Are the men in 2 Peter 2.1 saved or not? It says that the Lord bought them, yet they will know swift destruction.
Perhaps the key verse of 2 Peter is “For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (1.11). Following that statement, chapters 2 and 3 bring to our attention things that could spoil our abundant entrance, namely, false teachers within (ch 2), and scoffers without (ch 3). As to false teachers, the emphasis in 2 Peter is that they will appear; in Jude’s epistle they already have arrived, and are active. In 2 Peter, the reference is not to backsliders who get out of touch with God, but to those who make a profession of godliness but deny the power thereof.
When Peter wrote this letter, the arrival of these false teachers was not far distant. A comparison is made between the false prophets of Israel’s history, and the false teachers that would come. They would take their place in the assembly: “there shall be false teachers among you” (2.1); these men evidently mingle with true believers, thus we are told later in the chapter “they feast with you” (v 13). It is clear that they adversely influence others, so Peter writes “many shall follow their pernicious ways” (v 2), and “they with feigned words make merchandise of you” (v 3). These false teachers are masters at exploitation.
We are told that they “shall bring in damnable heresies” (v 1), that is, heresies of destruction (the word ‘heresy’ came to mean the choice of an opinion contrary to that usually held). Peter continues “even denying the Lord that bought them”: they would do so by apostatising and by disseminating their pernicious teachings. In so doing, they “bring upon themselves swift destruction”: the judgment of these apostates is self-imposed.
But in what sense can it be said that the Lord (Gr despotes - the sovereign Master) bought them? In Matthew 13.44 the Lord Jesus is pictured as a man who sold all that he had to buy a field (the world - Mt 13.38). By His death upon the cross, the Lord bought the world and all who are in it. But he did not redeem the whole world. The precious blood of Christ gives to the Lord Jesus absolute sovereignty over every person, whether in salvation or in retribution.
David E West
Should Christians practise fasting? We read that Paul and Barnabas did so (Acts 14.23), and Paul speaks of it in 1 Corinthians 7.5.
The first fasting we read of in the Bible is when Moses went up into the mount to receive the tables of the covenant, and was there apart from nature, with God, for forty days and nights (Deut 9.9). In the prophet Zechariah’s day we read of four fasts being kept: “Thus saith the Lord of hosts; The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts” (Zech 8.19), but there is no record of these fasts having been instituted by God.
Fasting was often directed towards securing the guidance and help of God (Ex 34.28; Ezra 8.21). Some came to think that fasting would gain man a hearing from God (Isa 58.3-4). Against this, the prophet declared that without right conduct fasting was in vain (vv 5-12).
In the New Testament Scriptures, fasting is never seen as compulsory. We do not have any command from God to practise fasting: it is entirely a voluntary matter. The Lord Jesus, when asked why His disciples did not fast as did those of John the Baptist and of the Pharisees, said that when He was taken away, then they would fast. The Lord did not repudiate fasting, but declared it to be inappropriate for His disciples. In both the Old and New Testaments we have references to fasting as a self-disciplined exercise. Involved in this was the abstinence from food with the belief that, somehow, it would bring blessing.
There are some who occasionally fast, and who insist that others should also do it. This is wrong, for we say again that fasting is an individual matter and, if practised, should be accompanied with deep exercise, and with the right motive.
John J Stubbs
