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Introduction God Wants You to Know about False Teachers
If you walked around on a seminary campus and took a survey to find out which branches of theology students are most interested in, you’d get a variety of answers. Some are really into eschatology—the doctrines of the end times. Others specialize in pneumatology—the study of the Holy Spirit, or angelology—angels and demons. But of all the topics in Scripture, which ones do you think God wants us to be most interested in?
How could we know? Well if we go by how often God talks about each subject in Scripture, then one area of knowledge that would be way up high on God’s list of important topics—a topic that God clearly wants us to know a lot about, to have a high level of interest in, and really be well-versed in—is a topic that probably not one student on your survey would have mentioned in his top ten. It’s the topic of false teachers. In both Old and New Testaments, there are many long passages teaching us about false prophets and false teachers. You can tell how important this is to God by how much real estate in his Word he devoted to it.
Matthew 7, 23, 24
Acts 20
2 Corinthians 11
Galatians 1
2 Timothy 4
Titus 1
1 John 4
The entire book of Jude
And in Revelation, we’re told of an ultimate, final, end times false prophet. (Rev.16:13; 19:20; 20:10).
God wants every reader of Scripture to get at least a minor in the topic of false teachers. There are so many passages. And the longest and most detailed one in the New Testament is the chapter we begin today—2 Peter 2. Every word of this entire chapter is about false teachers.
It’s an interesting chapter because it’s only information. There isn’t one command in the whole chapter—not one imperative verb. Peter isn’t going to tell us to do anything. He just wants us to know a whole lot of information about false teachers because of how dangerous they are. I’ll read the first three verses and that will give you a feel for the whole chapter.
2 Peter 1:1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false[1] teachers[2] among you. They will secretly introduce heresies of destruction, even denying the Sovereign who bought them–bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring ridicule on the way of truth. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
Okay, so this is a topic God wants you to know a lot about. If it’s not an area of interest for you, it needs to be. God clearly wants it to be.
So what is it specifically that God wants us to know about false teachers? Well, as usual, the verses are densely packed. That’s how Peter writes. But I think we can organize everything he teaches about them in this opening paragraph under 5 headings, and they all start with the letter D. We’ll look at the first 3 tonight and save the other two for next time. The first D you probably already noticed because he repeated it three times in the first three verses: Destruction.
Their DESTRUCTION A Judgment Marathon
2 Peter 2:1 … They will secretly introduce heresies of destruction … bringing swift destruction on themselves
3 … their destruction has not been sleeping.
That word “destruction” could be translated “damnation,” because it’s used throughout the NT to describe the final, eternal punishment that’s coming on the wicked.[3] So the phrase “heresies of destruction” means their teaching sends people to hell.
But this word also includes temporal consequences for sin in this life because the path that leads to hell passes through a lot of hellish valleys along the way. False teaching brings all kinds of destruction into your life now, and final damnation in hell.
And if you think Peter repeating that word “destruction/damnation” three times in three verses is a lot, brace yourself because Peter’s just warming up. The whole chapter is about nothing but God’s judgment coming down hard on the false teachers and the people they influence.
After this opening paragraph, Peter devotes the whole next section to giving proof after proof from the OT that you can count on God to mete out punishment. He sent angels to hell, he destroyed the ancient world with a flood, and burned Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes as an example of what he’s going to do to all the ungodly. That’s vv.4-9. Then Peter turns back to the punishment coming on the false teachers.
12 They are like brute beasts … born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish.
13 They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done.
17 … Blackest darkness is reserved for them.
20 … they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.
That’s a brutal chapter. Then, chapter 3 is all about the final destruction coming on the whole world.
Have you ever wondered why you’ve never heard your pastor preach verse by verse through 2 Peter? It’s because as much as we all love chapter 1, after that it’s all hellfire and brimstone. And if you get up and preach about damnation for 40 straight verses, guess how many people you’ll have left in your church at the end?
So it’s not a popular book, but it’s in the Bible for a reason. Not everything your father puts on your dinner plate is dessert. Some of the food your body needs is a little harder to digest. 2 Peter 2 is pure veggies. But it’s a superfood. It’s not going to taste good, you’ll probably be sick of it by the time we’re done, but your soul needs the nutrients in this chapter.
Peter’s Purpose: to Save Your Life
So if this study starts to get uncomfortable in the months to come, just remember why all this material is in here. Peter tells us why at the end of the book. Peter says, “I wrote all this hard stuff …
2 Peter 3:17 … so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your steadfastness.
Peter’s trying to save your life. That’s his purpose in all this negative judgment talk—it’s all to protect you from falling away.
What about ch.1? What was Peter’s purpose in writing all those beautiful, positive, encouraging truths about knowing God?
2 Peter 1:10 … make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall
Exactly the same purpose—to keep you from falling away. The whole book has one purpose. But at the beginning of ch.2 you see a major shift—not in Peter’s purpose, but in his tactic. In chapter 1, his strategy is to say, “Look how beautiful the godly path is!” And in chapters 2-3, he’s saying, “Look how ugly the opposite is!” Two different tactics for the same goal: motivating us to take the godly path.
And on the negative side, he knows it wouldn’t be enough to just say, “Beware of false teachers” and then move on. Even 8 or 10 verses wouldn’t be enough. He wants us to see it in detail from every angle for a long time. The Holy Spirit is using that scared straight tactic, like when they put teenagers in a prison and have inmates talk to them about how horrible it is.
So no matter how uncomfortable this study gets, keep in mind—this is the easy way to learn this lesson. The really hard way is to actually be deceived by the false teachers. Far better to spend a few months squirming under hard preaching now than to find yourself actually lost in the desert someday. Every word of this chapter is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that we can be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
The Worst of Sinners?
Now, here’s the principle that will make this whole study positive rather than negative: Think of why these people get such harsh judgment. You’ll be hard pressed to find a stronger condemnation of any group of people than what Peter unloads on these false teachers in 2 Peter 2. Even without the book of 2 Peter, I think you could make an argument that false prophets and false teachers get the severest judgment of all sinners.
In the OT, if a prophet uttered one single false prophecy one time, he was to be executed. No second chance, no messing around—death penalty (Dt.18:20). And it’s even stronger in the NT, especially with Jesus. I don’t know of any passage where Jesus sounds angrier than when he rebukes the false teachers of his time in Matthew 23. You can’t read that chapter and imagine Jesus having any other tone than shouting in anger.[4] You never see Jesus get this worked up with any other kind of sinner. You name the sin—lying, stealing, political corruption, sexual predators, murders—no one else in the Bible makes Jesus fly off the handle like he did with these men. So you could make a pretty strong argument that false teaching is the ultimate evil. The Opposite of God’s Word Why is that? The answer is in the very first word of ch.2: “But.” That “but” signals that shift in Peter’s tactic. He has been talking about knowledge of God through his Word in ch.1, and ch.2 is about the opposite of that—the opposite of God’s Word and true prophecy. Look at the previous verse (and remember, there were no verse or chapter divisions in the original).
2 Peter 1:21 prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God … 2:1 But, there were also false prophets among the people just as there will be false teachers among you.
The Word of God came to us through prophecy. So false prophecy is the opposite of God’s Word.[5] What was the result of true knowledge of God in ch.1? Sharing in the divine nature. What’s the result of preaching the opposite of God’s Word? Destruction and damnation. That’s why all of ch.2 is about destruction, because Peter is showing us what you get when you have the opposite of God’s Word.
Lying about God
If you wonder what makes false teaching so evil—arguably the worst of all evils, it’s because false teachers lie about God. What can you do to a person that’s more damaging than lie to him about God? Everything good that comes from knowing God—you get the opposite of that when you have the opposite of God’s Word. Sins like assault or murder are bad, but they only harm the body. Lying about God destroys people’s souls both now and in the next life.
I hope you get this because this is the most important point I’ll make tonight: You can tell how valuable God’s Word is by how angry God gets when a teacher delivers the opposite of his Word.
Imagine a dad wraps three presents for his kid on his birthday. Someone comes in and says, “One of the gifts got stolen.”
“Which one?”
“The one in blue wrapping paper.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. Bummer.”
“Oh, and the green one also got stolen.”
“What?!! No, no no!!” And he flies into a rage and vows to track down that thief and make him wish he was never born. No one has ever seen him that mad. You don’t have any idea what those gifts were, but what does the dad’s response tell you about the value of that second gift?
Suppose a little green Martian landed on earth and didn’t know anything about Scripture or anything about the value of knowing God. But he comes across 2 Peter 2. And he sees the fury of God toward teachers who are giving God’s people the opposite of Scripture. He would say, “I don’t know what this ‘Scripture’ stuff is, but whatever it is, it must be supremely valuable.”
The reason lying about God is the most destructive of all sins is the truth of God brings so much good. If you remember that, it will turn this chapter from being a massive downer to a sweet motivation to treasure the truth about God.
Two Worlds Review
I spent the whole session last time describing two worlds. One is the world of the atheists, which is a barren desert. And the other is the real world, which is like a lush, green, beautiful, enchanted forest[6]. And do you remember what it is that makes the difference between the real, beautiful world and the desert wasteland world of the atheists? It’s not the existence of God. It’s the existence of God’s Word.
That’s why Satan doesn’t care if you believe in God, as long as he can keep you from God’s Word. Do you remember the first recorded words the devil ever spoke? “Did God really say …?” His most fundamental strategy from day 1 has always been to cast doubt, not on God’s existence, but on God’s Word.
The first thing Satan ever said questioned God’s words; the second time he opened his mouth he flat out denied God’s words. “You will not surely die.” The exact opposite of what God had said.
The third time he spoke, he added to God’s Word.
“When you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5).
Question God’s Word, deny God’s Word, confuse God’s Word, add to God’s Word—Satan did all that in the first 5 verses of his debut in the human realm. Satan doesn’t care if you believe in God; he just doesn’t want you to have God’s Word because he knows that God’s Word is what opens up the real world to you.
It’s when God communicates to us and reveals truth about himself to us that we gain access into the real world.
That’s why we all love chapter 1 of 2 Peter so much. It’s all about true knowledge of God through Scripture And so however much good comes to us when we receive truth about God—that’s the degree of evil and harm that is done by distorting that truth.
That’s why the false teachers get the hottest hell. If lying about God is the worst of all evils, it’s because truth about God is the best gift God ever gave us. It’s the source of life and truth and light and guidance. When you lie to people about what God is like, you cut them off from all that—all the wonderful things we’ve studied these past 20+ sessions. You can’t do any worse damage to a person, you can’t harm a person any worse than by making him think untrue things about God.
A Sunday school teacher asked his 5th graders if anyone knew what false doctrine is. One kid raised his hand. “False doctor’in is when the doctor gives you bad medicine.” That’s actually not far off. False teachers are doctors who prescribe poison.
And that brings us to our second D—damage. The first one is their destruction or damnation, and they deserve that damnation because of all the damage they do.
Their DAMAGE
They do damage to three parties. The first is the church.
Damage to the Church
The scariest part of this whole passage is how successful these teachers are.
2 Peter 2:2 Many will follow[7] their shameful ways
You can almost see a tear fall from Peter’s eye onto the page as he writes that. Because remember in chapter 1 he told us he’s devoting the whole rest of his life, whatever time he had left, to seeing to it that his readers will not be deceived by these people. But then he says, “Despite all my efforts, it’s not just a handful of you who will fall. Many will be deceived and end up following these monsters in their shameful ways.”
The word translated “shameful” is aselgeia. It refers to the way people behave when they let go of self-control. It’s the kind of behavior that even most unbelievers see as shameful. That’s why the rest of v.2 says it ruins the church’s reputation in the eyes of the world.
2 Peter 2:2 Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring ridicule on the way of truth.
Even worldly people will see that kind of behavior and say, “Man, even I don’t do that kind of stuff, and I’m not even religious. What do I need Christianity for? Christianity is a joke.” And when they ridicule the way of truth, who are they really rejecting? The leader of that way—Jesus.
Romans 2:24 God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.
People use the sins of God’s people as an occasion to blaspheme God himself.
We’re going to find out in v.19 that the false teachers are enslaved to those aselgeia-type sins—lack of restraint. They’re addicted to sins of the flesh, and the people who listen to their teaching also become addicted so they’re worse than the average non-Christian.
Most non-Christians have other restraints that keep them from the extremes of immorality. Peer pressure, family pressure, societal pressure, a desire for success in life, the law, financial restraints—all kinds of different pressures that keep them from going crazy with sins of the flesh. But Christians have spiritual reasons for resisting sin. And so when those are removed, there’s no restraint and they end up behaving worse than the typical unbeliever.
Damage to the World Ridicule of the Way of Truth
So their false teaching damages Christians by leading them down an evil path, away from the Lord. And the world sees that and v.2 says that will “bring ridicule on the way of truth.” The world takes notice when we sin.
They Notice
People in the world notice your righteousness and unrighteousness more than you might think. Even things you wouldn’t think would matter to them. When I was in elementary school, there were plenty of things I did that felt short of a righteous life, but one thing I didn’t do was swear. I just never got into that. But it’s not something I ever talked about. I never said anything about their language—never gave anyone the side eye if they had a dirty mouth or anything like that. I just didn’t use that language, but I didn’t think anyone noticed or cared … until one day on the playground—I found out.
I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I got into it with some kid and almost let out my first swear word. I don’t know if he hit me or what, but I was so mad I said, “I’m gonna kick your a…” and I caught myself, one letter into a swear word.
And you wouldn’t believe the reaction. Every kid within earshot immediately stopped what they were doing. You would have thought I pulled a knife and stabbed someone or something. It was like they were in shock for a moment, and then everyone just absolutely let loose on me. “You call yourself a Christian, you think you’re so great—you’re just like everyone else …!” I had no idea anyone had even noticed that I didn’t normally swear. The point of all that is, the world notices a lot more than you think.
Your Righteousness Exposes Their Sin
The other thing that surprised me was how elated all those kids were when I slipped. They loved it. The world not only notices your behavior, but they’re rooting for you to fail. And when you fail morally, they might pretend to be mortified, but really they’re happy because your righteousness has been exposing their unrighteousness and they hate that.
John 3:20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
Your righteousness exposes their sin, even if you don’t say a word. That’s one of the main reasons for persecution.
1 Peter 4:4 [The pagans] think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you.
Your good behavior puts pressure on them to repent, which they don’t want to do. So they love it when you sin, because it takes that pressure away.
This is God’s design. Jesus promised they will hate us. But if that’s the case, why does Peter see it as a bad thing when unbelievers ridicule us? And it’s not just Peter. There are numerous places in Scripture where we’re told that we should have a good reputation with the outsiders.
1 Thessalonians 4:11 Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life … 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders
Elders must have a good reputation with outsiders (1 Timothy 3:7). 1 Timothy 6:1—Slaves are to honor their unbelieving masters so the Apostles’ teaching won’t be slandered. In Titus 2:5, wives are to honor their husbands so that no one will malign the word of God. All those passages say we should be trying to have a good reputation with unbelievers.
But then Jesus said:
Luke 6:26 Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.
So which is it? Do we want the world’s approval or not? If they’re supposed to hate us, why are we trying to win their respect?
The answer is this: Jesus said they would hate us for our holiness, not for our hypocrisy. If the world looks down on you because you are living a godly life, that’s good. But if they look down on you because you’re living a corrupt life, that’s bad.
It Hurts the World
So I told you these false teachers do damage to three parties. First, they do damage to the church by leading people astray.
Then the world sees that and they ridicule the way of truth—who does that hurt? Your first thought might be, “Well, that also hurts the church.” And maybe it does, a little bit,[8] but the ones who are really harmed the most when people mock us for our sin are the people who do the mocking. A poor witness that causes them to mock us damages them because look at the term Peter uses to describe what they’re rejecting:
2 Peter 2:2 Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring ridicule on the way[9] of truth.
That phrase “the way of truth” means the correct road—the road that gets you where you need to be.[10] That’s what the world ridicules when they see us in sin. Think of how damaging that is to them. Our sinful behavior makes them reject the only path that can lead them to life. When Christians live that way, they’re like the Pharisees in Matthew 23.
Matthew 23:13 …You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces.
The World Needs Our Righteousness
The world might hate our righteousness, but they also need our righteousness. They need that pressure to convict them and push them toward repentance.
And they also need our righteousness to open their eyes to the goodness of God’s way. When God begins to draw an unbeliever to himself, one way he does it is by opening the person’s eyes to how beautiful that kind of life is, so he starts to desire it. He wants to have that beautiful morality. God uses the holy lives of his people to do two things: to convict people of sin and to attract people to righteousness.
So that’s the damage false teachers do to the world. They lead Christians to live in ways that make unbelievers reject the only path that leads to salvation. That’s why Jesus said:
Matthew 5:16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.
Peter said it too.
1 Peter 2:12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
They’ll accuse you of things, but deep down they know it isn’t true and, over time, they’ll be ashamed of themselves for accusing you.
1 Peter 3:16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.
Damage to Themselves—Sudden Destruction
So lying to people about God has a cascading effect of destruction. First, to the Christians who hear the lies, then to unbelievers who encounter those messed-up Christians. It damages Christians, it damages non-Christians, and then a third party the false teachers do damage to: themselves.
2 Peter 2:1 … bringing swift destruction on themselves.
They doom themselves to suffer swift destruction. “Swift” means it’s going to unfold fast. It may not happen soon, but once it starts, there will be no stopping it, no escape. If they think they can wait until they see judgment on the horizon and then repent—that’s not going to work. Destruction will come on them like a mountain lion attacking prey. If a mountain lion is after you, the first time you notice it is when its teeth puncture your neck. That’s the kind of destruction these false teachers bring upon themselves. They damage the church, damage unbelievers, and damage themselves.
The DELAY We Will Always Have Them
Those are the first two Ds—Destruction and Damage. God promises to destroy them because of how much damage they do. But it doesn’t seem like God is destroying them. It’s been 2000 years—why are they still around? That brings us to the third D—the Delay.
This whole chapter Peter talks about how the false teachers will meet swift judgment, but then look at what he says in v.1.
1 … there will be false teachers among you.
“Will be”—Why the future tense? It’s obvious from the rest of the chapter that the false teachers were already a problem at the time he was writing, so why does he say there will be false teachers? It’s because he wants to let us know what to expect going forward. “Yes, they’re already here, but you need to know they always will be. This isn’t a problem Christianity will eventually overcome.” Peter is making a future prophecy. There will never be a time in church history when false teachers aren’t part of the landscape—which is exactly what Jesus promised. They were around in Jesus’ time.
Matthew 7:15 Watch out for false prophets … they are ferocious wolves.
Then you skip ahead all the way to the end of the age. In Matthew 24 during the great tribulation:
Matthew 24:24 … false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive, if possible, even the elect.
This is a problem that spans the entire church age.
Why So Many Divisions?
If anything, it will get worse as time goes on. Theology will always be a battleground because truth about God is the key to everything. The enemy will never stop attacking that. If there’s a religious group that has no divisions, no controversy, Satan’s not attacking it at all, it’s probably because that group isn’t teaching the truth.
I have a friend who left evangelicalism and joined the Eastern Orthodox Church because of all the denominations among evangelicals. His argument was that we must not be the true church because of how many factions and disagreements and divisions there are. But there were factions and divisions right from the beginning even in churches founded by the Apostles themselves. Just read 1 Corinthians. People talk about how we need to get back to being like the early church. Be careful what you wish for because the early church was a colossal mess. Divisions, factions, in-fighting, false teachers, heresy, people being deceived by preachers, open immorality—you name it.
And Peter is telling us here that we should expect that going forward all the way to the end. If you see countless denominations and fights over theology, that shouldn’t cause doubts in your mind. Just the opposite—it’s a fulfillment of prophecy. It’s exactly what Jesus (and Peter) said would happen.
Test of Love
But why? If false teachers do so much damage—why does God allow them to continue? The answer is in the very first passage in the Bible that teaches about false prophecy—Deuteronomy 13. This is the first thing God told us about false prophecy and God answered the question, why? Here’s why: In verses 1-2 of Deuteronomy 13 he describes how to spot a false prophet and then says this:
Deuteronomy 13:3 … The Lord your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul.
The reason there will always be false teachers is that we need them to test our love for God.
There’s an inverse relationship between love and gullibility. You’re not easily tricked into believing lies about someone you love.
What do you think would happen if I tried to trick Bill into believing bad things about Anita? “Anita doesn’t really care about you. She only loves you because of the Spider. She’s a terrible person.” How hard would it be for me to convince him of that? It would be impossible.
On the other hand, if it’s someone you don’t love, that’s a whole other story. There are certain politicians that you could tell me some terrible thing about them, and I ask you, “What’s your source?” “I saw it scribbled on a bathroom stall.” “Okay, I’m convinced. It must be true.” It wouldn’t take much to deceive me.
The less you love someone, the more gullible you are when someone lies to you about that person. If someone lies about God and you fall for it, that’s a love problem. So God said way back in Deuteronomy that he will always allow the existence of false prophets and false teachers who lie about God so we can know how much we love God.
Supply and Demand
So it’s a test. And what are the test results? Is everybody in the church passing the test with flying colors? Do we all love God so much that the false teachers all have to live in their parents’ basement and eat Top Ramen because they can’t make a living? No. The false teachers fly on private jets between their multi-million dollar homes.
The sad truth is there is a massive appetite for false teaching. There always has been. Way back in Jeremiah’s time, God said:
Jeremiah 5:31 The prophets prophesy lies … and my people love it this way.
And again, that’s how it will be all the way to the last days:
2 Timothy 4:3 the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
The reason there are a lot of false teachers is the same reason there are a lot of drug dealers—high demand. And many times it’s that high demand that turns pastors who used to be good into false teachers.
The people have itching ears—that’s quite the word picture, isn’t it? “Right there, pastor. Over just a little, up, yeah—right there. Perfect.” That’s how a lot of people listen to sermons. It’s a comical word picture, but it’s perfect for describing how pastors get corrupted by their congregations. It’s not like a bunch of people in the church march into his office and say, “From now on, never preach these passages and only say these things—otherwise you’re fired.” That’s not how it happens. It’s much more subtle. The pastor preaches a passage that hurts their ears, and they just don’t come back the next Sunday. A whole bunch of empty seats. The offerings are in the tank. Now we’ve got a budget crisis.
Nobody says anything out loud—it just works like shock therapy. Every time I preach this stuff, things just don’t seem to go well in the church. And every time I preach this other stuff, we grow like crazy. It’s like a rat drinking sugar water on one side of his cage and getting shocked on the other side. It doesn’t take long before he just stops going over to that bad side.
For a lot of pastors, it’s not a conscious decision. They don’t even realize it’s happening. They find themselves scratching where people itch, and they don’t even realize they’re leaving a lot of stuff out—stuff that God thought was important enough to plaster all over the Bible.
So it’s not always wolves hunting down sheep. Many times it’s sheep seeking out wolves—sheep who don’t love the shepherd enough.
But here’s the good news: if they can increase the number of false teachers through their desire to hear false teaching, you and I have the same power to increase the number of Bible expositors by seeking that out and giving those sugar water rewards to pastors who are faithful to the Word even when it’s hard. Send an encouraging email, drop a little extra in the plate—create a demand for good preaching.
Conclusion
So that covers 3 of our 5 Ds. The next two will show us how to spot false teachers, what methods they use, and what it means that they “deny the sovereign Lord who bought them.” Until then, I would urge you to think a lot this week about the fury of God’s wrath toward false teachers. Think of how upset he gets. For some people, it may feel uncomfortable thinking about God being furiously angry, but if you understand that the reason he’s so angry is that false teaching is the opposite of his Word, then it becomes comforting. Think of it this way: Every time you pick up your Bible, just imagine the absolute rage in God’s heart toward anyone who would try to rip that from your hand. Every time there is some beautiful truth that would bring you life and peace and joy and deeper knowledge of him, and some wolf wants to prevent you from getting that beautiful truth, God is enraged—just like that dad who was furious when the really valuable gift got stolen.
Someone takes your money, and that bothers God. They destroy your health, God doesn’t like that—but it’s not the end of the world. But they try to take away your access to knowledge of God and he thunders from heaven against them. That’s how much God loves you, and that’s how precious God’s Word is.
Summary
God wants every Christian to have a minor in false teachers. It’s not a topic most people are interested in, but it should be. 2 Peter 2-3 is a brutal pronunciation of judgment, showing that false teachers deserve the hottest hell because they commit the most damaging sin—lying about God, producing the opposite of God’s Word. God’s wrath against them is an encouragement because it shows us how valuable truth about God is. These teachers lead many in the church into gross sins which gives the world a reason to reject the only path to life. God will always allow false teachers because they test our love for God.
[1] The ?e?d?- (“false”) prefix can mean either that they falsely claimed for themselves the office of teacher, to which they had no right, or that the content of their message was false. Peter is really more interested in the latter. He has not, as we have seen, justified the message of the apostles by alleging their authority to teach, but by appealing to the reliable basis on which the truth of their message rests.
[2] In describing God’s Word, Peter spoke of the Apostles (NT) and prophets (OT). Now when he describes the opposite, you would expect him to speak of false prophets and false apostles. But instead of false apostles, he says false teachers. The implication is that teachers in the church are to be extensions of the Apostles, faithfully expounding the Apostles’ doctrine.
[3] See Matt 7:13; John 17:12; Rom 9:22; Phil 1:28; 2 Thes 2:3; Heb 10:39; Rev 17:8, 11.
[4] Matthew 23:13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
He repeats that line 7 times in his two and a half minute tirade. And 7 is the number of completion—complete, total, absolute condemnation. On top of those seven, here are some other highlights:
16 Woe to you, blind guides!
17 You blind fools!
19 You blind men!
24 You blind guides!
26 Blind Pharisee!
31 you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.
33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?
[5] A. apostles (1:16–18)
OT prophets (1:19–21)
OT false prophets (2:1a)
false teachers (2:1b–3)
This structure may be reinforced by an inclusio formed by ses?f?sµ????? µ????? ??a???????sa?te? (“following cleverly concocted myths,” 1:16) and ??a???????s??s?? (“will follow,” 2:2), p?ast??? ?????? (“with fabricated arguments,” 2:3). The chiastic structure makes possible a correlation and contrast between the apostles and the false teachers.
[6] When the Bible describes the world as it should be, we’re used to the word “garden.” But since the garden of Eden featured mostly trees, I think forest might be a little better word to describe it.
[7] Peter likes the verb ??a??????e??, “to follow” (1:16; 2:2, 15; nowhere else in NT); here it means that the false teachers’ immoral behavior is the authority which their adherents obey, perhaps in contrast to Christ the Master (desp?t??, v 1) or in contrast to following “the way of truth.”
[8] It doesn’t damage us much because we don’t depend on popularity. If you’re a business, you need a good reputation in order to stay in business. If you’re a politician, you need people to think well of you to get votes. But in the church, we don’t need the world’s approval. Our money comes from within, and all the power and resources we need come from God and his Word. We don’t need anything from the world.
[9] The way of truth (2:2)
the straight way (2:15)
the way of righteousness 2:21
This reflects the fact that Christianity was referred to simply as “the way” early on (Acts 9:2; 19:9, 19:23; 24:14, 24:22).
[10] In Genesis 24, Abraham’s servant searched for a wife for Isaac.
And when he found her, he said:
Genesis 24:48 … I praised the Lord … who had led me on the way of truth Peter has a fondness for using the term “way.”
