The False Teachers’ Ungodly Lifestyle, 1-22

2:1 But false prophets arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. These false teachers will infiltrate your midst with destructive heresies, even to the point of denying the Master who bought them. As a result, they will bring swift destruction on themselves. 2:2 And many will follow their debauched lifestyles. Because of these false teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. 2:3 And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation pronounced long ago is not sitting idly by; their destruction is not asleep.

The Master who bought them – ‘despotes‘; ‘sovereign Lord’.  Not ‘kyrios‘, the usual term for Christ as Lord, but ‘despotes‘, which is almost always used in the NT of God the Father or masters of servants.  Nevertheless, the parallel with Jude 5 suggests to most modern interpreters that ‘the sovereign Lord’ refers to Jesus Christ, and ‘bought’ refers to redemption through the work of Christ. This would suggest a general (i.e. unlimited) atonement in which the price of salvation has been paid on behalf of those who finally reject its terms, as well as the elect.

We learn from this that false teaching is as evil as ungodly behaviour. In some respects, it is more so, because, being by its nature deceptive, it leads many astray who would not follow a bad example.

2:4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into hell and locked them up in chains in utter darkness, to be kept until the judgment, 2:5 and if he did not spare the ancient world, but did protect Noah, a herald of righteousness, along with seven others, when God brought a flood on an ungodly world, 2:6 and if he turned to ashes the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah when he condemned them to destruction, having appointed them to serve as an example to future generations of the ungodly, 2:7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man in anguish over the debauched lifestyle of lawless men, 2:8 (for while he lived among them day after day, that righteous man was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard) 2:9—if so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from their trials, and to reserve the unrighteous for punishment at the day of judgment, 2:10 especially those who indulge their fleshly desires and who despise authority.

Hell – The word is tartarus, a Greek name for the underworld, especially for the abode of the damned. This is the only appearance of this word in the NT. ‘In Greek mythology Tartarus was the lowest hell; it was as far beneath Hades as the heaven is high above the earth. In particular it was the place into which there had been cast the Titans who had rebelled against Zeus, the Father of gods and men.’ (DSB)

‘And if God spared not the angels, whom he placed in the highest heavens, but for their pride threw them down headlong to the nethermost hell, how much less shall he spare the proud dust and ashes of the sons of men, but shall cast them from the height of their earthly altitude to the bottom of that infernal dungeon! “Humility makes men angels; pride makes angels devils;” as that Father said…Oh let us be humbled by our repentance, that we may not be brought down to everlasting confusion: let us be cast down upon our knees, that we may not be cast down upon our faces. For God will make good his own word, one way’ “A man’s pride shall bring him low.”‘ (Joseph Hall)

Gloomy dungeons – following the best manuscripts, which have seiroi, which originally meant large earthenware jars for storing grain (the word coming into English from the Provencal as ‘silo’). The word siros then came to stand for an underground pit used for grain storage, and then for a pit in which wild animals might be trapped. The TR, following some other manuscripts, has seirai, chains; hence AV translates as ‘chains of darkness’ (cf. Jude 6).

Lot, a righteous man – ‘In what sense might we count Lot “righteous,” given the narrative’s generally negative portrayal when compared to Abraham? When Lot is compared to his Sodomite neighbors, he can be regarded a strikingly moral man. He followed rigorously the custom of hospitality toward strangers, despite the intense pressure of the threat of death. Moreover, although having committed incest, the passage makes it clear that he was a victim, which mitigates somewhat his culpability. Early Christian interpreters pointed to Lot’s generosity toward the angels and commended him for resisting the wickedness of his fellow citizens as features worthy of Christian imitation (e.g., Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 43.10–12; Ambrose, Flight from the World 9.55–56). Both Noah and Lot, whose lives ended disgracefully (drunkenness), nevertheless stood out as admirable people when set against the background of their wicked times. Commenting on Lot’s sin against his daughters, Calvin remarked, “Yet such are commonly the works of holy men: since nothing proceeds from them so excellent, as not to be in some respect defective.”’ (NAC on Genesis)

Ryle: ‘To be a Daniel in Babylon,—an Obadiah in Ahab’s house,—an Abijah in Jeroboam’s family,—a saint in Nero’s court, and a “righteous man” in Sodom, a man must have the grace of God.’ (Holiness)

A righteous man in anguish over the debauched lifestyle of lawless men – Candlish (Studies in Genesis) agrees that Lot, in first settling near Sodom, and then taking up residence within that ungodly city, had acted from worldly motives.  But he kept himself separate from extreme wickedness.  ‘That was his security; he retained his spiritual discernment, his spiritual taste. He loved not them that hated the Lord; he had no sympathy with their ungodliness. He did not learn to palliate or excuse, either their unholy opinions or their unlawful deeds—to call them by smooth names, affect a soft and serene charity, and hope the best even of the world lying in wickedness. He was vexed—he vexed himself. The English word here is too weak by far. He was wearied, worn out, worn down, by the impieties with which the lawless were conversant. They were an intolerable burden to him. Thus the Lord knew how to deliver him, by keeping alive in his soul, amid abounding iniquity, an undiminished zeal for truth and righteousness, and an uncompromising hatred of all evil.’

Celestial beings – lit. ‘glorious ones. These are not angels, at least not in the conventional sense, because they are contrasted with angels in v11. They would appear to be of the same type as those spiritual beings mentioned Eph 1:21; 6:12; Col 1:16.

Brazen and insolent, they are not afraid to insult the glorious ones, 2:11 yet even angels, who are much more powerful, do not bring a slanderous judgment against them before the Lord. 2:12 But these men, like irrational animals—creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed—do not understand whom they are insulting, and consequently in their destruction they will be destroyed, 2:13 suffering harm as the wages for their harmful ways. By considering it a pleasure to carouse in broad daylight, they are stains and blemishes, indulging in their deceitful pleasures when they feast together with you. 2:14 Their eyes, full of adultery, never stop sinning; they entice unstable people. They have trained their hearts for greed, these cursed children! 2:15 By forsaking the right path they have gone astray, because they followed the way of Balaam son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness, 2:16 yet was rebuked for his own transgression (a dumb donkey, speaking with a human voice, restrained the prophet’s madness).

Angels, who are much more powerful – ‘Their disembodied spiritual nature is apparently what makes them “greater in might and power” than humans (2 Pet 2:11). That a spirit existence was considered superior to embodiment is indicated by certain statements about the incarnation of the Second Person of the Godhead as Jesus of Nazareth. Philippians 2:5–8 describes the incarnation as an act of humility and condescension. The writer of Hebrews informs us that the incarnation resulted in the son of God being made “a little lower than the angels” (Heb 2:7). This secondary status was temporary. After his resurrection and subsequent ascension, Christ became “as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs” (Heb 1:4), with “angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him” (1 Pet 3:22).’ (Heiser, Angels: What the Bible Really Says about the Heavenly Host).

Balaam son of Bosor – ‘Some MSS call Balaam ‘son of Bosor’ not son of Beor, in this verse. If Bosor is right, it may be a grim allusion to their sins, by paranomasia with bāśār (‘flesh’). It has also been suggested that this represents the Galilaean mispronunciation of the guttural in the Hebrew name, and as such is perhaps a pointer to Petrine authorship; for his Galilaean accent was noticeable (Matt. 26:73).’ (Green)

The NET Bible offers the following translation note: ‘Although many modern translations (e.g., NASB, TEV, NIV, CEV, NLT) read “Beor” here, this is due to harmonization with the OT rather than following a variant textual reading. The Greek text of NA27 reads “Bosor,” an otherwise unattested form of the name of Balaam’s father.’

‘Balaam is a curious character in the Old Testament, and the interpretation of Numbers 22–24 is difficult enough that some think he was portrayed in a positive light in those chapters. This interpretation, however, does not read Numbers 22–24 with a keen enough eye and ignores the rest of the canonical witness. In fact, Peter detected one of the key features of the narrative in v. 16. Balaam’s donkey protected Balaam from death and rebuked him (Num 22:21–35). The donkey’s speaking to Balaam indicates that Balaam had less insight into what God was doing than his animals. The narrator in Numbers suggested that Balaam’s intentions in going were impure, that he desired financial reward (Num 22:15–20). The point of the story is that the Lord sovereignly spoke through Balaam to bless Israel, even though the prophet desired to curse God’s people (cf. Deut 23:4–5; Josh 24:9–10; Neh 13:2… The account in Numbers testifies to Balaam’s true character since he was slain fighting against Israel (Num 31:8), and the sexual sin at Baal Peor in which the Midianites snared Israel was attributed to Balaam’s advice (Num 31:16; cf. Rev 2:14..).’ (Schreiner)

2:17 These men are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm, for whom the utter depths of darkness have been reserved. 2:18 For by speaking high-sounding but empty words they are able to entice, with fleshly desires and with debauchery, people who have just escaped from those who reside in error.

2:19 Although these false teachers promise such people freedom, they themselves are enslaved to immorality. For whatever a person succumbs to, to that he is enslaved. 2:20 For if after they have escaped the filthy things of the world through the rich knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they again get entangled in them and succumb to them, their last state has become worse for them than their first. 2:21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, having known it, to turn back from the holy commandment that had been delivered to them. 2:22 They are illustrations of this true proverb: “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and “A sow, after washing herself, wallows in the mire.”

‘It is at about this point that Jude had included the quotation from 1 Enoch 1:9 as an authoritative text in support of his condemnation of the false teachers he opposed. The author of 2 Peter, having already omitted the clear reference to the apocryphal story of the dispute over Moses’ body, also elects not to include this quotation from 1 Enoch. He, or the communities to which he was writing, might have had greater reservations about the use of 1 Enoch as a source of authoritative pronouncements. This would not be surprising, since the audiences of 1 Peter and 2 Peter were more likely residents of Asia Minor, quite far removed from the Palestinian circles where a text like 1 Enoch was much more familiar and carried greater weight. Instead, the author of 2 Peter draws on Jesus traditions and Proverbs to close off his censure of the rivals.’ (Evans)

“Dog” – See Phil 3:2n