2 Peter 2:1-22

Warning Against a Threatened Plague of Brutal False Teachers

As of old there were false as well as true prophets, so it will be now. This leads the Apostle to speak about the false teachers, who if they have not already begun-he expects will trouble his readers. Prophets were important persons in the early Church: cp. Acts 11:27; 1 Corinthians 12:28.; 1 Corinthians 14:29.; Ephesians 2:20; Ephesians 3:5; Ephesians 4:11. These teachers, who had doubtless been baptised, claimed, it would seem, to be prophets, and therefore to be outside ordinary rules and discipline: they put a 'private interpretation' on such matters. Hence they fell into the sin of pride, and rebelled against official authority; and of lust and covetousness, despising the laws of morality. The Apostle shows, by the example of the angels that sinned, and of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, that sure punishment is ready for them, but that God will preserve the faithful from their seductions. He writes in strong but very spiritual language, and is in accord with the rest of the NT. in teaching that the destruction of the unrepentant sinner is continuance in sin: see Ephesians 4:12. (RV), 19f; and cp. Mark 3:29; (RV) Romans 1:28; 2 Thessalonians 2:11. (RV) Hebrews 6:6.

This chapter should be carefully compared with St. Jude's Epistle.