Request your free, three-month trial to Tabletalk magazine. You’ll receive the print issue monthly and gain immediate digital access to decades of archives. This trial is risk-free. No credit card required.
Try Tabletalk NowAlready receive Tabletalk magazine every month?
Verify your email address to gain unlimited access.
2 Peter 2:20–22
“For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them” (v. 21).
Peter brings his devastating portrait of the false teachers to its climax with a passage that has troubled many believers. He speaks of people who “escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” and then became entangled in them again, ending up worse than before (2 Peter 2:20). Does this mean that genuine Christians can lose their salvation?
The answer, when the full testimony of Scripture is considered, is no. Peter himself, in his first letter, describes the believer’s inheritance as “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith” (1 Peter 1:4–5). The elect are preserved by God’s sovereign power, and their perseverance in faith is guaranteed by His unchanging purpose.
What, then, is Peter describing? The false teachers themselves are most likely in view here. Peter is describing people who entered the visible church, gained significant exposure to the gospel, experienced the external benefits of the Christian community, and then turned away. They “knew” the way of righteousness—not with the intimate, saving knowledge that characterizes genuine believers but with an intellectual familiarity with the ethical teachings and mode of life characteristic of Christians. The phrase “holy commandment” in 2 Peter 2:21 underscores this: They knew what God required, but their knowledge never penetrated their hearts. The Westminster Confession of Faith addresses this distinction when it acknowledges that some who are not elect may “be called by the ministry of the Word, and may have some common operations of the Spirit,” yet never truly come to Christ (10.4).
This is the pattern that Jesus described in the parable of the sower. Some seed falls on rocky ground and springs up quickly, but because it has no root it withers when trials come (Matt. 13:5–6, 20–21). The initial appearance is promising, but the lack of genuine regeneration is eventually exposed.
Such people are worse off than if they had never encountered the gospel at all, for greater knowledge brings greater accountability. Peter illustrates this with two proverbs: A dog returns to its vomit, and a washed sow returns to the mud (2 Peter 2:22). The external cleansing was real, but the nature was never changed. Only the new birth, wrought by the sovereign Spirit of God, can transform the heart and make a person a new creature in Christ.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Peter’s warning is aimed at presumption, not at the tender conscience that fears it has fallen too far. Those who grieve over their sin give evidence of the very life that apostates lack. Let us take comfort in the Spirit’s ongoing work within us while holding fast to the gospel with the seriousness that it deserves.
For further study
- Deuteronomy 30:6
- John 10:27–29
The bible in a year
- Psalms 85–87
- Romans 10:5–21
- Psalms 88–93
- Romans 11