2 Peter 2:17-22
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OK, so I hope we are going to finish chapter 2 tonight. We’re gonna dive in and see if we can do that.
17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. 18 For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
Cheery stuff from our guy Peter here.
So, context:
Peter is talking about what group right now?
False teachers.
He is addressing the issue in the congregation that is his audience, and in a broader sense, the issue that was most concerning for the early church.
Why would this issue be concerning for a group in the 1st century?
OK, let’s use a modern example.
So, on Saturday - I can’t remember what time - I got an alert on my phone that Mark Sanchez, who was QB at USC and in the NFL, was in the hospital after a stabbing incident in Indianapolis.
Not someone I care about all that much, but I knew the name. The only info I had was that he was in town to be part of the broadcast team for the NFL game on Sunday.
My assumption, someone tried to mug him and he got stabbed.
Then, on Sunday, I get an alert that he had been placed under arrest and charged with public intoxication, battery, and illegally entering a motor vehicle.
I have questions at this point. I start looking at the stories. Apparently, he was drunk and tried to get a food truck driver to move his vehicle. He got angry and tried to move the vehicle himself. The owner of the vehicle tried to keep him out of his truck, pepper sprayed him, and as Sanchez attacked him, the victim stabbed Sanchez in what appears to be self-defense.
Now, I know all of this within 72 hours of the event. Because of this (show my phone). Because we are so connected to the world, ESPN tells me about a petty crime in Indianapolis.
So, what does that have to do with 2 Peter, and with the question I asked?
Up until about 100 years ago, if it didn’t happen in the town you lived in, or in a neighboring town, you didn’t know about it.
Until about 60 years ago, if it didn’t happen in your state or closest metro area, you didn’t know about it.
Until about 40 years ago, if it didn’t happen in the US, you probably didn’t know about it.
Only really big things (like major wars) made it through the barricade.
Why?
Because there was limited access to news outside of what was in your local newspaper, local TV stations, or national news stations.
Then, in the 1980s and really the 1990s, something changed.
The internet brought news from all over the world home to you.
People that didn’t have access to cable news like CNN were still able to see things going on all over the world.
Now, we live in a culture where we are psychologically terrorized by things that happen on small islands thousands of miles away. We see the ramifications of fights we have no stake in daily on our feeds.
I could, if I wanted to, figure out what my favorite athlete had for breakfast in LA this morning, if I looked at their Instagram posts.
So, in a situation like the Mark Sanchez thing above, we see real time updates about his injury. Then, we get more facts. Then finally, we see that he has been charged with felony battery and other misdemeanors.
The last story I read says that the police are still gathering evidence and making sure they have all of the facts.
How many times have you gotten initial information and made a judgment or decision based on those (sometimes incomplete) facts?
In the early church, when we have false teachers coming into our circle and saying, “well, erm, act-chually, it’s like this...”
You can’t go to Google in the first century church to check the receipts!
We’ve all probably played the telephone game, right? Where you start at one end and say something like “your shoes are brown,” but at the end of it all the final message is something like “the bus is allowed.”
The message can easily be changed by subtle influence.
Incidentally, this is why we know we can trust scripture.
Historically speaking, scripture has not changed. Despite thousands of years and multiple translations, scripture has remained in tact.
But we see why Peter would be adamant about rooting out any false teaching. He understood how easy it would be to lead people astray.
Last week, we saw his searing comments on the false teachers, and he continues on in that vein in these verses.
17 These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved.
A waterless spring sounds pretty useless, right?
But there is a deeper meaning here as well.
The word for springs here (pegai) is used elsewhere as an image of God’s ultimate (eschatological) salvation that has been promised by the prophets. For example:
7 the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water;
in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down,
the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
18 I will open rivers on the bare heights,
and fountains in the midst of the valleys.
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water.
10 they shall not hunger or thirst,
neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them,
for he who has pity on them will lead them,
and by springs of water will guide them.
Furthermore, in Jeremiah 2:13, God condemn’s Judah’s idolatry (false teaching) and calls Himself “the fountain of living waters.”
13 for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living waters,
and hewed out cisterns for themselves,
broken cisterns that can hold no water.
In fact, when we look at these passages, we see that God turns the dry ground to springs of water, but the false teachers are like cisterns that can’t hold water.
Peter is really leaning into the prophetic writings here to make his point. They are waterless springs. They give the illusion of relief and comfort, but are actually incapable of providing for real needs.
They are also “mists driven by a storm.”
Mists usually connote darkness, hidden things. But they have no root. They are blown around by every wind.
Peter says that “the gloom of utter darkness” has been reserved for them. Think back to 2 Peter 2:4
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;
These false teachers are destined to destruction. To the gloom of utter darkness.
How many of you have steps in your house?
Think about December/January here, where it gets dark at lunch time and the sun doesn’t come up until 8AM.
Imagine a dark, snowy night in the middle of January, and the power goes out.
Maybe you have to go downstairs to get the flashlights or lanterns.
But when the power is out, you can’t turn on the lights, and there is no real ambient light.
Even though you’ve lived in that house for years, maybe, and you know the layout, you know the stairs…it is still a very precarious situation to try to traverse those stairs in the dark dark that is 2AM in the winter without power.
The “gloom of utter darkness” should give us pause.
Think about this symbolically.
What is Jesus?
The light of the world.
What does Revelation say about heaven?
22 And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, 25 and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there.
If the false teachers are destined to the gloom of utter darkness, that insinuates that they will be eternally separated from God!
OK, so there is some serious stuff we need to deal with here. Let’s see what else Peter is saying, because he gives the reason why they are destined to this darkness:
18 For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.
So, we’ve already established that they speak what the do not know:
12 But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction,
He reinforces that here in verse 18: speaking loud boasts of folly
Hebrews–Revelation Comment
Through these false teachers, Satan is preparing the web of lies and deceit that he will use to deceive the world. Despite their bravado, the boasts of the false teachers are nothing but “folly” (mataiotēs), a word highlighting the emptiness of life apart from God (Eccles. 1:2).
And by speaking these idiotically untrue things, they “entice…those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.”
We saw this last week in verse 14:
14 They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children!
These false teachers figure out the best bait and lure people into sin who are not yet established in sound doctrine.
Here, Peter says that they lure in those who are barely escaping. These are not the ones who have “escaped the corruption of the world” (2 Peter 1:4), but those who are barely hanging on. The ones that need more help in discipleship, in preparing their lives for Christ-like living. They are struggling to get away from these false teachers who are living in error.
Another way these false teachers entice their prey is by…sexual immorality. I mean, we have talked about it every week because Peter has talked about it in every section.
One commentary notes it this way:
Hebrews–Revelation Comment
Sinful passion is personified as working in the world to produce corruption (2 Pet. 1:4) and is a defining characteristic of the false teachers (2:10). Peter appears to have sexual passions in view here, evidenced by the use of the word “sensual” (aselgeia). The very sensuality that ensnared the false teachers (2:2) and Lot’s neighbors (2:7) has become the bait by which the false teachers lure the vulnerable into their web of deceit.
He goes on:
19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
We see that Peter talks about freedom here, but it is a sham: these false teachers promise freedom but it is actually slavery to corruption.
Look at his words from his first letter:
16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.
When we find our freedom in Christ - Paul would say, “as slaves of righteousness” - we are truly free.
These false teachers are promising freedom from moral restraints, and they think they are free from eternal, final judgment. The irony is, in living like this, as if they are free, they are enslaved to their corruption. The Greek word there is the same word that is translated in verse 12 as destruction. The corruption of these false teachers has such a grip on them that it enslaves them, it owns them.
That leads to the general principle that Peter writes: whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.
The idea of overcome here is the idea of military conquest.
Hebrews–Revelation Comment
Sin and corruption are pictured as powers that conquer a person. Such a person is “enslaved” (douloō); corruption has gained complete mastery over him. These verbs are both in the perfect tense, stressing that this is the state/condition of the person described. Slavery to sin takes many forms, but in the end the result is the same: death (Rom. 6:20–23). Only the gospel can deliver from its grip (Rom. 6:17–18).
Now, more clarification from Peter:
20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.
We have another “if-then” statement.
“If…they are overcome” - then “the last state is worse than the first”
So, if they are entangled and overcome in what?
Well, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through knowledge of Christ, they are entangled again in those defilements and are overcome/enslaved.
There are two parts of this: the escaping and the recapture.
let’s look at the escaping part:
Hebrews–Revelation Comment
This escape came “through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” By using language similar to 1:2–11, Peter indicates these people have professed faith in Christ at some point but have since proved their profession to be false.
These folks are being enticed by the same captivity that holds the false teachers. Yet these false teachers act as if they are believers. The reason Peter uses the language he does here, tying back to chapter one, is to basically say, “they are lying about their salvation.”
Now, the recapture:
Paul uses a military analogy to talk about the good soldier in 2 Timothy 2:4
4 No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.
Peter is thinking along those lines with regard to the false teachers.
Hebrews–Revelation Comment
they are again entangled in” the defilements of the world. Unlike the good soldier who avoids entanglement with worldly affairs (2 Tim. 2:4), the false teachers are “entangled” (emplekō) in the same kind of sin that characterized their life before professing Christ.
They proclaimed to be believers, then went on sinning worse than before. Because now they are trying to lead others into that same life.
That’s the “if” part. Now the “then” part.
Their last state is worse than the first.
Hebrews–Revelation Comment
Those who have professed faith in Christ but then returned unrepentantly to their sinful ways are in a worse state than before their profession (Heb. 6:4–8). Peter likely echoes Jesus’ own teaching in Matthew 12:43–45, where he describes a man who, after having a demon cast out of him, ends up with seven evil spirits worse than the first; as a result, “The last state of that person is worse than the first” (Matt. 12:45).
43 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. 45 Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”
The writer of Hebrews says this:
4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. 7 For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. 8 But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.
These folks say, “I’m a Christian! God told me this!” and then lead others to do abhorrent things in the name of Christ.
They are making it worse than before they were believers, because at least they could feign ignorance before. They had the chance to repent. Now they are proclaiming one thing but are in fact teaching the opposite.
He goes on and reinforces his point in verse 21:
21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
We can see that “the way of righteousness” represents the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. It includes the entailments of a life spent in obedience to God.
The false teachers knew it, but didn’t follow it. We saw in verse 2 that the “way of truth” will be blasphemed. That is what these false teachers are doing. They know the way of righteousness, the way of truth, and they turned from it.
Jesus warns in Luke 9:62
62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
These false teachers are doing exactly this. Knowing the Gospel is not enough. We must also do the Gospel.
“Holy commandment” is another way of speaking of the instructions for how to live a Christian life that flows from the Gospel.
Hebrews–Revelation Comment
Peter’s larger theological point is that God’s judgment on people such as these will be more severe than the judgment on those who never made any profession of faith in Christ. That does not mean that ignorance will excuse anyone’s sin. But those who claim to believe the gospel but then return to a habitual pattern of unrepentant sin in their rejection of Jesus will be far worse off on judgment day.
Finally, Peter ends with a couple of proverbs that serve to illustrate his point:
22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
Just like we saw before, Peter likens these false teachers to animals with base insticts.
Pigs were considered dirty animals, even to pagans.
If you have ever been around a pig pen, your nose will not forget that encounter easily.
Even if you wash a pig, when you return them to the pen, they head straight to the mud and muck.
And dogs. I hate when our dog vomits, then starts licking it up. *yech*
These false teachers, buy returning to their sinful lifestyle, their “pre-conversion” state, are just like dogs licking their vomit or hogs wallowing in the mud after being washed.
One final note:
Hebrews–Revelation Comment
Peter may also be echoing the teaching of Jesus, who said, “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you” (Matt. 7:6). It was common for Jews to regard Gentiles as dogs and pigs; Peter takes these terms and applies them to the false teachers, on the basis not of ethnicity but of how they live.
Let’s pray.
