2 Peter 2

2Pe 2:1 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.

Sovereign Lord – According to the usual interpretation, ‘the sovereign Lord’ refers to Jesus Christ, and ‘bought’ refers to redemption through the work of Christ. This would suggest a general (i.e. unlimited) atonement in which the price of salvation has been paid on behalf of those who finally reject its terms, as well as the elect.

However, ‘the sovereign Lord’ here is not ‘kyrios’, the usual term for Christ as Lord, but ‘despotes’, which is almost always used in the NT of God the Father or masters of servants.

The word ‘bought’ in the NT generally refers to a completed transaction, in which the purchaser is put in complete possession of what he has paid for. It is unlikely then that the word ‘bought’ in this verse refers to the payment of the price of redemption, when the purchase is never completed because of human rejection.

This verse does not teach a general atonement, in which Christ has paid a general redemptive price for all men, including the lost. It refers, rather, to the tragedy that these false teachers are denying the sovereign God who owns them by right of creation.

Alternatively, Peter may be speaking ‘ad hominen’ here: the false prophets and teachers profess that they were the Lord’s by redemption, yet deny it by their lives and teaching.

We learn from this that false teaching is as evil as ungodly behaviour. In some respects, it is more so, because, being by its nature deceptive, it leads many astray who would not follow a bad example.

2Pe 2:2 Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.

2 Pet 2:3  In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

2Pe 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment;

Hell – The word is tartarus, a Greek name for the underworld, especially for the abode of the damned. This is the only appearance of this word in the NT. ‘In Greek mythology Tartarus was the lowest hell; it was as far beneath Hades as the heaven is high above the earth. In particular it was the place into which there had been cast the Titans who had rebelled against Zeus, the Father of gods and men.’ (DSB)

‘And if God spared not the angels, whom he placed in the highest heavens, but for their pride threw them down headlong to the nethermost hell, how much less shall he spare the proud dust and ashes of the sons of men, but shall cast them from the height of their earthly altitude to the bottom of that infernal dungeon! “Humility makes men angels; pride makes angels devils;” as that Father said…Oh let us be humbled by our repentance, that we may not be brought down to everlasting confusion: let us be cast down upon our knees, that we may not be cast down upon our faces. For God will make good his own word, one way’ “A man’s pride shall bring him low.”‘ (Joseph Hall)

Gloomy dungeons – following the best manuscripts, which have seiroi, which originally meant large earthenware jars for storing grain (the word coming into English from the Provencal as ‘silo’). The word siros then came to stand for an underground pit used for grain storage, and then for a pit in which wild animals might be trapped. The TR, following some other manuscripts, has seirai, chains; hence AV translates as ‘chains of darkness’ (cf. Jude 6).

2 Pet 2:5  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;

2 Pet 2:6  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;

2 Pet 2:7  and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men

2 Pet 2:8  (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)-

2Pe 2:9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.

2Pe 2:10 This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority. Bold and arrogant, these men are not afraid to slander celestial beings;

Celestial beings – lit. ‘glorious ones. These are not angels, at least not in the conventional sense, because they are contrasted with angels in v11. They would appear to be of the same type as those spiritual beings mentioned Eph 1:21 6:12 Col 1:16.

2 Pet 2:11  yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not bring slanderous accusations against such beings in the presence of the Lord.

2 Pet 2:12  But these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish.

2 Pet 2:13  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.

2Pe 2:14 With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed-an accursed brood!

2 Pet 2:15  They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness.

2 Pet 2:16  But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey-a beast without speech-who spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

2 Pet 2:17  These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them.

2 Pet 2:18  For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.

2 Pet 2:19  They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity-for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.

2 Pet 2:20  If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.

2 Pet 2:21  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.

2Pe 2:22 Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.”

“Dog” – See Phil 3:2n