Reference: – 2 Peter 2:10-22

Certain false teachers infiltrated early churches, telling Christians that living godly lives, especially regarding sexual desires, didn’t matter. They disregarded righteous living and denied the Second Coming of the Lord, secretly introducing ideas that confused believers and contradicted core faith tenets. These teachings caused division, justified sin, and prioritized personal gain over spiritual truth. Peter, having warned of such teachers at the start of his letter, now launches one of scripture’s fiercest attacks against them.

Five distinct characteristics that Peter ascribes to these false teachers.

They are arrogant (v10b-11)

An indispensable characteristic of a believer is humility. Anytime he becomes self-promoting, arrogant, proud, and uncorrectable, there is a problem. That’s what these false teachers were. They didn’t even have respect for angelic beings. Puffed up with arrogance, these apostates blaspheme the glories of heaven. Even angels, who are greater in might and power than men, do not blaspheme other angels. Even though Michael was powerful enough to cast Satan out of heaven (Rev 12:7,8,9), he left it in God’s hands to pronounce judgment on him, rather than do it himself (Jude 1:9). Today, there are groups, especially the Charismatic movement, that teach about “binding Satan”, “binding demons”. We don’t have authority over angelic beings, who are greater in nature and more powerful than human beings, whether they are holy or fallen angels, and they don’t listen to humans. These foolish people are overstepping the boundaries with arrogance and ignorance, without truth.

They are irrational animals (v12-13a)

Peter compares false teachers to unreasoning, wild animals, simply born as creatures of instinct. Wild animals don’t think rationally before responding. Peter says these false teachers were worthy of nothing but to be captured and slaughtered like wild animals. This is extremely violent language, and Peter is exploding with anger. Recklessly, they dare to defy God and His truth. They give no thought to the consequences of what they are doing and berate the things that they do not understand. They operate only on the passion of their own impulses and the passion of their own instincts. False teachers destroy people’s lives by leading them away from the truth. So in destroying others, they bring destruction on themselves. They will receive harm as payment for the harm they caused.

They pursue sensual pleasures (13b-14a)

Debauchery usually occurs under the cover of darkness. But these false teachers are so wretched that they can’t even wait till night; they do it in the daytime. Peter identifies them as “spots and blemishes”. These are very harsh and condemning words branding false teachers, whereas he uses exact opposites to identify true Christians -“spotless and blameless” (2 Peter 3:14). Their gaze is a predator’s, viewing every woman as a sex object to be exploited. They are always wanting more and are relentless in their pursuit of sinful pleasure, enticing spiritually unstable people to behave like them.

They are well-trained in greed (14b-16)

Sex and greed always go together with false teachers. They want sexual favors, and they want money, possessions, and power. The driving force of their effort is money. They will do anything to compromise God’s truth in order to get what they want. Look at the prosperity preachers and their lavish lifestyles. They don’t care about God, care about souls; they are in it only to make money. Peter says they are cursed and damned to hell. Like Balaam in Numbers 22-24, they abandoned God’s way to follow a greedy desire for money and worldly gain.

Their teaching has no substance (17-19)

False teachers appear promising but are ultimately empty and deceptive. Their teachings are hollow and meaningless, despite the grand promises and impressive words. Although promising to quench the thirsty soul, spiritual refreshment never comes. Their show of knowledge and gifts doesn’t benefit anyone. They are good at stirring up emotions, but there is neither truth nor life-giving knowledge in their words. They are like dry wells. Only Jesus can provide thirst-quenching, soul-satisfying water unto eternal life (John 4:14). False teachers seduce immature Christians trying to escape from their troubled lives, not only ideologically but also physically. They promise freedom, but themselves are slaves of corruption.

THEIR DESTINY (20-22)

These false teachers, at one time in their lives, had ‘intellectual knowledge’ of Christ but never came to a ‘saving knowledge’. They received “knowledge of Jesus” without ever placing their faith in Him. People in the church saw them as Christians who have cleaned up their messed-up lives, who were to be admired and emulated. They could once achieve the ‘moral reformation’ but never had the ‘inner transformation’, so they remained unsaved. They know the Gospel, they know the way of righteousness that the Bible teaches, but just don’t believe it, don’t want it, and reject it. Since there is no real inner transformation, since there is no indwelling restrainer, after a while, they returned to their sin-filled way of life as a dog returns to its own vomit. Peter says, it was better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, for ‘the last state is worse for them than the first’ (Matthew 12:43-45). God’s judgment of these false teachers will be greater because of this very reason, that they knew the way of righteousness but turned from it and even taught others against it.

False teachers have outward moral reformation. They appear to be Christian outwardly. That’s the lure that attracts people to the church. But inwardly, these false teachers are unsaved, unchanged. They are still dogs, still pigs, wild animals born to be captured and destroyed. “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:19).