False Teachers and Their Destruction
1But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
4For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment; 5if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; 6if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the filthy lives of lawless men 8(for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— 9if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment. 10This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and despise authority.
Dig Deeper
No one thought he would actually go that extreme. We had arrogantly gone through the class, doing what we wanted, not thinking that our professor would actually judge and discipline anyone. We had a huge assignment in, of all classes, an undergraduate class called Introduction to the New Testament. I had actually completed the assignment but hardly anyone else in the class had. Without thinking much of it and certainly not fearing my professor at all, even though he had warned us many times against cheating, I allowed a couple of friends of mine to copy the long workbook assignment. What I didn’t know, however, is that they then went and allowed several other people to copy the work, who then went and allowed many more to do so. In the end, about twenty people in a class of twenty-five or thirty had copied what was originally my work. The first two friends of mine that I had actually allowed to copy the work were the only two that were smart enough to put the answers in their own words, though, everyone else had copied the work word-for-word, and the professor easily spotted it. Suddenly we found out that the teacher was more than willing to bring quick judgment down on those who had cheated. He gave everyone a zero on this major assignment and dropped everyone involved’s grade down a full letter for the class. This included me because he had no way of telling who did the original work. I didn’t fight it because I knew that, even though I had done the work, I had allowed the cheating.
What surprised me, though, was two years later, when I heard some freshmen talking about their Introduction to the New Testament class. One of them mentioned that he hadn’t finished a big assignment and said that they should find someone who had finished to copy the rest of the answers. The other student said there was no way he would do that because he had heard that some students had done that a few years before and had all been punished swiftly. I don’t think at the time I appreciated the fact that our failings and subsequent punishment had served as proof of the professor’s willingness to punish wrongdoers and serve as a deterrent, but I can appreciate it now. When you look and realize that someone is perfectly capable of judging and punishing wrongdoers it really does make you take pause and think twice about doing something like that again. It also provides you a sense of security in knowing that if you continue to do right and others do wrong, they will receive the justice that they deserve.
God has used prophets and teachers throughout the history of His people, but that has always called for discernment, because just as there have always been genuine prophets there have also always been false prophets. Peter paints a broad picture of the false teachers, without getting too specific here, but he is careful to call them false teachers rather than false prophets. There be no significance to that change in language but it might indicate that these false teachers were impugning prophecy altogether and claiming no prophetic ministry for themselves in their denunciation of the second coming of Christ and the reality of the age to come and their call to live a libertine lifestyle.
Peter lists several aspects of these false teachers that can be briefly examined. First, They are secretive and devious, trying infiltrate the Christian communities under the cover of darkness rather than carrying out their business in the light. This should serve as a first warning of the nature of their teaching. Second, they will actually deny the sovereign Lord who bought them at a steep price. Peter is certainly sensitive to this charge having experienced denying Christ himself for a brief time. The form of their denial likely involved both their false teachings and the practices of living however they wanted because they taught that Christ was not going to return in judgment. Third, the result of their teaching is the destruction of judgment that they bring on themselves (Peter will demonstrate in chs. 2 and 3 that he uses the word destruction to denote judgment rather than annihilation of some sort). Fourth, people should not be surprised that many will follow their shameful ways. False teachings are often popular because they appeal to human’s base nature. Fifth, their actions cannot be simply ignored because they will bring the way of truth a bad reputation. We can all probably think of the difficulties that have been caused by false teachings as we try to present the truth of the gospel. False versions of Christianity don’t just lead others away from the truth, they become identified with Christianity by non-Christians and give the truth a bad name. Sixth, their motivation is simply greed, although Peter doesn’t elaborate on whether it is material greed, greed for attention and status, both, or something altogether different. Whatever it is, they stand guilty of going after selfish gain at the expense of others, an act that is quite contrary to the Christian ethic of putting the interests of others ahead of their own. Finally, their method is to exploit Christians with stories the have made up, in contrast to the true apostles who do not teach "cleverly invented stories."
How can Peter be so sure that their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping? Because God has a long history of properly brining justice and judgment to the unrighteous and delivering the unrighteous. Sometimes it happens on a timetable that we might not hope for, but it happens nonetheless. It would be easy to view this section as little more than a threat on the part of Peter, but it is much more than that. The false teachers have denied that God will bring ultimate judgment, and so, believers can rest assured that they can use their freedom and forgiveness in Christ to live however they might like. To this heresy, Peter offers up three example of God bringing justice to evildoers, justice that foreshadowed and points to the ultimate judgment that will come when Christ returns. The very thing they were denying is precisely what they should fear and are very much in danger of.
The first example comes from Genesis 6:1-4, with Peter also apparently taking information from the ancient Jewish book of Enoch 1 as a reliable source (it seems unlikely that Peter would view the information from Enoch as mythological and put it right beside his other two examples with no differentiation between them). The angels who left their God-given domain and had offspring with human women were punished by being held in Tartarus, a specific word that Peter borrows from Greek mythology to distinguish from other "areas" of hell. He did not spare the angels involved in that situation, nor did He withhold judgment on the ancient world of the same time. He brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others. Peter denotes the small number of those saved through the flood as he does in 1 Peter 3, perhaps to stress that often times unrighteousness and false teaching become quite popular and the righteous may well find themselves in the minority. In the same way, He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah with fire, making them an example (Peter uses a word that actually means "pattern," showing that there is a pattern of unrepentant sin that will lead to judgment) of what is going to happen to the ungodly. Yet he rescued Lot, a righteous man (righteous here means basically that he never lost his basic loyalty to the Lord). Peter says that Lot was distressed and tormented by what he saw and heard, using grammar that implies in the Greek that Lot brought that torment on himself by his own choices. This might imply that if the community of believers reaches the level of being tormented by the false teaching at hand, it is because they have allowed it to get to that point.
If all of this is so, says Peter in verse 9, then it should be quite clear that the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment. Peter invites his readers into the category of godly men and assures them that God will rescue them from whatever trials they may face, all the while holding the unrepentant for the day of judgment. Peter says, curiously at the same time they are continuing their punishment in the present. What he most likely means is that false teachers like these men are actually being punished in the present, whether they realize it or not, by missing out on the life of Christ, the true destiny and purpose of human beings. These men who follow the corrupt desire of the sinful nature and continue to rebel against and despise the authority of God will certainly face the same judgment that God has shown throughout history He is quite capable of enacting.
Devotional Thought
There are false teachings all around us just waiting for us to let down our guard. One thing that most of them share in common is that they sound good. Do you know the word of God well enough to spot a destructive heresy as soon as you hear it? Do you hold tightly to the truth and realize that part of doing so means knowing the truth well enough to spot false teaching?
No comments:
Post a Comment