2 Peter 2:10 - Meaning and Application

The apostle wants to warn us about deceivers and protect us from them. So he turns again to these false teachers and explains their character and conduct. Their behavior fully justifies the righteous Judge of the world in reserving them for a very severe judgment, much as Cain was marked out for special vengeance.

Why does God deal this way with false teachers? Peter shows the reason in what follows. First, they walk after the flesh. They follow the plans and desires of their own hearts. They let their fleshly minds lead them, and they refuse to make their reason bow to God’s revelation or bring every thought under Christ’s rule. In life, they go directly against God’s holy commands and give themselves over to corrupt desires. Bad beliefs are often joined to bad actions, and people who spread error usually grow worse in evil. They do not settle for the level of sin they have already reached. They keep going in the same sinful path and become more ungodly, more impure, and more unclean. They also show contempt for those whom God has placed in authority and expects them to honor. So they despise God’s ordering of things, and that is no surprise, because they are bold, stubborn, and rebellious. They do not keep contempt hidden in their hearts, but speak slander and insults against those over them.

Peter strengthens this warning by showing the very different behavior of better creatures, the angels. First, the angels are greater in power and strength, even greater than human rulers and officials, and far greater than these false teachers who speak evil of magistrates and governors. The good angels far surpass us in strength, understanding, and holiness. Second, good angels are accusers of sinful creatures, whether of their own kind or of ours, or both. Those who stand in God’s presence and see his face cannot help having zeal for his honor and calling out those who dishonor him.

Third, the angels bring their accusations before the Lord. They do not spread people’s faults or repeat crimes in a slanderous way among other creatures. They bring the matter before the Lord, who is the Judge and the one who will avenge every sin and wrong. Fourth, good angels never mix harsh insults or filthy reproach with the charges they bring against the worst offenders. If we pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we should copy the angels here. When we complain about wicked people, let us bring the matter to God, and do it without anger or insult, but with pity and calmness. That would show that we belong to the God who is gentle and merciful.

Peter then shows how unlike seducing teachers are to the most excellent creatures, and how much they are like the lowest ones. They are like horses and mules, animals without understanding. They are like brute beasts, made to be caught and destroyed. People under sin’s power do not really use reason or follow God’s revelation. They live by sight and not by faith, and they judge things by what their senses like. Whatever seems pleasant to them, they approve. Animals follow instinct, and sinful people follow the pull of their carnal mind, that is, their fleshly desires. They refuse to use the understanding and reason God gave them, so they remain ignorant of what they could and should know. From this, Peter draws two lessons: ignorance leads to evil speech, and destruction will be its result.

These people will be destroyed in their own corruption. Their sins do not only expose them to God’s wrath in the next world, but often bring misery and ruin in this one too. Surely such shameless offenders, who boast in their disgrace and find extra pleasure in sin when it is made public, deserve the full plagues of this life and the pains of the next. Whatever happens to them is the right reward for their unrighteousness. People who make a sport of wrongdoing fool themselves and bring shame on everyone connected with them, because one sin prepares them for another. Their wild feasting and lack of restraint in eating and drinking lead them into all kinds of lewdness. Their eyes are full of adultery, and their shameless looks show their dirty desires and are meant to stir the same desires in others. They never stop. Their hearts keep craving sin, and their eyes keep looking for what can feed those unclean desires. Those who are bold and constant in sin are often also skilled at deceiving others and drawing them into the same reckless living.

Here Peter shows who are in the greatest danger of being led into error and ungodliness, namely the unstable. People whose hearts are not firmly established by grace can easily be turned into sin’s path, or else such sensual and corrupt people would not succeed with them. These false teachers are not only wild and immoral, but greedy too, and greed is what fills their minds. They long for wealth, and the desire of their souls is for the riches of this world. A big part of their work is planning how to get wealth. Their minds are set on this, and then they carry out their plans. If people give themselves over to every kind of lust, we should not be surprised that the apostle calls them cursed children. They are under the curse God has spoken against such ungodly and unrighteous people, and they also bring a curse on all who listen to them and stay with them.

Peter proves that they are cursed children, these greedy people whom the Lord hates, by showing two things. First, they have left the right way. Self-seekers cannot stay on the right path, because the right path is a self-denying one. Second, they have gone into the wrong way. They have wandered from the path of life and entered the road that leads to death and grips hold of hell. Peter shows this by saying they have followed the way of Balaam, son of Bosor, that is, Balaam, the prophet who was tempted by money. This is a path of unrighteousness, into which men are led by the wages of unrighteousness. It is also the path of people who expect and promise themselves outward, temporary good things, though they are often disappointed.

Inordinate love for the good things of this world pulls people off the path that leads to the far better things of the life to come. Balaam’s love of wealth and honor turned him away from his duty, even though he knew the Lord was displeased with his course. People who, from the same selfish motive, do the same things as well-known sinners are, in God’s judgment, following those evil people. So they must expect to share the same end, and to receive their portion with them in the next world.

Serious and stubborn sinners sometimes do receive rebukes for their sin. God may stop them in their tracks and open their conscience, or he may shake them through some startling event. Still, even a remarkable rebuke may only cool a person’s boldness for a while. It will not, by itself, make someone leave the path of sin and enter the path of holiness. If any rebuke could have turned a sinner back, Balaam’s should have done it. God worked a striking miracle: he gave speech to a dumb donkey, a creature no one would expect to rebuke a man, and made it speak with a human voice to its owner and master, Balaam. Balaam is called a prophet here, because the Lord had sometimes appeared and spoken to him (Numbers 22:23, 24), but in truth he was among the prophets of the Lord as Judas was among the apostles of Jesus Christ. The donkey exposed the madness of Balaam’s behavior and tried to stop him from going on in his evil way, yet all of it was in vain. Those who will not listen to ordinary rebukes will be little moved even by miracles.

Balaam was kept from actually cursing the people, but he still had such a strong desire for the promised honor and riches that he pushed as far as he could. He did all he could to break through the restraint God had placed on him.

The apostle then goes on to describe false teachers further, beginning in (2 Peter 2:17). He says they are like wells or springs without water. Ministers should be like wells where people can find instruction, direction, and comfort. False teachers have nothing like that to give. The word of truth is the water of life, which refreshes the soul, but deceivers spread error instead. So they are described as empty, because there is no truth in them. It is hopeless to expect to be fed and filled with knowledge from people who are themselves empty and ignorant.

He also describes them as clouds carried along by a storm. When we see a cloud, we expect rain that will refresh the earth. But these are clouds that give no rain. They are driven by wind, not by the Spirit, but by the stormy wind of their own ambition and greed. They support and spread the opinions that will win them the most praise and advantage. And just as clouds block the sun and darken the sky, so these teachers darken counsel with words without knowledge and without truth. Since they work to spread darkness in this world, it is only right that thick darkness should be their share in the next.

Outer darkness was prepared for the devil, the great deceiver, and for his angels, the tools he uses to turn people from the truth. So it is reserved for these false teachers as well, forever. Hell’s fire lasts forever, and the smoke of the pit rises forever and ever. God is just in dealing with them this way, because they lure people into their traps with great swelling words of vanity, lofty speech that sounds impressive but means little. They work on people’s corrupt desires and fleshly lusts, offering what pleases them. They also deceive people who had really kept away from those who spread harmful and destructive errors.

Notice how people gain skill and success in promoting error by practice and hard work. They become as clever as a fisherman who makes angling his daily work. Their business is to draw followers after themselves, and they know how to suit their bait to the people they want to catch. False teachers also have a special advantage because they can appeal to sensual pleasure. Christ’s ministers call people to self-denial and to put to death the lusts that others enjoy, so it is no surprise that truth often spreads more slowly, or that error spreads so widely.

People who have for a time held to the truth and stayed clear of error may still be led astray by the craft and effort of deceivers. They may even fall into those errors they had once escaped. So believers must always be on guard. Keep a holy care for your own hearts, search the Scriptures, pray for the Spirit to teach and strengthen you in the truth, walk humbly with God, and watch against anything that might move him to give you over to a mind set on sin. Do not be taken in by the fair-sounding promises of false teachers. They promise liberty to all who will listen, but it is not true Christian freedom for God’s service. It is license to sin, to follow the plans and desires of their own hearts.

To keep these men from winning followers, Peter reminds us that, despite all their talk of liberty, they are themselves the worst kind of slaves. They are servants of corruption. Their own lusts have completely overcome them, and they are really in bondage to those lusts. They make provision for the flesh, feeding its cravings, obeying its orders, and meeting its demands. Their minds and hearts are so corrupted and twisted that they have neither the power nor the will to refuse the work set before them. They are conquered and held captive by their spiritual enemies, and they yield their bodies as servants of unrighteousness. What a shame it is to be ruled by men who are themselves slaves of corruption and prisoners of their own lusts.

This should keep us from being led away by such deceivers. Peter adds another warning in (2 Peter 2:20): it is not only shameful to be seduced by people who are themselves slaves of sin and led around by the devil at his will, it is also a real harm to those who have truly escaped the ways of error, because their final state becomes worse than their first.

Here we see, first, that it is a real advantage to escape the pollutions of the world and to be kept from gross, shameful sins, even if a person is not yet fully converted or truly changed in heart. This kind of outward restraint keeps us from grieving those who are truly serious about God, and from encouraging those who are openly godless. But if we run along with others into the same wild excesses, we wound faithful believers, strengthen the hands of open rebels against God, move farther away from God ourselves, and harden our hearts against him.

Second, some people are kept for a time from the pollutions of the world by their knowledge of Christ, even though they are not spiritually renewed in the inner person. A religious upbringing has restrained many people whom God’s grace has not yet made new. If we receive the light of truth and have only an intellectual knowledge of Christ in our minds, that may help us for the present. But we must also receive the love of the truth and hide God’s word in our hearts, or it will not make us holy or save us.

Third, those who for a time have escaped the pollutions of the world are often first trapped and entangled by false teachers. These teachers begin by troubling people with arguments that sound plausible and seem convincing against the truth of the gospel. The more ignorant and unstable are then made to stumble, and they begin to question truths they had received, because they cannot answer every difficulty or objection raised by these deceivers.

Fourth, once people are entangled, they are easily defeated. So Christians should stay close to God’s word and guard themselves against those who try to confuse and mislead them. This matters all the more because, if people who once escaped are entangled again, their last state is worse than the first.

In the last two verses of the chapter, the apostle shows that a state of apostasy, a turning away after once professing the faith, is worse than a state of ignorance. It is a condemnation of the way of righteousness after having some knowledge of it and some liking for it. It is like saying that there is something wrong with the way of righteousness and something false in the word of truth.

To spread such an evil report about God’s good way, and to make such a false charge against the way of truth, must bring the heaviest judgment. The misery of such deserters from Christ and his gospel is more certain and more unbearable than that of other offenders. God is more deeply angered by those who despise the gospel in their conduct, as well as break his law, and who insult him and his grace. The devil also keeps a closer watch on those whom he has taken back after they once turned from him and claimed to follow the Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 12:45). They are kept under a stronger guard, and no wonder, since they have returned to the same errors and sins they once threw off and seemed to hate, and they are again wallowing in the filth from which they seemed to have been truly cleaned.

If Scripture speaks this way about Christianity on one side and sin on the other, then we should strongly approve of the former and hold firmly to it, because it is a way of righteousness and a holy commandment. We should also hate the latter and keep as far from it as possible, because Scripture presents it as most offensive and disgusting.