God’s Rescue Plan (2 Peter 2:1–10a)

In October 2012, Shanghai emergency services responded to a suicide call. Witnesses reported that a woman had been sitting on a windowsill on the top floor of her four-storey building for two hours. Three police vehicles and a fire truck were dispatched. More than twenty rescuers began laying cushions on the ground below while a police negotiator, with the help of the building’s superintendent, broke into the woman’s apartment to talk her down.

When the negotiator reached her, she, somewhat embarrassed, revealed that she was not, in fact, suicidal, but had simply been sitting on the ledge to utilise her neighbour’s WiFi. The rescue effort turned out to be entirely unnecessary.

Second Peter 2:1–10a speaks of God’s intent to “rescue” his “godly” people from “trials” (v. 9). Unlike the Shanghai debacle, this rescue plan was very necessary, for the people to whom Peter wrote were living in a time of great darkness, and the promise of God’s rescue plan was the only light that could guide them until the day dawned (1:19).

We saw in 1:1–11 that God had provided his people with everything they needed for godly living (“life and godliness” [v. 3]). It was necessary that his people pursue godliness because only the godly would be delivered from the “trials” they were facing (v. 9).

We then saw in 1:12–21 a hint that the apostles were being accused of contriving “cleverly devised myths” when they preached “the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” For forty years, Peter and his fellow apostles had been preaching Jesus’ prophecy that “there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power” (Mark 9:1). Peter argues in 1:12–21 that this was not a “cleverly devised myth.” He points to two witnesses who bore witness to the truth of this promise: the transfiguration, by offering the apostles a preview of Christ’s power and coming, (1:16–18) and the Holy Spirit, by inspiring the apostles to record what they had seen in Scripture (1:19–21).

As we move into chapter 2, Peter, for the first time, makes explicit reference to the false teachers who were “secretly bring[ing] in destructive heresies.” In this chapter, he is not concerned with refuting the “heresies” of the false teachers but with denouncing them in the strongest terms. In a sense, there was no need to refute the heresies for they were so destructive that they would bring about the destruction of the very people who spread them.

Chapter 2, which really forms a unit, involves a threefold movement. First, Peter warns of the presence of false teachers in their midst (vv. 1–3). Second, he addresses the punishment of the false teachers (vv. 4–10a). Third, he discloses the character of the false teachers (vv. 10b–22). We will consider the first two of these movements in the time we have in this study as we consider the truth that God’s rescue plan

1. assumes the presence of false teachers (vv. 1–3); and
2. assures the punishment of false teachers (vv. 4–10a).

The text raises all sorts of fascinating questions, but, while we will touch on them, we must not allow those questions to distract us from Peter’s primary purpose, which was to encourage his readers in God’s ability to rescue the faithful from their time of trial even as he promised to punish those who opposed his faithful people.

God’s Rescue Plan Assumes the Presence of False Teachers

Peter begins this chapter by pointing to the presence of false teachers:

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

(2 Peter 2:1–3)

Commentators have noted that Peter, throughout this letter, seems far less concerned with the content of the false teaching than with the character of the false teachers. Some have pointed to 3:4 as the only place where Peter directly addresses the content of their teaching. I believe that there are clues, even in the present text, however, that help us to identify the false teachers and their “destructive heresies.”

Peter connects the “false teachers among you” with the “false prophets” formerly among God’s people. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which was the primary translation used by the New Testament writers, the term here translated “false prophets” is used almost exclusively—with a single exception, in fact—in the book of Jeremiah. Peter appears to have used this phrase particularly to remind them of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah preached a message of the temple’s destruction to a people who were not ready to receive it. The false prophets who countered Jeremiah’s preaching contradicted his message and proclaimed a promise of peace rather than destruction. The false teachers of Peter’s time were doing the same.

For nearly forty years, Peter and his fellow apostles had been preaching Christ’s coming judgement on Jerusalem. Like the false prophets in Jeremiah’s day, the first century false teachers openly rejected the apostolic warning and proclaimed a message of peace.

When Peter writes of “the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” that he and his fellow apostles had “made known” (1:16), and which the false teachers denied (3:4), I believe that he was referencing Christ’s promise to come in judgement against Jerusalem. I think that the connection to the transfiguration in 1:16–18 strongly suggests this.

In Mark 9:1, Jesus prophesied, “There are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power.” Immediately after that, Mark records the transfiguration, which was a sort of preview granted to Peter, James, and John as a confirmation of his prophecy in Mark 9:1. (The other Synoptic Gospels—Matthew and Luke—likewise tie the transfiguration to that prophecy.) Jesus warned that he would, within the lifetime of that generation, return in judgement on Jerusalem, and, as confirmation, allowed Peter, James, and John to witness the transfiguration.

For the next forty years, Peter and his fellow apostles preached that Jesus would come in powerful judgement against Judaism by destroying the temple and bringing the entire sacrificial system crashing down. Just as the false prophets denied Jeremiah’s preaching about a destroyed temple, so these false teachers denied Peter’s preaching about a destroyed temple.

But how does this help to identify the false teachers? The question is simple: Who were the first-century religious teachers who openly denied that the Jewish temple would be destroyed? They were the very ones who preached the primacy of the temple: the Judaisers. For nearly forty years, Judaisers had placed pressure on Jewish Christians to return to the sacrificial system and everything involved in it. This is a theme that runs throughout the New Testament, perhaps most strongly in the book of Hebrews. In the first century, the strongest opposition to Christianity was not imperial Rome but religious Judaism. Jewish Christians were under immense pressure to “deny the Master who bought them” by returning to Judaism and its rituals. To do so would be to “trample underfoot the Son of God” and to “profane the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified” (Hebrews 10:29). The socio-religious pressure was immense.

There are other clues in this chapter that also point to the Judaisers as the “false teachers” whom Peter denounced. Consider these clues with me as we ask if this is a fair conclusion.

First, take Peter’s reference to the flood and to Sodom and Gomorrah in vv. 4–8. John symbolically referred to Jerusalem as “Sodom” in Revelation 11:6. This follows the pattern of the Old Testament prophets who frequently compared the faithless Jews to Sodom and Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:7–10; 3:8–9; Jeremiah 23:14; Lamentations 4:6; Ezekiel 16:46). Similarly, in predicting Jerusalem’s destruction, Jesus compared his generation to the generations of the flood and Sodom (Luke 17:20–37).

Second, the reference to Balaam and his way (vv. 15–16) bears a resemblance to Revelation 2:14, where the Jewish opposition in Pergamum is said to have taken the form of “the teaching of Balaam.”

Third, Peter writes of “the lust of defiling passion” (v. 10) (or “the polluting desires of the flesh” [CSB]) and “the sensual passions of the flesh” (v. 18). These references to “the flesh” sound very Judaistic. The Judaisers were well-known for their infatuation with the flesh, particularly the fleshly rite of circumcision (Galatians 3:3; 5:13). Indeed, when Paul wrote to the Galatians of the fruit of the Judaisers’ teaching, he called it “the works of the flesh” (Galatians 5:19–21).

Fourth, Peter’s allusion in v. 20 to Matthew 12:43–45 similarly suggests a Jewish focus. In v. 20, Peter writes, “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.” This last phrase—“the last state has become works for them than the first”—appears to be an allusion to Jesus’ teaching regarding unclean spirits in Matthew 12:43–45:

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

(Matthew 12:43–45)

Jesus explicitly connects his teaching to the religious Jews of his own time—“this evil generation”—and Peter’s allusion to Jesus’ words seems to suggest that he has the same people in mind.

If this identification of the false teachers as Judaisers is accurate, then the “destructive heresies” they promoted, which were “denying the Master who bought them,” were heresies that demanded a return to Judaism. Peter’s readers were living in “a dark place” (1:19) of great pressure, because of open persecution, to abandon Christianity in favour of Judaism, and they needed to cling to Jesus’ promise of his powerful coming to destroy Judaism as the pressure mounted for them to forsake the fulness of Christ for the shadows of temple worship.

Peter promised his readers that they would not have to grope around in the darkness for much longer. These false teachers were bringing on themselves “swift destruction.” The word translated “swift” is consistently used in the New Testament to describe something that will happen in a short amount of time. The false teachers were promoting a return to Judaism precisely because they were denying a swift change in the temple system. Peter assured his readers that these false teachers and their false system were destined for “swift destruction.”

When he writes of “their sensuality” (v. 2), he is in agreement with John, who vividly described Jerusalem and its temple worship as a great prostitute who had liberally committed sexual immorality with “the dwellers on earth” (Revelation 17:1–2ff). Their insistence that Christians return to Judaism, and even their collaboration with imperial power in the persecution of Christians, was evidence of spiritual adultery. They openly “blasphemed” the “truth” about Christ (v. 2) and, like the false prophets in Jeremiah’s day (Jeremiah 6:13), were motivated by greed.

This is the challenge that Peter’s predominantly Jewish audience faced: mounting pressure to return to the shadows of Judaism. The false teachers in their midst were relentlessly driving home the pressure for this reversion to Judaism. But Peter had a message for his readers: “Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep” (v. 3). The false teachers were present, but they would not be for much longer. Christ would fulfil his promise. Within a very short period of time—a matter of years—Christ’s prophecy of Jerusalem’s destruction would come to pass and the greatest opposition to early Christianity would be removed. The darkness would give way to dawn as the morning star rose in the hearts of God’s people (1:19).

Before we move forward, I want to take a moment to reflect on the truth that returning to Judaism was a “destructive heresy” tantamount to “denying the Master.” It was a temptation that was very real for Peter’s original audience. Christians who had converted from Judaism faced immense pressure to return to Judaism. They faced open hostility for their faith and were promised that, if they just returned to Judaism, the persecution would stop. But Peter urged his readers not to do so because, even if it brought an end to persecution, it would only bring “swift destruction” when the entire Jewish system came crashing down with the destruction of the temple.

South African Christians do not face the temptation to renounce Christianity in favour of the Jewish sacrificial system. But there is the ever-present danger, in the face of hostility for our faith, to renounce our commitment to Christ and to return to a former way of life.

Now, there are certainly Christians around the world who face temptations similar to the one mentioned here. Many have converted to Christianity from Islam or Hinduism and face open hostility for their newfound faith, with the promise that the hostility will cease if only they will renounce Christianity and return to their former religion.

Sometimes, similar pressure takes place within the broader Christian world. I have known believers who have been converted from a Roman Catholic upbringing who have faced great pressure from family to renounce their evangelical faith and to return to the rituals of Catholicism. I have known people who were raised in “Christian” churches where the gospel was not preached and, when they came to the knowledge of the truth, the pressure was turned up for them to return to the religion of their upbringing.

But even if that is not our particular challenge, Peter wants us to remember that embracing anti-Christian worldviews in an effort to avoid hostility is a denial of the truth about Christ.

Perhaps you attend a wedding or a funeral and your family puts the pressure on to sacrifice to the ancestors, which is a deeply unchristian thing to do. To give into this unbiblical practice out of a desire to avoid hostility is to deny the Master who bought you and to blaspheme the way of truth.

Increasingly, the Western-influenced world is intolerant of Christian truth, and the temptation is for us to deny that truth when the pressure is on. It is increasingly not tolerated for Christians to affirm Christian truths. A New Zealand high school teacher recently had his teaching license revoked because he would not use the preferred pronouns of a transgender student. Perhaps you would argue that the use of preferred pronouns is not a hill that we should die on, and we could have that discussion, but the incident nonetheless underlines the fact that we can’t assume that Christian convictions will continue to be respected. All the talk of tolerance and diversity comes to a grinding halt when it comes to Christian convictions. And when we know that our convictions will not be tolerated, the temptation might be to abandon them for the sake of ease.

Perhaps, for you, it is the temptation to return to a former lifestyle when you are around certain friends. You used to get drunk and become involved in unsavoury speech around certain friends before you were saved, and they just will not understand and embrace the change if you refuse to do so now. So you revert to your former way of life in an effort to avoid an uncomfortable situation. That is a denial of the Master who bought you and a blasphemy of the way of truth.

Christ has saved us to walk in godliness and we need to persevere in godliness if we will avoid the sudden destruction that comes upon the ungodly.

God’s Rescue Plan Assures the Punishment of False Teachers

In vv. 4–10a, Peter picks up two Old Testament examples of destruction and deliverance to underscore his appeal that the Lord knows how to rescue the godly and punish the godless.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment; if he did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgement, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.

(2 Peter 2:4–10)

As I have said, Peter here draws on two Old Testament narratives to illustrate his point regarding God’s rescue plan.

The Example of Noah

First, he appeals to the example of Noah (vv. 4–5).

The story of Noah begins in Genesis 6 with “the sons of God” procreating with “the daughters of men.” Many interpreters understand these two categories to refer to the line of Seth (“sons of God”) intermarrying the line of Cain (“daughters of men”), and that may well be the correct interpretation of the historical events, but a Jewish tradition arose during the intertestamental period that “the sons of God” in Genesis 6 were fallen angels who procreated with human women (“the daughters of men”), which led to the great evil that God determined to judge by the flood. Whether or not he actually affirmed this tradition (and, as we will see by his reference to “hell” below, it is not a problem to assume he didn’t), I think Peter referred to it here as an interpretation with which his readers were familiar.

The “angels” whom God “did not spare … when they sinned” seems to me to be a reference to “the sons of God” in Genesis 6. Rather than “spare” them, God “cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgement.” The word translated “hell” here is not the normal Greek word translated “hell” (Gehenna) but the word Tartarus. In Greek mythology, Tartarus was a chamber in the underworld where the gods locked up their enemies to await a later judgement. Peter was not affirming the existence of Tartarus as a real place, but he used the concept to teach that God did not spare the “angels” who sinned but, as it were, locked them up to await a future judgement. He similarly “did not spare the ancient world” that sinned with “the angels.”

By contrast, God “preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness with seven others when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly.” Even as he (literally) rained judgement upon the godless, God was preserved the godly.

The Example of Lot

Peter’s second illustration underscores this. In vv. 6–8 he references the Old Testament narrative about Sodom and Gomorrah. These were cities renowned for their wickedness and God (again, literally) rained down judgement on them, while preserving his faithful people—in this instance, Lot and his daughters.

If God was able, both in the flood and at Sodom, to rescue the godly while he punished the ungodly, “then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority” (vv. 9–10).

As we have seen, Peter’s readers were living in a dark time and the glimmer of light that they had held onto for nearly a generation was Jesus’ promise that the intense Jewish opposition would soon come to an end. But it seems that they were being tempted to believe that it was all for nothing. As time passed, it seemed that there was no real light in the darkness. They were destined to be destroyed along with the wicked. Peter urges them not to think that way, reminding them that God had always been able to rescue his friends even as he judged his enemies.

Peter’s readers needed to observe that God would deliver the “godly,” and therefore they needed to be urged to godly living (1:3–11). Perhaps the examples of “the godly” that Peter cites in our own text give us insight as to what godly living looks like.

Noah was “a herald of righteousness” (v. 5). Surrounded by greater wickedness than any of us has ever known, Noah displayed his righteousness by preaching righteousness. As Calvin observes, Noah “tried to bring a degenerate world to a sound state of mind, and he did so not only by teaching and exhortations to holiness but by his constant and anxious toil for a hundred and twenty years in building the ark.” For 120 years, as he built the ark, Noah urged people to repentance and godly living. He did not for a moment allow the wickedness around him to tarnish his view of righteousness. He knew what was right and what was wrong and unceasingly called people to repentance. That’s just one of the things that the godly do.

Would you describe yourself “as a herald of righteousness”? Do you not only live righteously but also open your mouth to preach righteousness in a godless world? Do your words agree with God about what is right, what is wrong, how to get right, and how to stay right? That is what godly living looks like.

Lot’s righteousness, on the other hand, was displayed by his great distress over the wickedness that he saw around him. “For as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard” (v. 8). Though he lived in a place of great darkness, he never became desensitised to sin. We may question his wisdom in choosing to stay in Sodom, but we cannot question his commitment to God’s righteous standards and his grief when those standards were violated.

Does sin bother you? And not only the “big” sins, but all sin? Sodom is well-known as a place that tolerated rampant and violent sexual sin. But that is not the only sin of which the Sodomites were guilty. Hear Ezekiel’s denunciation of Sodom: “Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it” (Ezekiel 16:49–50). We are quick to denounce the rampant sexual sin that surrounds us, but what about “pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease” while we fail to “aid the poor and needy”? The abundance that produced lack of concern for neighbour grieved Lot. Does it grieve you?

Why is this important? Because God’s rescue plan is to “rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgement.” If we will benefit from God’s rescue plan, we must strive for godly living. Peter’s readers faced a particular trial, and God would rescue them from it, but the promise extends further: God is able to rescue his faithful people from all sorts of “trials.”

Notice that in all three instances here—the historical circumstances of Peter’s audience, the historical circumstances of Noah’s life, and the historical circumstances of Lot’s life—the “trial” faced by the godly was the result of commitment to righteousness in the face of wickedness. Has your commitment to righteousness invited opposition? Has your refusal to give into shady practices at work invited hostility? Has your refusal to cave to the godless temptations of your classmates invited hostility? Has your commitment to Christ over family invited hostility? Do you feel the pressure to compromise so that the hostility will vanish. Don’t do it. Believe that God can rescue the godly while he holds the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgement.

As we begin to draw our time to a close, let us note a few implications from this text about God’s rescue plan.

First, while it assures the punishment of false teachers, God’s rescue plan does not promise the removal of suffering in this life. As we have repeatedly seen, Peter’s readers were living “in a dark place” under the intense Jewish persecution they were facing (1:19). Though God loved them deeply (3:1), and while Peter desperately wanted them to cling to the light of God’s promises, he did not tell them that believing God’s promises would immediately remove all suffering. He understood that suffering is a part of life in general and that, often, it is the lot of Christians in particular.

In his first letter, Peter particularly commended those who would suffer for their faith—who would suffer “as a Christian” (1 Peter 4:16). By reminding his readers that Christ had left them an example of how to suffer well (2:21–25), he clearly implied that they should not expect to escape suffering in this life. Sometimes, God graciously steps into human history to deliver us from suffering in the moment—as he would do within just a few years by bringing the Jewish religious system crashing down. At other times, we simply need to trust his goodness and his ultimate righting of all wrongs at the final day of judgement.

This leads us to our second observation: While it assures the punishment of false teachers, God’s rescue plan does not demand adherence to our timetable. God’s patience often necessitates that his people endure suffering for his name’s sake. The false teachers were mocking the thought that judgement would come against Jerusalem (3:4). Peter urged his readers to understand why God had delayed: “The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). The Lord allowed his people to endure suffering because, in so doing, he was giving his enemies further opportunity to repent. I say it again: God’s patience often necessitates that his people endure suffering for his name’s sake.

We long to see Christian persecution brought to an end. We pray to that end. In our church we pray every Sunday for a particular persecution focus and we long to see our suffering brothers and sisters liberated from their suffering. But we also remember that, as long as God permits unjust suffering, there is opportunity for the persecutors to repent. When judgement falls, that opportunity is gone. God is more patient than we are, and we do well to learn to trust his timetable.

Third, in assuring the punishment of false teachers, God’s rescue plan is seen most clearly in Jesus Christ. People often wonder how a good God could allow good people to suffer bad things. Behind this question is often the erroneous assumption that God sits aloof from suffering and simply watches as we take what he will never have to experience.

We do well to remember that no one knows the reality of unjust suffering like God himself. In the incarnation, God took on human flesh. He lived a life of utter blamelessness but died a death of the most horrendously unjust suffering. The words of the penitent criminal at Calvary capture it well: “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong” (Luke 23:40–41).

Jesus knew the reality of unjust suffering far more deeply than you or I ever will. But he endured it because he knew that it was necessary to bring salvation to those who would repent of their sins and call on his name. He died, completely undeservedly, on a cruel cross so that believing sinners could find forgiveness in him. God’s judgement against sin was poured out on him on the cross so that his righteousness could be credited to them.

The choice for us is simple: Receive Christ’s offer of forgiveness of sins by his punishment, or reject his offer and face the punishment for your own sin. If you reject Christ, you need to reckon with the gravity of v. 9: “The Lord knows how … to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgement.” That day of judgement will be a day of eternal destruction for those who rejected Christ. Sodom and Gomorrah were “condemned … to extinction” as “an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly” (v. 6). The only hope of escaping eternal extinction is to trust in Jesus Christ, whose death and resurrection secured eternal life for all who would believe in him. Will you receive God’s rescue plan for yourself today?

AMEN