2 Peter 2 - Can You Lose Your Salvation?

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False Teachers and Their Destruction

2 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2 Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3 In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

Peter now addresses the issue of the false teachers who had infiltrated the church. It would seem as though they might be believers, as Peter says about them, "Denying the sovereign Lord who bought them." At the heart of every heresy is a denial of who Jesus is either as a man or as God. Part of the heresy will allow people to gratify their sinful desires and justify their bad behavior. The consequences for these teachers will be swift and decisive. God seems to have little tolerance for those who teach falsely, especially to believers so as to lead them astray. 

This reminds us that false teachers may be popular. Just because something succeeds in attracting a crowd of followers, it doesn’t mean that it is of God. We know that God’s work will always bear fruit, but the devil’s work can also increase.

False teachers use covetousness – both their own and in their followers. Many false teachers, both today and in previous times, present a gospel that has self-gratification at its core. All this is presented with deceptive words because false teaching never announces itself.

4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; 6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— 9 if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. 10 This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority.

Peter reminds them that God has judged wickedness before. Within the judgment there was always a righteous remnant that God spared. Examples are Noah and Lot. So though the wickedness abounded, God rescued His people from trials. God would do the same for the believers Peter is writing to who were also living in godless times. At the end he says this especially applies to those who follow their corrupt desires and don't obey those in authority. 

The unjust have reservation made for them: they are reserved for the day of judgment. But believers have no such reservation. God will deliver us from the very day of judgment, from the very time of wrath that He pours out on the earth (Revelation 3:10).

Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to heap abuse on celestial beings; 11 yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not heap abuse on such beings when bringing judgment on them from the Lord. 12 But these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish.

These false teachers wade into areas of spiritual warfare way beyond their pay grade. They blaspheme God in a spiritual realm where they have no idea what they are getting into. 

These ungodly ones are proud, despising authority. In their presumption they will even speak ill of spiritual powers (Satan and his demons) that the angels themselves do not speak evil of, but the angels rebuke them in the name of the Lord instead. Much of what goes on under the name of spiritual warfare shows this kind of pride and presumption. While we recognize our authority in Jesus, we see that it is only in Jesus that we have it – and we leave the reviling accusations to Him alone.- Guzik 

“What these evil men, who were troubling Peter’s people, were doing, was to say that they loved and served Christ, while the things they taught and did were a complete denial of him.” (Barclay)

13 They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you.[e] 14 With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! 15 They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Bezer, who loved the wages of wickedness. 16 But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey—an animal without speech—who spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

Peter continues to describe their licentiousness and blatant disregard for God's laws. They unabashedly sin without any reservation and take advantage of naive and immature belevers. Again, it would seem that they were once believers because Peter says, "They have left the straight way and wandered off." - Guzik

These ungodly false teachers are a dangerous and corrupting presence in the body of Christ, not only deceiving others but deceiving themselves also. - Guzik

17 These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. 18 For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. 19 They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” 20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 21 It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. 22 Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.”

At the root of their deceptive teaching is an appeal to the flesh. They prey on our human weakness to gratify the desires of the flesh. They distorted the teaching of grace to make it seem like it was ok to do whatever they wanted to do in their freedom. They couch all of this false teaching under the guise of grace and freedom. But when someone who is a believer goes back to the sins of the flesh it can be worse than it was before. Then he makes an extraordinary claim, "It would have been better off for them to not know God than to abuse the sacredness of what they had been given." 

Returning to their old sinful lifestyles in the name of grace was like a dog returning to its vomit and a pig returning to the slime. It is like an addict who is freed from their addiction going back to their drug. It is like a slave who has been unshackeled going back to their master and asking for his chains back. You can tell how these false teachers disgust Peter and it brings great sadness that they are having an effect on the body of Christ and leading people astray. 

These verses bring up the centuries old tension between the doctrine of "once you are saved, you cannot lose your salvation" with "if you purposely deny your salvation and go back to the corruption of the world you can lost your salvation". Here is what one commentator says about this, 

Christians warmly debate the issue of whether or not it is possible for a true Christian to ever lose their status as a true Christian and fall away to damnation. Perhaps the best way of understanding the issue is to say that it is certainly true that those who appear saved – those who fit the description of Peter here – can end up in a place where it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness.

Regarding these, those with a Reformed perspective will say that they were actually never saved; those with an Arminian perspective will say that they were actually saved and lost their salvation. To bitterly divide along the lines of this debate – which focuses on things that are unknowable to outside observation – seems to fall into the category of being obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, as in 1 Timothy 6:4.

I fall on the side of "once saved always saved". Once you say you can lose your salvation, I think it opens up many problems. For one, how much sin do you need to engage in before it constitutes losing your salvation. Is it sexual sin, drunkenness, adultery, carousing, taking advantage of someone financially in God's name? You can see how this is problematic. It would be very subjective. Also is gossip as bad as lust. All sin is equally offensive to God's holiness. 

If there is a sin by which you can lose your salvation what does that say about what Jesus did on the cross? It minimizes the once and for all sacrifice he made for us. I believe these believers who taught falsely will be accountable for their teaching and lifestyle just like I will be. 

Also, when someone becomes a believer they are "born again". The old is gone and the new is here. We are a new creation in Christ. You can't become "un born-again". Something that has been born cannot go backwards. It can die but that doesn't negate the essence of what it was before it died. 

At the end of the day this challenges all of us not to receive God's grace in vain. To the extent that we sin willingly and boldly, we are not living our life as a worthy response to what Jesus did for us. We can never earn our salvation, but we can respond to God's grace by investing our time, talents, and treasures and our lives in service to God. We will all be judged by what we have done with what we have been given, but at the expense of our salvation. We are saved by grace through faith in what Jesus did for us on the cross. This cannot be undone!