Test and Fate of False Teachers: 2 Peter 2:1-3

As much as I may disagree that one can lose one’s salvation, I would not label that a heresy. Heresy always subverts the heart of the faith, the gospel itself, and the character of the God who is offering the gospel. Disagreements within the bounds of the true gospel are not heresy.

This is what Peter is speaking to.

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. (2 Peter 2:1-3, ESV)

Peter is thinking back to when the Scriptures he learned, our Old Testament, were being revealed. There were also false prophets then who were seeking to counter the truth God’s holy prophets were revealing. Moses spends time in both Deuteronomy 13 and 18 warning the people against such people.

In 18 he describes how Yahweh will raise up a prophet like him to tell Israel God’s words. But he warns them that a prophet who says something God did not say or who speaks in the name of other gods will try to mislead them, and you can know such prophets if their predictions do not come true.

In 13 he understands that there may be prophets who perform signs and wonders but whose message is, “Let’s follow other gods,” and then you will know they are false. Truthfulness and miracle are both needed to attest prophets.

What Moses has revealed, as a tried and tested prophet, is the standard against which others must be tested. With Moses, the people had seen the miracles God did through him, providing water and food in the wilderness, bringing them the stones etched with the 10 commandments, his face glowing after spending time with God in the tent of meeting, his prayers giving them victory in battle. They knew He spoke for God.

Peter is saying the same thing will happen in our era. False teachers will come from our own ranks. They will be people we thought were part of us but they have a secret agenda to introduce heresy and all heresy is destructive. Deviation from the truth about God always leads back to the corruption in the world and is evidence that one is not called and elected. These false teachers will even go so far as to deny Jesus and, as Paul also taught (1 Corinthians 3), will be destroyed even as they tried to destroy God’s church.

Since Peter’s day there have arisen innumerable heresies. Jesus is wrongly said to have been just a man upon whom the Christ spirit came, or is said to have only seemed to have a physical body, or is said to be a man who became God, or is said to be God’s first creation, etc. Works righteousness has been reintroduced as the way to salvation, or secret knowledge has been offered that one must be initiated into to be saved. The kingdom has wrongly been said to have already come, or that it is not coming. Falsehoods have abounded!

Inevitably these false teachers have been involved in sensuality. It is not that Christians cannot fall into sensual sin, but false teachers are not free from the corruption that is in the world and use their positions of power (all heresy is an attempt to get power over people) to satisfy their sinful desires. Greed for money is also a hallmark of false teachers. They are not teaching for the benefit of people whom they love but to exploit gullible believers for their profit. God will not let them escape judgment.

Are you able to identify false teaching? It will always deviate from the apostolic revelation, from the apostles Jesus trained and taught to be his representatives and carriers of the true revelation. Every heresy introduced into the church has claimed to be a restoration of lost Christianity and every one has been shown to be in contradiction to the apostolic faith revealed in the New Testament. Many have sought to create their own scriptures (Latter Day Saints, Christian Scientists, Islam, et al) to counter the New Testament, or have mistranslated the New Testament to fit their heresies (Jehovah’s Witnesses). The danger still exists.