2 Peter 2

Notes

Ver. 1. But as there were false prophets among your Jewish ancestors who laboured to seduce them from the Lord into idolatry, and other wickedness, so there will be, especially among your Jewish nation, false teachers, who, under various pretences, will covertly and craftily introduce the most pernicious errors, tending to the sudden, unexpected, and eternal destruction of both teachers and receivers, as they will both doctrinally and practically deny the glory and renounce the wisdom, authority, grace, and holiness of their Lord and Master, discovered in the gospel revelation of him—whom they boast of as their ancient deliverer from Egypt, and marvellous preserver for many ages afterward, and who is the acknowledged Saviour and Redeemer of all the world. 2. And through the natural depravity and enmity of their hearts against God and his ways, many nominal professors of Christ's name shall be seduced into their licentious and destructive principles and practices—on account of which the truths of the gospel, and the way of holiness and happiness therein prescribed, will be blasphemously reproached by its enemies; 3. And by flattering speeches shall these seducers, influenced by their covetous inclinations, labour to deceive you, in order to promote their own secular advantages. But, from the examples of others, it is manifest that the terrible judgments of God, long ago determined and threatened, hasten apace towards them, and shall in due season be executed upon them. 4. For if God did not show favour to nor abate the punishment of those angels that are of a far higher rank, who, through pride and envy, transgressed that law which he had given them for the rule and trial of their obedience, but, for their first offence, hurled them down, with righteous indignation, from their holy, happy, and honourable habitation in heaven, and confined them in a state and region of horror and despair, till, at the general judgment, they shall receive their public condemnation, and have their full torment begun; 5. And if he had no pity on the inhabitants of the old world who had despised all his solemn and gracious warnings by Noe, that faithful preacher of righteousness, repentance, and reformation, and of the righteous judgments of God against the impenitent, who, with seven only of his family, was saved, when God, by a universal flood of waters, drowned the rest of the inhabitants of the world for their obstinate wickedness; 6. And if, by fire and brimstone from heaven, he utterly destroyed Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, on account of their horrid profligacy and unnatural lewdness, and set them up as a type or pattern of that final conflagration and eternal fire which shall consume all the wicked of the earth, that obstinate sinners of succeeding ages might see what they had to expect from his hand; 7, 8. While in distinguished kindness he plucked his righteous servant Lot as a brand out of the burning, who had been sorely grieved, fatigued, and oppressed in his own soul at the sight and report of the vile, dissolute, lascivious, obscene, and unnatural behaviour of that perverse and wicked people among whom he dwelt:—9. These undoubted facts invincibly prove that the almighty and infinitely wise Sovereign of the world perfectly knows at what time, and in what manner, and by what means, to extricate his faithful servants and worshippers out of all snares, troubles, and dangers, in the very worst of periods; and how to confine the wicked, though most powerful and crafty, under his supreme dominion, till the consequences of their sins come upon them in the judgment, when all reap the reward of their hearts and lives.—10. And according to his infinite wisdom and power, he will peculiarly reserve and punish those impious seducers who, answerably to their corrupt principles, live according to the carnal dictates and desires of their sensual minds, unrestrainedly gratifying their impure and lascivious inclinations, and insolently pouring contempt upon all regular government and authority over them that could put a check upon their vices. Daring, refractory, and headstrong, they seek only to please themselves, and make their own will their sole law, and fearfully and impudently reproach and rail at the apostles and other ministers of Christ, and at the civil magistrates whom God hath set over them to regulate and control their exorbitant passions, appetites, and manners; 11. While angels, who are far superior in dignity to these proud boasters, or any earthly magistrates, are so far from contemning or reviling these deputies of God, that they never use any opprobrious bitter language against the devils themselves. 12. But these presumptuous despisers of government, instead of imitating good angels, like furious beasts of prey, reproach, rage, and rail against persons and things, civil or religious, whose excellence they neither know nor approve; and therefore shall, by means of their own indulged corruption and wickedness, be utterly and eternally destroyed; 13. Yea, shall be fearfully but justly punished for their complicated crimes, as persons who glory and delight in the most shameless intemperance and unchastity, and are a reproach to the Christian name, gratifying their luxurious inclinations, with their own deceived or deceiving devices, and cheating and imposing upon you, while, under pretences of love and friendship, they partake with you in your ordinary or religious feasts. 14. Their eyes are continually and insatiably employed in wanton and adulterous looks, to discover their own lewd inclinations, and to excite the like in others, or to find out proper objects for inflaming and gratifying the vilest affections. They cannot refrain from contriving or committing sin, or endeavouring to draw others into it; and so, by their enticements in word and deed, they insnare such unguarded persons as are not established in the truth and holiness of the gospel, nor fortified with grace against their guileful arts. As children of wrath falling to destruction under the rule of God's righteous law, their hearts are entirely engaged in contriving how to fulfil their covetous desires after the riches and honours of this world. 15, 16. They have renounced the only true way of salvation through Jesus Christ, and of walking before God in faith and holy obedience, and have wandered into the ways of sin and error which lead to eternal misery, treading in the paths and copying the example of Balaam, who, amidst all his fair pretences, laboured to curse God's Israel, and directed how to seduce them into uncleanness and idolatry, in order that he might obtain worldly riches and honour; and was, by his own ass, when miraculously enabled to speak, sharply reproved for his infatuation and wickedness. 17. Amidst great pretences to and appearances of knowledge, they are really void of true wisdom and grace; and, instead of being truly useful, for the refreshment and fructifying of the church or their followers, they are carried about by the violence of their corruptions from one error and sin to another, till at last they shall be shut up in that infernal darkness, misery, and despair coming to them as their everlasting portion. 18. For by their high pretences to holiness and wisdom, they only vent the pride and vanity of their own hearts, and accommodating themselves to the sensual and lascivious inclinations of depraved nature, they insnare such as had been once brought off from the errors of Judaism or heathenism, and had for a time shunned the conversation and practices of such as lead wicked lives according to their erroneous principles. 19. And while they promise their followers full liberty in indulging their vicious inclinations, they themselves are the worst of slaves to their own corrupt lusts, being entirely overcome and conquered by them. 20-22. For if, after they have been externally reformed from the gross and scandalous practices of the men of this world which lieth in wickedness, through the notions which they had received concerning Jesus Christ as a Saviour and Sovereign, they are again insnared and involved in these abominations, and yield up themselves to the practice of them, their case is more aggravated, guilty, dangerous, and hopeless than it was before they knew anything of Christ and the gospel, and especially than it was when they had the first conceptions of these things; for their sin and punishment would really have been less had they never heard nor known anything of him, and his righteousness or law, than when, after acquaintance with his law, they revolt from that pure and holy doctrine which had been preached to them with a divine authority to bind it upon their consciences.—But, agreeably to a well-known proverb—as dogs lick up their own vomit, and swine, after being washed. return to wallow in the mire—so, their natures though being changed, they, after conviction of and reformation from their wicked practices, return to them with as much pleasure and eagerness as ever.

Reflections.—We must never expect a perfect church on earth. Deceivers, for the sake of worldly advantages, will always creep into the ministry, and always find followers. And often they fearfully pervert the gospel, and constructively deny that God who has wrought so great providential deliverances for themselves and others. Yea, notwithstanding repeated and tremendous warnings of providence in the destruction of their patterns in guilt, under the most specious pretences of wisdom and piety, they entice, insnare, defile, enslave, and ruin unstable professors, and carry on the vilest covetousness, pride, luxury, and unchastity. Dreadfully criminal and dangerous is it to return to that wickedness which the knowledge of divine truth had rendered detestable; and fearful remorse in hell, if not also misery on earth, awaits, and unceasingly hastens forward to, such, while God will certainly, seasonably, and marvellously deliver his saints from their seduction, example, and punishment.