Chapter Two

False prophets and false teachers (1–3). The inevitability of God’s judgment upon them—based on prior examples of God’s punishment (4–9). Detailed characterization of false teachers (10–15). The sin of Balaam (15–16). Wickedness of false teachers and the destruction awaiting them (17–22).

2 Peter 2:1. But there were false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will bring in destructive heresies, and, denying the Lord who bought them, bring swift destruction upon themselves. In intending to depict for the warning of the readers the moral character of false teachers, some of whom had already appeared by the time the epistle was written, and some of whom were destined to emerge with particular force later, the Apostle places these false teachers in parallel with Old Testament false prophets, Ψευδοπροφήται (false prophets), a name he assigns to the false teachers of Christian times as well. “Under false teachers the Apostle understands followers of Nicholas and Cerinthus, and by the name of prophecy, commonly given to both prophets and false teachers, he warns the believers so that they do not listen to false prophets” (Blessed Theophilus). The marks of ancient false prophets were: their self-appointed assumption of prophetic ministry, although they insisted on their divine calling (Jer 23:21); the proclamation of predictions out of greed and human-pleasing (1 Sam 22:10-13), the falsehood of their predictions, the futility of their miracles (Ezek 13:3 and following, and others), the main mark being: preaching not in the name of the Secret True God and pure service to him, but in the name of other gods (Deut 13:1-5 and others). Similarly, the false teachers of the apostolic and post-apostolic times, according to the Apostle, “will introduce destructive heresies, and denying the Lord who bought them, will bring swift destruction upon themselves.”

2 Peter 2:2. And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of truth will be reviled. 2 Peter 2:3. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment, long ago decreed, is not inactive, and their destruction does not slumber. In spreading their destructive teaching among the people, the false teachers are guided by motives of greed, and will have success, threatening destruction both to them and to those deceived by them. “To show that they are completely alien to divine teaching, he says that they use flattering words” (Blessed Theophilus).

2 Peter 2:4. For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of darkness to be held for judgment; 2 Peter 2:5. and if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly, with eight other souls, 2 Peter 2:6. and if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ruin, making them an example of what is coming to the ungodly; 2 Peter 2:7. and if he rescued righteous Lot, worn down by the licentious conduct of the wicked people, 2 Peter 2:8. (for that righteous man, living among them, was tormented in his righteous soul day by day by their lawless deeds) – To confirm the thought about the inevitability of judgment and destruction of the false teachers, the Apostle points to three examples of such God’s judgment from ancient history: judgment upon fallen angels (verse 4), upon pre-flood humanity, except Noah and his family (verse 5 see Gen 6-8), and upon the ungodly cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (verse 6 Gen 19), except righteous Lot (verses 7–8). The sin of angels, of which the Apostle Peter speaks here, verse 4, and likewise the Apostle Jude in his epistle (verse 6), many interpreters of ancient and modern times understood in the sense of the carnal fall of angels, and in a distinctive way interpreted the account of Gen 6:4, in accordance with some manuscripts of the Septuagint, Josephus Flavius (Antiquities I, III, 1), Philo (De Gigant. § 2), the Book of Enoch (ch. 6–10) and many Jewish and early Christian interpreters. But this explanation does not harmonize with the spirit of the entire biblical angelology (see in the book of Prof. Fr. A. Glagolev—“Old Testament Biblical Teaching on Angels.” Kiev, 1900, p. 201–205 note). According to John 8:44, the sin of the devil consisted in apostasy or falling away from truth and stubborn persistence in falsehood. From 1 Tim 3:6 by analogy they concluded that the original sin of the devil was pride, and according to the conjecture of some church teachers, specifically in relation to the Son of God (cf. Heb 1:6). “The chains of darkness,” Slavonic “chains of gloom,” Greek σειραί ζόφου—a synonym for the abyss Luke 8:31. In the second (verse 5) and third (verse 6) example the Apostle turns the reader’s thought to biblical human history, and alongside punishment of the ungodly he points to the salvation of the righteous. “Why does he add examples of good people alongside examples of bad people?... The Apostle as if says: God knows how to inevitably punish those living in sin, as he punished sinning angels, pre-flood men, the cities of Sodom. He knows how to reward those doing righteousness, as he rewarded Noah, Lot” (Blessed Theophilus).

2 Peter 2:9. then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment, From the examples given in 2 Pet 2:4-8 the Apostle draws a moral conclusion in the spirit of the biblical view in general regarding divine reward and retribution to people (cf. Ps 33:20; Prov 16:4; 1 Cor 10:13; Rev 3:10). All that has been said by the Apostle is “for the reason, first, that together we might remember the history of the destruction of the ungodly and the salvation of the righteous; second, so that through their comparison we might emphasize the terrible wickedness of sinners and the bright perfections of the virtuous; finally, to convince our listeners to hate ungodliness on account of the punishments for it and to love virtue on account of its salvation” (Blessed Theophilus).

2 Peter 2:10. and especially those who indulge in the flesh in filthy desire and despise authority. Daring and self-willed, they do not tremble to revile the glorious ones, 2 Peter 2:11. whereas angels, though greater in strength and power, do not pronounce a reviling judgment against them before the Lord. 2 Peter 2:12. But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, speaking evil of things they do not understand, will be destroyed in their own corruption, 2 Peter 2:13. suffering wrong as the payment for doing wrong. They count it a pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are stains and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions while feasting with you. 2 Peter 2:14. Their eyes are full of adultery and cannot cease from sin. They seduce the unstable. Their hearts are trained in greed. Children of a curse they are! 2 Peter 2:15. Forsaking the right path, they have gone astray, following the path of Balaam, son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, Having given his readers instructive guidance regarding caution toward the temptations of false teachers, the Apostle now turns to a more detailed characterization of them. Moral dissolution with a propensity toward unnatural carnal vices (verses 10, 14) and boldness toward all authority (verses 10–11) are particularly emphasized in the dark characterization of the false teachers. “The meaning of the whole characterization is as follows: they, the Apostle says, have nothing befitting purity, but they attach themselves to pure society like stains on pure clothing. When they seduce someone and succeed in making men and women fallen into their snares unclean, they consider this a matter of pleasure, completing their corruption. They, even while feasting with you, do this not out of love and communion with others, but because they find this time convenient for seducing women. For they, having eyes, look at nothing else but lust, and constantly having this in mind and sinning, like sons of the curse, they seduce the unstable souls. For their heart is trained to nothing else but to greed, that is, to debauchery or gain, and through both, leaving the path that could lead them to salvation, they have gone astray from it” (Blessed Theophilus).

2 Peter 2:16. but was rebuked for his transgression: a mute donkey spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness (Num 22:23-24). Moral dissolution and greed of the false teachers contemporary with and future from the Apostle are illustrated here, as with the Apostle Jude (Jude 1:11) and in the Apocalypse (Rev 2:14), by comparison with Balaam, who was also found guilty of greed (Num 22:5 and following, Num 22:22) and, moreover, led the Israelites into the temptation of communion with Midianite women (Num 25:1). At this point the Apostle Peter recalls, verse 16, the supernatural correction given by God through a speechless donkey to the prophet. “From this we learn that Balaam, having once received a prohibition from God to go to Balak, was again impelled to do so by his own arrogant passion, which he fostered with his wild sorcery, but checked by fear of God and by terrible signs that occurred on the journey, he did not change the word of blessing, which was a work not of sorcery. For prophets pronounce their utterances with consciousness. Therefore the Apostle called him ‘prophet,’ as one who was aware, for he spoke.... So his blessing was a work not of magic, but of the power of God” (Blessed Theophilus).

2 Peter 2:17. These are waterless springs, mists driven by a storm; the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved for them. 2 Peter 2:18. For, speaking loud boasts of emptiness, they entice with desires of the flesh those who have barely escaped from those living in error. 2 Peter 2:19. They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves to corruption; for a person is enslaved to whatever has mastered him. Continuing and concluding the characterization of the false teachers, the Apostle compares them to springs without water and empty clouds. “He compares them to springs without water because they have lost the purity of preaching and the sweet water of life. He compares them to clouds driven by wind, meaning a contrary wind, which is why he called it a storm, for the storm brings what is driven by it into complete disorder. They, he says, are not bright clouds, like the saints, but dark, full of darkness” (Blessed Theophilus). In verses 18–19 the reverse of verse 17 is unfolded in its meaning and significance. The false teachers “from emptiness speak inflated speeches, drawing by means of lustful pleasure into debauchery those who have completely escaped from it, or, if once they were in error, have subsequently submitted themselves to the Lord. They themselves, being, as he says, slaves to the mentioned uncleanness, which he rightly called corruption, promise freedom to the deceived. But why they promise freedom while being slaves to sin, he brings a fine proof: whoever is conquered by what passion is enslaved to it” (Blessed Theophilus).

2 Peter 2:20. For if, after escaping the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome by them, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 2 Peter 2:21. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 2 Peter 2:22. What the proverb truly says has happened to them: A dog returns to its own vomit, and, A pig that has been washed goes back to wallow in the mire. Wishing to express the important thought that “those who have known the truth but again hold to former ungodliness fall into evil worse than before” (Blessed Theophilus), the Apostle clarifies his thought in verse 22 with two comparisons, the first of which is borrowed from Prov 26:11, and the second, probably from a common proverbial saying. “The meaning of the speech is as follows: if those who through knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ escaped the corruption of the world again become entangled in it and are overcome by it, they will undoubtedly be enslaved by it, and their condition will become worse than it was before knowledge of slavery, for Satan works hard to make them fall into greater evil. Therefore the Apostle says that for such a future, for those who of their own will return to evil, it would have been better for them not to know righteousness than, having known it, to fall into greater evil. For even a dog returning to its vomit becomes even more abhorrent, just as a pig seeking to wash itself from mud, if it does so in mud, proves even muddier than before” (Blessed Theophilus). This threatening and admonishing thought of the Apostle applies to the false teachers, and to those deceived by them, and to all sinning Christians who through sin fall away “from the sacred commandment passed on to them” (verse 21). But particularly forcefully this apostolic threat applies to the false teachers; to them, more precisely to a special group of false teachers, who denied the reality of the second coming of the Lord, the Apostle Peter now turns (2 Pet 3:3-4).