The Doctrine, Desires, and Doom of False Teachers (2 Peter 2:1-3)

Jim Osman examines false teachers through an exposition of 2 Peter 2:1-3, warning believers against three critical dangers. False teachers secretly introduce destructive heresies into the church, not announcing their deception but creeping in quietly while using Christian language and claiming orthodox beliefs. These false teachers promote destructive doctrines that damn unbelievers and render Christians useless and unfruitful. Their depraved desires are marked by sensuality, and their deserved doom brings swift destruction upon them.

Believers must beware lest they be deceived by their teachings, seduced by their lusts, or exploited by their greed. The sermon emphasizes that sound doctrine and godly character must go together, as false teachers lack both biblical authority and moral integrity, thereby exerting a destructive influence.

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Jim Osman

Pastor-Teacher, Kootenai Community Church

What is Kootenai Church Morning Worship?

The expository preaching ministry of Kootenai Community Church by Pastors/Elders Jim Osman, Jess Whetsel, Dave Rich, and Cornel Rasor. This podcast feed contains the weekly sermons preached from the pulpit on Sunday mornings at Kootenai Church.

The Elders/Teachers of Kootenai Church exposit verse-by-verse through whole books of the Bible. These sermons can be found within their own podcast series by visiting the KCC Audio Archive.

Sometime after the book of Acts was written, sometime after the events that are recorded at the end of the book of Acts, the apostle Paul was released from the prison in which he was being kept in Acts 28, and he traveled to Ephesus and there found that the kind of men that Peter warns us about in 2 Peter 2 had crept into the church somewhat unawares and had begun from their position of leadership and influence to teach strange doctrines and destructive heresies. So Paul left Timothy in Ephesus and gave him this instruction in 1 Timothy 1:3: “As I exhorted you when going to Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may command certain ones not to teach a different doctrine.” The church in Ephesus needed to be rescued from the destructive heresies that were taught by men like Hymenaeus and Alexander and Philetus, three men whom Paul names by name in 1 Timothy and in 2 Timothy. Their teaching, he said, was spreading like gangrene, and they were teaching strange doctrines which did not further anybody's edification or sanctification or growth at all. And so those men needed to be commanded not to teach those things. They needed to be reproved, and Timothy's job was to correct that.
But if Timothy was going to be successful in keeping himself unstained from the false teaching of the false teachers, then he would have to be a man not only of sound doctrine but also of impeccable character, because doctrine and character go together. And I'll leave it up to you to discuss over lunch whether doctrine affects character or character affects doctrine, and which comes first, the chicken or the egg, in that series of events. I think that they play together and inevitably they must go together.
Paul commanded Timothy in 1 Timothy 4 regarding his doctrine. Listen to what he says. “In pointing out these things to the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following” (v. 6). Timothy would need to continue to be a man of sound and impeccable doctrine. But then character cannot be divorced from that, for it is only six verses later that Paul says to him, “Let no one look down on your youthfulness, but show yourself as a model to those who believe in word, conduct, love, faith, and purity” (v. 12). So doctrine—Timothy, sound words which you have been following—show yourself an example, and then Paul brings both of those together at the end of chapter 4 when he says in verse 16, “Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching.” To your character and what you teach. Not only who you are, Timothy, but what it is that you say. Doctrine and character go together.
It isn't enough for us to merely believe right and proper things if our sound doctrine, our orthodoxy, is merely a cover over a dark heart that is enticed by and loves and delights in all kinds of sin. If we are corrupt in our character, then sound doctrine on the surface of that rings hollow. It can't possibly have any effect upon anybody. It's just a cover for deeds of darkness.
And it is not enough for us to have outward conformity to godliness and virtues on the outside if at the heart of that is not a foundation of truth and sound doctrine out of which the proper character and virtues grow. Then you just have the form of godliness, but you deny its power, which is the truth of sound doctrine. So sound doctrine and character must go together.
And it's important that not just the leaders of the church are marked by these things but that all those who profess the name of Christ and continue in righteousness and sanctification are also marked by these things because those who are unsound in their doctrine will be deceived by the false teaching of false teachers. And those who are corrupt in their character and their inner man will be seduced by their sensuality. And those are the things that Peter warns us about in 2 Peter 1, which we just read.
This second chapter of Peter's letter describes false teachers, and he leaves us with no doubt as to what kind of men they are, not just in what they teach but also in their character and their conduct. Verse 2: they are men of sensuality. Verse 3: in their greed they exploit people. Verse 1 mentions their destructive doctrines, their doctrines of heresy.
And we need this sobering reminder in today's world just as much as the readers of Peter's letter did in the first century. It was that way then, it is this way now, and it will be this way until the Lord returns because God in His providence has ordained that part of the sanctification process of the church is that we be threatened by wolves and by threats outside the church and inside the church so that we may labor and strive in guarding against those very things, not only the men but also their teaching. And this sanctifies the church, so God has ordained that this be the case. God could destroy and kill every person who says anything false the moment they open their mouth and speak something false. He could do that. He could rid right now the entire world of every heretic, every false teacher, every false religion, every doctrine of demons. He could do that, and He could do it in an instant. But He has ordained instead that we be sanctified by being on guard, so we need to beware of these men.
Peter in verse 1 talks about their destructive doctrines, in verse 2 their depraved desires, and in verse 3 their deserved doom. These are three dangers in these three verses that we need to be warned about. We have to beware of false teachers so that we will not be deceived by their teachings (v. 1), so that we will not be seduced by their lusts (v. 2), and so that we will not be exploited by their greed (v. 3). And when we give hearing and when we give heed to false teachers and false teaching, those things will happen. We will be deceived, we will be seduced, and we will be exploited. And the church today all across America and all around the world is being seduced, deceived, and exploited. So we need to beware.
So let's look at verse 1. We need to beware lest we be deceived by their teachings. Verse 1: “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.” Now last week, we dabbled our toes, as it were, in the beginning of this verse. And notice the warning about false teachers that are in the church. We notice the sobriety with which that should strike us, that these men are threats and they pose a very real danger to us.
But now we're going to look at how they introduce their destructive heresies. They secretly introduce them. That's the phrase I want you to notice in verse 1. They secretly introduce destructive heresies. Heretics don't announce that they're heretics. They don't begin their radio broadcast with, “Today's your daily dose of heresy. Here it is. Here's how I'm going to deceive you. Here's what the truth is. Here's what I'm going to say that is opposite of the truth.” They don't do that. False teachers don't call themselves heretics. They don't tell you that they're trying to deceive you. They don't tell you what their plan is. They don't even label their own teachings as heresy. They may recognize that those teachings are different than what other true teachers have taught, but they will never claim that their own teachings are heresies. Instead, they quietly, stealthily, subtly, and secretly introduce their destructive heresies.
Now if they were honest, if false teachers were honest, none of the sheep would ever be deceived by them. If they came in and they just honestly said, “Look, I'm a wolf. I am a wolf in sheep's clothing. I'm pretending to be a sheep, but I'm taking off the sheep's clothing now. What I'm about to tell you is utter and complete heresy and will result in the damnation of your soul and the deception of any sheep here that is willing to embrace this or believe this,” and then went on with their teaching—they don't do that. Instead, they come in secretly and put on Christian dress. They use Christian language, adopt Christian culture. They embrace Christian practices and outwardly conform to Christian virtues, and they come into the church secretly. If they were honest, the sheep would never be deceived.
Now if they were honest, I think goats, non-sheep, would continue to follow them because goats love goat food. So the false shepherd gets up and he presents his destructive heresies, and if he announced it and said, “Look, what I'm teaching you is not in Scripture. This is not biblical. I disagree with it, so here's my teaching,” the sheep would say, “Oh, enough. I don't want anything to do with that,” but the goats would say, “Oh, tell me more. Tell me more.” Because they like to have their ears tickled. Goats want to hear what they want to hear, and they will heap up to themselves teachers who will tell them what they want to hear, so they can easily gather goats around them. But the sheep would never be deceived.
This methodology of creeping in stealthily, quietly, Paul describes in Galatians 2:4 when he talks about the false brothers who were secretly brought in and had sneaked in to spy out our liberty. They're false brethren, not true brethren, Paul says, these Judaizers, these false teachers. And they snuck in so as to spy out our liberty. Quiet, stealthily, under the radar, unnoticed, that's how they get in.
In Jude 4, Jude says, “For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” Jude says they have crept in unnoticed. Peter says that they have secretly introduced destructive heresies. So in Peter's mind, and this is not a contradiction, but in Peter's mind, he is addressing those who are in the church, who have already been brought into the church, and now they begin to secretly introduce destructive heresies. Jude is warning about people outside the church who are trying to stealthily and quietly creep in unnoticed. Certain men have crept in. They've gotten inside of the church and they've been accepted and adopted by the church body. And then Peter's description is very apt. Then they start to secretly introduce their destructive heresies among the people.
Paul warns about these two threats in the passage that we read in the middle of the service, Acts 20. Paul says, “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you [that's outside, coming into the flock], not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them” (vv. 29–30). There's two threats, those outside the church that want in and those who are in the church who want to draw away disciples after themselves. Paul was speaking to elders of the church in Ephesus and he says, “I know this, that from among your own selves men will arise.” And then I wonder, were Hymenaeus and Alexander and Philetus among those elders on the shore at Miletus, and Paul could see it, and he's warning them, “From among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things”? (v. 30)
Two different kinds of threats. They come in secretly, and once they're inside the church—and I'm not talking about a building here; I mean inside the body, inside the confines of God's people, accepted by God's people—then they begin to teach their destructive heresies. How do they sneak in? They sneak in by saying, “I believe everything in your doctrinal statement, every last bit of it. I affirm everything that you guys affirm. I affirm all of this.” I went to such and such a seminary and I got my degree, or I taught at such and such a seminary, or I came from this particular denomination, which is part of our denomination or a sister denomination, or I came from a sister church, or I served on the mission field, or I was a professor at this seminary, or I was a pastor in this church, or I was an elder in my previous church, and I'm good friends with this guy that you're also good friends with. That's how they creep in.
Now, before we take this too far, let me clarify something. I'm not suggesting that we should never embrace anybody new. Right? I’m not suggesting that after the service when you're walking out the door and you bump into somebody new, you should say, “Oh, how are you doing? Well, you came from this church? Oh, well, you must be the guy that Pastor Jim was talking about.” So, it's not that we should never embrace anybody new, and it's not that we should automatically view as suspect every single person who comes into our fellowship, but I am saying the ways in which we as Christians embrace new believers and the terms in which we embrace our brothers and sisters in Christ, these are the ways that false teachers creep in among us. They don't come in announcing something foreign. Instead, they come in looking, smelling, acting, sounding just like sheep.
I'll give you a good example of this, a good modern-day example of this, and it's Andy Stanley. His dad was at one time the pastor of the Southern Baptist denomination. Charles Stanley wrote books, many of them very helpful. He was an expositor of Scripture. He pastored a large church in the Southern Baptist denomination, and he was a faithful man for many, many years of his ministry. His son Andy Stanley could be accepted on the credit that his father purchased through his life of faithfulness, but Andy Stanley gets into a pulpit in Atlanta, Georgia, and at the beginning, he sounds a lot like us with just a little bit of a different sort of philosophy of ministry. Then you fast-forward twenty years and they're openly embracing and baptizing practicing homosexuals, putting women in positions of ministry, and he's teaching that you and I need to ignore our Old Testament and totally disconnect from that. Andy Stanley has apostatized from the Christian faith. He is a false teacher, and he is a wolf.
But how did he get accepted into the church? He was already in, and then from amongst that realm of acceptance, he stood up and now he is beginning to take—it's not just a trajectory, friends. It's not just like he's trending in a bad way and if he keeps this up, he's going to be a false teacher. He is a wolf. That's how it happens.
Then they secretly introduce—that word secretly translates a word that means to bring in alongside of something, to introduce or bring in and to present with something else, to bring to one side. They introduce their destructive heresies by packaging it with the truth. They introduce them with the truth. They don't just jettison the truth entirely, and they don't tell you that what they're telling you is false. That would be too obvious. But instead they take their damnable doctrines and they bring them in and present them alongside of things that we recognize as true.
So a modalist doesn't just get us off base by denying that the Trinity exists or the Trinity is true or saying we're rejecting the term Trinity. Instead they take the term Trinity and they hollow it out of its biblical and historic meaning, and instead they pack into it some sort of a Sabellian, modalistic heresy and they call that Trinitarianism, and it's not Trinitarianism. So they will say correct things about justification while also at the same time saying, “Yeah, I believe in justification, but here's my sort of different view of justification. I kind of have a Federal Vision view of justification, or I have a New Perspective on Paul view of justification. It's the new perspective.” See how they use our language, but it's a bait and switch? Instead they hollow it out and they pack it full of their own heresy.
They do this with words like gospel and atonement. “Yeah, of course I preach the gospel. It's the social gospel. It's the gospel of social justice. It's environmental justice.” See how they take those words and they twist them and they turn them? “Yeah, we don't put women in positions as elders, but instead we make them pastors of this.” Well, that's the same thing. But see the language, the trick with the language? They take the language and they use it against us to introduce secretly their destructive heresies.
The word heresies here is hairesis, and you can hear how our English word heresies comes from that. Interestingly the word hairesis in the Greek does not mean necessarily something that is doctrinal. It's just the word that is translated as sect or faction or a party, a division. It didn't necessarily describe a doctrinal position, but here Peter is using it negatively. He calls it a heresy of destruction. Literally that's the rendering of it. It's a heresy of destruction. So it is a sect or a faction.
And it's translated as “sect” in the book of Acts three times. It's translated “sect” when it refers to the sect of the Sadducees in Acts 5, sect of the Pharisees in Acts 15, and even sect of the Nazarenes. That was a reference to Christians. We are a party or a faction. Here's the thing about parties and factions: when Scripture uses the word this way, it usually describes a group of people, a faction or a sect of people, that have their own little theological convictions, their own little beliefs.
So here it is used as a warning and a pejorative to describe those whose factional beliefs actually lead to destruction. This is why at the end of verse 1 it says swift destruction comes upon them. These sects all had teachings associated with them, and it resulted in division in the body of Christ.
It is a common refrain amongst evangelicals today that if you have a precise and robust doctrinal statement that lists exactly what it is that you believe, like we do, and if you preach with clarity and precision and doctrinal emphasis and you dive deep into theology and sort of draw clear lines and paint with bold colors rather than pale pastels, if you do such a thing, you just divide the body of Christ. That is entirely wrong. Like everything else that's conventional wisdom, it's the polar opposite. That doesn't divide the body of Christ. Truth unifies, error divides. Truth unifies. If all of you believed the truth, if all of us believed only the truth—in other words, if everybody here agreed with me—then there would be no divisions amongst any of us.
We're going to recognize and get into later in 2 Peter 2 what constitutes a destructive heresy in terms of a damnable doctrine and what constitutes just things that we can agree to disagree on theologically. We'll shelve that for later on. But it is not preaching the truth that divides the body of Christ. Preaching the truth reveals the division that is there. See, the modern notion of unity is we all get together, we don't talk about anything that we might disagree with, and we'll all be unified. That's not unity. You're just ignoring the divisions. Whereas if we all gather around the truth, and the truth is precise, and the more precise we are, the more things we can agree on, and we all gather around that, that is true unity. Preaching the truth unites the body. It doesn't divide the body.
Whereas heresy—in the language of the apostle Paul, the heretics draw away disciples after themselves. You can hear sort of the sectarian language there. They draw away their own little sectarian group after themselves. In 2 Timothy 4:3–4, Paul warned Timothy that these men would “accumulate for themselves [false] teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth.” You can hear the language of division, schism, and sectarianism there, because this is what error does.
So it's appropriately called a heresy here, but it is literally a heresy of destruction. This word destruction means here judgment, a heresy fit for judgment, right for judgment. In 2 Peter 2:1, it's used at the end of that verse: “Bringing swift destruction [same word] upon themselves.” It's also used in verse 3: “Their destruction is not asleep.” It's used in 2 Peter 3:7, where he speaks about the “judgment and destruction of ungodly men.” This word for destruction is used of those who go through the wide gate. There's a broad road that leads to destruction (Matt. 7). It's used of Judas, who is called the son of destruction in John 17:12. It's used of unbelievers, who are prepared for destruction in Romans 9:22. And it's used of the antichrist in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, who's called the son of destruction.
So these men, with their false teachers, lead people to damnation and judgment. They lead astray those who are in the church who are not true Christians because they bring in a different gospel, and those who are inside the walls of the church and inside the fellowship who need to understand and respond to the gospel are not able to because the false teachers have clouded it over with their man-made doctrines and their destructive heresies. So there's enough truth there to draw people in, but not enough truth to give them the true gospel. So unbelievers are damned because they don't believe what is true, and believers, if they embrace false teaching, are duped.
Now let me make something clear. False teachers are not able to damn the souls of those who are genuinely saved, because that's not possible. But false teachers can dupe us. They can deceive us. They can render us unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That's what chapter 1 mentions in verse 8. He says if these virtues are yours and they're increasing, you'll be neither useless nor unfruitful. False teaching makes us useless and unfruitful.
So Satan does two things with false teaching. He deceives people so that they never hear the truth and are damned, and then he dupes Christians who, in embracing it, get sidelined into some sect, some heresy, some little group that isolates them, and they got their own little thing going on over here, and it renders them useless and unfruitful in the kingdom. And that is the danger of false teaching. They damn those inside the church who need the true gospel, and they deceive and dupe Christians in the church and render them useless and unfruitful.
Their teachings are heretical and rebellious because they themselves, verse 1 says, deny the Master who bought them. Now, I'm already at this point a little bit behind where I would normally be tracking on the clock, but this phrase here, “denying the Master who bought them,” in verse 1 deserves some thoughtful, careful consideration and theological reflection because we have to ask, “In what sense were these men bought, who bought them, and what were they bought for? How were they bought? What is this buying that he is mentioning here?”
This question has to do with the scope and the nature of the atonement of Jesus Christ. So this is a verse that is often used by those who are Arminian and believe that in the atonement of Jesus Christ, He offered a sacrifice for sins that paid the sin price for all people who have ever lived, that every sin ever committed by every last person who has ever lived, since Adam until the last person lives and dies, was placed upon Christ and that His death atoned for and paid the price for everyone. And then there is the Reformed or Calvinistic position, which, in case you're unclear as to where I'm at, this is the camp that I am in, that believes that in the death of Christ, He paid not just a potential price for all people but the actual satisfactory justice payment for some people—namely, those whom the Father gave to Him from before the foundation of the world. And so that is the Reformed position.
Now you might say, “What is it then that these people believe? What is it that Arminians believe that has bearing on this verse?” It is that phrase that the false teachers deny the Master who bought them. So Arminians will say, “Here you have a very clear, unequivocal reference to false teachers who obviously end up being judged, who are purchased by the death of Christ. So if the death of Christ purchases the salvation for false teachers, then the death of Christ is not narrow in its scope; instead it is broad or universal in its scope.”
Now you might say, “Jim, what you're describing over here, the Calvinist position, that sounds a lot like a limited atonement.” And you are right, it does sound that way, because it is that. It's actually what I'm describing, a limited atonement. But let me be clear about something. Unless you believe that all men will be saved and none go to Hell, then you believe in a limited atonement. In other words, if you believe that anybody perishes in the fires of Hell, then you believe in a limited atonement.
The Calvinist says the atonement is limited in the number of people for whom He died, but it is unlimited in its effect and what it accomplishes. The Arminian says the atonement of Christ is unlimited in the number of people for whom Christ died, but it is limited in its effect. So the Calvinist says Christ did not pay the penalty for all people, but every last one for whom He has paid that price will be saved and they can't be anything other than saved because He has paid the satisfaction for their sins. And if Christ has paid the satisfaction for their sins, then every last person that Christ died for will be saved. The Arminian says no, He paid the price for all men's sins. And then you ask him, “Did He actually effectively secure the salvation of any?” “No,” the Arminian says, “He didn't, because a whole bunch of people for whom Christ has died will end up perishing everlastingly.”
So, I don't know where else to put this, but here's a quote from Spurgeon. I didn’t have this in my notes, so I had to kind of remember this today. I thought, “I need to find this.” Here is Spurgeon describing these two views of the atonement. Spurgeon says this,
We are often told that we limit the atonement of Christ, because we say that Christ has not made satisfaction for all men, or all men would be saved. Now, our reply to this is, that, on the other hand, our opponents limit it: we do not. The Arminians say, Christ died for all men. Ask them what they mean by it. Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of all men? They say, “No, certainly not.” We ask them the next question—Did Christ die so as to secure the salvation of any man in particular? They answer, “No.” They are obliged to admit this, if they are consistent. They say, “No; Christ has died that any man may be saved if”—and then follow certain conditions of salvation. . . . Now, who is it that limits the death of Christ? Why, you. You say that Christ did not die so as to infallibly secure the salvation of anybody. We beg your pardon, when you say we limit Christ's death; we say, “No, my dear sir, it is you that do it.” We say Christ so died that He infallibly secured the salvation of a multitude that no man can number, who through Christ's death not only may be saved but are saved, must be saved, and cannot by any possibility run the hazard of being anything but saved. You are welcome to your atonement; you may keep it. We will never renounce ours for the sake of it.
So you understand the difference between those two? If Christ died for all men, then if all men are not saved, you're limiting the effect of the atonement. Its effect is limited—not the scope but the effect. But if you say that Christ died for His elect, not everybody but only those whom the Father gave to Him, then you do have a limited atonement in the sense of its scope, but it effectually secures the salvation of every last person for whom He died so that none are lost. Those are the two camps.
Now, you say, “What bearing does our text have on that?” Well, if false teachers have been bought in the same way that you and I have been bought, then one of two things is true. Either they belong to God and will be saved and are saved, or they belong to Christ, were purchased by His blood, became believers, and then lost their salvation. And I don't think that either of those two views is tenable.
So what do we do with this passage? In what sense is the false teacher purchased? Let's walk through this and see what Peter's saying and what Peter's not saying. And I think I can do this in less than ten minutes. First up, notice that our context is not describing the atonement at all. Peter's not talking about the atonement. That's not in view. That's not to say that he can't be, but it's just to say that in the context here, the apostle Peter is not talking about the scope or the nature of the atonement or what it accomplishes or how effectual it is or what it actually does or what it was intended to do. That's not on his radar at all. He's talking about false teachers, and he says the false teachers deny the Master who bought them. So we need to be careful how much hay we make out of this reference in Scripture.
And I would just say that there are plenty of passages in Scripture that talk about the nature of Christ's death, the work that it does, what it actually accomplishes, what it was intended to do, what it actually does, the effect of it, all of that. There are plenty of passages, including large passages of Scripture that are laid out to describe that. John 10, for instance, when Jesus says, “I lay down My life. I give My life for My sheep.” Well, are we all sheep? No. We're not all sheep. We're not all sheep because only a few verses later Jesus said to the Pharisees, “You do not believe because you're not of My sheep. If you belonged to Me, you would believe, I would give you eternal life, and I would secure you everlastingly.” So the Lord Jesus already tells us who His death was for. He died for His sheep.
Now, passages like that are very clear. So here's what we don't do. We don't take what I think is an unclear text and say, “Look, whatever Jesus was talking about in John 10, it can't possibly be what it obviously means. Instead it has to mean something entirely different because we have this phrase of false teachers being bought by the death of Christ.” You'll notice it doesn't say they were bought by the death of Christ. It just says they were bought. So the question again is, Who's doing the buying? What is this buying? What is it referring to?
Second, the word translated “bought here,” agorazo in the Greek, is used of purchasing, and it's used of purchasing things even in a non-redemptive way. It's used of non-redemptive purchases. So for instance, Matthew 13:44 says a man found a treasure in a field. He hid it again, and from joy over what it was, “he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” He acquires it. He buys the field. It's used this way in John 4:8: “For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.” In fact, of the thirty times in the New Testament, there are only five times that it's used that it clearly speaks in a redemptive way of people being purchased by the blood of Christ. So most of the times that it's used, it's not even used in a redemptive sense. It's just used of somebody acquiring something, like a field or food or oil, or just buying and trading generally, like cargo or cloth.
When it is used redemptively in these five examples—and I'm going to cite them for you here in just a moment—when it is used redemptively, it always has believers as its objects. It is believers that are purchased. So if this verse is the exception, this would be the only place in all of the New Testament where it talks about unbelievers being purchased by the death of Christ. And you notice it doesn't say they were purchased by the death of Christ. It just says He purchased them.
So agorazo can be used in a non-redemptive way. When it's used in a redemptive way, it is unequivocally used of Christians, believers, who actually are purchased by the blood of Christ. And when it is used redemptively, the price of that purchase is always mentioned. So for instance, 1 Corinthians 6:20: “You were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.” Notice the reference to purchasing and the reference to the price of the purchasing.
Also, 1 Corinthians 7:23: “You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.”
That's two of the five references. Revelation 5:9: “They sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are You to take the scroll and to open its seals, because You were slain and purchased for God with Your blood people from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.’” So there, in all three of those references, clearly it is believers being spoken of, and the price of the redemption is mentioned. Bought with a price, bought by His blood.
There are two other references in the New Testament. The next two are also in Revelation. After Revelation 5, in Revelation 14:2–3, the word is used two times, and there, since it is describing the same group of people as in Revelation 5, and since it is describing the same purchase of those people as in Revelation 5, it is obvious that the author of Revelation has in mind the same purchase by the same blood of the same group of people. So when it's used redemptively, the price is always mentioned, and it is always believers who are said to be the objects of that purchase or that redemption.
So five times it is always used to describe believers. In other words, those people—listen carefully—those people who are purchased by the blood of Christ are always possessed by God and saved. One hundred percent of the time that this word is used redemptively, it speaks of people actually purchased by the blood of Christ actually being believers.
So notice in the text what it is that is bought. He says He bought them. He bought them. It doesn't say that He purchased their potential salvation. It doesn't say that He purchased something for them. It says He purchased them. He's not talking there about Him purchasing the cost of their salvation or redemption. He doesn't acquire something on their behalf, but He acquires them. So what does it mean that they have been bought then? You have two options. Christ actually owns them and they are His, and therefore they are believers who will be in Heaven, or they become believers and then lose their salvation. Those are your two options if you're going to say that a false teacher has been purchased by the blood of Christ. Neither of those is biblically tenable.
So what is Peter saying? Number one, this purchase does not provide salvation. It does not result in salvation because it doesn't actually redeem them. They are lost. They are judged. Therefore whatever this buying is, it refers to something that is non-redemptive. Every other place where this word is used, it is used to describe those who are actually redeemed and those who enjoy redemption. We never have a redemptive purchase in Scripture that does not result in redemption. Otherwise, Christ failed. I had an illustration, but I'm not going to do it.
Number two, notice how the buyer is described here. He's described as their Master, and the word translated “Master” there is despotes, and it's the word from which we get our word despot. It means sovereign ruler, absolute ruler. It's the word used of a master in a master-slave relationship. It describes one who is the sovereign ruler or creator over all. So if we assume that that is speaking of Christ here, then what you have is Christ Himself purchasing or buying the false teacher. And notice again that it's not saying something is bought for him, namely salvation.
The key here is that despotes, the word translated “Master,” is not a redemptive title given to Christ in Scripture. In other words, Peter doesn't say they deny the Savior who bought them or they deny the Redeemer who bought them, but they deny the Sovereign who bought them. So in what sense does He buy them that is not redemptive and that gives Him the right to be sovereign over them? Something other than redemption is here intended.
And the context indicates—and I mean, this is a long walk for a short drink of water—but the context here indicates that what Peter has in mind is an Old Testament illustration. And just go back to the end of chapter 1, and keep in mind what the context is. What is the point that Peter is making? False teachers will arise from among you, and they will do these things, even denying the Master who bought them. So at the end of chapter 1, Peter goes back to the Old Testament, and he talks about Old Testament prophets, Old Testament men of God who spoke for God; the Spirit moved and they spoke on behalf of God. Their word is the more certain word. Then in chapter 2—ignore the chapter division for just a second—just as there were false prophets among them . . . Who's the “them”? Old Testament Israel, right? Just as there were false prophets among them, so there will be false teachers among you. So Peter has in mind here an Old Testament example or illustration.
The people among whom the false prophets arose back then is Old Testament Israel. Was Old Testament Israel ever said to be bought? Yes, because this same word, agorazo, is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament in 2 Samuel 7:23 to refer to Yahweh purchasing a people for Himself, and it is a reference to God buying the people out of Egypt. That is not redemptive purchasing, because most of those who came out of Egypt were not believers, as their subsequent murmuring and rebellion and unbelief demonstrated. Most of the people coming out of Egypt were not bought in a redemptive sense. God secured for Himself a nation. He acquired them out of Egypt. They were His by virtue that He delivered them from Egypt, and so He bought them or acquired them in that sense, but it was not a redemptive acquisition. It was not a redemptive purchase. Instead, as the sovereign one, He purchased them out of Egypt, and those Jews owed Him their allegiance, and those Jews who came out of Egypt did not give Him their allegiance. Deuteronomy 32:5–6:
5 They have acted corruptly toward Him, they are not His children because of their defect; but are a perverse and crooked generation.
6 Do you thus repay Yahweh, O people who are wickedly foolish and without wisdom? Is not He your Father who has bought you? He has made you and established you. (LSB)
So there the word bought is used to describe Old Testament Israel. So what is Peter doing? He is saying that God purchased the nation of Israel out of Egypt, He was their Master, and the nation owed Him their allegiance because He bought them. And yet there were people in Old Testament Israel who denied the One who delivered them from Egypt, and they continued in rebellion, not the least of which is the false teachers among them who denied that One who brought them out of Egypt. It's an illustration from the Old Testament of a New Testament principle.
So it is with these false teachers. And I'm thinking what Peter is indicating here is that these false teachers were bought because, just like their Jewish forefathers, they were purchased from a foreign nation and yet did not yield in obedience to Him. So they were purchased in a non-redemptive sense. They owed their allegiance to Yahweh, but these false teachers, while they used His name and claimed to speak for Him, were doing the very same thing that the Old Testament prophets did, the Old Testament false prophets, who were bought by God, Yahweh, out of Egypt. They're doing the same thing, rejecting His sovereign control and His sovereign claim over them. That's what Peter is saying. So this is not a redemptive purchasing that Peter has in mind. This is an illustration saying that the false teachers owed their allegiance to Yahweh because He is the sovereign ruler of all things, but they deny Him who bought them.
And these false teachers were Jews, I think, whose forefathers came out of Egypt, and they're doing the same thing that the Old Testament false prophets did, which is to lead the people astray. That is Peter's point. God commands their allegiance as the despotes, their Master, but they deny Him, and so they bring on themselves swift destruction, continuing in their sensuality and their greed, giving evidence that, despite their claim that He is their Lord, these men are filled with and they are masters of sensuality and greed. Christ, Yahweh, is not their Lord at all, their lusts are, and so they do the same thing that the prophets of the Old Testament do.
So does this passage then say that Christ bought false teachers in the very same way that He bought believers? No, that is not Peter's point at all. And here's what we don't do. We don't take an uncertain, unclear passage like this that doesn't mention the price, isn't speaking of believers, and is speaking of people under judgment and then interpret all the rest of the very clear passages and shoehorn them into this very obscure phrase in 2 Peter 1. That is not how we do hermeneutics. That's how false teachers do hermeneutics, but that's not how we do hermeneutics.
So, the evidence of our salvation is not merely words, as the false teachers are able to use words and to appear like us. It is not the outward appearances of spiritual life. It's not having the form of godliness but denying its power. False teachers put on sheep's clothing. This is how they bring their destructive doctrines and their heresies into the church and divide the church. They do this because they are masters of greed and lust. They're not saved. Listen carefully. They are not misguided brothers and sisters. They are Satan's emissaries. They do his work. They teach and promote his doctrines. And while claiming to belong to Christ, they are in fact slaves of their own lusts as they reject His authority over them and continue to propagate their destructive heresies. And we must beware of them lest we be deceived by their deceptive doctrines and their teachings.
So, two dangers remain. Second, in verse 2, that we would be seduced by their lusts, and third, that we would be exploited by their greed, and we'll deal with those next week. I know we took a little bit of time on that phrase, but you just can't skip over something like that because if I do, then people who use that verse that way will say, “Well, you have no answer for this,” and I think there's a very good answer for that. So, well, you know that we don't skip over anything, I guess, by now.