Background for II Peter

If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn with me to II Peter. Though written almost 2000 years ago, this letter could not be more relevant for us as Christians in the 21^st century America. If Peter were alive today to write us a letter, I’m not sure he would write something much different than what we have here. There are a few strange things he’d probably further explain or leave out, but most of this letter is very appropriate and needed in our context of today.

I want to first talk a little bit about the background of II Peter, and then talk a little bit about our situation today.

Peter writes this second letter I think to pretty much the same audience he wrote his first letter. II Peter 3:1 is a good indication of that: “This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder…” If he’s writing to the same audience he wrote I Peter, he’s writing to Christians scattered throughout five provinces of the 1^st century Roman Empire (Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia). This little letter then would be would be copied and circulated among the churches.

Many call II Peter “Peter’s farewell letter,” because he wrote it aware that very soon he was going to depart this world. We gather this from 1:13-15, “I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder, knowing that the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent, as also our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. And I will also be diligent that at any time after my departure you will be able to call these things to mind.”

The term in the Greek text translated “earthly dwelling” could be translated literally “tent”. A tent is a metaphor here and elsewhere in Scripture for a physical body (John 1:14; II Corinthians 5:1,4). Our bodies are like tents, temporary dwelling places, in which we are camping out for a little while. Peter is saying, “The Lord has told me the time is imminent or very soon that I will have to lay aside my tent and head out. And since I won’t be around much longer to talk to you about these things, I’m writing this letter.”

We can glean from the contents of the letter that there was a problem developing in churches that Peter became aware of, which prompted him to write. In the midst of many churches were arising promoters of false ideas that implied sinful living as permissible. Church going people were espousing interpretations and doctrines that made righteous living in obedience to the commands of Jesus seem optional.

You see this, for instance, in II Peter 2:18-20, “For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error, 19 promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.”

You notice in verse 20 these promoters of erroneous ideas, at one time, became Christians. They escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In other words they learned the gospel and repented and came out of the filth of sin; they became Christians. That’s why they were in the midst of churches. But they have, since their conversion, gone back into the same sinful sort of lifestyle they came out of. And now they are promoting ideas that excuse the way they live. You notice in verse 18 what makes their words attractive to some; it’s the fact that it permits fleshly indulgence. It makes sensuality excusable. In verse 19 you see they promise freedom. They say, “You are free from moral restraint; you’re free to live how you want.” But Peter explains that letting your selfish desires run your life is, in reality, a horrible form of slavery.

What was this doctrine or ideas that made sinful living seem okay? Peter does not explicitly tell us. It may be that Peter was aware of a number of different sin-excusing false ideas being promoted at the time, and he just lumps them all together and condemns them all.

But we have an indication of what some of the false teachers were doing in II Peter 3:15-16. They were distorting things in Paul’s letters: “and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction.” There are some things Paul says in his letters that can be misinterpreted as saying that it’s not necessary to be obedient to the commands of the Lord. And even in the 1^st century there was some twisting of Paul’s statements in that way.

A lot of Bible scholars believe some of these false teachers were denying  Jesus would ever return to judge the world. In chapter 3, Peter says mockers will come denying Jesus will ever return in judgment. Maybe such mocking had already begun in Peter’s day.

If we go outside of II Peter to the little one chapter book of Jude, we get some further insight into the nature of a lot of the false teaching. Jude is like a condensed version of II Peter. These two writings cover the same topics in the same order, using often the same words and phrases, and apparently deal with the same problem. Most Biblical scholars think that either Peter had a copy of Jude when he wrote his second letter, or Jude had a copy of II Peter when he wrote, because they are so similar. Well, Jude 4 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 licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” When it says they deny their only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ, I don’t think it’s that they don’t claim to be Christians. Jude and II Peter speak of these false teachers as being in the assemblies of Christians. And II Peter says, “because of them the way of the truth is maligned.” (II Peter 2:2) In other words, they give Christianity a bad name in the community. So I think they do claim to be Christians. But they deny Christ by the way they live; Titus 1:16, “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.” (see also I Timothy 5:8)

They were turning the grace of God into licentiousness… which I know is not a word we use very often, so let me give you another translation, “lasciviousness.” Does that help? Another way it’s translated is “wantonness.” That may not help either. It is just a comprehensive term for evil and perverse behavior, behavior lacking in moral restraint.

So it sounds to me like the people of the 1^st century church were arguing, “We are saved by God’s grace, not by being good enough. So as long as we believe in Jesus as the Son of God, we are forgiven and saved, though we do not follow His commands. Neither fornication, nor adultery, nor drunkenness, nor greed, nor cheating people, nor hating people, will severe us from Christ and His salvation.” And they were likely quoting some verses from Paul that can, out of context, seem like they support that idea.

Peter and Jude wrote to protect Christians from those sorts of ideas.

This problem that was developing in 1^st century churches has become a widespread epidemic in 21^st century churches.

That’s what I want to talk to you about for the rest of the lesson.

I’m not sure I have enough fingers on which to count all the people I know in this town and in my extended family who will undoubtedly confess to be a Christian, begin their week meeting with a church and singing songs of praise to Jesus, and then go home and watch a porno film, or go to bed with someone who is not their spouse, or, if they don’t have to wake up early for work, won’t hesitate if they feel like it to drink themselves stupid, or bold face lie if it’s to their advantage. I have been shocked at hearing baptized people that I sat next to in church say things like, “He better not cross me, because I don’t forgive” or “I hate that S.o.B.”  I don’t want to sound like I have never done or said any of those kind of things before. I have. But I’m saying we’re in a situation today where it is commonly thought that we can continue to have a habit of doing and saying those kind of things and at the same time be Christians covered by the grace of God.

There are a number of ideas and misinterpretations being taught all over the place today that deceive people into thinking that obeying the commands of Jesus is optional. To be fair, many of those who teach these ideas are not trying to encourage people to sin. They teach people, we should obey Jesus because we love Him and are grateful for what He’s done for us. And that’s absolutely true. But they also don’t preach that sin is as serious as it is. And these ideas give a false sense of security to people who are going on willfully sinning.

So with rest of my time here I’d like to talk to you about a few of these deceptive ideas. Here’s one, which it appears was even around in Peter’s day. It’s the idea that…

“since Scripture says salvation is by God’s grace, salvation has nothing to do with obedience”

That is, we do not have to do anything to either receive or maintain our salvation, except simply believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died for our sins. I think that’s a deception of Satan that he’s done good job convincing a lot of people to believe.

Salvation by grace means we do not earn it ourselves, we do not merit it, we are not deserving of it. It is a gift of which we are so unworthy, and a gift we can receive no matter how much sin we have on our record. But it does not mean that God does not require any changes in our attitudes and behavior, or that He does not require us to do anything.

Say a rich man, just out of the generosity of his heart, took out his check book and wrote you a check for a million dollars and said, “Take this and drive to the bank and endorse it and deposit it into your account and you’ll be a millionaire.” That would be a gracious gift, but you would still have to do something to receive it, take it, drive to the bank, endorse and deposit it.

Say you were a homeless beggar and somebody came along and graciously said, “Hey buddy, you can come live at my house, and have your own room and bathroom and free access to whatever is in the fridge and cupboards. I just require that you clean up after yourself, don’t bring anybody into the house without asking, take a shower at least every few days, and no noise after 10 pm because that’s when I go to bed.” Well, you’d have to abide by those house rules, but it would still be a gracious undeserved gift.

Here’s a couple very plain statements in the New Testament. Luke 13:3,5 (and many other places just in different words), Jesus said, “Unless you repent [which means change your perspective and way of living to do the will of God] you will perish…” And Hebrews 10:26, written to Christians, “If we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries.” I don’t know how else we can interpret it. We cannot go on willfully sinning. There is no sacrifice to cover our sins if we are that way. It doesn’t mean we have to be perfect. It doesn’t mean if we still sin at all we are lost. But we cannot just willfully continue to do things and not do things contrary to the commands of Jesus. We must be honestly trying to bring our lives into harmony with the will of God… and God’s grace will cover all the sins of our past and how we still fall short, as long as we’re trying.

Here’s another idea I’m sure you’ve heard:

“Believing in Jesus is something separate and apart from obeying Jesus.”

It’s taught that we fulfill the requirement of believing in Jesus if we simply believe Jesus is the Son of God who died for our sins, whether we obey His commands or not. Problem is, that’s not what believing in someone meant to a 1^st century Jew.

A helpful example can be found in the writings of a 1^st century Jew named Josephus. In a portion of his writings we have a bit of an autobiography and he writes about when he was a military commander of the Jewish army in Galilee in the 60s AD. It was a time when many Jews were wanting to revolt against the Romans. But Josephus thought that the best thing for the Jews was rather to work with the Romans rather than revolt against them. Josephus describes an occasion when he went to one of the military leaders bent on revolt and he said to him, quote, “repent and believe in me.” The exact same language you see in the gospels for what Jesus required of people. What Josephus meant when he said that was, “Give up your agenda and the way you’re handling things, which in that case was revolting against the Romans. And trust me that I’ve got a better idea and handle things my way.” In 1^st century Jewish vernacular, to believe in someone meant to trust them enough that you give up your way of doing things and embrace their way.

You see it in the Old Testament. Exodus 14:30, when God brought the people of Israel through the Red Sea with a wall of water on their right and a wall of water on their left and brought the waters crashing down on the pursuing Egyptian army, it says, “Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. 31 When Israel saw the great power which the Lord had used against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in His servant Moses.” So upon experiencing that amazing deliverance at the Red Sea, they came to believe in the Lord and in Moses. That doesn’t mean they now believed God and Moses do exist and some facts about them. They’d been conversant with Moses before. They’d already witnessed the mighty plagues God brought on Egypt. They already believed a lot of stuff about God and Moses. But the deliverance at the Red Sea made them believe in God and in Moses, meaning it brought them to trust God and Moses enough to obey them and follow them wherever they lead.

A year later on the edge of the promised land, Numbers 14, their faith in God and in Moses dwindled.  The spies came back from the land with a report of giants in fortified cities, and the people said, “Moses, we don’t care what you and God say, we’re not going over there and fighting those people. We’re going back to Egypt.” Numbers 14:11 says, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst?’” Oh they believed God existed and they believed God had done a lot of stuff and was extremely powerful, but they did not believe in Him, because they did not trust His good intentions and wisdom and power enough to follow Him into the land of giants in the fortified cities.

So, to believe in somebody in the scriptures and in Jewish idiom, was not just to believe stuff about them. It was to trust them enough to follow them, to submit to them, to obey them, to go about things their way.

Something else you may hear today:

“Because Paul says we are not saved by works, salvation has nothing to do with obedience.”

Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” You’ll hear today, that means no human effort has anything to do with being saved.

But did you know the same Paul also wrote Romans 6:16 to Christians, “You are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness.” The same Paul also wrote, I Corinthians 6:9-10, “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.” And he wrote a lot of other similar passages emphasizes the absolute necessity of obedience (Romans 2:5-11; 8:13; Galatians 5:16-24)

Did you know there is a place in the NT that says we are saved by works? James 2:24, “A man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” So, unless you want to say the NT contradicts itself (which I assure you it does not), there is a sense in which we are not saved by works. And there is a sense in which we are saved by works.

In context, where Paul says we’re not saved by works, you also find him saying we are saved by grace and we cannot boast about it (Ephesians 2:8-9; Romans 4:1-4). So his point appears to be that we do not earn our salvation. We don’t pay for it. We are not saved by living such a remarkable life and making such a great difference on God’s earth that we put God in our debt. It’s not our work that earns it. It is God who has paid for it and who has brought us the gospel and worked in our lives and won our hearts and motivated us with His promises and given His Spirit to help us. It’s God who’s really done the work and is due the glory. In that sense we are not saved by our works.

But there is another sense in which we are saved by works, says James 2, because God requires we repent and live in obedience. Trusting Him enough to obey is God’s condition. Take the illustration of the beggar who is given a place to stay and eat for free at someone’s home, if he picks up after himself and abides by a few house rules. In one sense He doesn’t have it by his work, because he didn’t earn his room and board. It’s a gift. But in another sense he does have it by his works, his works of obedience to the stipulations of the owner. He has it by cleaning up after himself and doing other things he was asked.

Something else you may hear today:

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), which is full of commands for how we need to live, is not really something to be obeyed, but rather its purpose was to show us we fall far short of God’s glory, are indeed unrighteous and in need of His grace to be saved.

That’s a clever idea. But let me read to you some statements from the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5:20. “I say to you unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Sure sounds like we must live better than the Scribes and Pharisees. And then several examples are given of how we must do better than the Scribes and Pharisees, like, do not just refrain from murder, but don’t bear grudges (5:21-26). Do not just not commit adultery, but don’t be looking at women other than your spouse to lust after them (5:27-30). Do not just keep your word when you make a vow to the Lord, but let your yes be yes and your no, no (5:33-37).

Listen to 5:29-30, “If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.” Sounds like if we have a sinful habit we need to do whatever it takes to end it, even if it’s as painful and costly as cutting off important members of our body. And to just be okay with a habit that you know is disobedient to Christ is to be in danger of hell.

Matthew 6:15, “if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” Sounds like Jesus’ command to forgive is not just so we see we’re sinners and need His grace. Sounds like we actually have to do that.

And listen to how He ends the sermon, Matthew 7:13ff, “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. ¹⁴ For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” He’s saying most people are on the path that leads to destruction, it’s the minority that’s on the path to life. So you have to be different than most people. And then He says, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing [they look harmless on the surface] but inwardly are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶ You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.” What does he mean by fruit? I think he means fruit like John the Baptist meant fruit a few chapters before. John was preaching to people, “You must bear the fruit of repentance.” In other words, you must have these outward, observable signs in your life that you’ve truly repented; things like honesty, showing compassion, caring for people in need, keeping your eyes and hands only on your own spouse, etc. (these kind of things are the fruit). So you can distinguish between false prophets and true prophets by the fruit they’re exhibiting. Then He says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²² On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ ²³ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”  So on that day there will be people who will have called Him Lord, and will have even done some amazing things in His name… and yet Jesus will reject them because they practiced lawlessness; they did not repent and do the will of God in their lives. Then He finishes the sermon saying, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock ²⁵ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. ²⁶ And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. ²⁷ And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

Jesus’ sermon was not just to set the bar so high so that we see we fall short, rather His sermon was to be put into practice… and Peter knew that and he knew what was going on in churches in his day, ideas and doctrines being introduced that imply we don’t have to live that way.

So, before he died, he wrote this letter of II Peter.  Chapter 1 – God has graciously invested in you that you might develop into His likeness. So make every effort to become like Him, to develop moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love. This is how we must live. This is the path of salvation. Chapter 2 – Beware of those who say you don’t need to live that way in obedience to Jesus. Don’t buy into their ideas. And chapter 3 – Jesus will certainly keep His promise to return. Don’t let the length of time He delays cause you to doubt it. He will come, and when He does He will destroy this world and the ungodly. But then there will be a new heavens and a new earth wherein the righteous will dwell. If we trust Jesus enough to follow Him, to be obedient, He’ll make us into new creatures fit for that new creation.

-James Williams