The Word Made Fresh
1But there were false prophets who arose among the people, just as they will appear among you. They will sneak in with damaging opinions, even denying the Master who bought them. But they will bring swift destruction to themselves. 2Still, they will garner a following for their sinful ways and malign the way of truth. 3They will greedily take advantage of you with their deceptions. But they were condemned long ago, and that condemnation has not been idle, nor their destruction forgotten.
4If God hadn’t forgiven the angels when they sinned, but instead threw them into the abyss, held with heavy chains until the judgment, 5and if he didn’t rescue the ancients – except for Noah, who along with seven others was an example of righteousness – when he sent a flood over the world inhabited by the ungodly; 6and if he condemned Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes and made them an example of what will happen to the ungodly; 7and if he rescued Lot, a good man who was distressed by the sinfulness of the lawless – 8a righteous man who was living among them and was tormented by their lawlessness that he had seen and heard – 9then surely the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from their trials and keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 10especially the ones who are living in perverted lust and despising authority.
They are bold and stubborn, and aren’t afraid to slander those who are glorious 11while the angels, though mighty and powerful, don’t charge them with judgments from the Lord. 12But they are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, meant to be trapped and killed. They slander things they don’t understand, and when those animals are destroyed so will they be. 13They will be penalized for the wrong they do. They call their daytime reveling a pleasure, but they are but blots and blemishes reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. 14Their eyes are full of adultery and they can’t sin enough. They lure those whose souls are weak. They are trained in greed. They are like children who are cursed 15and have left the straight way and gone astray in the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the pleasures of wrongdoing. 16But he was reprimanded for his sins by a speechless donkey that spoke with a human voice and curbed the prophet’s insanity.
17They are dried up springs and mists swept away on a storm. The deepest darkness has been reserved for them 18because they speak with good-sounding words and entice people who have recently escaped from living in sin with filthy desires of the flesh. 19They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption just as people are always slaves to whatever they allow to be their masters. 20They have escaped the wickedness of the world through knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but they quickly become entangled and overpowered again, and then they are worse off than they were before. 21It would be better for them if they had never heard about the way of righteousness instead of knowing it and turning away from the sacred laws that had been handed down to them. 22What happens to them is as the old proverb says, “The dog returns to its own vomit,” and “The pig is washed, but goes again to wallow in the mud.”
Commentary
1-3: Now comes the warning about false teachers infiltrating the church and introducing false doctrines. They are described in fearful terms, and accused of leading many believers astray. Some scholars believe Peter is denouncing a particular heretical branch that entered the church early on. It was called the “antinomian” schism. The word means “against law,” and a primary feature of the heresy was their belief that the grace of God was a license to sin. Paul described them very well when he characterized their attitude as being one of, “Therefore let us sin all the more that grace may abound” (Romans 6:1). This, by the way, is one of the things scholars point to that indicates a date much later than 1 Peter.
4-11: He assures his readers that God knows how to “rescue the godly from their trials.” He does this by describing how God punished those who rebelled against him. God cast the rebellious angels into hell, he says, referring to a Jewish legend that has its roots in the story about the “sons of God” (in Genesis 6:1-4) impregnating human women and God responding by limiting the lifespan of human beings. God also destroyed the wicked people of the earth in the flood, saving Noah, Noah’s wife, their three sons and their wives. He continues with God’s destruction of the wicked people of Sodom and Gomorrah, painting Lot as a man being a “righteous man…tormented by their lawlessness.” If God could do all that, surely God can rescue the faithful from the enemies of the faith. These latter are characterized as being particularly depraved, even to the point of slandering the angels.
12-16: Obviously his opinion of such people is pretty sour. The reference to Balaam and the talking donkey is a story from Israel’s wilderness wanderings between Egypt and the Promised Land (see Numbers 22:21-30).
17-22: He is thorough in his denunciation of these enemies, reserving for them the most horrible punishment he could imagine. Verse 20 indicates that these same people were once faithful members of the church but have fallen from grace and gone into a lifestyle that is incompatible with the teachings of Jesus and the apostles.
Takeaway
True followers of Christ are not looking for ways to boost their importance or grow their wealth. The only gain we seek is to grow in our faith, and we do this by putting aside our desire for earthly rewards.