Wednesday Evening Devotional, PRBC, 7/30/08

2 Peter 2: False Teachers and the Meaning of “Bought”

You'll take your Bibles this evening and turn with me to the 2nd Epistle of Peter, 2nd Peter Chapter 2, 2nd Peter Chapter 2. I'd like to look at a rather controversial text. I don't know that it's over-controversial in its original context, but it is in our day.

Look at it, hopefully understand what it has to say, and also make some comments about some of the uses that are made of it. 2nd Peter Chapter 2, the first three verses. But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

Many will fall their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned, and in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

If you are familiar with your New Testament, you know that 2nd Peter and Jude are very similar in their form, and in fact it is common within scholarly circles to assume that because they're very similar, that one is dependent upon the other.

Well, I don't know about that. I think that in light of the situation that the early church faced, the many heresies, the many false teachers that sprung up very, very early. We see this in 2nd Peter, Jude, 1st Peter, 1st John.

We have warnings from the Apostle Paul in Acts Chapter 20, and in 2nd Timothy, over and over again, warnings about false teachers, deceivers, those who deceive and are being deceived. This was a part of the apostolic period of the early church.

I've always chuckled a little bit when people say, well, you know, we've got so many problems in the church today, if we could just get back to the way it was in the primitive days. Well, I read 1st and 2nd Corinthians, I read some of these others, and I'm not so sure that's exactly what we would want.

Even when the apostles were alive, there was a tremendous amount of agonizing, that is a good Greek word, agonizomai, having to contend earnestly for the faith. That's why Jude said that we are to contend earnestly for the faith that has been once for all delivered to the saints.

And so there are lots of warnings about false teachers in the pages of Scripture. Here we have one of those, we have a reference to false prophets. And referring back to the Old Testament example, false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers.

Using the same term, pseudodidaskaloid, false teachers. They claim to be teachers, they will act like they are teachers, but what they are teaching is false. The same as the Apostle Paul, in Galatians chapter 2, spoke of pseudodelphoi, false brethren.

People who claimed to be brothers, dressed like brothers, acted like brothers, they came into the church, they claimed the prerogatives of Christian fellowship, and yet they were pseudo-brothers, these are pseudo-teachers.

But notice, they're in the church, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies. They don't come in announcing, hi, I'm a heretic, and I'm going to teach you heresies. There are a few people like that, not many.

Most of those who are successful in the heresy business do so because they prey upon simple minds, people who do not hear the warnings of the New Testament, do not hear the need for discernment. And so they're false teachers, and they secretly introduce destructive heresies, destructive divisions.

They try to, just as the wolf chasing the flock tries to split off some from the whole flock, and once you've got one split off, that's the one you're going to be able to get. That's how they do it. If you're in the flock, if you're in the group, then you're pretty safe.

Once you get split off from that, you lag behind, you get cut off from the main group, now you're easy pickings for the ravenous wolf. Well, they want to introduce destructive divisions, heresies, within the church.

These are men who claim to be Christian teachers. And then we have this phrase, even denying the master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Who are these people? Who are these people?

We know that they're not truly Christians. They're just like the false brethren who had snuck in, as Paul used the term. Who are trying to spy out the liberty we have in Christ Jesus. We know that the following verses tell us that many will follow their sensuality, and so they are immoral as well.

And we know that because of them the way of truth will be maligned. Goodness, isn't that the case today? How many times have you found yourself seeking to try to bring a witness to someone and get hit with something along the lines of what?

You believe the same kind of things as Benny Hinn? And you just want to go, oh, because if it's not Benny Hinn, then the line is very long, people, that you can start naming. All the name-it-and-claim-it TBN gurus out there just getting rich off of silly people that send them money, thinking they're giving it to God.

Because of them the way of truth will be maligned, in their greed they will exploit you with false words, false teachings, and their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

Indeed, Peter elsewhere speaks of the fact that these men have been appointed to destruction, and so we're not obviously talking about believers here. We're talking about false professors, false teachers, and they are going to experience destruction, but that brings us back to the key question this evening, the phrase, even denying the master who bought them.

The Common Argument That “Bought” Means Redemptive Purchase

Now, the use of this text is very, very common. If we had been in a different situation, I probably would have brought along something to play over the speakers, so you could listen to a debate I did many, many years ago at the North Shore Baptist Church in Queens on Long Island, and I was debating a King James only independent fundamentalist Baptist, and we weren't debating that issue, though it came up, we were debating the doctrines of grace, and when we talked about particular redemption or limited atonement, that belief that the atoning work of Christ has as its intention, specifically, the redemption of the elect of God, he brought up 2 Peter chapter 2, and he read it from the King James Version, and I remember challenging him with some points I'm going to bring up just about now, and I remember his response was, I don't need some scholars from Fuller Seminary telling me what the Bible says, it says that right here in the King James Version of the Bible, and therefore, limited atonement is wrong.

And while we might smile a little bit at that particular rendition, there are many who would say, in point of fact, that the phrase, even denying the master who bought them, is plain, perspicuous, clear in what it means, and what does it mean?

According to them, that these are individuals who have been purchased redemptively by Jesus Christ, and therefore, the only way that a purchased price can be paid for someone is soteriologically, redemptively, through the shed blood of the cross, therefore, these false teachers have had Jesus die for them.

Now, it becomes inevitable, in light of the next phrase, bringing swift destruction upon themselves, that those who would raise this point would likewise have to believe that these individuals will go to hell, and therefore, I don't know how they could possibly believe in what's called eternal security amongst those various groups, unless they're simply saying that what is being said here is, well, Jesus bought them in potentiality.

Those who deny that salvation is eternal will point to this and say, no, these are individuals who've been saved, the master bought them, but they've become false teachers, they've lost their salvation, they're going to go to hell, therefore, all of that Calvinism stuff is ridiculous, it's untrue.

Then you have the others who believe in some form of once saved, always saved, and of course we recognize that most of the forms of once saved, always saved are unbiblical, the I got my ticket stamped, I'm on my way to heaven, doesn't matter how I live kind of once saved, always saved is an obvious denial of biblical teaching.

But they will say, well, no, see, the master bought them in potentiality, in potentiality. And that means Jesus died for them, and so they are denying their master Jesus. And of course, I'm not sure how that makes much sense either in light of the fact that I guess they're only claiming Jesus as their master, sort of?

I mean, in potentiality as well? It's really hard to understand exactly how all these things fit together. But the idea is, the word bought means Jesus died for the false teachers who themselves will experience destruction.

Therefore, the death of Christ in behalf of an individual does not, of necessity, result in their salvation. You can stick one thing in there, man's free will, you can stick a whole list of things in there, a bunch of works, a bunch of merit, whatever, the point is, that's what they're saying.

Have any of you ever had anyone raise this text to you on this particular subject? No? I get it all the time, but of course, I'm out there doing weird things. Well, how do we give a response to this? Well, briefly, since we don't have a whole lot of time, a few things to help us once again, and hopefully, again, while this might give you specific information about 2 Peter 2 .1, the principles are the same whenever you encounter a text that maybe you haven't studied in depth and you need to step back and look at it, try to understand what is being said.

Reading Doctrinal Conclusions from the Right Texts

First, is this text about the extent of the atonement? Is there any discussion here, even about the term atonement, death, satisfaction, substitution, blood, anything like that? What you have here is a judgment text, a warning text, concerning the Church, and we are making an assumption that in light of our reading of this text, it must mean that the atonement is universal, that Jesus dies on behalf of every single individual.

It is always better to derive conclusions about salvation or conclusions about the atonement from texts that are specifically about the subject. I've often used the illustration of that poor little book that is stuck in the glove compartment of your car right now, and everyone has one.

It is the manual to your vehicle. Guys never look at it because you're not supposed to. And gals look at it and go, what? And so it just sits there, collecting dust, sitting in the heat, sitting in the cold, faithfully waiting for that one time you actually take the thing out and look at it.

Now, if you've ever looked at one, it has an index in it. And if you are having problems with your lights, you can look in the index and you can find all the places where lights are mentioned in your manual.

But, as we all know, what you do when you look at an index, you go, oh, here's a bunch of pages all together about lights. I bet that's the section on the lights. And so if you're smart, you go to the section that actually talks about the lights first.

Now, you might find a reference to lights under the battery section. You might find a reference to lights under the maintenance section or the troubleshooting section or the, you know, all sorts of things.

But where do you go first? You go to the place where the book's trying to tell you about your lights first. You don't go to all these other passages. Ignore where you have the main discussion of lights and go over here and it says, well, you know, it talks about the battery.

It says if I leave my lights on without the engine running, it could kill the battery. Hmm, I wonder what that means. You don't do that. You go to the battery section first and then that, you can look at the other sections and make heads or tails of them once you've looked at the main and plain discussion of the lights.

Well, the same thing is true in the Bible. It's amazing when there's entire chapters on justification that people will run off to a section in Matthew where Jesus says, wisdom is justified by her children and go, ah, what can we learn about justification?

And come up with wacky theologies of justification that go directly against the plain teaching of Romans 3, 4, 5 or Galatians 2 or whatever else it might be. Well, the same thing is true here. Why are we going to a text about judgment upon false teachers to build a theology of atonement when there's all sorts of other texts that you can go to that specifically address this particular issue?

If you're going to come up with conclusions about the atonement, go to texts that are on the subject of the atonement. Secondly, did you notice in my translation, and I think the King James might be different here, that's why my opponent sort of got upset when I pointed this out.

But as I read the New American Standard, it says, even denying the master who bought them. Master, despotane. You've heard of a despot? Despotas? Despotane is a despot. It is not the normal term for Lord in the New Testament.

In fact, in the parallel passage, it is interesting to note that Jude uses kurios, but he doesn't mention anything about being purchased. We'll look at that in a moment. But despotas is a term that refers to sovereignty.

A despot, normally in our language, that's a negative term. That's something we use as an insult. But in Greek, it would refer to an absolute ruler, one with absolute power. So, in the book of Acts, when the early church prays, when they're under persecution, and they refer to the Lord, they refer to the despot, the Lord of creation, the one who has all power, all authority.

That is interesting, because kurios is a term that is used of the Lord Jesus when he is described as savior, when he is the one who is saving. And so the next question it comes up with, is this the father or the son being referred to here?

The interpretation that I have given to you from others just assumes automatically this is the son. It has to be the son. And there is a good reason for thinking that it might be the son, and that is, as I said, when you look at the parallel in Jude, where Jude talks about false teachers once again, and they are denying somebody.

They are denying our only despot, kai kurios, Lord, Jesus Christ. So if you assume that there is some literary dependence, that one is a slavish copy of the other, rather than both of them having chosen to write to different audiences and present similar themes, or something along those lines, then you would say, well, there is a good chance this is Jesus.

Okay? But the text does not force us to absolutely say, well, he could not have the father in view here at all. And never is there a situation where there is a confusion between the father and the son when it comes to who it is that gave himself.

So this is the assumption that, well, this has to be Jesus. Well, we have to ask why this use the term despot rather than kurios. And who is this referring to? It probably refers to the son. But the next question that really comes up is this term bought.

Bought. The Greek term agorazo is used many times in regards to the redemptive work of Jesus. For example, 1 Corinthians 6 .20. You have been bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body. Purchased with the blood of Christ.

Lamb, spotless. Common term. And everybody assumes, and they read it that way, oh, that must be what it's about. But there is one thing you might notice is missing. Every other place in the New Testament where this term is used of redemption, the purchase price is always mentioned.

Notice 1 Corinthians 6. I said, we have been bought with a price. Elsewhere, with the blood of Christ. There's no purchase price. It just simply says bought. So, we would have to assume that this is the one place in all the New Testament where if we're talking about the sacrifice of Jesus and the offering of His blood, this is the one exception where the purchase price is not mentioned.

Which makes us once again go, and why use despot instead of kurios and not mention the purchase price? Hmm. What might that mean? Remember, these are men who've done what? They're secretly introducing destructive heresies.

Where? Among you. The only way they can get among you is if they have outwardly proclaimed that Jesus is their master. That God is their master. They've made a profession of faith, but they are denying the one that they've made a profession of faith is their despot, their sovereign king through their destructive heresies.

So what does it mean if he bought them? If it doesn't mean that he gave his blood to redeem them but failed in the process. What does it mean? And how can we understand the idea of potentially purchasing them?

What does that mean? And can we find any place else in the Bible where this kind of language is used that would help us to understand what might be in the author's mind? Well, there is another place that's very similar to this.

Very often New Testament writers draw from Old Testament texts. Look back with me for just a moment at Deuteronomy chapter 32. Deuteronomy chapter 32. And it's in the same context. It's in the context of rebellion, the context of false prophets.

Here it's amongst the people. Same parallel, which would make us think that maybe this is exactly where Peter is drawing his thoughts from. Deuteronomy 32 .5. They have acted corruptly toward him. They are not his children.

Remember, it's talking about the people of God here. They're called his children, but notice that they are not his children. Sounds like people who profess one thing, but are something else. They have acted corruptly toward him.

They are not his children because of their defect, but are a perverse and crooked generation. There's a phrase used a lot in the New Testament. Verse 6. Do you thus repay Yahweh the Lord, O foolish and unwise people?

Look at this phrase. Is not he your father who has bought you? He has made you and established you. Is he not your father who has bought you, purchased you? Who is this being addressed to? Rebels. Rebels who claim to be his children, but who are not his children.

And they are described as having been bought. And here God is described as their father. In what context? Well, because he's made you, established you. That's one of the common uses of that term, father, in the Old Testament.

It's not father, son, Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. God is father in the sense of creator. He has created you. He is the despot. And he has bought you sovereignly. He made you his people. He placed you in a position.

And in that position you have certain responsibilities as the people of God. And how often do the prophets constantly bring that up? God has given you all these benefits. You have claimed to be his people, but now look at you.

Look at your apostasy. Isn't that exactly what's going on in 2 Peter? These men have come into the church. They couldn't have gotten in there without a profession of faith, without baptism. They didn't become a church leader.

And then the next day, they've been given all of these privileges and responsibilities, and yet they are introducing destructive heresies to their own destruction so that the way of truth is maligned.

Exactly parallel. Deuteronomy 32, 5 and 6. Now 32, 6 does not mean that somehow God had redeemed them through sacrifice and provided the redemption price through sacrifice for their sins. In the same way, a despot can by his authority place people in certain positions, give them certain rights and authority.

As a result, when they go against that, when they deny that master, they bring swift destruction upon themselves. And so to assume that bot means atoned for substitutionarily, that the Father in eternity past took the sins of these false teachers knowing that the false teachers themselves would bear them in eternity and place them on Christ and punish Christ in their place so that his sacrifice, his suffering for them is empty and worthless and to no avail.

To say that just based upon the bare use of bot without a purchase price, without a soteriological context, a context talking about salvation, is grossly unwarranted. And those who try to do this and say, oh, but I still believe in eternal security are truly tied in a pretzel of contradiction because clearly these individuals made profession.

They were inside the church and yet swift destruction comes upon them. Another example, as there are so many in the New Testament, of false professions of faith. False professions of faith. And I know that sometimes that can be extremely troubling to people to see.

I think it's once again due to the fact that sometimes we're selected what we will read and not read in the New Testament. But we are warned over and over again there will be those who make false professions of faith.

That's why you never base your relationship and your profession of faith upon somebody else. Oh, that guy did it, so I'm going to do it. He's great, so I'll do it now. That is not a true professional faith at all.

And so aside from the controversy, certainly we recognize that we live in a day where there are many false teachers. We live in a day where the way of truth is maligned. So what can we take from this text?

Justice will be done. And even though things may have looked bad in that day, here we are 2 ,000 years later. Somehow God managed to get along. And if you feel discouraged at times, I was reading some stuff this week about behavior at some of these massive conferences they have where these people come out on these stages and they drop balloons from the ceiling and fake money to a band, a rock band playing something about I'm in the money.

And these guys stand up there and they're talking about how rich they are and how if you'll just give to God through them, you'll be rich too. And how if you'll come, and this is one place, if you'll come down front and put one month's mortgage for your home here on the altar, then God is going to tenfold increase and all the rest of this stuff.

And seeing people coming forward, doing this kind of thing, and of course this Todd Bentley guy who's running around drop-kicking people for Jesus. If you haven't heard about it, oh, you can go online and watch this, this, well, false teacher, false prophet hitting people.

God tells him to kick people and do all sorts of stuff. I saw one where he ran across the stage and there's this man in there, this man's been healed of fourth stage colon cancer. He comes and runs across the stage and knees him in the gut.

Puts him on the ground. God told me to do it. Now the man's insane or demonic, one of the two. Give me this, God told me to do this stuff. These people bring great disrespect upon the way of truth. This kind of stuff has nothing to do with Christianity.

And yet, the encouragement is their judgment from long ago is not idle, their destruction is not asleep, justice will be done, the truth will be vindicated.