2 Peter 2
DODD2 Peter 2:1-9
The apostle cautions Christians against false teach the judgments which God executed on the fall old world, and on Sodom, and the deliverance Lot, as considerations which should, on the one ungodly, and on the other, comfort and establ. good men. 2 Pet. II. 1—9.
2 PETER II. 1.
I HAVE observed to you, that it was by a Divine impulse that the prophets delivered and wrote their predictions in former times; but they were not always regarded in a becoming manner; for there were also false prophets among the people a of the Jews, as there shall also be among you,b the disciples of a greater Master than Moses; false teachers, who will make parties among you, and privately introduce pernicious and destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought and redeemed them; as those false prophets denied the God who had redeemed Israel from its bondage and misery; but they will at last be found in the same dreadful circumstances, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And yet many will persist to follow their pernicious courses, by means of whom the way of truth, the cause of genuine and uncorrupted Christianity, will by many others be blasphemed; as if the errors and madness of those members who are corrupted, were to be charged on those who are not
a There were also false prophets among the people.] Dr. Sherlock, (the late bishop of London,) has observed in his first dissertation, at the end of his discourses on prophecy, that there is a sensible difference, not so much between the first and second epistles of Peter, as between this second chapter, when compared with the first and third. This chapter abounds in pompous words and expressions. It is a description of false teachers, and seems to be extracted from some Jewish writer, who had given a description of the false prophets, either those of his own time, or those who had lived before him. This remark accounts for the great resemblance between this chapter and the epistle of Jude; as was ob-
served in the Introduction. He suppose it might be transcribed, or translated by them, from some Jewish or Hebrew book that remained among them. See the epistle of Jude, note c.
b As there shall also be among you] Hence Mr. Mede, I think somewhat precariously, infers a similitude between the errors propagated by the false prophets among the Jews, and those which were to overrun the Christian Church; and instances in image worship, and the worship of departed saints and heroes, customary in the church of Rome. Mede in loc. Dr. Whitby applies all these things to the Nicolaitans, and Gnostics, who were a branch of them
should be punished like the fallen angels :
infected with their disorders, or the vices of a few, were to be imputed to all. And as for the false teachers I mention, they will order both their teaching and their conduct by views and maxims of covetousness, and with deceitful words will make merchandise of you, trafficking as it were for your immortal souls. These are wretches, whose judgment for a long time delays not, but advances apace; and their destruction does not slumber; how fondly soever they may dream of escaping it. But if they consider the numerous examples God has already given, of his righteous indignation, they must certainly take the alarm; For if God did not spare the angels that sinned, but, having cast [them] down from heaven, and sunk them to the abyss of hell, delivered [them] to be reserved in chains of darkness, to the judgment of the great and terrible day of account; we may from hence reasonably conclude, that he will find out a proper season to punish wicked men, the confederates and instruments of those
c Does not slumber.] Mr. Blackwall observes, that this is a most beautiful figure, representing the vengeance that shall destroy such incorrigible sinners, as an angel of judgment pursuing them upon the wing, continually approaching nearer and nearer, and in the mean time keeping a watchful eye upon them, that he may at length discharge an unerring blow. See his sacred Classics, Vol. I. p. 297.
d Did not spare the angels, &c.] Some have imagined this to be an imperfect sentence: I think it complete in the 9th verse. But as the length of the sentence is so necessarily increased, by such a method of paraphrasing as I have chosen, (though brought into the narrowest limits, which were judged consistent with answering the end,) I have thought it proper here, and in many other instances, to divide what, in the original, makes one sentence, into several; else I must have left many passages of the sacred writings far more intricate than I found them.
e Cast [them] down to hell.] Mr. Mede would translate the words, When God had condemned the angels that sinned to the punishment of hell, he delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved to judgment. I
cannot but think that the word ταξιωθειος is illustrated by the description given of Tartarus in Homer (Iliad. 6, Lin. 13—25,) as a deep gulph, under the earth, where there are iron gates, and a brazen entrance. It is derived from a word expressive of terror, and signifies the doleful prison in which wicked spirits are reserved, till they should be brought out to public condemnation and execution.
f In chains of darkness.] It has been queried, how the confinement of these unhappy spirits in chains of darkness, is consistent with their wandering up and down in the air, and upon earth. I think we are to answer, not by saying, that the darkness is moral, or that the light is disagreeable to them, as some have suggested; (compare Reynold’s Inquiry concerning the Angelic World, Query xxx. p. 191;) but rather, that a general confinement may be reconcileable with some degree of liberty, yet still liable to restraint, as God shall see fit. Compare Luke viii. 31; Rev. xx. 1, 3. And this air, over which they seem indeed to have some power sometimes granted them, (Eph. ii. 2,) is to be sure darkness, when compared with the light in which they originally dwelt.
And in like manner as the cities of the p.
rebellious spirits. And indeed the history of mankind furnishes us with many awful instances of this kind; and one, in which almost the whole human species was made the monument of Divine displeasure; for when God had been long insulted and provoked by their continued wickedness, we know that he spared not the inhabitants of the old antediluvian world. Nevertheless, it is worth our while at the same time to observe the favourable manner in which God interposed amidst the general ruin, for the preservation of the only good man that remained; for he kept Noah, the eighth [person, s] who was a preacher of righteousness, and seven others, who were with him in the ark, when he brought the irresistible destruction of the universal deluge upon the whole world of the ungodly, and destroyed all the impious wretches who had derided the admonitions of that faithful patriarch.
And in a succeeding age, when the inhabitants of those places were sunk into the lowest degeneracy, he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, with the most dreadful destruction, reducing them to ashes, by raining down fire and brimstone from heaven upon them; setting [them] as an example and pattern of that final vengeance he will bring on those sinners who should afterwards be ungodly, that they might learn their own condemnation and misery from the memorials of the destruction of those once noble, pleasant and flourishing cities of the plain. And by the miraculous interposition
s The eighth [person] a preacher of righteousness.] Bishop Pearson would render this clause, Noah the eighth preacher of righteousness; supposing, that Enos was the first, (Gen. iv. 26,) from whom Noah was the eighth; that all the intermediate persons bore the same office, and that Christ preached by them all. 1 Pet. iii. 19; Pears on the Creed, p. 113. To which Bishop Cumberland assents, supposing God had a continued succession of extraordinary persons in the patriarchal church. Cumb. on Gen p. 49. But I think it certain, that Enos could not be the first preacher of righteousness: Adam was in a wonderful manner fitted to perform that office in the first world, as Noah was in the record; and who excel at instructions
both might give, Dr. Winder has finely represented. Winder’s History of knowledge, Vol. I. p. 17, &c. p. 81—92. Bishop Pearson adds, that if we are not disposed to refer cydoso to xerox, and translate it, the eighth preacher of righteousness, it may be understood as denoting, not the order in which Noah was ranked but merely the number of persons that were with him, Noah with seven others or Noah one of eight; and accordingly I have determined it to this sense in the paraphrase. The Bishop hath produced several passages in the Greek classics in support of this sense of the word: and others may be seen in Raphelius. Compare also 1 Pet. iii. 20.
ions on the destruction of the o d worl , &c.
of his Providence, he rescued righteous Lot, who was so long grieved and afflicted by the lascivious conversation of these lawless men. For that righteous man, while he dwelt among them, seeing and hearing from day to day, the instances of their profligate and abandoned wickedness, tormented his upright soul by [those] unlawful and scandalous works, whose cry came up at length to heaven, and brought down upon them this flaming destruction. And thus on the whole, we discern in this memorable example, that on the one hand, The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation and danger, and on the other, to reserve the unrighteous to the day of judgment to be punished with a severity becoming their guilt and wickedness.
IMPROVEMENT.
THERE is no church so pure, but some false members, and even vers alse teachers, may insinuate themselves into it; yet it is our 1 duty to watch and pray, that the churches to which we respectively belong, may be guarded against their pernicious insinuations, and especially against the destructive heresies of those who deny the Lord who bought them. As we regard the edification of the church, and the salvation of our own precious and immortal souls, let us guard against whatever may justly deserve such an imputation as this. Wo be to those teachers who are actu- 3 ated with a covetous spirit, who teach things which they ought not for the sake of filthy lucre, and make merchandise of the souls of their hearers! How swiftly does their damnation approach, though they perceive not the gradations by which it advances; and with what irresistible terror will it at length overwhelm them!
That our hearts may be preserved under an awful impression 4 of the Divine judgments, let us often meditate on those displays of them of which the scripture informs us. And let us, in particular, reflect on the fall of the apostate angels, who were, for their first offence, precipitated from heaven, and reserved in chains of darkness to the judgment of the great day; and while we contemplate this awful dispensation, let us adore that distinguishing grace and compassion which laid hold on apostate man, and provided an all sufficient Saviour for him. Let us call to 5, 6 remembrance the dissolution of the old world by a deluge of water, and the tremendous destruction of the cities of the plain by fire from heaven; and let us fear that God, who can at pleasure break open the fountains of the great deep, and open the
- But they shall be chiefly punished, who are unclean, &c. iii windows of heaven, and emit from these his various magazines, deluges of water, or torrents of burning sulphur, to execute his vengeance. Who can flee from his pursuing hand? or who can be secure and happy but under his almighty protection? Yet awful as the terrors of his indignation are, his eyes are upon the verse 7,8 righteous, and his ears are open to their cry. What a noble support and encouragement may it therefore be to the small remnant, who from day to day are vexing their righteous souls at the ungodly deeds of the wicked among whom they dwell, to reflect on the deliverance of Noah, and of Lot, from that general destruction with which they were surrounded. A more perfect and complete deliverance will be at length accomplished for all the faithful servants of God, and there will be no possibility of doubting any more his ability, or his willingness to rescue them from every evil; for he will make the day of his vengeance on his enemies, a day of complete and everlasting salvation to his saints. And the Lord grant that we may all find mercy of the Lord in that important day. S E C T. IV. The apostle describes in very emphatical terms, the infamous character of some ungodly and seducing teachers, who were crept into the Christian church; and warns the Christian converts of the danger of their being perverted by them, and them of the dreadful destruction to which they exposed themselves. 2 Pet. II. 10—22. 2 PETER II. 10. SECT. iv. I HAVE been just mentioning the Divine vengeance which will be poured out on audacious and impenitent sinners; but I would especially be understood to intend those who go after strange flesh, in the lust of uncleanness; for they are particularly detestable in the eye of God, and the crimes they commit so much resemble that of Sodom, that it is the less to be wondered if they share in its punishment: and with them I also comprehend those who despise dominion, of which there are many among the licentious wretches before described, daring and self willed, uncontrollable in their own ways, and ready to face and withstand any opposition in the prosecution of them; they fear not to speak evil of those who possess 2 Pet. ii. 10 11 the highest dignities; Whereas the angels, even those who are greater in strength and power than the rest of those glorious beings, 11 Whereas angels which are greater in power
Who account it a pleasure to riot in the day :
bear not a reviling testimony against them be-ore the Lord; but abhorring all scurrility and violence of language, they with all calmness and decency declare matters as they are, as revering the presence of God, how much soever they may abhor the characters of ungodly men. (Jude 9.) But these men behave as if they were irrational animals,ᵃ made by nature to be taken, and destroyed, and consumed: the fiercest savage beasts, whom men for their own security and preservation, hunt down and destroy, can hardly be more violent, and outrageous than they; blaspheming things which they do not understand; and the consequence will be, that they shall be utterly destroyed in their corruption;ᵇ and many of them by their own intemperance, rashness, and folly, will hasten upon themselves that irretrievable ruin; Receiving indeed the just reward of their unrighteousness, and irregularities; while they account it a pleasure to riot in the day: they are spots and reproaches to the society to which they belong, living luxuriously in other places, by means of those deceits,ᶜ which they conceal under the mask of Christianity, banqueting with you, at the holy table.ᵈ Many of them are as lewd as they are gluttonous, having eyes full of adultery,ᵉ
ᵃ Irrational animals.] Dr. Whitby would render this, But these are as natural brute beasts: referring it to their promiscuous exercise of lust. And indeed it is evident, it must be explained as a general assertion, relating to some violence of temper; as no sin of the tongue, which is immediately afterwards spoken of, could be the resemblance of a brute. It may refer to their running headlong into extreme danger; which this licentious manner of speech, especially when attacking the characters of governors, might very naturally expose them to.
ᵇ Destroyed in their corruption.] The original phrase is εἰ τὴ φθορὰ αὐτῶν καὶ ἀφ-θαχνοῦν, and some would render it, are destroyed by destruction, that is, certainly, or utterly destroyed. Compare Cradock’s Apostolical History, p. 117. They boasted of being beyond the power of corruption and punishment, but are lost in both together.
ᶜ Living luxuriously, &c.] This is so good and proper a sense, that one is not
tempted to wish the establishing of the reading of ἀγαπαις for ἀπαλαις, which some have proposed, and so explain it to the riot of those pretended love feasts, into which indeed it is not impossible that luxury might soon come, when persons of such a character were concerned in them; and probably, that was the occasion of laying them aside.
ᵈ Banqueting with you.] It is not to be thought that luxury could be introduced into those feasts, which they celebrated with the church, without detecting their own characters; and therefore I think it most reasonable to consider their luxury as practised elsewhere; and to refer this banqueting, of which the apostle speaks, to their attending the sacred banquet of the Lord’s supper, as a cover for their licentiousness.
ᵉ Having eyes full of adultery: Ὁ φθαλ-μες—μύσκε μοιχαλιά.ᵃ] There is a prodigious strength in this expression; it properly signifies, their having an adulthood continually before their eyes.
Having their heart exercised with covetous;
and that cannot cease from sin, even when the powers of animal nature are exhausted; but by their words and gestures they endeavour to fan the flame; ensnaring unstable souls by their artful adresses, and having their heart continually exercised in avaricious schemes; on all which accounts, they are the children of a curse, and they shall find that in the end it will indeed fall heavy upon them.
For, deserting the straight and upright way of truth and integrity, they have wandered in dangerous and destructive paths; following in the way of that infamous person Balaam, [the son] of Bosor, who so loved the wages of unrighteousness, that he was willing to sacrifice every other interest to obtain them. But he received, in a very extraordinary manner the reproof of his transgression; for the dumb beast on which he rode, speaking with the voice of a man, restrained the madness of the prophet, when he would have pressed on to his own destruction. These, notwithstanding all their boasted pretensions, are fountains without water; they are clouds agitated by a whirlwind, easily yielding to every wind of persecution or temptation, and themselves big with storms and tempests; but after all their turbulence and mischief, they will be found in the number of those to whom is reserved blackness of darkness for ever, even the judgment of eternal darkness and despair. They sometimes indeed affect sublime strains of language, which are often void of any real meaning, and speaking swelling [words] of vanity, they ensnare in the lusts of the flesh, which they practise and promote in all variety of lasciviousness, those who were, so far as we can judge by their external behaviour, quite escaped from them that have their conversation in
Balaam [the son] of Bosor.] There is one manuscript which reads Beor, and this reading is confirmed by the Syriac version. Mr. Ainsworth and Dr. Lightfoot suppose, that the apostle, in writing Bosor for Beor, used the Chaldee dialect, as he writ in the neighbourhood of Babylon. See Ainsworth on Num. xxii. 5; and Dr. Lightfoot’s Addenda to his Hora Hebraicae, on 1 Cor. xiv. chap. 4.
Swelling words of vanity.] It is observed, that here, and in many other places,
these heretical teachers are represented as seducing their followers, not by the power of miracles, but by the arts of address.
Quite escaped, &c.] The words εἶμες ἀντιφυγόντες, which is the received reading, certainly signify, those who were thoroughly or entirely escaped. But the Alexandrian reading, εἰγὼς, which some other copies in some degree imitate, where they do not entirely follow, leaves a strong suspicion on my mind, that the apostle
ding others with vain promises of liberty.
error, and they draw back into apostasy some, who appeared to have set their faces in good earnest towards the kingdom of heaven; by which means they become partakers in the guilt of that aggravated condemnation and ruin which these deluded and unhappy persons bring upon themselves. For promising them liberty, they are so far from performing their engagements, that they are themselves the despicable slaves of corruption, and have not power and spirit enough to extricate themselves out of that infamous bondage; for by whomsoever any one is defeated and conquered, by him he is of course also enslaved; and it is too evident to admit of dispute, that these wretched men are continually conquered by sin.
And they ought certainly to be reckoned among the most miserable of mankind; for if, having escaped the pollutions of the world, by the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are entangled and subdued by them again, caught as it were in their nets, and so lying at their mercy to be wounded and destroyed by them, their last state is certainly much worse than the first:
For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness at all, than having known [it,] and professed a desire and resolution of walking in it, to have turned aside from the holy commandment¹ delivered to them; for by this means their guilt is so much the more aggravated; their conduct is the more pernicious to others, and consequently to themselves. But indeed when the matter comes thoroughly to be considered, it will appear, that under all the external appearances of reforma-
ight intend those who had almost escap- . I have therefore taken a medium, and retaining the usual reading in the version, have paraphrased the words in what I apprehend the most natural sense, with some regard to the other copies.
¹ From the holy commandment.] The learned Dr. Sherlock, the late bishop of London, interprets this of some directions drawn up by the apostles, relating to the
conduct which Christians should maintain with regard to these seducing teachers they are here cautioned against. See his Discourses on Prophecy, Diss. I. p. 124. It is, however certain, that it is capable of a larger interpretation, as many holy commandments remain upon record in the New Testament, which might guard them against the evils referred to in the preceding discourse.
VO . 6.
Reflections on such as disgrace their profession.
T. v. 2 Pet. ii. 22 tion, there was still an evil nature and princi- ple remaining, which at length prevailed; so that it is happened to them according to the true proverb, The dog [is] returned to gorge up his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed from the filthiness she had before contracted, having still the same unclean nature prevailing, is returned to wallow in the mire, and so makes herself as filthy as she had ever been before. (Compare Prov. xxvi. 11.)
IMPROVEMENT.
IT is indeed matter of grievous lamentation, that such wretches as those who are here described, should be any where found in the christian church. Let us be the less surprised, if any such spots and blemishes are discovered among us, on whom the ends of the world are come; but let the licentious character, here drawn, be noted with a just abhorrence, that if any such persons are found, they may with becoming indignation be put away. Many there are who seem to be as irrational and ravenous as brute beasts, and are far more pernicious to society than the race of sav-age or poisonous animals. They are indeed children of a curse, and they will inherit the curse, who thus contrive to make their lives one scene of iniquity, whose eyes, and lips, declare more wickedness in their hearts than they have power to execute. But it should be remembered, they are accountable to God, not only for all they do, but for all they desire and wish to do; and they are incessantly aggravating that terrible account. These disciples of Balaam will surely receive his reward; those dark clouds will quickly, if they continue thus to obscure with their crimes the horizon in which they ought to shine as stars, be doomed to blackness of darkness for ever. May persons of such a character, how specious soever the form which they wear, be universally detected and disgraced; may none of their swelling words of vanity entice and ensnare those who appear just escaping from the delusions of error and the fetters of vice; and may none permit themselves to be seduced by promises of liberty, from such mean and miserable slaves of corruption.
Finally, let us learn, by the awful conclusion of this chapter, to guard against all temptations to apostasy; may we never, after having long escaped the pollutions of the world, be entangled again, and overcome by them. Better, far better, would it have been for us, not to have known the way of righteousness, than, having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment: our last end, in this case, would be worse than the beginning; and those expressive similes, taken from such loathsome and detestable
St. Peter writes with the same view he did before :
animals would not be sufficient to paint out the degree, in which we should ourselves be loathsome and odious, in the sight of that God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, and cannot look upon evil. (Habak. i. 13.) May we therefore, with the righteous, hold on our way; and taking care to preserve the cleanness of our hands and hearts, may we daily wax stronger and stronger, (Job xvii. 9,) and shine with an increasing lustre; for the path of the just should be as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. (Prov. iv. 18.)