2 Peter 2:20

2 Peter 2:20 . For if, having escaped the pollutions of the world in the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, but having been again entangled in these, they are overcome, the last things have become to them worse than the first. To whom does this description apply? Some (e.g. Bengel, Hofmann, etc.) take the persons in view to be the dupes of the false teachers. Beyond the fact, however, that the same term ‘escaped' is used here as in 2 Peter 2:18, there is little to favour so remarkable a change from object to subject. The fake teachers themselves are still the subjects, and what is affirmed of them is a state of relapse into the ‘pollutions' (the word is peculiar to this passage, although another form of it occurs in 2 Peter 2:10) of heathenism from which they had once separated themselves. In terms unmistakeably recalling, if not literally repeating, our Lord's own words in Matthew 12:45, that state of relapse is declared to be worse than their original state of paganism worse because no longer excused by ‘ignorance' (cf. 1 Peter 1:14). The expression ‘entangled' is a strong and significant one, being used e.g. by AEschylus of being entangled in the net of ruinous infatuation (Prom. 1079). It is in admirable harmony, therefore, with the previous ‘ entice in the lusts of the flesh' (2 Peter 2:18). The ‘knowledge' of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ which is attributed here to these apostates is the same kind of knowledge as has been already spoken of in chap. 2Pe 1:2-3; 2 Peter 1:8. Hence it is urged that the statement is entirely antagonistic to the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, and indeed that there is, ‘perhaps, no single passage in the whole extent of New Testament teaching more crucial than this in its bearing on the Calvinistic dogma of the indefectibility of grace' (Plumptre). The bearing of the passage, however, upon that doctrine is by no means so definite and absolute. It institutes a solemn comparison between two different conditions of the same individuals. It contrasts two different stages of impure living, and pronounces the one worse than the other. But beyond that it does not go, neither can it be regarded as of decisive importance in regard to the different views of grace advocated by different schools of theology. The whole statement is introduced simply in confirmation of what was said in the previous verse of the bondage in which those live who are overcome of sin.