Bold and willful, they do not tremble as they blaspheme the glorious ones, 11
whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a blasphemous judgment against them before the Lord. 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, 13
suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. 14
They have eyes full of adultery,[g] insatiable
for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! 15
Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, 16
but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. 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.”
Recently in our Sunday evening services, we made our way through Jeremiah…it took some time, Jeremiah is a big book! One of our parishioners sheepishly told me about
2/3 of the way through the study, “Are we almost done with Jeremiah? He is wearing me out.” I understood completely. Jeremiah is heavy. There is a lot about God’s anger against the sin of His people. Many chapters are about judgment, and as is our custom,
we went through the book chapter by chapter, trying to say what God says, as often as God says it. While it is true that the judgment of God takes up a lot of ink, I must add that the grace and mercy of God shines through beautifully!
Peter continues to speak of the judgment of those who are rebellious and seek their own gain as false teachers, corrupting the truth and the glories of the Gospel.
The verses above are stinging and Peter is not holding back! So, before we move to chapter three there are a couple of aspects of Peter’s condemnation that seem important to point out.
First, you noticed the word ‘blasphemy’ appears three times in the first three verses. One of the things that is interesting about this word is how it has fallen out
of use in our day. In the Bible blasphemy, the attributing to God something that is unworthy of Him or not attributing something to Him that is His, is a serious offense. To deny that God is who He says He is and to fail to revere Him, or to attribute to Him
something offensive is blasphemy. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day accused Him of blasphemy in John 10 for claiming to be the Son of God. I commend the Pharisees for at least having a category called ‘blasphemy’ and for taking it seriously, as wrong as they were.
Today, people blaspheme God and His Christ all the time, even in the church, and no one bats an eye! God is minimized, treated flippantly, referred to with dumbed down terminology, called into question and blamed for things as though He owes us an explanation
as to His actions.
Peter says that a characteristic of the false teachers in his day is that they belittle God, being bold and confident, (proud) and they do not even tremble when they
do so! (11) They do not even know what they are talking about, yet they strut and speak ignorantly about the Lord, exalting themselves, even over the angels. (12) Their behavior (13ff) is filled with sin, pride, selfish-ambition and wickedness of all kinds
and yet they think to teach others about the Lord!
Verse 19 says that they promise freedom, but they themselves are enslaved by sin. This is another characteristic of false teachers. They preach freedom but in following
them and their ways it soon becomes clear, there is no freedom at all, only further bondage. Jesus says, He came to set us free and whoever the Son sets free is free indeed! The only way to freedom is to yoke yourself to Christ, fully, without reservation
and without hesitation! Anything that takes us away from Christ at the center and as the whole of our lives, is false!
Verses 20-22 may seem a bit confusing at first, but Peter’s point is reminiscent of a parable that Jesus told: “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person,
it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ 25
And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. 26
Then it goes and brings 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.” (7:24-26)
Someone who ‘cleans the house’ but doesn’t fill it with the truth of Jesus, but with pride, (what Peter is saying), or with self-righteousness, (the point Jesus is
making), will find themselves in worse shape than they were at first. Religious people who think they know but are self-righteous are unbearable, (Peter’s point) as are those who are ‘morally all cleaned-up”, but who have not embraced Christ as truth. (Jesus’
point)
Peter’s stark and “pull no punches’ approach is to drive home the point that the false teachers are not clowns, easy for any fool to see and reject. They are much
more dangerous than that. The doctrine of divine judgment is fundamental to our entire understanding of life and salvation. Or as a wise man argued against those whose sensibilities were offended by hell in the middle of the nineteenth century:
“Hell is the turning point between Christianity and pantheism [which, by the way, is a good term to describe the spirituality of the modern Western world], it is
the critical doctrine, you can’t get rid of it, it is the very characteristic of Christianity. We must therefore look matters in the face. Is it more probable that eternal punishment should be true, or that there should be no God?”
Whether we like it or not, the existence of judgment is essential to the vindication of everything we and every other human being hold dear! But take the point: the
justice we crave and will someday experience is simply the final and perfect form of the justice we see temporarily and imperfectly carried out a thousand times a day. It was both a denial of the obvious as well as a lethal falsehood for those troublers of
the church to teach otherwise.
Prayer: Father, you are the Judge of all things. I thank you that your judgments are just and true. I am humbled that you have loved me with an everlasting love
and demonstrated that by the sending of your Son to take upon Himself that which was due me as a sinner. I am overwhelmed by the love of my Elder Brother who would willingly embrace the joy that was set before Him, and suffer and sacrifice so much for me.
Father, help me this day, to walk worthy of that love and to bask in the joy of my salvation, through Jesus Christ my Lord, Amen.
Hymn: All You That Fear, Jehovah’s Name
