1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
In chapter 1, Peter lays out the foundation of the Christian faith and gives us a few new ways to look at it. We learn that we can share Christ’s power and authority in this life. But the only way to do it is through turning from the old life and forging forward into the new life, leaving a sinful path behind and building on a faith through focus and effort. This, Peter says, is the way to accessing that power, for the power over sin can only come through becoming holy. The effort is important.
The world is eager to steal this truth from us. So are false teachers. If a world, that is operating in compromised sin, realizes that a call to holiness actually eradicates the sin and gives them a newfound power, the strongholds of the world would crumble. So, the world leads people in a different direction than the truth of God. Millions of people operating in compromised truth affects the world in caustic ways. And that triple effect is felt throughout the globe throughout time. It is what the follower of Christ is up against: the constant bombardment of mistruth, lies and evil propaganda. It goes so much deeper than political divides. It goes to the very heart of every single person on this earth.
Through the treacherous heart a cruel affect arrises: pride. The bible gives a lot of attention to pride, and it’s never positive (Proverbs 16:18, Proverbs 8:13, James 4:6, Proverbs 16:5). Pride is the ability to take God out of the picture and consider one’s self the subject of the painting. We get in the way of God, and it comes from a compromised truth, a world-view, and the deeper need to remove God.
And from this place come false teachers and prophets. They come not from God but the world. They’ve always been around. In the book of Exodus we meet Jambres and Jannes, two magicians in the Pharaoh’s court. They work tirelessly to knock down the miracles of the plagues presented to them by Moses and Aaron. They are an example of people working toward a world-view that does not want to be accountable to God. Going back even further we see the roots of falsehood in Genesis 11 when the people of Babel want to build a tower for their own acclaim. Removing God from a life is nothing new, perhaps a natural component of the sinful heart.
The false teacher or prophet comes from all these places. Born in defiance, he is a person who desire to steer people in a direction that ultimately gives him the acclaim rather than the creator. As Peter says in verse 1, there were false teachers in his time and there will be false teachers in our time. This is not conjecture but fact. Furthermore, the idea of them secretly introducing heresy speaks of intent. There is intention there. It is quite different from a preacher misspeaking, discovering his error and coming clean about it. There is a deep-seeding intent to mislead others. Ultimately this road leads to two paces. First, it will lead to them making bigger and bolder claims until they deny Christ himself. So there is a progression. The secret intent, or mixing of truths and creating a gray understanding, gives way to outright lies. The second place it leads to is their swift destruction. Remember this part, because Peter will hit on this idea a couple of times in this chapter, which brings forth a bigger point later.
In verse 2 Peter turns to focus from the false prophets themself to the result they bring: Many will follow their depraved conduct. When a false teacher gains an audience, it brings the followers into a mistruth that they bring into their life and into the life of others. It twists the truth into something different and wrong, it brings the followers further from the truth and deeper into the lie until they cannot see the truth any longer. The motive of the false teacher is greed. Their lies, however, do not escape God. Because they are allowed to preach their message and operate year after year does not mean that God isn’t able or willing to address them. Their destruction is calculated.
4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; 6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— 9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. 10 This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority.
If we believe the record of God’s judgment through scripture, and believe that God keeps His promises, then we must believe that God will rescue the righteous from temptations and trials and punish the unrighteous. As Peter gives a variety of examples of how God punished the angels who rebelled, how He protected Noah, condemned Sodom and Gomorrah and rescued Lot, and these are just a few examples, then we must understand that ultimate justice will be done.
It is a difficult concept to resolve in our humanness. Why doesn’t God just blight all false teachers? Why doesn’t He destroy the foundations and disallow them from operating ever?
Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to heap abuse on celestial beings; 11 yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not heap abuse on such beings when bringing judgment on them from the Lord. 12 But these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish.
The false teacher is a slave to his own pride. Boldness and arrogance is an evidence of this. If we compare it to the seven qualities Peter discussed in the first chapter (Goodness, Knowledge, Self-Control, Perseverance, Godliness, Mutual affection and Love), and even go to the Fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22 (Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Gentleness, Faithfulness and Self-Control), we see a large difference. The false teacher operates on Boldness and Arrogance, which are two qualities that are from the inner makeup of one’s own pride. The Fruits of the Spirit and Peter’s items to build on faith are evidences of the Holy Spirit working within. So the false teacher is not from God, does not have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and is not humbly building their faith and growing closer to God but growing further from God and taking other with him.
Those who walk by the spirit know who God is and those who walk by the flesh do not. Because they walk by the flesh only, they are ignorant to the spirit. They are living in a temporal state, meaning they live only for this life, and cannot live with an eternal viewpoint.
13 They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. 14 With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! 15 They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Bezer, who loved the wages of wickedness. 16 But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey—an animal without speech—who spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.
Peter makes it clear: God’s justice will come to them. Because they have heard from God and have found a way to turn away from God and preach their own truth, they have no compunctions about their behavior. They are consumed by their flesh desires and this is evident in verse 14: they never stopped sinning. They continued in their sin without battle. They made room for their sin and continued in it as they mangled the truth and carried others away. 1 John 5:1-2 says this: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.
Next, 1 John 3:5-6 teaches us this: Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. We show our love for God by obeying His commandments. We also show our love for God by not giving into our flesh. Balaam was a prophet who’s greatest sin wasn’t that he was a hired gun for anyone who needed a blessing or curse, but because he led people away from God.
17 These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. 18 For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.”
Verse 17 tells us that these people are empty of true spiritual content. They may sound like they have a sGodly view and perhaps are eloquent and persuasive, but in the end the theology is devoid of anything that is going to get one closer to God. At the same time they implement small bits of mistruth to drag one away from the real truth.
But Peter says this: Blackest darkness is reserved for them. God’s judgment is secure. God will deal with them on His terms. These teachers appeal to the flesh rather than the spirit. And as they are embroiled in sin they are preaching from a hypocritical pulpit. 1 John 1:6 says this: 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth.
20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. 22 Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.”
The “they” Peter refers to is any person who is mastered. Verse 20 sounds pretty dire because we can look at our lives and see the ebb and flow we have in the world. Sometimes we are successful in staying out of it and other times we are conquered by it. But Peter makes a distinction here: for those who have placed their faith in Christ and then are “overcome” by the world, they are worse off. This isn’t stumbling; this is a rejection of the truth. Once we know the truth we are responsible for the truth.