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Sunday, 28 October 2007 – Talk on 2 Peter 2:1 – 22

This morning we are going to look at chapter two of Peter’s second letter. While you’re looking it up - let me say that often I get to choose the dates I stand up here to speak. It’s a home church advantage. But I was asked to speak today on this passage - so you can’t blame me for picking it!

I say that before I start - because, “of all the chapters which are to be found in the entire Bible, this second chapter of the Second Epistle of Peter is amongst the most terrible. For threatening, for warning, for the idea of doom and disaster and destruction, there is nowhere in Holy Writ itself, anything which surpasses this particular chapter”. Those aren’t mine words. They’re the words of the famous preacher Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones. He goes on to say, “if you enjoy reading a chapter like this you must surely be abnormal”! So enjoyment isn’t on the menu this morning. But I trust instruction is. Because it is in the Bible - and Paul says all scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, correcting, and training in righteousness.

t which point I think it might be useful to read the passage. But I’m not going to start at the beginning of chapter 2, but we’ll begin at 2 Peter 1:19. I’ve said it a few times before - the Bible wasn’t written in chapters and verses. They were added much later to aid us in finding our way around it and to help cross-reference it’s content. So when Peter wrote this letter - it was as a continuous thread of ideas on a theme.

Before we look at the detail - I need to confess to something that I never realised before I came to prepare for this morning - although if I’d done any in depth study previously I’d have soon found it out - because invariably 2 Peter - and the letter of Jude - are put together in the same commentary. You see - 2 Peter chapter 2 isn’t as unique as Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones’ comment would lead us to believe. The basic content of it’s message - is the letter of Jude. OK - 2 Peter 2 has some things added and a few things left out compared to Jude - and in places the order’s changed. But they essentially say the same things. I’d have liked to have projected both texts side by side on the screen to demonstrate that - but that would have been too much a diversion. So I’ll leave you with some homework. Read 2 Peter 2 again at home - but this time with Jude also open in front of you.

But this correlation does beg the question - who cribbed from whom? Or - did they both use a third now non-existent document? Just to quickly say that many commentators think Peter had read Jude and was utilising its content - although others argue for the third piece of writing we don’t have, but might have been a tract in common circulation in the church at the time.

Back to looking at the passage. 2 Peter is usually labelled as general letter - but it was written with a specific message. It has the two pronged thrust of encouragement and warning from a man coming to the end of his earthly ministry. And our chapter today is full of the warnings! And sadly - it’s a chapter of warnings to the Church about people in thechurch who’ve gone off the rails. And the reason Peter’s so angry about it - is they are both ensnaring others, and bringing the name of his precious Lord into disrepute.

But Peter starts were we started reading by saying, “there’s nothing new under the sun” (although he doesn’t actually quote that verse). Because he says that amongst God’s OT chosen people there were false prophets - and amongst God’s NT chosen people there will be false teachers. And in both eras their motivation is sinful drives coupled personal restructuring of God’s message. Which is why I read from Ch.1:19 - Because Peter wants us to understand that Scripture - for us all the OT & NT - didn’t come about by the writer’s own interpretation. It has it’s origins with God inspiring men by the Holy Spirit. >Now some people go as far as claiming that God even inspired the numbering of the verses. For me, that’s a bit far-fetched. But when we talk about the inspiration of the Bible - Christians usual agree that the original truth of which we have in our hands a translation into English - was God breathed to people to write down from their personal experience of Him. And in this written down form - it was given - as I said earlier - for teaching, correcting, and training in righteousness - but not for us to put our own spin on it - to add to it - or to take away from it. It is also of course a written down history of God’s plan of salvation with a cross at the centre.

The content of this passage isn’t an easy one to work through - so I’m going to deal with it a bit piecemeal I’m afraid - against the background of Peter’s intention of exposing and condemning those who lead the church astray. So it might not be too tidy - but I hope that it will be informative.

Ch.2:1 says, “they will secretly introduce destructive heresies” - and while in other parts of the chapter the expressions of their depravity is all to visible - there’s the feeling in this verse of an underhandedness in the way the false teachers operate. I read that the Greek verb Peter uses has two overtones. One is ‘brought in from the side’ - implying the addition of ideas alongside what was already there - and the other is ‘introduce secretly’ - reflecting a deception by these people who’s teachings deviated from God-given truth.

Let me tell you a story from my days as a young Christian. In those days - which were the very early days of what became known as the Charismatic Movement - a group of Christians set up a telephone ministry in Harrow (in a building that no longer exists). I was introduced to them - and went along to some meetings they held on their premises for a while. Then one day Mary Dowton (who some of us know) took me aside and said “you need to talk to...” and she gave me the name of somebody “about this Harrow group”. So I did. Turns out the leader had been giving ‘words’ to people in there, and had been putting them together into trial sexual relationships outside of marriage. It was apparently done on the quiet - but eventually (as it does) it came to light. I don’t know what else might have been going on - but that experience really knocked my Christian trust for a while.

But I also learnt something from it. You see - when I’d been over there I’d had this - I can only call it - ‘unpeace’ - in my spirit. However, I’d looked around and thought that it was me not being as ‘good’ as all these much more ‘mature’ Christians that I was amongst that made me feel uneasy. In hindsight, I realised that God’s Spirit in me was telling me things weren’t all they seemed on the outside. Maybe my experience of unease had something to do with that verse in Philippians which says; “ ... the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus . ”. Only of course - I didn’t know why I was feeling that unpeace - and I hadn’t the experience to ask the right questions.

Which is probably why Peter warns in verse 18 that it’s - in our parlance - new Christians or recent seekers, who are most at risk of being lead astray. Because he says, these are the people these false teachers target. And Peter doesn’t mince his words - he calls them - these predators - an “accursed broad” and “brute beasts”. Through these verses you feel his anger as he sees the damage they have on - in - the church of Jesus.

Which is why he spells out in such vivid detail (lifting the illustrative material from Jude or the third source) the judgement that await them. I’m not going to go through his OT illustrations - or those taken from apocryphal writing not in the Bible, but which must have been in general circulation at the time. Except - I will just refer to verses 10 to 12, because it has a lesson for us in the church today. Perhaps not this church - but the Church with a capital C.

From the second half of verse ten he’s probably drawing on an apocryphal writing called ‘the Assumption of Moses’ - where the archangel Michael and Satan are said to argue over the body of Moses. But you could also go to Zechariah Ch.3 where the prophet has a vision of Satan and the angel of the LORD debating the fate of Joshua the high priest. And the angel says, “The LORD rebuke you Satan”. Because - as in verse eleven here - angels don’t overstep their role and authority. >So how come you sometimes go to a meeting were the guy on the platform encourages the congregation to ‘stamp on Satan’ - or they talk glibly about giving Satan a bloody nose? I understand the sentiment - he is a defeated foe. But not by us. By Jesus.

Peter’s take on such brashness is, “These men blaspheme in matters they don’t understand”. The Bible’s instruction to us is quite simple. “Resist the Devil and He will flee from you”. It’s not to threaten him - or to belittle him. > But I only gave you the second part of that verse just them. What James Ch.4:7 actually says is, “Submit yourselves, then, to God.” That is first - foremost - and critical. Then “resist the devil and he will flee from you”. You see - when you submit to God you invite Him to take up residence in you. So when you resist the devil - he’s fleeing from Jesus - not you!”

Something else Peter addresses here, is the motivation of these false prophets. Why do they do what they do? Peter’s quite clear - it’s “greed” that’s the motive. We often just think of greed as covertness for money or things. But one commentator wants to broaden it out - to say it could also include lust for power or the desire for illicit sexual gratification. In fact at Ch.2:14, Peter combines adultery and seduction with saying they’re experts in greed. Peter then goes on to say at verse 19, “they are slaves to whatever depravity masters them”. Now the Bible tells us a characteristic of God the Holy Spirit is self-control - which is why one aspect of the fruit of His presence in our lives is self-control. But Peter’s pen-portrait of those practising and teaching falsehood is that they’re abandoned to a slavery to sin. But all the time it appears they’re trying to be - maybe believe they are - still inside the church family of believers. They attend your feasts say Peter - which could mean the first century equivalent of our communion. But it says here - these people are under God’s extreme judgement! And if nothing else jumps out at you from the chapter - that screams at you from it.

And at this point we need to face a difficult question. “Can a believer ever lose their salvation?” Or to put it another way - is the “once saved always save” slogan correct? It’s definitely a question that this passage forces us to ask - or rather - to seek an answer to. Is ‘apostasy’ - the deliberate, voluntary turning away from one’s faith as previously professed - what these false teachers have done? Does Peter consider the people he’s blasting in this chapter as those who were once redeemed followers of Jesus - but are now no longer true believers?

The verses you need to look at are 1 & 20,21. “Even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them” says verse 1. And verses 20 & 21 say “If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 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.”

A lot of commentators don’t want to go there. They quote Jesus as saying “No-one can pluck them out of my hand”. And that’s true. But these aren’t people who are being plucked out of Jesus hand. They’ve jumped out.

Some commentators argue they couldn’t have been real followers of Jesus in the first place and anyway there will always be un-believers in the church. They also say you can’t create a whole theology on these few words by Peter. Unfortunately that ignores the fact that there’s stronger references to believers going away from God in Hebrews! Just to say - from the text of this chapter - it appears that Peter has no doubts that they were once inside the Church. They’d escaped the world of corruption by knowing the Lord Jesus Christ - but have become ‘entangled and overcome’ by it again. That’s an illustration some say Peter uses from his days of fishing with nets

There are of course real difficulties in thinking about someone who really did accept Jesus as their Saviour then losing there salvation. How do you become ‘un-born again’? And because of this difficulty some have suggested the Peter never really expected it to happen - but put the whole notion in his letter as a extreme warning - a bit like telling young kids the bogie man will get them if they’re naughty. But to me - well - that seems more far-fetched than just believing what he wrote at face value. I read it as Peter knowing real people with these characteristics - and he’s saying to his readership ‘they’re coming your way - watch out’. And they also reflect some of the things Jesus said would happen in the church as time went by.

Now because the whole idea of someone losing their salvation has been a nightmare for Christians down the ages as they’ve grappled with passages like this - I talked to a couple of other Bible teachers about it. One was Steve Motyer at the London School of Theology - who’s a senior NT lecturer there - and he said something that I thought was quite helpful.

He said that the trouble is that within the Protestant tradition we’ve settled for a rather mechanical view of salvation (a sort of box ticking view of faith) - whereas actually - it’s a relationship. It’s supposed to be a developing relationship with the God who will never stop loving us - but one within which we retain freedom to stop loving Him - to a point where we can reject Him completely. You can walk out on Him. He does not walk out on you. ~

But if you decide to permanently divorce yourself from Him, then there are consequences to your action - just as there would be in any human relationship. The consequence from the way Peter’s written this chapter - is to put yourself back under the judgement you were once rescued from, with horrible images of a dog returning to it’s vomit and sow returning to the mire

But I also need to say that if you’re a Christian - and get concerned to ask yourself this question - you’re totally unlikely to be danger of losing your salvation! You are still sensitive to the God who saved you - even when you fail him - again - and again - and again. Like I do. But God is perfect love.

You see these people had not just sinned again. There’s a remedy for sin. It’s the mercy and grace from the punishment-bearing saviour who died on the cross for us - each of us personally. No. These people had ‘denied the Sovereign Lord who bought them’. >In contrast - Jesus said that Christians should deny themselves - take up their cross daily - and follow Him. There’s an advert on the box at the moment that asks “What’s in your wallet?” God always asks of us “Who’s in your heart?” Are you in the driving seat of your life - or are you trying to hand over control to God the Holy Spirit - however imperfectly? For these people - God had been permanently kicked out - to be replaced by their own self-fulfilment.

But we need to come to the question, ‘Why did Peter write theses verses?’. What was his aim? Was he just getting something off his chest - or did he want his readers to pick up on his strong feelings as an ‘aide memoir’ to something that they would need to constantly remember? Yes indeed.

The Swiss reformer Calvin is quoted as observing - ‘the Spirit of God has declared once and for all that the Church will never be free from this internal trouble’. By that of course he meant the Church on earth - up until Jesus’ return. Not a very bright prediction is it. But nor is the warning sign alongside a railway track saying touch a live rail you’re be electrocuted. It’s a warning. And Peter’s intention is to warn his readers about these people who will at some point turn up in there midst. And the content of the warning is actually quite simple when you extract it from the fiery rhetoric of his condemnation. Check what they teach. See how they live.

And it’s because they needed to check the teaching - that he talked about the God-breathed Scripture. Remember - the ‘Scripture’ they had at the time was the proved and approved OT. Maybe they also a few scrolls with some of Jesus sayings on them going the rounds. And you’ll remember from last week - and Robert’s comments - they’d likely have had copies of letters from people like Paul - as well as Peter’s letters. But no complete and collated NT. This of course gave a great window of opportunity to false teachers to try and re-interpret things with their own gloss on it. So the early widely-dispersed church needed to evaluate all teaching from the perspective of that which they could be sure was sound. And we need to do the same.

Quick question: you don’t have to answer out loud. ‘Can God do anything?’ I heard a guy a while ago in a church saying God could - unequivocally - do anything. And he wouldn’t have it that there are some things God can’t do. But actually, to say God can do anything He wants to, is Islamic teaching. Because the Bible says for a start that “God cannot lie”. It also says God cannot be untrue to Himself. He is a righteous God. He will not behave unrighteously. You see - something that sounds right might not necessarily be right. So - you need to know what God’s Word actually says - both the words and the context that they were said in. And that means reading the Bible on a regular basis so you can say - to me - hang on a minute - that doesn’t sound right.

A plug here for Bible reading notes. I came to this church as a thirteen year old - and joined a Bible class meeting out the back. One of the early things I learnt through that class was to feed on the Bible one small mouthful at a time - and to do it with the aid of Bible reading notes. Now there have been periods in my life when it was a neglected habit. But over the past fifty years it’s help me track through the Bible enough to know it’s general content, structure and teaching. And the notes themselves have sometimes been a means of God speaking to me personally. If you’ve never tried reading the Bible in manageable, daily portions - see Jean Peters - who’s our church’s rep for getting Bible reading notes - and she’ll help you with what’s available and suitable for you.

But as well as knowing the truth - there’s the living of it. And these false teachers lived contrary to it. Their watchword was probably ‘Freedom’. Our own society’s over-riding mantra is probably ‘Tolerance’. But let me tell you something. God is not tolerant. He is merciful - but that’s not the same as being tolerant. And He is holy. And in both the OT and the NT you’ll find the instruction - “Be holy, because I am holy”.

In verse 1 the Greek for ‘Sovereign Lord’ was used in the secular world for a slave owner/master. Paul - in his writings - was always conscious that his relationship with God was as a slave - but he also bounced up and down with delight in such a relationship. It wasn’t slavery as Africans experienced it in the terrible slave trade of 200 odd years ago - but a willing submission to a master who loved him - but who was never-the-less - still his Master. And when his master said “you are to live like this” - it wasn’t a request.

I’ve often said it before. There’s a chorus of a hymn that sums up the proper way to live the Christian life like no other.

Trust and obey -
for there’s no other way -
to be happy in Jesus -
but to trust and obey.

That’s what Peter wants the followers of Jesus reading his letter to do. That is definitely not what the false teachers were doing. But the question for us this morning is - what are we doing - and how are we on our guard against those who could come into this fellowship and try and divert us for doing it?

Granville Richards