The Nature of the Beast: Apostasy's True Colors Text: 2 Peter 2:17-22
Introduction: The Washed Pig
The Christian life is a war, and one of the central fronts in that war is the battle for definition. Our enemies, both outside the church and, more dangerously, inside it, are constantly trying to redefine the key terms. They want to call bondage freedom. They want to call license liberty. They want to call filthiness a form of enlightenment. And they do this, as Peter tells us, with great swelling words of vanity, promising a great deal and delivering nothing but chains.
Peter, in this section of his second letter, is not engaging in polite theological discourse. He is issuing a battlefield warning. He is unmasking the enemy. He has been describing these false teachers, these spiritual grifters, who have crept into the church. They are arrogant, they are greedy, and they are licentious. But their most damnable trait is that they use the vocabulary of grace to market their wares of corruption. They speak of freedom while they themselves are slaves, and they entice others into that same slavery.
The warning here is stark, and it is one that our modern, sentimental, and altogether squishy evangelicalism desperately needs to hear. Peter is addressing the terrifying reality of apostasy. Not the apostasy of someone who was never in the church to begin with, but the apostasy of those who were right there, in the assembly. They had "escaped the defilements of the world." They had "known the way of righteousness." They were, to all outward appearances, part of the covenant community. They looked like sheep, they sounded like sheep, but their nature had never been changed. You can wash a pig, and for a short time, you have a clean pig. But you have not changed the pig into a lamb. The nature of the beast will always reassert itself, and the pig will inevitably return to the mire. This, Peter says, is what has happened to these false teachers. Their end is worse than their beginning, and their story is a grim cautionary tale for all who would trifle with the grace of God.
We must understand this distinction between external cleaning and internal regeneration. If we don't get this right, we will not understand salvation, we will not understand the church, and we will not understand the severe warnings of Scripture. We will be susceptible to the very deceptions Peter is exposing.
The Text
These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been kept. For speaking out arrogant words of vanity, they entice by sensual lusts of the flesh, those who barely escape from the ones who conducted themselves in error, promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. For if they are overcome, having both escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and having again been entangled in them, then the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. The message of the true proverb has happened to them, “A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”
(2 Peter 2:17-22 LSB)
A Deceptive Emptiness (v. 17-18)
Peter begins with two powerful metaphors to describe the essence of these false teachers.
"These are springs without water and mists driven by a storm, for whom the black darkness has been kept." (2 Peter 2:17)
Imagine a traveler in a desert, dying of thirst. He sees what looks like a spring in the distance, a source of life. He stumbles toward it with his last ounce of strength, only to find it is dry. It is a cruel deception. This is the nature of false teachers. They promise life, refreshment, and spiritual sustenance, but they are spiritually bankrupt. They have nothing to give because they have nothing themselves. They are all packaging and no product. They are mists, or clouds, that promise rain for the parched ground but are then driven away by the storm, leaving the land as dry as before. They create an expectation of blessing but deliver only disappointment.
And their end is fitting. For those who promise much and deliver nothing but darkness, "the black darkness has been kept." This is a terrifying phrase. Hell is not just a punishment; it is a destination reserved, kept, and held in custody for them. The blackest darkness is for those who pretended to be messengers of light.
Verse 18 tells us how they do it.
"For speaking out arrogant words of vanity, they entice by sensual lusts of the flesh, those who barely escape from the ones who conducted themselves in error..." (2 Peter 2:18)
Their method has two parts. First, "arrogant words of vanity." They are masters of theological-sounding nonsense. They sound profound, but it is all hot air. They use big words to hide small thoughts. It is the language of pride, designed to impress the simple and make them think they are being initiated into some deeper, more sophisticated truth. Second, they target the flesh. Their high-sounding words are just the bait on a hook, and the hook is baited with sensuality. They appeal to the "lusts of the flesh." They are essentially telling people what their itching ears want to hear: that you can have Jesus and your favorite sins too. You can be spiritual without the inconvenience of repentance. They specifically target new converts, those "who barely escape." These are the most vulnerable, the ones still shaky in their newfound faith, whose old habits still have a powerful pull. The false teachers come to them and say, "That freedom you've heard about? It means you are free to indulge."
The Slavery of "Freedom" (v. 19)
Here Peter exposes the central lie of all antinomian, grace-abusing heresies.
"...promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved." (2 Peter 2:19)
This is the great bait and switch. They use the word "freedom," a glorious biblical concept, and turn it into a justification for sin. True Christian freedom is not the freedom to do whatever you want; it is the freedom from the tyranny of sin so that you are now able to do what you ought. It is freedom to obey. But these teachers redefine freedom as autonomy, the right to be your own god, to define your own morality. This is not freedom; it is the very essence of the slavery that Christ came to destroy.
They are slaves themselves. They are mastered by their own lusts, their own greed, their own pride. And Peter lays down a universal principle: "for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved." If you cannot say no to your anger, you are a slave to your anger. If you cannot control your sexual appetite, you are a slave to pornography and lust. If you are mastered by your desire for approval, you are a slave to the opinions of others. You will always serve what you will not mortify. These teachers, having been conquered by corruption, are now recruiting for the slave army of corruption, and they are calling the enlistment papers a declaration of independence.
A State Worse Than the First (v. 20-21)
Peter now explains the grim spiritual mathematics of apostasy. It is not a return to neutral.
"For if they are overcome, having both escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and having again been entangled in them, then the last state has become worse for them than the first." (2 Peter 2:20)
This is a crucial verse for understanding the nature of the visible church. Notice what these people had. They had "escaped the defilements of the world." They had cleaned up their act. They stopped carousing, they cleaned up their language, they started attending church. This was a real, observable, external reformation. And how did it happen? "By the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." They had heard the gospel. They were catechized. They were part of the covenant community, where the knowledge of Christ is proclaimed. They were baptized. They took the Lord's Supper. They had all the external privileges of being a Christian.
But they were merely reformed, not regenerated. They were washed, but not made new. And because their nature was unchanged, the world's pull was too strong. They became "entangled" in their old sins again and were "overcome." And the result is that their "last state has become worse for them than the first." Why? Because now they sin against the light. Before, they sinned in ignorance. Now, they sin with full knowledge of the truth they are rejecting. They have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, as Hebrews says, and have turned their back on it. This hardens the conscience in a way that pagan ignorance never could. To have known the way of righteousness and then to reject it is to build a wall of rebellion brick by brick.
"For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them." (2 Peter 2:21)
This is a straightforward statement of culpability. Greater privilege brings greater responsibility, and therefore greater judgment for rebellion. The pagan in the jungle will be judged for rejecting the light he has in creation. But the man who sat in a Christian church, heard the gospel of grace, and then turned it into a license for sin will face a far hotter hell. He has committed treason. He has trampled the Son of God underfoot. It would have been better for him to have been a Tyre or Sidon than a Capernaum.
The Unchanged Nature (v. 22)
Peter concludes with two barnyard proverbs that are as earthy as they are theologically precise. They perfectly illustrate the difference between external reformation and internal transformation.
"The message of the true proverb has happened to them, 'A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT,' and, 'A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.'" (2 Peter 2:22)
The first proverb comes from Proverbs 26:11. A dog gets sick from something it ate and vomits it up. The relief is temporary. Because it is a dog, with the nature of a dog, it doesn't reason about what made it sick. It simply sees the vomit and returns to it. This is a picture of the apostate. He experiences the negative consequences of his sin, the "sickness." Under the influence of the church and the gospel, he "vomits" it up. He professes repentance. He cleans up his life. But because his heart, his nature, has not been changed, he still finds the sin attractive. And so he returns to the very thing that made him sick.
The second proverb makes the same point. You can take a sow out of the mud pit. You can get out the fire hose and the scrub brushes and get her squeaky clean. You can even tie a pink ribbon around her neck. For a moment, you have a clean sow. But you have not changed her nature. As soon as you let her go, her internal pig-ness will drive her to do what pigs do. She will head straight for the nearest mud puddle and wallow in it. Why? Because she is a pig. The washing was external. The problem is internal.
This is Peter's final diagnosis of the false teachers. They were never sheep. They were dogs and pigs who had been brought into the clean environment of the church. They experienced an outward cleansing, but there was no new birth, no change of nature. The new birth does not just wash the pig; it turns the pig into a lamb. A true Christian, a sheep, may fall into the mud, but he hates it and cries out to the Shepherd to be cleaned. A pig falls into the mud and loves it. That is the difference. These apostates prove what they were all along by what they ultimately love and return to.
Conclusion: Are You Washed, or Are You New?
The warning of this passage should ring in our ears. It is not enough to be externally associated with the people of God. It is not enough to have "knowledge" of Jesus. It is not enough to clean up your behavior for a season. Judas Iscariot had all of those things. The Pharisees had an external righteousness that exceeded that of the common man. The question is not, "Have you been washed?" The question is, "Have you been made new?"
Has God performed the miracle of regeneration in your heart? Has He taken out your heart of stone and given you a heart of flesh? Has He given you a new nature, one that loves righteousness and hates sin? This is the only security against the kind of apostasy Peter describes. A true sheep cannot ultimately and finally fall away, because the Shepherd who bought him holds him fast. But someone who is merely a washed pig or a reformed dog has no such security.
Therefore, we must not be seduced by those who promise freedom while peddling slavery. True freedom is found in joyful submission to the "holy commandment," which is the law of liberty. We must examine ourselves, not to see if we are perfect, but to see if we have the nature of a sheep. When you sin, do you hate it and run to Christ for cleansing? Or do you, after a brief period of remorse, find yourself circling back to the vomit, back to the mire?
The good news of the gospel is not that God washes pigs, but that He, through the power of the cross and resurrection of Christ, miraculously transforms pigs into sheep, dogs into sons. He doesn't just clean us up; He makes us new creatures. And that is a security that can never be shaken.