False Prophets and Teachers. But these [false teachers], like unreasoning animals, [mere] creatures of instinct, born to be captured and destroyed, reviling things they do not understand, will also perish in their own corruption [in their destroying they will be destroyed],
suffering wrong [destined for punishment] as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a delight to revel in the daytime [living luxuriously]. They are stains and blemishes [on mankind], reveling in their deceptions even as they feast with you.
They have eyes full of adultery, constantly looking for sin, enticing and luring away unstable souls. Having hearts trained in greed, [they are] children of a curse.
Abandoning the straight road [that is, the right way to live], they have gone astray; they have followed the way of [the false teacher] Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the reward of wickedness; [Num_22:5, Num_22:7]
but he was rebuked for his own transgression: a mute donkey spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. [Num_22:21-31] 2 Peter 2:12-16
INTRODUCTION
This Epistle was addressed to the same persons or churches as the former one, 2Pe_3:1. But years separate the two, and the aged Apostle was expecting to be called upon to seal his witness with his blood, 2Pe_1:14. His purpose in this dying charge is to caution the Christian community against the dangers which were insidiously at work among them, and were more to be feared than persecution from without. His great argument to this end is the near advent of our Lord.
The genuineness of this Epistle has been questioned; but it is contained in the list of canonical books put forth by the Council of Carthage in A.D. 397. There is so strong an identity in the use of words, between these two Epistles, and the testimony of the writer as an eye-witness of the glory of the Transfiguration is so unmistakable, that we need entertain no doubt as to the justice of its position among the accepted Scriptures. Compare 2Pe_1:16-17 with 1Pe_5:1.
OUTLINE OF THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PETER
Faith’s Conflict and Victory
FAITH ASSAULTED
Bond-Servants of Corruption, 2Pe_2:11-22
4. Against what influences must the Christian contend?
FALSE PROPHETS AND TEACHERS
But these [false teachers], like unreasoning animals, [mere] creatures of instinct, born to be captured and destroyed, reviling things they do not understand, will also perish in their own corruption [in their destroying they will be destroyed],
suffering wrong [destined for punishment] as the wages of doing wrong. They count it a delight to revel in the daytime [living luxuriously]. They are stains and blemishes [on mankind], reveling in their deceptions even as they feast with you.
They have eyes full of adultery, constantly looking for sin, enticing and luring away unstable souls. Having hearts trained in greed, [they are] children of a curse.
Abandoning the straight road [that is, the right way to live], they have gone astray; they have followed the way of [the false teacher] Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the reward of wickedness; [Num_22:5, Num_22:7]
but he was rebuked for his own transgression: a mute donkey spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness. [Num_22:21-31]
These [false teachers] are springs without water and mists driven by a tempest, for whom is reserved the gloom of black darkness.
For uttering arrogant words of vanity [pompous words disguised to sound scholarly or profound, but meaning nothing and containing no spiritual truth], they beguile and lure using lustful desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error.
They promise them liberty, when they themselves are the slaves of depravity–for by whatever anyone is defeated and overcome, to that [person, thing, philosophy, or concept] he is continually enslaved.
For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world by [personal] knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, their last condition has become worse for them than the first.
For it would have been better for them not to have [personally] known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to have turned back from the holy commandment [verbally] handed on to them.
The thing spoken of in the true proverb has happened to them, “THE DOG RETURNS TO HIS OWN VOMIT,” and, “A sow is washed only to wallow [again] in the mire.” [Pro_26:11]
Comments by
F.B.Meyer
on
2 Peter 2:12-22
THE DARK WAY OF ANIMALISM
The description of these false teachers is terrific! They are slaves to their brute instincts. They are as abusive as they are ignorant. They destroy and will be destroyed. They feast daintily in the broad daylight, instead of leading abstemious and sober lives. With them, the very church feasts were occasions for self-indulgence. Their eyes never ceased from the sin against which the Lord warns us in Mat_5:28. Balaam is an awful example of such, torn, as he was, between the celestial vision of his spirit and the sensual appetite of his soul.
The will of man, as in Balaam’s case, is always poising itself between its knowledge of good and evil and its strong bias toward evil. Only the help of God can correct this. Let us “who are just escaping,” 2Pe_2:18, R.V., from the meshes of the world, beware lest we be caught in the guiles and nets of false teaching, which would drag us back into the evils of the worldly life. It is in our heart-felt union with the Lord Jesus Christ alone that we can be permanently secure.
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