Liberty's Lure - 2 Peter 2:18-22 (9)
Introduction:
Fishing Illustration
Background:
Proposition: We must understand the lure of liberty
Interrogative: What is the lure of liberty?
I. The Method of Liberty’s Lure - (2 Peter 2:18-22)
A. The Tactics
ὑπέρογκος -ου, ἡ; (hyperonkos), ADJ. haughty; pompous; bombastic. LTW ὑπέρογκος (Pride).
Adjective Usage
1. conceited† — having an exaggerated and overinflated sense of self-importance.
18 The theme of promising much and delivering little is continued as the diatribe moves on. Using a term for speaking or proclaiming something that can also be used for the “speech” of animals,57 our author notes that these teachers speak “inflated things of emptiness” (“empty, boastful words,” NIV). The term for “inflated things” (“boastful words,” NIV) itself is taken from Jude 16, its only other appearance in the NT. The idea is that the teachers make great promises (2 Peter will later say that they promise freedom) to others and boast about themselves, but these puffed-up words are simply emptiness or futility. In this case the word order is significant, for first one has the great promises and boasts and then one discovers that they are empty, futile, or, as we would say, hot air.
However, even though they pour out hot air, they are not harmless. Indeed, if they were harmless, our author would surely not have bothered with them. What disturbs him is that they “seduce”/“entice” (we have already seen this word in 2 Pet 2:14) others to licentiousness based on the desires of the “flesh,” that is, the physical drives. (The NIV translation “sinful human nature” imports Pauline theology into this text.) Anyone coming from a Jewish background recognized the various physical drives, and especially the sexual one, as neutral and necessary, but such a person would also recognize that when these drives become the motivating force in a person’s life, they are destructive. Thus we saw in 2 Pet 1:4 that corruption has come into the world through desire (or through our drives) in that proper boundaries were not put on them. These teachers entice people because they do not put boundaries on the physical drives (i.e., they are licentious with respect to them) and thus encourage others to do whatever “feels good” (presumably, but not necessarily, as long as it feels good to anyone else involved as well). Naturally, this is not unlike Western society today, both within and outside the church (within the church some out-of-control drives are criticized, but others are not, so gathering wealth or overeating is more or less acceptable, while at least certain transgressions of sexual boundaries are not).
This enticement is particularly effective on newer believers, those who “are just escaping from those who live in error.” The idea of escaping from the corruption that is in the world because of the various (uncontrolled) human drives is the description of redemption in 2 Pet 1:3. “Error” is, of course, the condition of nonbelievers, the pagans around them (so Wisd 12:24; Acts 14:15–17 [here described as ignorance rather than error]; 17:22–31 [also uses ignorance rather than error]; Rom 1:27; Titus 3:3 [using the verb rather than the noun]; 2 Clem. 1:7; Barn. 4:1; 14:5). The image behind “error” is that they have “wandered” from the right place or right way. They are out of place, which means that they are out of harmony with God. In particular they have wandered morally. These new believers “are just escaping” (which can mean either that they are newly escaped [the more probable meaning] or that they have scarcely escaped in the sense that they are not yet totally free) from these “ways of the world.” They have just learned that what is normal in the world (in our age this would include the normal patterns of consumption in the world, as well as sexual mores) is an error, a wandering from God’s way. Through God’s grace they are newly escaped. But they are not yet stable (2 Pet 1:12). Now these teachers come along with their inflated promises that their old way of life was not really wrong in God’s eyes, that there will be no final judgment for them, and by these means they entice these less stable believers back into the lifestyle in which they were once entrapped. This description of the false teachers hooks back to the reference to Balaam, but more importantly it shows the pastoral heart of 2 Peter. His concern with the teachers is not that he is angry at their behavior per se (they will suffer for it, so it should be more a cause for sadness than anger), but that he is upset at the damage that they can do to others. Naturally this is not unknown in the church today, where the emphasis on grace is often so interpreted as to teach, “Free from the law, O happy condition; now I can go and live like perdition.” Normally it is not put in those words, but rather what is implied is that if you have “asked Jesus into your heart” (in itself not a biblical phrase) it no longer matters how you live, although lifestyle may affect the reward that you get in heaven. This is a teaching with which our author would have had no patience, just as he would have had little patience with those Christian leaders who through their indulgent lifestyle indicate that living according to the values of the culture around us is fine.
2:18 The main clause in v. 18 is obscured by the NIV, but in the original text it is, “They entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.” The false teachers were attempting to seduce recent believers so that the latter renounced their devotion to the gospel. The “for” (gar) gives another reason the teachers would be consigned to the gloom of darkness (v. 17b), namely, because they maximized their evil by including others in their evil ways. The teachers were waterless springs and a hazy mist because they did not lead people to truth but into error. Instead of providing people with the water of life, they gave them “broken cisterns that cannot hold water” (Jer 2:13). Instead of giving them an inclination for the truth, they gave recent converts a delight in error. The word “entice” (deleazousin) repeats the same term used in 2:14. We noted there its association with bait for hunting and fishing. The English verb “entice” expresses aptly the meaning of the term. The false teachers were as misleading and seductive as the hunter who attempts to catch his prey.
A textual issue emerges with the word oligōs, translated “just” in the NIV. This term refers to those who have recently or “barely” (NAB, CEV; “scarcely,” NJB) escaped from error. Many manuscripts say “really” (ontōs) instead of oligōs (NKJV), and when these words are in caps, as they are in the earliest manuscripts, it would be difficult to distinguish them. We can be almost certain, however, that oligōs is original. The term “recently” is supported by both the Alexandrian and Western text types. Furthermore, the word oligōs is used rarely in Greek literature, and so scribes could mistakenly have inserted a more common term. Contextually, “recently” or “just” makes better sense. We understand that the false teachers would influence recent converts who were still unstable in their faith. Conversely, it seems quite improbable that Peter would say that they seduced those who “really escaped from those living in error.”105 Another textual variant intrudes in the verse. Should we read the present tense “those escaping” (apopheugontas) or the aorist (apophygontas)? The external evidence favors the former, and scribes would be likely to insert an aorist tense instead of the present since in two other instances Peter used the aorist form apophygontes (1:4; 2:20). The present tense combined with oligōs may emphasize the recency of the events narrated. The NIV captures nicely the nuance. They were “just escaping from those who live in error.” It is likely, then, that Peter was not saying that they “barely” escaped the clutches of the world but that they had recently escaped it. The word “error” (planē) designates unbelievers (cf. Rom 1:27; Eph 4:14; 1 Thess 2:3; 2 Thess 2:11; Jas 5:20; 2 Pet 3:17; 1 John 4:6; Jude 11). The false teachers were crafty. They targeted those who were unstable and liable to be taken in by their schemes.
The two modifying clauses are both instrumental, explaining how the teachers baited their hook to lure away recent converts. The NIV turns the first participle into an independent clause, translating it “they mouth empty, boastful words.” If it were translated as an instrumental participle, it would read “by mouthing empty, boastful words.” The NIV renders well the prepositional phrase, “by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature.” So we see that the false teachers enticed recent converts in two ways: (1) with boastful speech and (2) with invitations to indulge the flesh. Bigg expresses aptly the significance of the two phrases: “Grandiose sophistry is the hook, filthy lust is the bait, with which these men catch those whom the Lord had delivered or was delivering.”106 We will look at each of the phrases in more detail. Their speech apparently was full of confidence (hyperonka), which Peter considered to be nothing other than arrogant vanity. Those who are weak are often susceptible to the assertive confidence of others, even if such confidence flows from arrogance and sin. Ultimately their arrogant speech is futile (mataiotēs) since anything that deviates from the truth is destined to fail. The words of the teachers breathe confidence, but in the end they will rue their own prescriptions.
I have already noted that the NIV correctly identifies the prepositional phrase as instrumental, “by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature.” Its translation of the verse masks some of its difficulties. Literally Peter wrote, “They entice with desires of the flesh, sensualities.” The word “sensualities” (aselgeiais) is awkward in Greek. We would expect a genitive instead of a dative, and some scribes made this substitution, but there is no doubt that Peter used the dative. We could translate the noun as an adjective, “sensual desires,” or, more likely, we should take it as appositional, “desires of the flesh—sensual ones.” The word aselgeiais identifies what kind of fleshly desires Peter had in mind, and the term typically refers to sexual sin.107 Peter had already used the word twice in chap. 2 (vv. 2, 7), and we noted in both instances that sexual sin was in view. The word “flesh” (sarkos) is translated by the NIV as “sinful nature.” The phrase “sinful nature” is not so much wrong as misleading since the term does not focus on the ontological nature of human beings. Peter wrote in redemptive historical categories, referring to what human beings are apart from salvation. The teachers probably lured recent converts by teaching that no judgment was forthcoming (3:3–7). And if there was no judgment, it followed that morality was irrelevant. People could live however they wished since judgment is an illusion. The door was opened, then, to sexual sin at every level.
II. The Effect of Liberty’s Lure - 19-20
A. The Ironic Reality - 19
19 How do these teachers entice the less stable members of the community? “They promise them freedom.” This may be part of their inflated words (2:18), if their inflated words are not about themselves and their spiritual insight. Peter will shortly show that this promise of freedom is indeed empty. The nature of the freedom promised is undefined. Bauckham lists four possibilities that have been suggested: (1) freedom from the moral law, (2) freedom from the archons/demiurge (i.e., Gnostic freedom), (3) freedom from perishability (“depravity” in the NIV), (4) political freedom, and (5) freedom from judgment (since the final judgment does not exist).58 Since there is no convincing evidence of either Gnostic ideation or political concerns in this letter (although, of course, simply referring to Jesus as “the sovereign Lord” or “God and Savior” was a political statement in a world in which those were titles of Caesar—yet 2 Peter does not indicate that this contrast is his special concern), those two suggestions may safely be dismissed. “Freedom from perishability” is attractive in that it is the coordinate to the second part of the sentence, namely, their enslavement to perishability/corruption/depravity. However, this does not fit with the wider context of the letter, which shows no particular concern about perishability or corruption. Rather, Vögtle is surely correct when he concludes about the meaning here, “They were promised freedom from the fear of final judgment and certainly also from conventional moral constraints.”59 That is, if there is no final judgment, then those parts of conventional morality that make sense only in the light of final judgment (versus those parts that make sense when viewed with enlightened self-interest with regard to life in this age) would not be binding. The behavior of the teachers demonstrated this.
The promise of freedom, however, is specious since the teachers themselves are not free. They are “slaves of corruption.” The NIV follows a number of commentators in translating the Greek term phthora as “depravity.”60 Both meanings can be found, not only in Greek literature in general but also in Hellenistic Jewish literature.61 We have already seen this term twice in 2 Peter (1:4; 2:12). In the first passage this phthora is in the world on account of desire (i.e., desire without boundaries) and is contrasted with participation in the divine nature; thus “corruption” seems better than “depravity.” In the second passage it is the eschatological destruction that these teachers will endure just as animals experience temporal destruction (meanings close to Paul’s use in Rom 8:21; 1 Cor 15:42, 50). In our present passage the sense of corruption/destruction again probably predominates, although moral overtones may be intended as well. These teachers promise freedom from final judgment, but they themselves are under the power of corruption or destruction. That is, they will die and face that very judgment from which they proclaim freedom. In 2 Peter’s imagery, “Phthora is personified and portrayed in the common imagery of a victor in war who seizes those defeated as slaves and booty.”62 It is not that moral depravity has seized these people—they were not proclaiming freedom from that, but rather justifying it—it is rather that due to their moral depravity they have been enslaved by the corruption toward which all humanity is headed, unless God intervenes in grace (as 2 Peter has pictured in 1:4). The boasts of the teachers to offer freedom were disastrously wrong.
Having made his main point, our author closes his sentence with a common maxim:63 “a person is a slave to whatever has mastered them.”64 Perhaps the contemporary church should keep this maxim in mind as it looks at its own situation, asking which powers have mastered the church in general and many of its members in particular. Freedom in Christ is one thing to announce but another thing to experience. Often the church is so busy pointing the finger at obvious corruption outside her walls that she does not see rampant enslavement within them.
2:19 The participial clause in this verse gives the third means by which the teachers seduced those who had recently joined the church. Again the NIV uses a main clause, “they promise them freedom,” for what is a participle in Greek, “promising them freedom.” Certainly this participial clause is related to the previous one. They promised freedom, particularly by removing moral restraints—especially, it seems, in the realm of sexuality. Such teaching may have arisen through a distortion of Paul’s gospel of freedom, since we know from 3:15–16 that some were perverting his teaching.108 Freedom from any moral constraints also fits nicely with the notion that there was no future judgment.109 Their promise of freedom is highly ironic since the teachers were “slaves of depravity.” Peter, by way of contrast, was a “slave of Jesus Christ” (1:1, lit. translation). The word “depravity” is more literally rendered “corruption,” and some commentators maintain that the word should not be restricted to moral corruption since it also includes the notion of destruction, as we saw with the term in 2:12.110 Moral depravity and eschatological destruction, of course, are logically related. And yet it seems doubtful to me that the latter idea is included here. The collocation of the word “slaves” (douloi) with “corruption” suggests that Peter indicted the teachers for their moral corruption.111 Seeing a reference to destruction introduces more complexity in the phrase than is warranted. The teachers were hardly free when they could not liberate themselves from sin. Those who cannot look at a woman without contemplating adultery and have hearts exercised and trained in greed are truly slaves (2:14). The freedom they promised others was an illusion.
The verse closes with an explanation of why they were slaves: “For a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.” Some commentators think the proverbial saying should be translated, “For a man becomes the slave of him who overpowers him.”112 Even though the proverb originally derives from the slave trade, its proverbial nature suggests that the neuter “whatever” is fitting.113 Peter’s meaning is clear. If people cannot overcome certain habits and sins, they are slaves to such things. How could the teachers proclaim a message of freedom when they were unable to extricate themselves from sin? Their lifestyle contradicted their message.
B. The Description: - 20
1. For after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus
2. They are entangled in them and overcome
C. The Assessment: The latter is worse than the beginning- 20b
20 2 Peter needs to make one final terrible point about the situation of these teachers, which is that it would have been better for them never to have heard and committed themselves to the good news. “If they have escaped” is a bit misleading as a translation, since “escaped” and “entangled” are participles. We would be following the grammatical structure better if we translated the sentence, “If, having escaped … and again being entangled, they are overcome, they are worse off.…” Nor is this previous escape and later entanglement a hypothetical condition, since in Greek it is what is called a “real condition” (using the indicative rather than the subjunctive). The point our author is making is, first, that they had been true followers of Jesus Christ, that is, they had escaped the corruption of the world. Look at the following comparison with 1:3–4:
2 Pet 1:3–4 (NRSV)
2 Pet 2:20 (NRSV)
His divine power has given us everything needed for life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Thus he has given us, through these things, his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust, and may become participants of the divine nature.
For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
In 2 Pet 1:3–4 we have a description of the situation of one who is committed to “our God and Savior Jesus Christ.” Beforehand the person was captive to “the corruption” that is in the world because of desire. Then, through the knowledge of Jesus Christ, that person has been enabled to escape from this corruption and becomes a participant in the divine nature. We discussed all of these concepts in our commentary on that earlier passage. Now we encounter these same elements again, although in condensed form. The verb for “escape” is the same, the reference to “the world” is the same, the description of the means of escape is nearly identical (the Greek preposition for “through” differs in that 2:20 is identical to 1:2, not 1:3, but the meaning does not differ substantially), and only the reference to “corruption”/“defilement” differs. Whereas in 1:5 the focus is on corruption, not just in the moral sense but in the sense that sin and evil bring about death and its consequential corruption, here in 2:20 a term for cultic impurity is used (although it can have a moral and even sexual sense).65 Used only here in the NT, this term for cultic impurity is rare in the Greek OT, but more common in both Philo and Josephus. Perhaps its use here was suggested by the use of a related term in 2:10 to describe the sexual sin of the teachers 2 Peter opposes.66 The point is that the choice of the new term here not only connects the teachers back to the defilement in the world but also lays the emphasis on the behavior of the world as separating it from God (i.e., cultic defilement), whereas the term in 1:2 lays the emphasis on the destructive nature of such behavior. In both passages freedom has been experienced through the knowledge of “our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (discussed in the comment on 1:11). These two passages (1:3–5 and 2:20) together set the stage for the proverbs of 2:22.
Now these teachers67 have again become entangled in the web of defilement. The term for entanglement itself occurs elsewhere in the NT only in the analogy of a soldier in 2 Tim 2:4. The term for being overcome just appeared in the previous verse (and appears only in these two verses in the NT), although the concept of being overpowered or mastered by sin is not that unusual in the NT (e.g., Rom 6:12–19; Titus 3:3). The picture that springs to mind is a graphic one, that of a person venturing back to the area of a giant spider’s web that he or she has escaped (perhaps believing that they can handle the situation now) only to get entangled and be mastered by the huge spider.68
Our author now reaches the conclusion of his “if … then” construction: such people “are worse off than they were in the beginning.” This is virtually a verbatim quotation of the words of Jesus in Matt 12:45/Luke 11:26 (changing only the singular reference of Jesus to a plural pronoun to fit the context here). In Matthew and Luke it was the return of a demon with seven worse ones that made the situation worse; here people are entangled in the same situation in which they were before they responded to the good news. Apparently what is worse about this situation is that (1) they have willingly entered into it (since they were once rescued from the power of evil), (2) it entails a rejection of the authority of Jesus in their lives, and (3) it is more hopeless than their pre-Christian state (and certainly so if our author is thinking along the same lines as Hebrews 6; cf. Heb 10:26). In the eyes of the NT and the postapostolic church apostasy, including moral apostasy, is very serious indeed.
2:20 The first question we need to pose for vv. 20–22 is whether Peter referred to the false teachers or the recent converts they were enticing. Reasons favoring a reference to recent converts who had been seduced are as follows.114 (1) The “for” (gar) introducing v. 20 (omitted by the NIV) refers back to v. 18, explaining the consequences of being snared by the opponents. (2) The repetition of the same word, “escaping” (apopheugontas) and “escaped” (apophygontes) in vv. 18, 20, indicates that recent converts were the subject. In v. 18 they escaped from those entrapped in error, while in v. 20 they escaped from “the pollutions of the world.” (3) Kelly argues that vv. 20–21 are a warning to those about to succumb, while Peter held out no hope at all for the false teachers, concluding that they would never return to the faith.115 Others are convinced that the false teachers are in view.116 (1) The chapter as a whole is directed against the opponents, and hence these verses address them as well (2) The word “mastered” is repeated in vv. 19 and 20. In v. 19 it is clearly the false teachers who were “mastered” (hēttētai) by evil, and the same word (“overcome,” NIV [hēttōntai]) in v. 20 is, therefore, most naturally applied to them as well. (3) The teachers had definitely committed apostasy, which these verses portray, but Peter hoped those recently seduced would still be rescued.117
A decision is difficult precisely because the text is vague. Perhaps it is mistaken to opt for either view because what Peter said applies to both the false teachers and all those who were seduced by them and who renounced the Christian faith.118 Kelly is incorrect when he says that the text is a warning. Peter described what “has happened” (NRSV, symbebēken, v. 22) to some who had abandoned the church. In one sense, however, we should construe the text as a warning. The fate of those who had apostatized stands as a warning to those wavering under the influence of the teachers. Peter wanted his readers to see that those who commit apostasy are very unlikely to return to the truth. The decision is of great consequence, and those who are wavering must see that heaven and hell are at stake. Nevertheless, the verses before us refer to those who had become entangled in the ways of the world after having escaped from its pollutions, of those who had turned away from the holy commandment, of those who had returned to their old ways, like dogs and pigs return to vomit and dirt. At the conclusion of this section, some comments will be made about whether these verses teach that believers can lose their salvation.
Verse 20 refers to conversion, noting those who had “escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” We have already seen in v. 18 that those who had just escaped “from those who live in error” speaks of those who had recently turned away from the error of unbelief. Similarly, in 2 Pet 1:4 the same term is used of conversion, of those who “escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust.” In v. 20 conversion is from “the corruption of the world” (translated better “defilements of the world,” NRSV). This is parallel to escaping the error of unbelief in v. 18 and the lust of the world in 1:4. Conversion also is signaled when the text speaks of “knowledge” (epignōsis). This term was one of Peter’s favorites, for grace and peace come through knowing God and Jesus Christ (1:2). Those who know God have everything they need for a godly life (1:3; cf. 1:8). Here Peter focused on knowledge of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We see again two Greek nouns that are joined by one article (tou), indicating that Jesus is both Lord and Savior and that those entering into the church confess him as such.
Although these people had escaped the pollutions of the world, they had returned again to its snares. They had been “overcome” (hēttōntai) by its power and “entangled” again by its delights. The gospel they initially confessed they had now repudiated. The Lord and Savior they had embraced they now rejected. The world they had escaped recaptured them afresh. Peter concluded from this that their last state was worse than their former one. The former state, of course, refers to their lives before conversion, when they were still enthralled by the desires of the world. The last state designates their recent rejection of the Christian faith. Why was the last state worse than the first? It was worse because those who had experienced the Christian faith and then rejected it were unlikely to return to it again. They would not grant a fresh hearing to the gospel, concluding that they had already been through “that phase.” Peter employed a number of proverbs in this section, and here he seemed to draw on a proverb uttered by Jesus.119 Jesus told a parable of an evil spirit evicted from a man that wanders looking for a dwelling place. Finding none it returns to its original habitation, but seven other spirits join it in reclaiming the lost possession (Matt 12:43–45). He concludes, “The last state of that person is worse than the first” (Matt 12:45, NRSV). This aphorism applies nicely to those who had acknowledged Jesus as their Lord and Savior and now rejected him.
Application:
III. The Demise of Liberty’s Lure
A. The Severity: - 21
21 In case we readers have missed his point, Peter follows up his main point with a so-called Tobspruch, one of those many proverbial statements in Hebrew and Jewish literature (including the literature of the early Jesus movement) in a “better … than” form.69 In our verse this “better … than” is expressed in a past tense because it does not envision a possible situation, but rather one that has already occurred and cannot be changed.
“It would have been better,” says our author, for them never “to have known the way of righteousness.” We have already seen the concept of “knowing” or, better, “coming to know” for conversion/Christian initiation in 2 Pet 1:2, 3 as well as in 2:20. Here it is expressed in Greek by a perfect infinitive, indicating coming to know at a point in the past with the result that one knows, which is precisely how one experiences conversion, that is, coming to know Jesus with the result that one goes on through life knowing him. But since Jesus was already used as the object of knowing in the previous verse, here the roughly synonymous “the way of righteousness” (i.e., the way of Jesus) is used. The messianic form of Judaism that we know as Christianity was already known as “the way” early in its history (e.g., Acts 9:2; 19:9), but Judaism had much earlier referred to itself or its true form as “the way of righteousness” (not just in Proverbs, but also in Jub. 23:26 [“in those days, children will … return to the way of righteousness”], 1 Enoch 82:4 [“blessed are all those who walk in the way of righteousness”], the Dead Sea Scrolls, and similar literature), and Jesus had used the phrase in Matt 21:32 (“John came to you to show you the way of righteousness”). It will later show up in the apostolic fathers and other early church literature (e.g., Barn. 5:4, “a man shall justly perish who, having the knowledge of the way of righteousness, holds to the way of darkness”). It fits here well as an alternative to having come to know Jesus since (1) commitment to Jesus as Lord meant following his way of life and thus produced an ethical lifestyle, and (2) the failure of the teachers condemned in this work was primarily ethical rather than doctrinal.
Although these teachers had come to know the way of righteousness and had experienced Jesus’ power freeing them from the corruption found in the culture around them, they have “turn[ed] their backs on the sacred commandment that was passed on to them.” That is, when they had come to Christ they had received a “holy commandment” (so in 1 Tim 6:14 there is a solemn charge to Timothy to “keep this command [lit. the commandment] without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ”). This would have consisted of the teaching of Jesus and the teaching about Jesus. “Jesus is Lord, and this is how one follows him as Lord.” This information was therefore “passed on” to them, a term used for the passing on of tradition. Receiving this “commandment” was how one was initiated into the way of Jesus or the way of righteousness: one committed oneself to Jesus as Lord, and one learned what their new Lord called them to. Jesus’ call then as now was, “Follow me.” It was not that these teachers were ignorant of that teaching—they had come to know it. But knowing perfectly well how Jesus as their Lord called them to live, they had turned from it. As we saw in the comment on the previous verse, in concert with Hebrews our author says that it would have been better for them never to have accepted the good news. Perhaps that evaluation is not as serious as Jesus’ saying that it would have been better for Judas never to have been born (Mark 14:21), but it does show how seriously the early community of Jesus took ethical apostasy. There is no hint of, “Well, at least they accepted Jesus as their Savior when Peter preached here ten years ago,” but instead the statement that it would have been better if they had not done so. Unfortunately, they had been properly initiated into the way of life of the Jesus movement and had turned away from it.
B. The Scriptural References: It has happened to them according to the proverb - 22
1. A dog returns to his own vomit
2. A sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.
from it.
22 The chapter closes with two proverbs (Peter appears to present them as one proverb since they make the same point of one returning to the unclean, but in fact they come from two different sources), both about unclean animals. We need to underline this fact of “impurity” when we read these proverbs. While pigs are intelligent and may be thought of as cute in our world where Babe is a popular movie, in the ancient world they were not thought of as cute or intelligent and in the Jewish part of that world they were ritually impure (which meant that Jews did not keep pigs at all). And while dogs may be “man’s [sic] best friend” in our culture, in all ancient Eastern cultures they were despised, even if they were sometimes used. Notice how the two unclean animals are referred to negatively in the saying of Jesus in Matt 7:6 (in this he was typical of his culture). Thus the first proverb is drawn from Prov 26:11 (“As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly”) and expresses an often observed behavior of dogs, that is, their returning to, sniffing, and sometimes eating what they have vomited. The second proverb comes from pagan sources (since, as noted, the Jews did not keep pigs). The sow is washed only to return to the mud.70 While often attributed to sayings about pigs washing in mud found in Heraclitus and other Greek literature (given that pigs were common and their behavior easily observed, the commonness of such sayings is not surprising), more likely it comes from a source like Ahikar 8:18: “My son, thou hast been to me like the swine that had been to the baths, and when it saw a muddy ditch, went down and washed in it, and cried to its companions: come and wash” (Syriac version).71 It is not clear whether 2 Peter is familiar with Ahikar or whether he had at some time (perhaps as a youth) come in contact with a collection of proverbs that included both of these (the version of Prov 26:11 does not follow the LXX, so either it is being recited from memory, or it has been mediated through another source). Whatever the situation in the history of these proverbs, their meaning in this context is clear: both indicate a return to the unclean, and both call the one who so returns an unclean being (animal). This sums up the behavior of the teachers whom our author opposes. Despite having once turned to Christ and been freed from their past, they, like unclean and despised animals, have turned back to and embraced their former uncleanness.
2:22 Verse 22 is a closing proverb reflecting on those who had apostatized. The NIV speaks of “proverbs” in the plural, but the Greek text actually uses the singular, suggesting that both proverbs are to be interpreted together as making one point. We need to recall in reading this that both dogs (Exod 22:31; 1 Kgs 14:11; 16:4; Matt 7:6; 15:26, 31; Luke 16:21; Phil 3:2; Rev 22:15) and pigs (Lev 11:7; Deut 14:8) were unclean animals for the Jews. Dogs often roamed in packs, scavenged from garbage, and were definitely not considered lovely pets. The proverb regarding dogs hails from Prov 26:11, “As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.” The point of the proverb is easy to see. Dogs return to what is disgusting and unclean, sniffing even at their own vomit. Similarly, those who have renounced the Christian faith have returned to what is disgusting, finding it more attractive than the “way of righteousness” and “the sacred command.” The origin of the second proverb is unknown. A common view is that it stems from Heraclitus,122 but others suggest that it derives from The Story of Ahikar.123 In the Syriac the latter reads, “You were to me, my son, like a swine which had had a bath, and when it saw a slimy pit, went down and bathed in it.”124 We must admit that we do not know the origin of the proverb used in 2 Peter. Some, seeing a connection to Heraclitus and noting that the participle “returns” (epistrepsas) is not repeated in the second line (the NIV supplies the verb “goes back”), think the point of the proverb is that pigs delight to wash in the mud.125 But the primary issue for interpreting the saying is context, and in proverbs the second verb is often omitted but clearly implied. That is the case in this instance. Hence, most commentators rightly understand the second line to be parallel with the first. Pigs, after washing themselves clean, spy the mud and wallow in it. Similarly, those who confess faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and then deny him are like pigs who are washed clean and then return to their original filth. We probably should not overread the proverb and see an allusion to baptism in the original washing, since it refers to the washing of a pig.126
What do these verses say about apostasy? Can a genuine believer forsake his or her salvation? We can certainly see why most commentators draw such a conclusion after reading these verses in 2 Peter, for they are not merely a warning about apostasy but reflect on those who have abandoned the church, who were previously members of it.127 They remind us that walking the aisle, making a profession of faith, making a decision for Christ, or Christian baptism do not ensure a future destiny in heaven. Perseverance is the mark of genuineness, as Peter taught throughout the letter. Only those who continue to live a life of godliness will receive the reward of eternal life (1:5–11). Those who teach that genuine Christians can and do apostatize are taking these verses seriously, and sometimes believers who deny such a possibility brush them off without serious reflection.128
Nevertheless, I think it is a mistake to conclude that genuine believers can apostatize. The God who calls believers will see to it that they will reach their destination, participation in the divine nature (see the comment on 2 Pet 1:3).129 Furthermore, we saw in 1 Pet 1:5, from the same author (see the commentary there), that God guards believers so that they will certainly, not probably, obtain eschatological salvation. Peter did not contradict himself, teaching in one place that believers can fall away and in another that they cannot. Some might try to explain the tension by saying that Peter was not actually saying that these people were headed for eternal destruction, and he spoke only of the loss of rewards. This view flies in the face of the entire argument in chap. 2, and really the whole letter. We have seen in many individual verses that eschatological judgment is promised to those who fall away. For example, three times in 2:1–3 Peter used the word “destruction” (apōleia), a term that regularly denotes eschatological condemnation in the New Testament. The judgment of the flood and Sodom and Gomorrah are types of eternal judgment, not merely the loss of rewards, while Noah and Lot are a type of those who were preserved under adversity (2:5–9). The term “perish” in 2:12 also signifies the last judgment and eschatological corruption. In the same way the errorists are compared to Balaam, who wandered from the truth, a man who did not merely lose rewards but faced eternal judgment (2:15–16). Finally, it does not make much sense to say the last state is worse than the first (2:20) and it is better not to have known God’s righteous way if the people described will ultimately be saved. If they will experience salvation, then the last stage is better than the first since previously they were bound for hell, and now they are destined for heaven. Furthermore, it is better to know the righteous way if one will experience eschatological life, even though one will lose one’s rewards. These strong statements signify that Peter did not merely criticize the loss of rewards. Heaven and hell are at stake in this instance.
The best solution is to say that the language used in 2 Peter is phenomenological. In other words, Peter used the language of “Christians” to describe those who fell away because they gave every appearance of being Christians. They confessed Christ as Lord and Savior, were baptized, and joined the church. But the false teachers and some of those they seduced, though still present physically in the church, were no longer considered to be genuine believers by Peter. Nonetheless, he used “Christian” language to describe them, precisely because of their participation in the church, because they gave some evidence initially of genuine faith. Those who had apostatized revealed that they were never truly part of the people of God, for remaining true to the faith is one sign that one truly belongs to God. The words of 1 John apply well to what has happened in 2 Peter: “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us” (1 John 2:19). Peter pointed in the same direction in the illustration of the dog and pig. In the final analysis, those who fell away never really changed their nature.130 They remained dogs and pigs inside. They may have washed up on the outside and appeared to be different, but fundamentally they were dogs and pigs. In other words, they were always unclean; they only seemed to have changed. Perseverance, therefore, is the test of authenticity. Scholars will continue to disagree on whether believers can apostatize, but it is hoped that all will agree that believers must persevere to the end to be saved.131 In this respect there is a remarkable agreement between Arminians and Calvinists.
