places with Christ, IMO... that cannot happen. So then, just what does it mean? What is Peter warning his readers about?
Look at
2 Peter 1:9 ->
"The person who lacks these things is blind and shortsighted, and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins." But what is the context of verses 1:3-11? Peter has told us that we have everything we need so that we can live godly lives (vss. 3, 4) ->
"For His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness, through the knowledge (GINWSKW) of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. By these He has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desires." Now all of our sins were paid for and cleansed - past, present and future - when we trusted in Jesus Christ. We were freed from those sins that enslaved us. But if you read Romans 6 you will see there Paul speaking about the necessity to choose to not let sin
"reign in our mortal bodies to obey its desires," for
"sin will have no dominion over you since you are not under law but under grace."
He told them there to
"consider [themselves] dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus." The believer has to choose to serve the Lord and not sin. In 2 Peter 1, Peter says that when a believer walks in the darkness of sin he has really forgotten who he is and has allowed the flesh to significantly affect his choices in life. (See 1:9 above.) The word "better" in 2 Peter 2:21 is also critical. When would it be better to not have known what it is like to follow Christ?
Better in this life.
Think about it again. Those false teachers were promising their followers that they would be free if they just threw off the shackles - if it feels good, do it. But that was not true, of course. And notice what these believers had done? They had
"turned away from the holy commandment handed on to them." This commandment is not referring to the gospel. That's not a commandment. No, this commandment is the royal law of love, and to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind and our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus said that such should characterize those who follow Him.
BTW, it is translated something like,
"it was better for them not to have known the way of righteousness..." In the Greek, the verb translated "have known is
EPEGNWKENAI (perfect infinitive of
EPIGNWSKW). Now the perfect tense is a neat one. It refers to something that happened at a point in time in the past, with a state that continues into the present. IOW, these were still in a state of having known the way of righteousness. IMO that makes it kinda hard to view them as unbelievers. That's a key reason why I take the position I do, BTW. This is
not saying that they had known the way of righteousness - considered it, but no longer do.
They remain in a state of having known the way of righteousness. Of course, we have to be careful about taking the perfect tense too far, but it is something to consider.
Which reminds me. IMO, those
"false teachers" above were not believers in this instance. But could they have been? Do believers actually teach things such as we read about here? Yes, some do. But the context of 2 Peter, IMO, is of false teachers in chapter 2 who are not believers. But due to the way I view the pronouns above, it really doesn't matter.
Earlier in this chapter (2) Peter refers to them as...
2 Peter 2:12-14 But these people, like irrational animals - creatures of instinct born to be caught and destroyed - speak blasphemies about things they don't understand, and in their destruction they too will be destroyed, suffering harm as the payment for unrighteousness. They consider it a pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, delighting in their deceptions as they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and always looking for sin, seducing unstable people, and with hearts trained in greed...
Later he refers to them as abandoning the straight path... like Balaam. Now Balaam was a false teacher. But what do we know about him? He knew that God was going to bless the Israelites, so he could not prophesy any differently... but he wanted to be able to curse them! Why? Because of a greedy heart. And what did he do? He gave advice to the king of Moab to use their women to seduce the Israelite men. (Let's face it, we men are such dupes at times for nice legs!) Peter is upset about the impure motives of these false teachers who are drawing away some of the Christians, such as Balaam had done. Just as with Balaam, Peter questions the real motives of those false teachers. He is convinced they are not genuinely concerned for the welfare of these Christians they're duping.
I would like to briefly add something, just for the sake of making my view of God's grace clear, in general. I am a dad. I love my children dearly. Absolutely nothing they have done or can do will ever cause me to stop loving them. Can God love His children any less? I discipline them, because as it says in Proverbs, a child not disciplined - just left to himself - is one that is really not loved. If I love them, I will discipline them. Similarly, God disciplines us. He does it to help us to grow in maturity. Now, I never tell my children that if they don't shape up and do such-n-such that I will disown them. I try not to give such sweeping ultimatums. Does it make sense that a God of AGAPH love will love us any less? Will He dangle us over the pits of hell-fire? May it never be! (
MH GENOITO 
)
IMO, this particular passage is not one of the more difficult ones to understand in terms of eternal security. If we read it in context of the entire letter it makes sense. Peter's warning to these Christians was NOT to threaten them of a possible loss of their eternal salvation. But much CAN be lost. And not only in this life - which was Peter's focus, IMO. We can lose the opportunity to reap rewards in the kingdom as well.
Thx much,
FA
