2 Peter | Practical Teaching on Coming Conditions

Session 6 | 2 Peter 2:3-5

2 Peter 2:1-3 | The False Prophets and Their Snare

Verses 1-2 -- see session 5
- “the Lord that brought them." However, the text says, the Lord that bought them.
- What other people did the Lord purchase? (Ex. 15:16, Ps. 74:2)
Verse 3 -- also included on session 5
- The heart of the sentence: they (the false teachers) will make merchandise of you.
  - The verb make merchandise is ἐμπορεύομαι [emporeuomai], of the same root as our English emporium.
  - In the scripture, it is only used elsewhere in James 4:13, translated as buy and sell.
  - The false teachers will buy and sell*** ***the Jewish people.
- How will this merchandising of the people be carried out?
  - It will be through covetousness.
    - The grammar leans toward the covetousness being *on the part of the false *teachers but could also be on the part of the fooled.
    - It is a truth that power-hungry-politicians, hungry for the allegiance of the masses, have used the hungers of those same people as a quid-pro-quo.
  - It will be with feigned words.
    - The word feignedπλαστός [plastos].
    - The related Greek word is plastikos, from which we get plastic.
    - The Greek carries the idea of mold-ability.
  - With these ways and means of last-days false-teachers being revealed, it would serve present-day believers well to remember that greed and the loss of objective meaning to words as a sign of great danger.
- Of these coming false teachers, Peter says that their judgment now of a long time lingereth not.
  - The words mean that the judgment of these men has been now for a long time.
  - Be sure to put the pause after time rather than now. It is the judgment..of a long time that now...lingerteth** not**.
  - The judgment is of old (YLT) and is not idle (YLT).
  - Peter emphasizes this by saying their damnation slumbereth not“don't worry, they will get what is coming to them."

2 Peter 2:4-8 | The False Prophets And Their Doom

Verse 4 -- Illustration of Doom #1: The Angels that Sinned
- There were Angels that sinned that were spared not but sent down to hell and are reserved unto judgment.
- It seems this can refer to only one event: Genesis 6:1-4. Only these angels are in chains of darkness.
- The word hellταρταροω [tartaroo].
  - This is the only place in the Bible the word is used. See Appendix 131 for “Hell" in The Companion Bible.
    - While the modern English word hell is basically equivalent with the Lake of Fire, in 1611 the word meant a hidden place and was used for places other than the Lake of Fire.
    - Since the place of eternal punishment is the Lake of Fire, these angels are not yet there, but rather reserved unto judgment.
  - Interestingly, this Greek word [tartaroo] is only from Greek mythology, found in Homer“the place of punishment of the Titans." These titans had sought to overpower Zeus and were sentenced to Tartarus awaiting punishment.
    - It is my believe that Greek mythology mimics and mirrors accurate theology, with many perversions added. Most Greek mythology centers around the Nephilim of Genesis 6, including the titans.
- Note that most of our Nephilim theology comes from revelations in the New Testament books of 2 Peter and Jude.
Verse 5 - Illustration #2: The Flood
- Peter speaks of the old world, referring to the earth before the flood.
  - Note that I do not accept the Gap theory but am open to persuasion. This reference to the ἀρχαῖος κοσμος [archaios kosmos] as the pre-flood world seems to work against the Gap theory since archaios (from which we get archaic) is from arche“the beginning."
- From this old world God destroyed the world of the ungodly, which is why Peter uses the illustration here, reminding the reader that as God has destroyed the ungodly before, He will do it again.
- In this verse, we learn two things about Noah.
  - He was** the eighth *person. *“Noah and seven others." One must ask, however, why God inspired Peter to refer to him as the eighth (clearly using the adjective). I think it is because eight is the number of beginning again“dumb down" the text cause the reader to miss this number.
  - He was a preacher of righteousness. Contrary to popular opinion, this does not mean that Noah gave an invitation for people to repent and enter the ark. God had created the ark to destroy the Nephilim and the pervasive destruction of an un-tainted DNA and only for Noah and his family (see Gen. 6:18).

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