2 Peter 2:18-22 (NKJV) For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. 19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. 20 For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. 21 For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”
V18 “For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error.” “They” refers to the false teachers. They speak words but little truth. Their words are emptiness. The Greek word is (G3153) ματαιότης mataiótēs, which means “devoid of truth and appropriateness” (Thayer).
Their words have one effect–enticement. The Greek word for “allure” is (G1185) δελεάζω deleázo, which means (Word Study Dictionary) “To bait, entrap. In the NT metaphorically to entice, beguile.” The enticement are fleshly lusts for the purpose of leading people astray. They want followers. They want recognition. They are worse than hirelings (John 10:12-13). They are masqueraders (2 Corinthians 11:14). So, because of their clever speech and enticements, they lead believers back into errors that they lived and believed before, which is antinomianism (Philippians 3:17-21).
V19 “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.” Peter is echoing the words of our Lord (John 8:34 NKJV) – “Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.” Freedom comes from God. When one believes in the Lord Jesus, then we are freed from sin (“We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.” -Romans 6:6, NLT). Believers, now, are servants of the Living God (compare 1 Corinthians 4:1). False teachers lead believers back into slavery. Let us beware and alert. We must know the Bible to recognize truth from error.
(Wuest Word Studies) “Strachan, commenting on the words, “while they promise them liberty,” says: “Doubtless that Antinomianism (against law, thus lawlessness, not responsible to law) is indicated to which the doctrine of grace has ever been open. Compare Gal 5:13. It arises from the ever-recurring confusion of liberty and license. The training of conscience is contemporaneous with the growth of Christian character.”
(Holman Commentary) “This was particularly true of new Christians who were just emerging from the clutches of sexual license practiced in the non-Christian culture. The false teachers, aware of this, twisted the concept of Christian freedom into something it was not. They taught that freedom is the license to do whatever a person desires. In fact, Christian freedom is the ability to do what is right, based on God’s Word.”
V20 “For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.” Sin makes a person unclean and defiled in God’s eyes (). The Hebrew word for defiled is (H2930) טָמֵא ṭâmê’, which means unclean and defiles. Some notes from (TWOT) “Animals and foods were considered clean or unclean by their nature…The greatest uncleanness was idolatry which defiled the temple and the land. The prophets, in denouncing moral uncleanness, used ritual uncleanness as a, metaphor for the wickedness which only God can cleanse.” The Greek words are similar. The Greek word for “pollutions” is (G3393) μίασμα míasma, which means being unclean whether a physical or spiritual sense. Washing does not remove it. It is a permanent stain. It is used 1 time in the New Testament. The Greek word is a derivative of G3392 and is used 5 times in the New Testament in the spiritual sense as in John John 18:28, Titus 1:15, Hebrews 12:15, and Jude 1:8.
These who become entangled again are worse because they know the truth but run to embrace new “freedoms” which are contrary to the Bible’s teachings. Sin pollutes the world. Escape is from believing the Gospel. Escape for believers is truth (John 8:32) and the knowledge and understanding of the Bible (Psalm 119:160, John 17:17, and 2 Timothy 2:15). The Gospel teaches the knowledge of God and His ways. Knowing this they still turn back to sin. Compare 1 Timothy 5:6. The Greek word for “entangled” is (G1707) ἐμπλέκω emplekō, which means to weave together. Wuest Word Studies: “”Entangle” is emplekō, “to inweave.” The noun speaks of an interweaving, a braiding. Their going back to their former immoral lives was not the act of a moment, but a gradual process, as the word implies. Vincent quotes a classical author (Aeschylus) on the use of this word, “For not on a sudden or in ignorance will ye be entangled by your folly.”
V21 “For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.” When we were given knowledge of the Gospel, obeyed the Gospel (in faith), and taught the Christian way-of-life and doctrine, we have been given much truth by knowledge and understanding. The standard of judgment changes when one drifts from the way of righteousness. There is no recourse for ignorance. When we slip back into the old ways of life, God’s chastening will be stronger. The more a Christian sins, the more the conscience is seared. The greater the searing, the greater the sins. Let us remain faithful. Compare Matthew 25:41 with Matthew 25:26-29.
Luke 12:48 NKJV – “But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.
Jude 1:24-25 (NKJV) Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, 25 To God our Savior, Who alone is wise, Be glory and majesty, Dominion and power, Both now and forever. Amen.
V22 “But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.” Washed carries the idea of the filth of sin has been washed away and the conscience is cleaned and not guilty. Compare 1 Corinthians 6:11, Ephesians 5:26, and Hebrews 10:22.
Barclay (beware) has a lengthy quote: “They flatter only to deceive. They are like wells with no water and like mists blown past by a squall of wind. Think of a traveller in the desert being told that ahead lies a spring where he can quench his thirst and then arriving at that spring to find it dried up and useless. Think of the husbandman praying for rain for his parched crops and then seeing the cloud that promised rain blown uselessly by. As Bigg has it: “A teacher without knowledge is like a well without water.” These men are like Milton’s shepherds whose “hungry sheep look up and are not fed.” They promise a gospel and in the end have nothing to offer the thirsty soul.
“Their teaching is a combination of arrogance and futility. Christian liberty always carries danger. Paul tells his people that they have indeed been called to liberty but that they must not use it for an occasion to the flesh (Gal 5:13). Peter tells his people that indeed they are free but they must not use their freedom as a cloak of maliciousness (1Pe 2:16). These false teachers offered freedom, but it was freedom to sin as much as a man liked. They appealed not to the best but to the worst in a man. Peter is quite clear that they did this because they were slaves to their own lusts. Seneca said, “To be enslaved to oneself is the heaviest of all servitudes.” Persius spoke to the lustful debauchees of his day of “the masters that grow up within that sickly breast of yours.” These teachers were offering liberty when they themselves were slaves, and the liberty they were offering was the liberty to become slaves of lust. Their message was arrogant because it was the contradiction of the message of Christ; it was futile because he who followed it would find himself a slave. Here again in the background is the fundamental heresy which makes grace a justification for sin instead of a power and a summons to nobility.
“If they have once known the real way of Christ and have relapsed into this, their case is even worse. They are like the man in the parable whose last state was worse than his first (Mat 12:45; Luk 11:26). If a man has never known the right way, he cannot be condemned for not following it. But, if he has known it and then deliberately taken the other way, he sins against the light; and it were better for him that he had never known the truth, for his knowledge of the truth has become his condemnation. A man should never forget the responsibility which knowledge brings.
“Peter ends with contempt. These evil men are like dogs who return to their vomit (Pro 26:11) or like a sow which has been scrubbed and then goes back to rolling in the mud. They have seen Christ but are so morally degraded by their own choice that they prefer to wallow in the depths of sin rather than to climb the heights of virtue. It is a dreadful warning that a man can make himself such that in the end the tentacles of sin are inextricably around him and virtue for him has lost its beauty.”
We learn:
- Being faithful is more beneficial that returning to sin
- Know and believe the Bible to remain servants of Jesus
- Sin has consequences