Peter's Letters
12 - The Mark of an Apostate
In Chapter 2 of Peter’s second letter he launches into some magnificent invective against apostates or false teachers. Through this fiery denunciation glows the heat of flaming moral indignation. J. B. Phillips translates verse 12, “They scoff at things outside their own experience.” These religious con-men are very dangerous. Outwardly they appear to serve God and minister to the people but inwardly they feed their own egos and feather their own nests. They exalt themselves, instead of exalting Christ.
One third of this short letter is on false teachers and the damage they do to the cause of Christ. The vivid description of an unsaved apostate is bleak indeed. “They are like brute beasts ... and like beasts they too will perish” (verse 12). “They are blots and blemishes” (verse 13). Quite the opposite of the Christ-like character. “With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed – an accursed brood!” (verse 14).
“They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam” (verse 15). Balaam is mentioned three times in the closing books of the New Testament. Peter speaks of ‘the way of Balaam,’ Jude speaks of ‘the error of Balaam’ and Revelation mentions ‘the doctrine of Balaam.’
Balaam knew he should not go and prophesy against Israel, but the price was right. He was a Gentile prophet who turned profiteer. He knew the truth of God and the will of God, but he deliberately went astray and abandoned the right way to make money (Numbers chapters 22-24). He could get messages from God, but he led people away from God. He was a rebel at heart. He kept ‘playing with the will of God’ by trying to get ‘a different viewpoint.’ Peter called this attitude ‘madness’. Just as the angel of Lord stood in ‘a narrow place’ (Numbers 22 verse 26) to prevent Balaam from going in the wrong way, so Jesus says ‘the road is narrow that leads to life.’ Balaam was of those people who ‘eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Timothy 6 verse 10).
The Message paraphrase slates these false teachers. “There’s nothing to these people – they’re dried up fountains, storm-scattered clouds, headed for a black hole in hell. They are loudmouths, full of hot air, but still they’re dangerous” (verses 17-18). Their aim is to deceive – they promise something they can’t deliver. Verse 19 expresses it succinctly “They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity – for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.” Apostates have had a religious experience which was false. They never trusted Christ and became his sheep, that’s why they are likened to dogs – filthy scavengers that lived on garbage. Reformation cleans up the outside, but regeneration changes the inside. A scrubbed sow goes back to rolling in the mud – nothing’s changed on the inside.
Peter says, regarding apostates, “The proverbs are true: ‘A dog returns to its vomit’, and ‘A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud’” (verse 22). In fact, Peter gives us the parable of the prodigal pig. The pig looked better, the dog felt better, but neither had been changed. It was the same old nature. They revert to type. They return to their true, natural, unchanged condition. The apostate teaches error deliberately – he is a false brother, self-promoting, with a message geared towards new converts to lead them astray.
Why is this chapter so similar to Jude’s letter? Both men were contending for the faith that was once delivered to the saints. Some warnings cannot be repeated too often. God permits cults and “isms” in order to draw away from the true church that which is false, because those who are phoney will go after that sort of thing. Someone has said, “It’s not our profession of faith that guarantees we’re saved: it’s our progression in the faith that gives us that assurance.” The eleven thought Judas was a spiritual man, but he was not saved.
The rather difficult section towards the end of chapter 2 is paraphrased in the Message, referring to apostates, “If they’ve escaped from the slum of sin by experiencing our Master and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and then slid back into that same old life again, they’re worse than if they had never left. Better not to have started out on the straight road to God than to start out and then turn back, repudiating the experience and the holy command.” It begs the question were such people ever really saved in the first place?
Chapter 3 opens with the thought that the answer to heresy is maturity. Here’s Peter’s shepherd heart addressing God’s elect, “Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Saviour through your apostles” (verses 1 and 2).
Apostates mock the second coming. They scoff at such a preposterous idea. “Where is this ‘coming’ He promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation” (verse 4). They assume that this is a stable universe and nothing changes here. “They deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed” (verse 5). It was formed out of a watery chaos, but it later perished in the flood.
Here’s the trademark of an apostate. He is not a seeker after truth. Of some things he is wilfully ignorant. False teachers purposely ignore a good deal of the evidence. They can be very selective and overlook data that doesn’t match their theory.
The truth is the earth was judged in the past and will be judged in the future, but it will still go on. Righteousness does not dwell in this earth today. It’s not at home here. The times are out of joint. One day God will trade in the old model, for there’s a new world coming, the home of righteousness.