2 Peter 2:17

2Pe_2:17-22

These are wells without water.

False teachers

I. Their un-profitableness. Wells without water.

1. Pastors are like wells--

(1) For constancy. They keep their residence; men know where to find them.

(2) They are wells of piety; the water of life, the word of salvation is in them.

(3) They are wells of sanctity, and therefore must be clean,

(4) They are wells of knowledge, and of sufficient depth, skilled in the mysteries of salvation.

(5) They are wells of pity, full of compassion, yearning over the danger of mens souls.

(6) They are wells of peace and amity, such as reconcile feuds and appease discords; as the water of a well serves to quench flames.

(7) They are wells of charity, that do not only give good counsel with their lips, but good relief with their hands.

2. False teachers are wells without water. A blind guide, an ignorant physician, a candlestick without light, a penny without provision, a well without water, is a miserable provision. Suppose we are thirsty and would drink, foul and would wash, hot and would be cooled, our houses are on fire and we would have them quenched; if we come to the well with our buckets and find it empty, we know not whether our grief or indignation be greater.

II. Their variableness. Clouds that are carried with a tempest.

1. The fitness of the metaphor (Eze_20:46; Deu_32:2).

(1) Clouds are made to contain water, and preachers should be filled with wholesome doctrine.

(2) Clouds are drawn up by the sun, and teachers called to that holy profession by the Sun of Righteousness.

(3) Clouds are nearer to heaven than common waters, and ministers are advanced nearer to the secrets of God than other men.

(4) Clouds hang in the air after a strange manner, and preachers live in the world in a wondrous sort; all the winds of the earth and furies of hell band against them, yet still they are supported by their Ordainer.

(5) Clouds are set to distil rain upon the dry places of earth, and preachers to satisfy the thirsty soul.

2. The levity of these hypocrites. Carried with a tempest. Some are not stable in the truth; but it is not possible for any man to be constant in errors, for the next fancy will take him off from the former. As wanton children are won to be quiet with change of toys, so the devil is fain to please such men with variety of crotchets. He forgets what he hath been, understands not what he is, and knows not what he will be.

III. Their unhappiness.

1. The nature or quality of it--the mist of darkness. Such a mist shall be on their souls, as comes upon a swooning man, who cannot see though his eyes be open, the organs being (for the time) incapable of illumination.

2. The congruity of it--reserved. These black clouds did wholly endeavour to superinduce darkness on the Church, therefore the mist of darkness is reserved for them for ever. It is but justice if God be not found of those that were content to lose Him.

3. The perpetuity of it--for ever. (Thos. Adams.)

Disappointing teachers

These false teachers bear the semblance of teachers, lust as, for a little time, a place in Eastern lands where water has flowed will continue green, but disappoint the thirsty traveller who may be led by a little verdure to hope for water. There was water, and perhaps not long ago, but there is none now, and so with these deceivers. They give promise, but that promise is never realised. (Prof. J. R. Lumby.)

Wells without water

Water! How precious it is! Because God has given it to us so plentifully, we are apt to underestimate its worth. Were we tormented with thirst in the desert, we could consider water a priceless boon. In the East wells of water were very precious. Passing through the desert, the traveller would alight at one with joy, quaff the cooling draught, and then refreshed pursue his onward way. Wells without water. Travellers in Eastern climes have often come across them. Hot and weary, they have gone with anticipative joy, only to be disappointed at finding parched emptiness. In passing through lifes wilderness, have we not often come across wells without water? In the life-endeavour have we not often been disappointed? How many enter into business and anticipate success? They work with a will. But their efforts have all been wells without water! Others, again, have succeeded in business. But the dark shadow is there; and, so far as happiness is concerned, successful business men have found that mere earthly possessions have proved wells without water. What a desire some persons have to be known! The essential characteristic of their existence is to be prominent. But in mere fame there is little or no satisfaction. Scotland was singing in her crowded towns and in her bonny glens the songs of her favourite poet, Burns, while he wrote as he lay in his last illness, not in the flight of poetic genius, but in the uncoloured utterance of homely prose--I have known existence of late only by the presence of the heavy hand of sickness, and have counted time by the repercussions of pain. Then followed these words of anguish: I close my eyes in misery, and open them without hope. When Dr. Johnson finished his dictionary, the more particular literary effort of his life, the Earl of Chesterfield offered that patronage to the completed work which he had refused to the struggling writer. Dr. Johnson replied: The notice which you have taken of my labours has been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart it; till I am known and do not want it. The mere notice of the titled great, earthly reputation, worldly fame, these are but empty wells that mock the thirsty wanderer through the desert--wells without water! Some may say we do not aspire to fame. True, but is not excitement sought in other ways? Is happiness being sought in the attractions of society, or in any of the numerous vain amusements of the world? In all walks of life, in all the varied paths of the journey, we find empty wells. They are on all sides of us. We see persons standing, thirsting, and unable to gratify their thirst, looking, with disappointment written on their careworn faces, into wells without water. You have met with individuals cold, hard, selfish. They live merely for themselves. They have the human head, but the statues heart. No word of sympathy escapes their lips, no look of pity comes from their cold eyes. To make appeals to them is like dropping buckets into empty wells, which would certainly grow old in drawing nothing up! Then there are some who attempt to build wells. They dig deep. They pile one charitable action upon another. They exercise the greatest self-denial in carrying on their task, and when it is done they find their labour in vain. No mans thirst is slaked; it may be an elaborate work, but it is a piece of beautiful emptiness--one of the wells without water. There is a well of living water. With joy the pilgrim can drink from the well of salvation, a well where the thirsty can drink to their hearts content, and thirst no more for streams that are impure. (J. P. Hutchinson.)

They allure … those that were clean escaped.--

Deceivers and deceived

I. The deceivers.

1. Their posture.

(1) They think to carry it away with words.

(a) Error hath always most words; like a rotten house, that needs most props to uphold it.

(b) In much speaking is foolish speaking: it is very difficult to speak much and well. The ship that hath more rigging and sail than ballast, will never make a good voyage.

(2) Their full-mouthed speeches--great swelling words. Nothing is more loud than error: the more false the matter, the greater noise to uphold it (Act_19:34). Swelling words are like the reports of ordnance--they blaze, and crack, and smoke, and stink, and vanish.

(3) The last attribute of their speech is vain, words of vanity. If the matter were good, yet many words were vain, great words were vain; but here both the matter and words and all are vanity itself.

2. Their imposture--they allure. The metaphor is taken from fishing or fowling. Those fishes that were taken out of the feculent pond of this world, and put into the crystal streams of the church, are by these seducers again drawn out of the streams of the church into the pool of the world. The hook whereby they perform this is fraud: the same devil teacheth his trade to all his followers: the lion is strong enough, but the serpent doth the mischief.

II. The deceived. Those that were clean escaped.

1. They were not quite delivered from sin, but from the external profession of sin, and from the doctrine that maintains sin. The children of the world may outwardly be gathered to the congregation of Israel, yet not be of Israel. They are escaped from the lion and the bear, gross and raging impiety and idolatry; but in the house of God they are bitten by a serpent, sly hypocrisy.

2. They are again returned to error. What a poor way went they toward heaven, so soon to turn back! It is but Ephraims morning dew; let the sun of prosperity rise but two hours high, the dew is gone. A Galatian humour, to begin in the spirit, and to end in the flesh; like a meteor or gliding star, that seemed in heaven, shot through the air, and lighted on a dunghill.

(1) All sin is a labyrinth; the entrance is easy; all the difficulty is to get out again.

(2) The practice of these deceivers is upon them that are escaped from their errors. The malignant jailer pursues after him that hath broken prison. 3 Through much wantonness. This is that little postern set open, to which Satan is so much beholden for his readmittance. (Thos. Adams.)

While they promise them liberty.--

The method of the seducers

I. The allurement of the wear. It was Christs charge to Peter (Luk_22:32). It is Satans charge to his agents--Now you are confounded, confound your brethren.

II. The way of this allurement is by promise.

1. Promises are the cheapest things man can part with, and yet the strongest enchantments.

2. Fair promises are strong snares to entangle fools.

3. It is ill to promise and to deceive; but it is worse to promise with a purpose to deceive.

4. Seducers refuse no way, so they may deceive; they swear, they forswear, propose and interpose, to make strong their party.

III. The force of that promise is liberty. Sensuality and a carnal freedom is the spell that conjures these wild spirits, and brings them in subjection to their heretical teachers. They may promise them civil liberty: this they are not sure to perform; or consciential: this they will not perform; or spiritual: this they cannot perform; but profane excess, riotous intemperance, the uncontrollable swing of their lusts, this they will endeavour to perform.

IV. The conviction of that force. They themselves are the servants of corruption. All sin is a servitude; and that which flatters men with the greatest opinion of liberty, makes them the most miserable vassals (2Ti_2:26). They may think that they have the world at command, and not the world them. They have a secret and insensible tether, which that enemy ties to their heels, and holds in his hand: while they run whither he allows them, they shall have scope enough; but if they offer towards goodness, he instantly snatches them up.

V. The proof of that conviction. For of whom a man is overcome, etc. The metaphor seems to be taken from war; where the conqueror brings the vanquished into captivity. And this misery of the captive differs according to the disposition of the victor; if he be imperious, and given to cruelty, he doth so much the more embitter the slavery.

1. It is an ignominious state.

2. A hard and troublesome condition.

3. Intolerable.

4. Useless.

5. Irretrievable, sold to sin with small hope of recovery.

6. Pitiable, the grief of every Christian.

7. Destructive. The end of every service is wages, and this is a wages without end, even everlasting pain. (Thos. Adams.)

On spiritual or inward liberty

I. My text implies that vicious men are slaves; that it is an absurdity in them to pretend to be advocates for liberty; and that consequently the practice of virtue is necessary to give men true liberty. The wicked men that St. Peter had in view opposed the restraints of law and authority--they vilified civil governors--renounced the obligations of righteousness; and by doing this they boasted that they stood up for liberty; not considering their own slavery, and not distinguishing between licentiousness and liberty. You must be sensible that these observations imply that there is a moral slavery which ought to be the principal object of our detestation, and consequently a moral liberty which ought to be the principal object of our attachment. My present business will be to explain this, and to show its importance and excellence. Now liberty being an exemption from all such force as takes away from us the capacity of acting as we think best, it is plain that whenever any passion be comes predominant within us, or causes us to contradict our sentiments of rectitude, we lose our liberty, and fall into a state of slavery. When any one of our instinctive desires assumes the direction of our conduct in opposition to our reason, then reason is overpowered and enslaved, and when reason is overpowered and enslaved we are overpowered and enslaved. On the other hand, when our reason maintains its rights, and possesses its proper seat of sovereignty within us, then are we masters of ourselves, and free in the truest possible sense. A submission to reason is not in any way inconsistent with liberty; on the contrary, it supposes natural liberty, and is the very idea of that moral liberty which is my present subject. The more we are in subjection to reason, the more power we have to do as we like. The dictates of reason are the dictates of our own hearts; and therefore the very reverse of anything that can be deemed force or slavery.

II. To mention a few reasons in order to recommend this liberty to you. The bare description of it is indeed enough to make every one desire it. It is replete with blessings and advantages.

1. Consider particularly what an honour there is in liberty, and what a baseness in sin. To lose inward liberty is to lose all that can procure esteem, and to become poor, abject, and impotent.

2. Let me desire you to consider what advantages and blessings liberty of mind will bring with it. The discerning faculties of the person who possesses this liberty must be more clear than that of any other man. There is in such a mind a conscious ness of dignity, which is more desirable than any sensual gratification, and which cannot be given by the possession of any worldly honours and titles. (R. Price, D. D.)

Moral theory of civil liberty

This is a true delineation of the fact that animalism leads to despotism, and necessitates it; and the whole chapter illustrates that fundamental idea. There are two essential conditions of civil liberty: first, self government, and second, the civil machinery of free national life. Self-government is a better term than liberty. There is no such thing as absolute liberty. It is quite inconsistent with the very creative notion which we express. We gain strength and bodily ease and comfort in proportion as we obey law. We are not, therefore, free physically, in regard to the body; and just as little are we free mentally; for there is an order within, which is as real, and the observance of which is as indispensable to comfortable liberty, as the order of the body and its physical organisation. Nor are we absolutely free in our relations to the material world. Physical laws round about us are more potent than walls in a prison are round about the prisoner. Do, obey, and live; disobey, and die. A man is hedged up in his own nature; and he is hedged up just as much in the world in which he was born, and in which he moves. All these restraints would seem to be restraints upon the sum of life and individual power; but if you analyse it it will be found that, while there is no such thing as absolute liberty, these restraints all work primarily against the animal nature. So that while a man is restricted at the bottom, he spreads out at the top, and gains again, with amplitude and augmentation, in the higher realms of his being, all that he loses by the restrictions which are imposed by great cardinal laws upon his lower nature. The more effectually, then, these lower elements are repressed, the more liberty is given to the affections. The degree of liberty attainable by an individual depends upon the restraint which he puts upon the lower nature, and the stimulus which he gives to the higher. The liberty which is attainable by masses of men living together depends on the training that the society which they constitute has had in keeping down the animalism, and exalting the true manhood of the citizens in the community. Society cannot be free, except as the reason and the moral sentiments have a sufficient ascendency. You have often heard it said that a free government depends upon the intelligence and virtue of the citizens. This is an empirical fact. It is in accordance with the radical nature of man that it should be so. The first and most important condition of liberty, psychologically stated, is that men should learn how to restrain their lower, basilar, passional natures, and should be willing to restrain them, and so give liberty to their reason, their affections, and their moral sentiments. The other condition which we mentioned as indispensable to civil liberty is the possession of the machinery of free civil society. There is to be the presence of laws adapted to that state of things, and there is to be a knowledge of those laws. Ages were employed in experimenting and finding out what was the mode by which a free people might discuss, deliberate upon, and decide their own questions of policy. It has been a slow invention, improved and improving from age to age. These two elementary conditions--the moral condition of the people, and the apparatus of civil government adapted to freedom--must unite and co-operate, before there can be any permanent civil liberty in any nation. On this foundation I remark--

1. The desire to be free is not a basis broad enough for liberty. All men like liberty, if by that expression is meant dislike of restraint; but if the love of liberty means the repression of all ones lower nature, and the education and dominancy of all ones higher nature, then I deny that men desire liberty. The love of liberty is, like virtue and religion, the result of culture in men. The love of liberty is a virtue. It is a moral inspiration. It is not merely a wild disposition to throw away government; it is a disposition to supersede the necessity of an outward government by the reality of a government within. Let me see a man that loves liberty, and I shall see a man that loves freedom not only for himself, but for others. And when it takes on this form, mankind and manhood have advanced far along the road of intelligence and true piety.

2. The adoption of free governments by an untrained and unrestrained people will not secure liberty to them. Liberty does not come from machineries, though it uses them, and must have them. You might build a hundred cotton factories in the wilderness where the Indians are, and the Indians would not on that account be an ingenious and manufacturing people. The manufacturer must precede the machinery, and know how to use it. You might carry cannon, and muskets, and rifles, and endless magazines of ammunition, into the midst of a peace-loving and cowardly nation, and that would not make them a warlike people. The instruments do not make courage, though where there is courage the instruments are indispensable to its use. And where armed tyranny prevails, the whole machinery of free nations substituted in its place does not make the nation free. A nation is not free until it is free in its individual members. Christ makes men free. The spirit of Christ--the spirit of faith, the spirit of self-denial, the spirit of self-government, the spirit of aspiration, the spirit of benevolence--that it is that makes men free.

3. The directest road to civil liberty lies in augmenting the true manhood of a people. You cannot make a people free that are ignorant and animal; and, on the other hand, you cannot for ever keep any people in bondage that are thoroughly educated and thoroughly moral. Schools, virtuous home-training, free religious knowledge, whatever will swell the manhood of the individuals of a nation--these are the means which produce liberty. If, therefore, one desires in Europe to sow the seeds of true liberty, I would not say, Keep back books that teach about the machinery of society. Let them be instructed in those things. But do not rely on those things. Ply the bottom of society with schools. Ply the masses with those things which shall teach them how to live with organisation; how to deny themselves; how to live to-day for future periods of time; how to practise the simple virtues; and how to carry those virtues up to the spiritual forms in which they are to eventuate. He that teaches men how to be true men in Christ Jesus is aiming as straight at liberty as ever any archer that bended the bow aimed at the target, That is the reason why true preachers are always revolutionary men. To preach a larger manhood is to unsettle, by prophecy, all thrones. You cannot force knowledge into a man; and just as little can you force liberty into men. It is a thing of development. It is a thing that cannot be brought into a man or a nation, but that has to be wrought out of the elements of the man, or of the nation. Make mens limbs so large that there is not iron enough to go around them. Make mens muscles, like Samsons, so strong that withes and cords are like flax touched with fire when they strain them. That will cure bondage; and that is the best way to cure it. Make men larger; make them measure more about the girt of the conscience, and less around the animalism, and then you cannot oppress them.

4. Modern nations, with a certain degree of civilisation, are all tending to civil liberty; and democracy, as it is called, is inevitable. This is admitted by all heads, crowned as well as others. It is only a question as to how long a time will be required to bring about the result. The universal brain is showing itself to be mightier than the class brain. The crowned head must give way to the thinking head of the millions. In this tendency, the first step should be popular intelligence, or real growth at the bottom of society. Then the institutions of liberty will come gradually themselves. (H. W. Beecher.)

The temptation of liberty

Nothing more strikingly characterises the teaching of the early preachers of Christianity, while it attests their faithfulness, than the uncompromising distinct ness with which they put forth the claims of the gospel to the whole obedience of mankind, and declared the peculiar characteristics of the Christian service. Self crucifixion, the absolute submission of their wills to the law of another will, etc. Such doctrine is not acceptable now, and it was not when St. Peter wrote. Accordingly, we find that while the apostles were busily engaged in enforcing this doctrine, there were other teachers no less busily occupied in endeavouring to counteract their endeavours, and who, to this end, with a thorough knowledge of human nature, addressed themselves to just those cravings of that nature which are at once the strongest and the blindest. The teachers of Christianity preached obedience; they taught the necessity of self-subjugation; they enforced the duty, while they showed the blessedness, of submission to the law of God and of Christ. What, then, was the argument, and what the enticement, with which these false teachers endeavoured to hold men, and too often succeeded in holding them, in disobedience and rebellion? It was then, as now and ever, liberty. Liberty! that first temptation that was whispered cunningly amid the fresh leaves and flowers of unfallen Eden, and which has smoothed the way to all other temptations and all other sins whatsoever. Liberty! that form of light with which Satan so often delights to clothe himself. Liberty! that treacherous phantom that has slain more living men--ay, slain them eternally--than all the blood-dripping tyrants of the world. Liberty! that fair child of heaven which for six thousand years men have blindly sought, and which not even six thousand years have taught them, can nowhere else be found than in the house of law.

I. The nature of the temptation which these early opposers of the truth held out to men to keep them from submission to the law of Christ.

1. Doubtless the apostle exactly states the promise made by these opposing teachers; and it is therefore worth while to observe that no limit is placed to the range or application of the liberty promised. These teachers very well knew the corruption and weakness of the human heart; and while therefore they misrepresented the service of Christ as a needless and cruel bondage, they took care to place before men the service of sin as a full and perfect liberty. They promise them liberty--deliverance from the iron authority of the Divine will; deliverance from a sense of constant condemnation and restraint; freedom for their whole nature in all its parts; liberty to think and feel and do without hindrance and without fear. And what is this but the temptation which we every day see coiling itself around, and fixing its fascinating eye upon the hearts of men; and to the promise of which we see men everywhere striving to attain?

2. Observe how another fact is brought out by this statement of the apostle--the fact, namely, of a recognised line of separation dividing always between the servants of Christ and the servants of the world. It is its exclusiveness that makes Christianity so repulsive. It is because Christ will divide His claims with none other, that it is so easy to represent His service as a bondage, when compared with the liberty of the world.

II. The promise made by the world and its votaries of an absolute liberty is false as a matter of fact.

1. Man, by the requirements of his very nature and condition, must serve. He cannot be without a master--some dominant power, that is, ruling supremely in his heart; and as a moral being there are only two services between which he can choose--the service of good and the service of evil, the service of Christ and the service of the world.

2. There is no greater delusion than to imagine because a man has cast aside his allegiance to his Maker, or has even succeeded in excluding entirely all thought of his Maker from his heart, that therefore he is free. He is not free. There is no such deep bondage--a bondage fixing its relentless grasp upon the inmost powers of the soul--as the liberty of the world. The garlands of its holiday are flowers wreathed on chains; and although its victim himself, owing to the very stupor of his degradation, the delirium which falls on those long bound in prison, may come at times to be ignorant of his state, that state can in no wise be hid from any one who is not himself a servant of the world. No; he is not free.

(1) He is held in bondage, first of all, to the worlds opinions. Boasting, perhaps, of what he calls his intellectual freedom, scoffing, perhaps, at the authoritative teachings of Gods Word, he is yet held in thraldom by the judgments of other men, and does not, in opposition thereto, obey the dictates of his own.

(2) He is a slave again to his own body. His lower nature, that which allies him to the brute, rises up in proud supremacy, and rules triumphantly over all that connects him with his God.

(3) He is a slave, moreover, to his own fears. Ever and anon his torpid conscience will uprear its crest and inflict its sting.

III. The only question with which we, as wise men, are concerned is, which of these two is the better service? which will result to us in the greater recompense of reward? We have not spoken unfairly of the service of the world. We have admitted all its claims, so far as those claims are true. It promises liberty, and we have shown you the liberty that it gives. Undoubtedly there is an earthly gain and a present enjoyment to the natural heart in such freedom--the freedom of an untrammelled will, the freedom to enjoy without stint all the pleasures that this world can give; and if the full results, and therefore the final value, of mans acts were present and finished in the acts themselves, there would perhaps be little to be said. But the real advantage and value Of all human acts, even the commonest, and therefore of all human states, are decided by their ultimate results, whether, as to time, those results are immediate or remote. To determine, therefore, the true, and consequently the abiding, value, whether of the service of Christ, or the service of the world, we must consider the permanent results of each as they remain fixed in our own nature, or affect permanently the conditions of our own existence.

1. Applying this test, what must we say of the service of the world? How can we characterise results which, as we have seen, are poor and miserable indeed, utterly unworthy of man, debasing and unsatisfying even upon earth, and, instead of brightening, covering with cloud and darkness his real existence, even the eternal existence of his soul? It is, as the apostle says, corruption. Yes, corruption--slavery to this body which, with all its strength and all its pride and all its lust, shall presently be hid away from sight and sense as an offensive thing; slavery to this poor world of men around me, corruptible like me, and day by day dropping into this great charnel-house of earth; slavery to the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, which send their destroying power into eternity itself, and turn into corruption the immortal soul.

2. Test in the same way the service of Christ, and see if the Christian--Christs true servant--is a slave. If deliverance from his greatest adversary, if superiority to all human power, if a constant sense of perfect security and peace--if this be slavery, then he is in bondage indeed; but if, on the other hand, these are the evidences of liberty, then is he free. Through the power of Christ he vanquishes the temptations that once vanquished him. Living a life of obedience like that of the angels, knowing, through the approving witness of the Spirit, that he is accepted as a repentant son by his loving Father, he lives, through faith, in that Fathers home--that home so bright and beautiful upon the summit of the universe; and the laws of that home are the laws of his life. And so, living with angels, what cares he for unrighteous men? or what on earth can harm him? He is above all bondage and above all fear. Death itself has lost all power over him. Its darkness even now is filled with the kindling rays of eternal life. Is not this liberty? and is not such liberty worth seeking for? Is there a sane man here present who, determining this question from the true point of right judgment, even that bed of death which may be spread for him to-morrow, would not give all the honours and all the gains and all the joys that this world can offer to be--a freedman of God? (W. Rudder, D. D.)

The servants of corruption.

The sinners natural power and moral weakness

I propose to discuss the moral state of the sinner.

I. The first important fact to be noticed is that all men are naturally free, and none the less so for being sinners. They naturally have freedom of will. This freedom is in the will itself, and consists in its power of free choice. To do, or not to do--this is its option. It has by its own nature the function of determining its own volitions. The soul wills to do or not to do, and thus is a moral sovereign over its own activities. In this fact lies the foundation for moral agency. Still further: man can distinguish between those acts in which he is free, and those in which he is acted upon by influences independent of his own choice. He knows that in some things he is a recipient of influences and of actions exerted upon himself, while in other things he is not a recipient in the same sense, but a voluntary actor. The fact of this discrimination proves the possession of free agency. Again, the Bible always treats men as free agents, commanding them to do or not to do as if of course they had all the power requisite to obey such commands. A young minister once said to me, I preach that men ought to repent, but never that they can. Why not preach also that they can? said I. He replied, The Bible does not affirm that they can. To this I replied that it would be most consummate trifling for a human legislature, having required certain acts, to affirm that its subjects have the power to obey. The very requirement is the strongest possible affirmation that, in the belief of the enacting power, the subjects are able to do the things required. Freedom of will lies among the earliest and most resistless convictions. Probably no one living can remember his first idea of oughtness--his first convictions of right and wrong. It is also among our most irresistible convictions. The fact of personal responsibility is fastened on us so that we might as well escape from ourselves as from this conviction.

II. While it is true, past a rational denial, that men have this attribute of moral liberty, it is equally true that they are morally enslaved--in moral bondage. The liberty they have by created constitution; the bondage comes by voluntary perversion and abuse of their powers. The Bible represents men as being in bondage- as having the power to resist temptation to sin, but yet as voluntarily yielding, to those temptations. What the Bible thus represents, experience proves to be true. Wicked men know that they are in bondage to Satan. What do you think puts it into the heart of young men to plot iniquity and drink it in like water? Is it not the devil? How many young men do we meet with who, when tempted, seem to have no moral stamina to resist, but are swept away by the first gust of temptation! Men are in bondage to their appetites. What can be the reason that some young men find it so hard to give up the use of tobacco? They know the habit is filthy and disgusting. So when a man is in bondage to alcohol, and so with every form of sensual indulgence. Satan helps on the influence of sensuality, and does not care much what the particular form of it may be, provided its power be strong enough to ruin the soul. It all plays into his hand and promotes his main purpose. So men are in bondage to the love of money; to the fashions of the world; to the opinions of mankind. By these they are enslaved and led on in the face of the demands of duty. Every impenitent man is conscious of being really in bondage to temptation. What man, not saved from sin through grace, does not know that he is an enigma to himself? What! does he not know that his weakest desires carry his will, the strongest convictions of his reason and conscience to the contrary notwithstanding? This is a most guilty state, because so altogether voluntary--so needless, and so opposed to the convictions of his reason and of his understanding, and withal so opposed to his convictions of Gods righteous demands. To go counter to such convictions, he must be supremely guilty. Of course such conduct must be most suicidal The sinner acts in most decided opposition to his own best interests, so that if he has the power to ruin himself this course must certainly do it. This is a state of deep moral degradation. Intrinsically it is most disgraceful. Everybody feels this in regard to certain forms of sin and classes of sinners. A drunkard we regard as a long way towards beasthood. Nay, rather must we ask pardon of all beasts for this comparison, for not one is so mean and so vile--not one excites in our bosom such a sense of voluntary degradation. So of the miser when he gets beyond all motives but the love of hoarding; when his practical question is--not, How shall I honour my race, or bless my generation, or glorify my Maker; but, How can I make a few coppers? Even when urged to pray, he would ask--What profit shall I have if I do pray unto Him? When you find a man thus incapable of being moved by noble motives, what a wretch he is! How ineffably mean! So I might bring before you the ambitious scholar, who is too low in his aims to be influenced by the exalted motive of doing good, and who feels only that which touches his reputation. Is not this exceedingly low and mean? (C. G. Finney.)

Of the same he is brought in bondage.--

A fatal promise

1. This conquest shows the falsehood of the tempter in his promise. They promise liberty, and here is the result--bondage.

2. This conquest shows the ultimate wretchedness of the victim. He is brought in bondage. What is the bondage?

(1) Their slavery is the most real. Chains and prison walls can only enslave the body.

(2) Their slavery is the most criminal. Corporal slavery is generally a misfortune; the sufferer is not responsible for his position.

3. Their slavery is the most lasting. Death destroys corporal slavery. (Homilist.)

On the slavery of vice

Bondage and subjection are disagreeable sounds to the ear, disagreeable ideas to the mind. The advocates of vice, taking advantage of those natural impressions, have in every age employed them for discrediting religion. To be free imports, in general, our being placed in such circumstances that, within the bounds of justice and good order, we can act according to our own deliberate choice, and take such measures for our conduct as we have reason to believe are conducive to our welfare; without being obstructed either by external force, or by violent internal impulse. This is that happy and dignified state which every wise man earnestly wishes to enjoy. The advantages which result from it are chiefly these three: freedom of choice independence of mind; boldness and security.

I. Vice is inconsistent with liberty, as it deprives sinners of the power of free choice by bringing them under the dominion of passions and habits. Religion and virtue address themselves to reason. But vice can make no pretensions of this kind. It awaits not the test of deliberate comparison and choice, but overpowers us at once by some striking impression of present advantage or enjoyment. It hurries us with the violence of passion, captivates us by the allurements of pleasure, or dazzles us by the glare of riches. The sinner yields to the impulse merely because he cannot resist it. After passion has for a while exercised its tyrannical sway, its vehemence may by degrees subside. But when, by long indulgence, it has established habits of gratification, the sinners bondage becomes then more confirmed and more miserable. For, during the heat of pursuit, he is little capable of reflection. But when his ardour is abated, and, nevertheless, a vicious habit rooted, he has full leisure to perceive the heavy yoke he has brought upon himself. Vice confirms its dominion, and extends it still farther over the soul by compelling the sinner to support one crime by means of another.

II. The slavery produced by vice appears in the dependence under which it brings the sinner to circumstances of external fortune. One of the favourite characters of liberty is the independence it bestows. He who is truly a free man is above all servile compliances and abject subjection. But the sinner has forfeited every privilege of this nature. His passions and habits render him an absolute dependant on the world and the worlds favour; on the uncertain goods of fortune and the fickle humours of men. Having no fund within himself whence to draw enjoyment, his only resource is in things without. His hopes and fears all hang upon the world. This is to be, in the strictest sense, a slave to the world. Religion and virtue, on the other hand, confer on the mind principles of noble independence. The upright man is satisfied from himself. He despises not the advantages of fortune, but he centres not his happiness in them.

III. Another character of the slavery of vice is that mean, cowardly, and disquieted state to which it reduces the sinner. Boldness and magnanimity have ever been accounted the native effects of liberty. The man of virtue, relying on a good conscience and the protection of Heaven, acts with firmness and courage; and, in the discharge of his duty, fears not the face of man. The man of vice, conscious of his low and corrupt aims, shrinks before the steadfast and piercing eye of integrity; is ever looking around him with anxious and fearful circumspection, and thinking of subterfuges by which he may escape from danger. The one is bold as a lion; the other flieth when no man pursueth. Corresponding to that abject disposition which characterises a bad man are the fears that haunt him. The terrors of a slave dwell on his mind and often appear in his behaviour. For guilt is never free from suspicion and alarm. I have thus set before you such clear marks of the servitude undergone by sinners as fully verify the assertion in the text that a state of vice and corruption is a state of bondage. In order to perceive how severe a bondage it is, let us attend to some peculiar circumstances of aggravation which belong to it.

1. It is a bondage to which the mind itself, the native seat of liberty, is subjected.

2. It is a bondage which we have brought upon ourselves. (H. Blair, D. D.)

Vicious bondage

I. That God asks us to give him our hearts.

II. What is liberty? Is it licence and lawlessness? Must all conduct be without order and without law in order to constitute it freedom? We know better. Look at Paris and the bloody Commune! There is no tyranny like that of lawlessness. The would-be sinner complains of being tied to the apron-strings of his mother in order that he may put himself under the bonds of Satan. He does this to prove his independence. But no man in any condition of life is allowed to act as he pleases. If he were, society would be impossible.

III. Where the wisest laws are, there is the truest liberty. We voluntarily place ourselves under such laws that our rights of liberty may be protected. It is so in the state, so in society, so in religion. That cannot be a bond which carries with it an endorsement of the high nature within us.

IV. The beginnings of evil are dangerous.

1. It was a bondage of the soul, of the spirit, of the higher nature within us. The fetters of sin were riveted around these.

2. The aggravation of this slavery is its voluntary assumption. It is a bondage more galling because self-chosen.

3. In this slavery we become subjects to our own servants. It is a revolution in our moral nature, by which the highest parts become the lowest, the lowest the highest. (H. Johnson, D. D.)

If … they are again entangled … the latter end is worse.--

Entangled again

I. A proposition.

1. They have escaped. Next to the finding an unexpected benefit, it is a great happiness to escape an unsuspected danger; yea, the escaping of a great danger is more joy than the receiving of an ordinary benefit.

2. The pollutions of the world.

(1) The pollutions which we contract from the riches of the world.

(2) The pollutions we derive from the honours and dignities of the world pride here challengeth the first place, and let her have it, even to be the queen of all sordid filthiness.

(3) The pollutions we deduce from the pleasures of the world. Oh, what a torrent of turpitudes here stream in upon us!

(a) Immoderate diet.

(b) Drunkenness.

(c) Lust.

3. Through the knowledge, etc.

(1) There is no knowledge to do good in corrupted nature and filthiness of the flesh.

(2) There is no escaping out of this filthiness and corruption, but by knowledge.

(3) No knowledge can deliver us, but that of our Saviour Christ.

(4) No knowledge of our Saviour can effect this, but that which is sanctified with faith and repentance.

II. A supposition.

1. The easiness of falling back. If--it is no impossible thing. Yes, the commonness proves it too easy. Man goes forth in the morning weak and unarmed, to encounter with powers and principalities. To fight this combat he takes a second with him, and that is his flesh, a familiar enemy, a friendly traitor; the devil comes against him with his second, too, and that is the world. Soon doth the flesh revolt to the world, and both stick to Satan; so here is terrible odds, three to one.

2. The difficulty of recovering them, after their relapse.

(1) They are entangled, as birds are caught in an evil net; where the more they struggle to get out, the faster they stick.

(2) And overcome. That which puts a man from the use of his reason, and a Christian from his exercise of religion, overcomes him. The ambitious are overcome with the desire of honour, so that they are not their own men. Of all, the worldlings are basely overcome; for they think they have the world in a string, when the world hath them in a strong chain.

(3) Entangled and overcome--put them both together. It is the depth of misery to fall under the curse of Ham, a servant of servants.

III. A conclusion. The latter end is worse, etc.

1. Their sins are worse now than they were at first, therefore their estates must needs be so.

2. Besides all their other sins, they have the sin of unthankfulness to answer for.

3. Because custom in sin hath deadened all remorse for sin.

4. Because their hypocrisy prevents all ways of remedy.

5. Because they wilfully destroy themselves by renouncing all gracious remedies.

6. Because a relapse is even more dangerous than the first sickness; sooner incurred, more hardly cured. (Thos. Adams.)

A great gain, a great loss, and a great curse

I. A great gain. What is the gain? An escape from the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

1. The world is a scene of moral corruption.

2. To escape these corruptions is of the greatest importance to man.

3. This escape is effected through the knowledge of Christ. Other sciences have signally failed to purify the world.

II. A great loss. Peter supposes the position of escapement, after being gained, lost. They are entangled and overcome.

1. Good men, being moral agents, can fall.

2. Good men, in this world, are surrounded by influences tempting them to apostasy.

3. Good men in this world have fallen from the positions they have occupied. David, Peter, etc., are examples.

III. A great curse. The latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

1. Because he is the subject of greater guilt.

2. Because he has the elements of greater distress.

3. Because he is in a condition of greater hopelessness. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

The danger of relapse

The infant faith of Christ had to encounter three mighty foes. First of all there was the Judaism on the foundation of which the new system was based, or rather the complement or fulness of which the new system was. The next enemy was the ancient Paganism. Here the conquest was more decisive, though the combat was the sharper. The third enemy of the early Church is not so easily recognised upon the surface of Holy Scripture as the other two, but it is there notwithstanding. The Acts of the Holy Apostles relate a strange passage as occurring at Samaria between St. Peter and Simon Magus, but they do not mention that Simon was the first heretic--was the most active propagator of that deadly Gnosticism which for so many centuries preyed upon the vitals of the Church, and even now in these last days from time to time shows itself in sonic new and strange manifestation. Oriental in its origin, it was founded in a belief of the doctrine of the antagonism between mind and matter, the one of which it held to be good, the other intrinsically evil. Such a system as this was essentially hostile to Gods truth, and accordingly we find that St. John, in his Gospel and Epistles, St. Peter and St. Jude in the works attributed to them, devote themselves to the condemnation of the system. St. John applies himself to confute the doctrinal errors, and to show that Christ the Word is no mere aeon, or personal attribute of the Deity, but very God of very God, as the Creed says. The other apostles direct their teaching against the moral effects of the same system, the vanity and conceit, the shallowness and pretence, the laxity and profanity of the adherents of this vain philosophy. Moreover, not only was the fight against these three foes carried on in fair and open field, but the times called for other solicitudes with regard to them. It was not that they injured the Church by assault from without and by resistance to its holy aggression; they more subtilly worked as a leaven within the Church itself. We have then to inquire, How does this text apply to us?

I. First of all, this text strikes at the root of the error that grace is indefectible: that a man once in the favour of God can never fall away from it. This is a very common belief in this country, and no wonder, for it is well suited to the self-righteousness and slothfulness of fallen human nature. The apostle, however, teaches the very contrary. An awful truth, then, is it that they who have at one time been truly faithful, may totally and finally fall away!

II. But without taking into consideration such a fact as final reprobation succeeding upon the despite of the graces we have received, we have to consider the general proposition of our apostle, that the case of relapse is so much more deplorable than any other spiritual condition; that in the case of those that are entangled and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. Why should this be so?

1. Because the fall is by so much more criminal by how much it has been committed voluntarily and with the eyes open.

2. And next, such an act implies not only rebellion and insolence, but also heinous ingratitude.

3. Relapse is dangerous, on account of the exceeding difficulty of recovery. As in the physical frame in illness a relapse is ever more to be dreaded than the original ailment, and makes the patient worse than he was before; so in the world of faith, the state of the Christian who, after baptism and repentance, falls again into the disorders he has forsworn, is so grievous, that the coarsest similes, such as the vomit of the dog, and the wallowing of the swine, are used by the apostle to picture his condition. In every kind of wickedness relapse is most dangerous, not only in destroying the power of resistance, but in many other ways: for perhaps the most fearful of all the results of sin is the withdrawal of the grace of God. However generous God may be of His benedictions (and never, never till the great day of account shall we know all that He has done for us), He cannot bear that they should be misused. Nor are we to maintain that this law refers merely to great and heinous crimes, such as intemperance, and impurity, and the like; the same runs through every infraction of Gods law. Whenever a man relapses into any wilful sin of which he has repented, he incurs in a degree the condemnation of the text. Whatever his fault may be, ill-temper, touchiness, ambition, avarice, over-solicitude for the things of this life, etc. The conscience has fairly done its work, and being despised, in time refuses to act; the moral sense is blunted; the casuistry of indulgence begins to pervert the whole nature; God begins to withdraw His assistance, and: the stereotyping of an evil habit begins to take effect! A grievous condition to be in! As the man sunk in temporal misfortunes looks back on the days of his departed prosperity and esteems no kind of misery so great as the recollection of his former happiness, so one can conceive no picture so desolate as the retrospect of a man, plunged in some sin which is slowly and surely destroying him, to the scenes of his long lost innocency. He knows them well, he recognises their beauty, he bewails their loss as he turns from them with a sigh, but he cannot have the heart to conquer the evil one. But while I press these serious thoughts upon you, I would not have myself misunderstood. What I have said of deliberate relapse into sin, does not apply to those little backslidings which are the consequence of the weakness of our nature. The grand distinguishing idea between these two states, is the earnest will to keep straight and the fervid desire after holiness. Why should we be disheartened? Is not the Christian course a course of constant falls and risings again? (Bp. Forbes.)

The danger of relapsing

I. The sins of those who relapse are, whilst continued in, more heinous.

1. Because committed against greater knowledge. The surest knowledge of moral duties is that which is attained by practice. It is, indeed, possible for a man to know his duty who never performs it; but still there is as much difference betwixt a speculative and a practical knowledge of our duty, as between our being acquainted with road from a transient view of it in a map, and from our having frequently travelled over it. As well may an experienced pilot pretend not to know his compass, as he, who hath for some time steered his course by the laws of God, pretend to be ignorant of them. They have, during his integrity, taken up his thoughts; he must have frequently meditated upon them, in order to his regulating his actions by them; and when he hath reflected on his past actions, they have been the measure by which he hath examined the rectitude or obliquity of them. By these means they have made a strong impression on his mind, and he must offer great violence to himself before he can deface characters which are so deeply imprinted on his soul.

2. Because committed against greater strength to obey. Our spiritual enemies, when they have once been entirely defeated, cannot on a sudden recover their strength.

3. Because they tend more to the dishonour of God. He who hath for some time made himself remarkable by a strict observance of Gods laws, hath thereby openly declared for the interests of virtue and piety. He is now to sustain no less a character than that of a champion for the cause of God, and men will be apt to judge of the merits of this cause by the conduct of hint who pretends to maintain it. They will think it reasonable to form their opinions of religion by his, and to have no greater concern for it than he hath.

4. Because committed against greater obligations to obedience. Those who have conformed their lives to the precepts of the gospel, must be supposed to have been once convinced that a religious life was to be preferred to a wicked course; the nature of good and evil is not since changed; their experience cannot have convinced them of any mistake; there is no reason for altering their judgment; and whilst that continues the same, their practice ought to be conformable to it. But yet further, such men must reasonably be supposed to have made frequent vows of obedience. They have entered into a solemn covenant with God, and this covenant hath been often renewed.

II. There is much less probability of their recovering themselves out of this sinful state by repentance.

1. There is less probability such persons should ever go about to repent. Those evil habits which require much time to master, and which are not to be rooted out but by slow degrees, yet if after some abstinence they are again indulged, do return upon us with all their former strength. The relapsed sinner meets his former crimes with the same pleasure with which we are wont to receive an old bosom friend, and the intermission gives the sin at its return a new and better relish.

2. Should the relapsed sinner entertain thoughts of repentance, it is yet to be feared that this repentance may not prove effectual. In every work which we undertake, we proceed more or less vigorously in proportion to the different hopes we have of success. Now these are the circumstances of a relapsed sinner; his repentance is a work of great difficulty, and his hopes of acceptance are very faint. There must be some extraordinary effusion of Gods grace to recall the relapsed sinner. But what reason hath he to expect this supernatural aid, who hath already so much abused it?

III. Now if the sin and hazard of relapsing be so great, it will be the duty of all who yet stand, to take care lest they fall; and of those who are fallen, to use all diligence to recover their ground. The state of the former is happy, but not secure, and therefore they ought to be upon their guard; the conduct of the latter is very dangerous, but not quite desperate, and therefore they ought to work out their salvation with fear and trembling. (Bp. Smalridge.)

Apostasy

I. The state supposed.

1. They had escaped, etc. An escape of any kind--from a prison, from shipwreck, from a railway accident, from a dangerous sickness, is ever deemed a cause of thankfulness, and, in some instances, is commemorated for many years after it. But the escape here spoken of is the greatest that a man can ever know.

2. These persons had again become entangled therein and overcome, or having again become entangled therein, they were overcome. How many sad illustrations of these words might be gathered from the annals of every Church! We have seen young men of great promise and of superior abilities rescued from the snare of the devil--from intemperance, dishonesty, or lust, and becoming earnest members of a Christian community, to the joy of many hearts; but in an evil hour they have listened to the voice of the charmer, they have been led back to their former sinful habits.

3. Hence, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning, or their last state is worse than the first. It is our Lords own saying (Mat_12:45).

II. The fulfilment of certain proverbs.

1. The dog possesses many valuable qualities, and for its fidelity and kindness is naturally a favourite. But it is often rapacious, and is especially greedy. It seldom knows when it has had enough; and when it vomits its food, it will, as I have seen it, return and lick it up again. Backsliders are compared to it in this respect.

2. The sow is an unclean animal, and loves filth of every kind; wash her, and as soon as she can she will plunge herself again into the mire, and is never so happy as when wallowing in some dirty bog. Are not sinners often like her? How many reformed drunkards have returned to the intoxicating cup, and plunged again into the filthiest excesses of their previous lives! (Thornley Smith.)

Necessity of perseverance in well-doing

If it be not enough for a Christian to begin well unless he continue in the profession and doing of that wherein he hath begun, then followeth it that perseverance is so needful, as without which we cannot see the face of God. This is required in the performance of every duty. Is it prayer? we must always pray. Is it thanksgiving? we must in all things give thanks. Is it fasting? we must continually cease from sin. Is it faith? we must never be without it. Is it obedience to Gods commandments? we must always perform it. Is it love unto our neighbours? we must continue therein. The like may be said of every other duty. It is not enough for a time to escape them who live in error, and thereafter give way unto them, but as Caleb and Joshua constantly followed the Lord, and were partakers of the promised land, so must we constantly go on in the course of godliness that we may obtain that kingdom of heaven. (A. Symson.)

Sin renewed after pardon

Oh, tempt not Gods Spirit any more--ye have provoked Him too much already; let not your consciences soothe you up in your sins; remember that I do now give you warning of them, fall not therein. The more thou renewest thy sins the more thou feedest thy corruptions and makest them the more rebellious. A chained dog breaking loose becometh more fierce; a river long stopped, if a breach be made, runneth the more violently; so for thee to restrain thy sin for a time, and then to give way unto the same, is most dangerous. Thou fallest from God to the devil, from a holy profession to profaneness, thus showing thyself unthankful unto God. What should we not give to obtain grace, to get Gods favour? nothing should so entangle us, as that for the love thereof we should reject both God and grace. Oh, there is no loss compared to the loss of grace, to the loss of Gods favour; no ruin to the ruin of the soul; what will it advantage us, to gain the whole world with the loss of our souls? (A. Symson.)

The way of righteousness.--

The way of righteousness

is so called, because both formally it is a righteous way; and effectively, it makes the walkers in it righteous. Certainly there is but one way to heaven, and this is it. There be many ways to some famous city upon earth, many gates into it. But to the city of salvation and glory there is but one way, one gate, and that is a narrow one too, the way of righteousness. There was a way at the first; the way of the law, or rather of nature; Adam was put into it, but he quickly went out of it. Since that, no man ever kept it one hour; but only He that knew the way, that made the way, that is the way, wen the new way of righteousness, Jesus Christ. What then is the way of righteousness? (Joh_3:16). This way hath two boundaries, repentance and obedience.

1. Repentance on the one side, a mourning for sins past; which is as sure an effect or demonstration of faith, as faith is a cause of the peace of conscience.

2. Obedience on the other side; for though we live by faith, yet our faith doth not live, if it produce not good works. We suspect the want of sap in the root of a tree, if we find barrenness in the branches. (Thos. Adams.)

The dog is turned to his own vomit again.--

The dog returned to his vomit

I. A conclusion.

1. The verity of the proverb. Good proverbs aye commended to us for five special excellences, wherein they transcend other discourses.

(1) For their antiquity. The sayings of our fathers and ancestors have a reverend estimation among us; nor do we wrap them up in the bundle of our ordinary lessons, but preserve them as dear relics of their happy memories.

(2) For their brevity. They are concise and compendious, and so more portable for the memory.

(3) For their significancy, comprehending much matter in few words.

(4) For experience. The sages have tried that doctrine themselves, which they commend to others.

(5) For their truth. False proverbs are Satans logic, which he hopes will be received for their wit, though they savour not of honesty or verity.

2. The verification of the proverb. It is happened unto them. Swine and dogs will return to their old filthiness; but woe unto those men that shall degenerate into such brutish qualities! It becomes them worse than those beasts, and a far worse end shall come unto them than unto beasts.

II. A comparison.

1. Consider the two creatures together.

(1) Sin doth liken men to beasts, to sordid beasts, and that in their basest filthiness.

(2) God made us little inferior to angels, and we make ourselves little superior to beasts.

2. Severally.

(1) The dog hath many good qualities, and is divers ways useful and serviceable to man; yet still he is a dog. A wicked man loseth not his substance, or faculties, so that he ceaseth to be specifically a man; but he ceaseth to be a good man. There is such a corruption diffused through all those powers and faculties, that he is a wicked one.

(2) The hog is not without some good properties. There is no creature not endued with some goodness in its kind; though nature be corrupted, it is not abolished. But my argument is their filthiness

(a) The hog is a churlish creature, grudging any part of his meat to his fellows. And have we no such covetous men, whose insatiate eye envies every morsel that enters into their neighbours mouth?

(b) The swine is ravenous, and devouring all within his reach: a fit emblem of worldly men, who because they have no inheritance above, engross all below; nor is there any means to keep them quiet, till they see no more to covet.

(c) Swine are ever rooting in the ground, and destroying the very means of increase. If the covetous could have their will, the whole earth should not yield a handful of corn, but that which grows on their own lands, or lies mouldering in their garners.

(d) If the swine be troubled, he sets up his bristles, and foams with anger. Such a savage impatience possesses many hearts, that with fierce wrath they foam at their mouths, and strike with their tusks, and supply the defect of words with wounds. (A. Symson.)

No place like home

In a cellar I found a family consisting of five persons, all huddled together in a most miserable condition. Their story moved the compassion of a kind lady, who commissioned me to take better and more healthy lodgings for them at her expense, and remove them out of that wretched, damp place. She said she could get no sleep for thinking of these poor creatures. I soon obtained a two roomed lodging for them, with a good fire, but this failed to please them as well as their old abode. The following day, on calling, I saw that they had darkened the windows with paper; the light, they said, made them feel so cold. In a day or two after, I found to my surprise that they had gone back to their own sweet cellar. Theres no place like home. (W. Haslam.)

Altogether become abominable

To describe in all its horror the abysmal depth to which these false teachers have sunk, the apostle makes use of two proverbs, one of which he adapts from the Old Testament (Pro_26:11), while the other is one which would impress the Jewish mind with a feeling of utter abomination. The dogs of the East are the pariahs of the animal world, while everything pertaining to swine was detestable in the eyes of the Israelite. But all the loathing which attached to these outcasts of the brute creation did not suffice to portray the defilement of these teachers of lies and their apostate lives. It needed those other grosser features--the return to the disgorged meal; the greed for filth, where a temporary cleansing serves, as it were, to give a relish for fresh wallowing--these traits were needed ere the full vileness of those sinners could be expressed. (J. R. Lumby, D. D.)

.

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Pe 2:17. These are wells without water, &c. — Pretenders to knowledge and piety, but really destitute thereof; clouds — Promising fertilizing showers of instructive and edifying doctrine, but yielding none; carried with a tempest — Driven by the violence of their own lusts from one error and vice to another; to whom the mist — Ο ζοφος, the blackness; of darkness is reserved for ever — Eternal darkness. Frequently in Scripture the word darkness signifies a state of disconsolate misery; here it denotes the punishment of the wicked after the day of judgment; which our Lord also hath represented by persons being cast into outer darkness. “There being few wells and little rain in the eastern countries, for a thirsty traveller to come to a well that had no water, was a grievous disappointment; as it was also to the husbandman to see clouds arise which gave him the prospect of rain, but which, ending in a tempest, instead of refreshing, destroyed the fruits of the earth. By these comparisons the ostentation, hypocrisy, levity, and mischief of the false teachers are set forth in the strongest colours.”

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 25

ALTOGETHER BECOME ABOMINABLE

2Pe_2:17-22

THE Apostle now describes these traitors to the cause of Christ under another aspect. They proffer themselves as guides and teachers. As such they should be sources of refreshment and help. But in every respect they belie the character which they have assumed. "These are springs without water." The blessing of a spring is only known to the full in Eastern lands. Hence it is that in Bible language wells and fountains are constantly used as emblematic of happiness. When Israel is brought out of Egypt, their destination is described as "a land of fountains." Mental and spiritual blessings are pictured by this figure: "The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life"; {Pro_10:11} "The wellspring of wisdom is a flowing brook". {Pro_18:4} The invitation which the prophet publishes in Gods name runs, "Lo, every one that thirsteth, come.ye to the waters"; {Isa_55:1} and the gracious promise is, "With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation". {Isa_12:3} To those who had been accustomed to language of this sort St. Peters words convey a picture of utter disappointment. Where men had a right to expect that they would find brightness and refreshment, where they were promised an oasis in the worlds desert, there proved to be only a delusive mirage; and for this the brethren were beguiled to forsake the living waters which Christ has promised to His faithful ones. "And mists driven by a storm." Here the same thought is put into another shape. Mists, resting above the ground, play a part like that of the watersprings beneath. They protect from scorching heat, and drop down blessing on the thirsty land. But when they are chased away by the whirlwind, they can furnish neither protection nor nourishment. And so helpless for those who followed them were these apostles of license. Like mists they were, it is true, but only in their blinding influence. They brought with them blasts of vain doctrine, in their craftiness, after the wiles of error, and so created a desolation for those who sought unto them. We cannot help comparing this description with the ever-increasing illumination that flows from the lamp of prophecy, making the worlds dark places light.

"For Whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved." Yes, for these also God has a destiny in store. It is reserved, as is the incorruptible inheritance, {1Pe_1:4} which awaits His faithful ones. But it is in those pits of darkness to which the rebellious angels were committed. Yet even in the Apostles language there shines out somewhat of Gods mercy. The sinners doom is certain, but the blow has not yet fallen: the blackness of darkness is prepared, but was not prepared for men. Only those fall into it who persist in their rebellion. For them, in the words of Christ, it will be the outer darkness, where is the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.

"For, uttering great swelling words of vanity, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by lasciviousness, those who are just escaping from them that live in error." St. Peters words are here very aptly chosen to contrast the boastful pretensions of these corrupters with the hollowness and delusion of all they promise. St. Jude {Jud_1:16} tells of the great swelling words, but does not add that further touch which proclaims their emptiness; St. Paul {1Ti_1:6} says that such men fall to their vain and boastful talking because they have swerved from purity of heart, from a good conscience, and from faith unfeigned. From such there is nothing to be expected but falseness and unreality; they arrogate to themselves a penetration which others have not. Theirs it is to have found a deeper meaning in revelation, to have worked their way to a freedom beyond the rest, a freedom in the midst of sin, which imparts to those who attain to it a freedom to sin with impunity. Thus do they entice in the lusts of the flesh by lasciviousness. Such a liberty suits the natural man; such guides find many to follow them.

True Christian freedom, the freedom of St. Paul, calls for constant watchfulness, earnest anxiety at every step, for life is full of treacherous roads. But forethought and carefulness are lacking for the most part in those who have just escaped from the entanglements of error. "I buffet my body," was the Apostles rule, "and bring it into bondage". {1Co_9:27} This was the discipline to free the soul. And to others he preaches in his letter to Timothy that "the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men". {2Ti_2:2} But mark the pathway which leads to this life: "Instructing us to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." Such precepts these men mocked at. There was a nobler knowledge, they said, a higher initiation. To this they had attained; to this they beguiled their followers.

Such men are unspeakably dangerous to those who have made but little progress in spiritual life. It is only those who, like Nehemiah of old, have become firm of purpose through prayer to the God of heaven, and know the dangers that everywhere beset them, that can withstand such temptation. As he labored amid the ruins of Jerusalem, which he was so zealous to restore, there came to him the invitation of the Samaritans, "Come, let us meet together let us take counsel together". {Neh_6:7} No doubt the village in the plain of Ono, to which they asked him to come, was a pleasanter place just then than the bare hilltop of Zion, with its desolation and ruins. But his heart misgave him at the words of such counselors. "They thought to do me mischief." And his sturdy answer to the tempters is a pattern and a lesson for all time: "I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down." For it is always to come down that such counselors invite us, not to be afraid of putting ourselves on their level. They may cloak it under the name of elevation, as these Asian tempters did. They talk of this as liberty and power, just as the archfiend himself spake to the Savior, tempting Him to a boastful display of His trust in His Father: "Cast Thyself down." Those who fall, fall in this way, by a too ready yielding to some acceptable bait; and then they find themselves, not free, but prisoners. And the weak in the faith, those who are only just escaped from error, are those from among whom the deluders seek and find their victims.

"Promising them liberty, while they themselves are bond-servants of corruption; for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he also brought into bondage." Here we have two views of the same persons. First their own picture. They proclaim their superiority in lofty terms. Satan and his servants have always been liberal with promises. "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil," "All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me," are sample speeches of the arch-tempter. And these men follow their master; but, says the Apostle, they are themselves in the grossest slavery. He personifies Destruction as a power who holds them in her chains. And the idea sets sin before us in a terrible light. It begins in the single act, over which men fancy they have entire control; but the acts become a habit, and this, like a mighty, living power within men, but beyond their sway, overmasters their whole being, and drives them at its will. In the case of these men, no faculty was free; their very eyes could not cease from sin.

"For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the last state is become worse with them than the first." "Corruptio optimi pessima" is a well-known and very true dictum, and the Apostle sets these false teachers before us as a notable illustration of it. The backsliders, the renegades who desert a cause, are sure to exhibit intense hostility to the opposition from which they have fallen away. They are constrained to do so that men may think they have a warrant for their conduct; and often they have an uneasy conscience, which they must try to silence by large assertion of the rectitude and wisdom of what they do. Satan himself is the great instance. The state from which by rebellion he fell was unspeakably glorious, a life in the presence of perfect holiness. Now he takes his pleasure in marring everything that is holy, in defiling Gods world and filling it with pollution through the sin which he has introduced. These Asian backsliders had tasted the good grace of God. The Apostle speaks of their knowledge of Christ as that true comprehension of His love and mercy which draws men away from the world and its allurements. They had escaped and found a camp of refuge. But to take service under Christ means to bear the cross, and to bear it patiently. Jesus puts His servants to the proof, and not all who have set their hands to the plough continue steadfast in their work till the harvest comes. They halt in the process of that growth of grace which St. Peter describes in the first chapter of this letter. In their temperance they should provide patience, endurance in welldoing. Many, however, persevere but for a little time; and the world seizes the opportunity of their doubt and hesitation, comes forward with its allurements, and captures the weak in faith. And such were these men, and their capture was fatal. They were now in the toils of a net from which there was little chance of escape; they were overcome and made very slaves. In their first efforts to walk with Christ they had been enabled to wrest themselves away from their evil life; but now they were sunk down, overpowered, and blind, with a blindness the more terrible because they had known what it was to have sight. Their last state was unspeakably worse than the first.

St. Peter has in mind the parable of his Master {Matthew 12, Luke 11} which was spoken prophetically of the Jewish people. There Christ tells of the evil spirit which has been cast out, but no attempt made to fill his place with a better tenant. Soon finding no rest, he returns, and beholds his former home swept, and garnished, and unoccupied. Then he goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than himself, who enter with him and dwell there. With what solemn meaning come those words which follow the parable, "Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it!" {Luk_11:28} To have heard, and not to have kept, indeed makes the last state worse than the first. "For it were better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered unto them." These words of the Apostle point out the fear and care which should possess the hearts of those whom God blesses with large opportunities: fear lest they receive them amiss and fail to value them; care lest they pervert them to a wrong use. Our Lords own words form the mightiest homily thereon when He spake to those cities of Galilee upon which a great light was shining as He dwelt in their midst, but He could not do His mighty works there because of their unbelief. "He came unto His own, and His own received Him not." Hence the solemn denunciations of woe upon them: "It shall be more tolerable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon, for Sodom and Gomorrah, than for them"; "The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment against them and condemn." And more sorrowfully still He speaks to Jerusalem: "If thou hadst known in this thy day the things that belong unto thy peace, but now they are hid from thine eyes."

Christ went away unto the Father, but He left the Apostles their commission to teach the way of righteousness as He had taught it. "Teach them," He says, "to observe all things whatsoever I have told you; and lo, I am with you always." By the ministrations of St. Paul and his fellow laborers the feet of these Asian converts had been set in the right way. They had made a profession of faith in Christs sacrifice, and thus had been reckoned among the righteous, among those called to be saints. But the journey unto righteousness is made by daily steps in keeping Gods law; and if these be not taken, the road may lie open, the traveler may see it, but he comes no nearer to the goal. Nay, in this road there is no standing still. They who fail to press forward inevitably slide back. It was here that these false teachers had failed. The command of God checked their evil appetites and greed; and so they set it at defiance and turned aside, and taught their deluded followers that Gods freedom in its highest sense meant a license to sin.

Here one of the Apostles words is very significant. He says, not holy commandments, but holy commandment, telling us thus that the Divine law is all comprehended in the right ordering of the heart. In principle all Gods laws are one. If that inward source of all our right and wrong be kept pure, from it are the issues of life; and every action flowing from it will then have a righteous aim. Thus men lead holy lives; thus they keep Gods commandments in every relation. They do not in this life become free from offence; they stumble, because they are compassed by infirmity. But they act from a right motive; and this, and not the sum-total of results, is what the loving Father of men regards. Thus the Divine law is the law of true freedom, supplying a principle, but leaving the particular actions to develop according to the circumstances of each mans life. This is the freedom of which the Psalmist sings: "I walk at liberty, for I seek Thy precepts"; {Psa_119:45} and one of our own poets extols a life so ordered by Divine law as the truest, grandest freedom:-

"Obedience is greater than freedom. Whats free?

The vexed straw on the wind, the tossed foam on the sea;

The great ocean itself, as it rolls and it swells,

In the bonds of a boundless obedience dwells."

"It has happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog turning to his own vomit again, and the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire." To describe in all its horror the abysmal depth, to which these false teachers have sunk, the Apostle makes use of two proverbs, one of which he adapts from the Old Testament, {Pro_26:11} while the other is one which would impress the Jewish mind with a feeling of utter abomination. The dogs of the East are the pariahs of the animal world, while everything pertaining to swine was detestable in the eyes of the Israelite. But all the loathing which attached to these outcasts of the brute creation did not suffice to portray the defilement of these teachers of lies and their apostate lives. It needed those other grossest features-the return to the disgorged meal; the greed for filth, where a temporary cleansing serves, as it were, to give a relish for fresh wallowing-these traits were needed ere the full vileness of those sinners could be expressed.

Solomon spake his proverb of the fool who goes back to his folly; but of how much grossest lapse is he guilty who, having known the mercy of Christ, having tasted the Fathers grace, having been illumined by the Holy Spirit, turns again to the world and its pollutions, goes back into the far country, far away from God, and chooses again for his food the husks that the swine did eat!

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

2:17-22 Peter continues his description of the false teachers by explaining their effect on other people.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

2Pe 2:17. Οὗτοί εἰσι, these are) From 2Pe 2:10-16 the character of false teachers has been described; now their very plan of proceeding is described, which they use towards their disciples.—πηγαὶ, wells) A well and a cloud promise water: so these men boast ὑπέρογκα, great swelling words, as though they were the lights of the Church; comp. 2Pe 2:10; 2Pe 2:19, at the beginning; but these wells and these clouds give no supply. Those great swelling words are of vanity.—νεφέλαι,[9] clouds) impostors.[10]—οἷς, to whom) This does not refer to wells and clouds, but to these. The definition is put for the thing defined, ἀστέρες πλανῆται, wandering stars. Comp. Jud 1:13, note.—ὁ ζόφος τοῦ σκότους, the mist of darkness) ζόφος is the chilling horror [horror algidus] with which darkness (σκότος) is attended. Comp. note on Heb 12:18.—τετήρηται, is reserved) For this reason especially, that they carry off to destruction so many souls. See the following verses.

[9] The reading καὶ ὁμίχλαι (and mists) is preferred by the margin of both Editions, and so also the Germ. Version.—E. B.

[10] Nebulones, dissipated impostors.—T.

ABC Vulg. support καὶ ὁμίχλαι; but Rec. Text νεφέλαι, with Syr. Version and later Uncial MSS.—E.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Pe_2:17. Description of the teachers of false doctrine from another point of view, in as far as by making a false show of freedom they seduce others to immorality. First, a double comparison, of which the second only occurs in Jud_1:12.

οὗτοί εἰσι πηγαὶ ἄνυδροι] The point of comparison lies in the deceptiveness of a πηγή, which is without water; it awakens an expectation which it does not fulfil (as a contrast, cf. Pro_10:11; Isa_58:11).

πηγή here (which Hofmann wrongly disputes) means, as in Joh_4:6 : a spring well; fontes enim proprie sic dicti non carent aqua (Gerhard).

καὶ ὁμίχλαι ὑπὸ λαίλαπος ἐλαυνόμεναι] ὁμίχλη properly mist, here clouds of mist, as the plural already goes to prove, as well as the fact that it is not the mist, but the misty clouds, which must be regarded as foretelling rain.

λαίλαψ, according to Aristotle (lib. de mundo), equal to πνεῦμα βίαιον καὶ εἱλούμενον κάτωθεν ἄνω; Mar_4:37. The point of comparison is the same here as in the previous figure, only that by ὑπὸ λαίλ. ἐλαυν. their want of consistency (not: their punishment) is more pointedly referred to.[78]

ΟἿς … ΤΕΤΉΡΗΤΑΙ] so, too, in Jud_1:13; it connects itself with ΟὟΤΟΙ, not with ὉΜΊΧΛΑΙ, as Hofmann maintains, for how can this relative clause express the dissolving of vapour into nothing?

[78] Wiesinger inappropriately remarks: However empty in itself the conduct of these men may be, still for the Christian community it has the effect of a storm which cleanses it; for their conduct is not compared to a storm, but to clouds of mist; nor is reference made to their effect on the Church, but to that of the storm on the clouds of mist.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

2Pe 2:17-19 . The Libertines are themselves slaves . “They are like waterless wells, and mists that the wind disperses. For them is reserved the fate of gloomy darkness. They utter ponderous nothings, and allure through their lusts those who were just escaping from the temptations of heathen life. Promising freedom to others, they are themselves slaves of corruption. Every one is a slave to that which has mastered him.”

2Pe 2:17 . πηγαὶ … ἐλαυνόμεναι . It is interesting to compare the expressions in 2 Peter here with Jud 1:12 . It would appear as though he had felt that νεφέλαι ἄνυδροι was a contradiction in terms, and instead he substituted πηγαὶ . λαίλαπος is a strong expression = “gale,” a “storm of wind”. Cf. Mar 4:37 , Luk 8:23 . οἷς ὁ ζόφος … τετήρηται is somewhat out of place here, and is used appropriately of meteors in Jud 1:13 .

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Most gross darkness.

Another note whereby they may be well known what manner of men they are, because they have inwardly nothing but either utterly vain or very hurtful, although they make a show of some great goodness: but they shall not escape unpunished for it, because under pretence of false liberty, they draw men into most miserable slavery of sin.

Which boast of knowledge, and have nothing in them.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

(Jde 1:12-13.)

wells--"clouds" in Jude; both promising (compare Pe2 2:19) water, but yielding none; so their "great swelling words" are found on trial to be but "vanity" (Pe2 2:18).

clouds--The oldest manuscripts and versions read, "mists," dark, and not transparent and bright as "clouds" often are, whence the latter term is applied sometimes to the saints; fit emblem of the children of darkness. "Clouds" is a transcriber's correction from Jde 1:12, where it is appropriate, "clouds . . . without water" (promising what they do not perform); but not here, "mists driven along by a tempest."

mist--blackness; "the chilling horror accompanying darkness" [BENGEL].

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 17. These are wells without water] Persons who, by their profession, should furnish the water of life to souls athirst for salvation; but they have not this water; they are teachers without ability to instruct; they are sowers, and have no seed in their basket. Nothing is more cheering in the deserts of the east than to meet with a well of water; and nothing more distressing, when parched with thirst, than to meet with a well that contains no water.

Clouds that are carried with a tempest] In a time of great drought, to see clouds beginning to cover the face of the heavens raises the expectation of rain; but to see these carried off by a sudden tempest is a dreary disappointment. These false teachers were equally as unprofitable as the empty well, or the light, dissipated cloud.

To whom the mist of darkness is reserved] That is, an eternal separation from the presence of God, and the glory of his power. They shall be thrust into outer darkness, Mt 8:12; into the utmost degrees of misery and despair. False and corrupt teachers will be sent into the lowest hell; and be "the most downcast, underfoot vassals of perdition."

It is scarcely necessary to notice a various reading here, which, though very different in sound, is nearly the same in sense. Instead of νεφελαι, clouds, which is the common reading, καιομιχλαι, and mists, or perhaps more properly thick darkness, from ομου, together, and αχλυς, darkness, is the reading in ABC, sixteen others, Erpen's Arabic, later Syriac, Coptic, AEthiopic, and Vulgate, and several of the fathers. This reading Griesbach has admitted into the text.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

17. These are wells, or fountains, without water. He shews by these two metaphors, that they had nothing within, though they made a great display. A fountain, by its appearance, draws men to itself, because it promises them water to drink, and for other purposes; as soon as clouds appear, they give hope of immediate rain to irrigate the earth. He then says that they were like fountains, because they excelled in boasting, and displayed some acuteness in their thoughts and elegance in their words; but that yet they were dry and barren within: hence the appearance of a fountain was fallacious.

He says that they were clouds carried by the wind, either without rain, or which burst forth into a calamitous storm. He thereby denotes that they brought nothing useful, and that often they were very hurtful. He afterwards denounces on them the dreadful judgment of God, that fear might restrain the faithful. By naming the mist or the blackness of darkness, he alludes to the clouds which obscure the air; as though he had said, that for the momentary darkness which they now spread, there is prepared for them a much thicker darkness which is to continue for ever.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

(17) These are wells.—Or, springs; same word as Joh_4:6. These men are like dried-up watering-places in the desert, which entice and mock the thirsty traveller; perhaps leading him into danger also by drawing him from places where there is water. (Comp. Jer_2:13; Jer_14:3.) The parallel passage, Jud_1:12-13, is much more full than the one before us, and is more like an amplification of this than this a condensation of that—e.g., would a simile so admirably suitable to false guides as “wandering stars” have been neglected by the writer of our Epistle? A Hebrew word which occurs only twice in the Old Testament is translated by the LXX. in the one place (Gen_2:6) by the word here used for “well,” and in the other (Job_36:27) by the word used in Jud_1:12, for “cloud.” Thus the same Hebrew might have produced “wells without water” here and “clouds without water” in Jude. This is one of the arguments used in favour of a Hebrew original of both these Epistles. Coincidences of this kind, which may easily be mere accidents of language, must be shown to be numerous before a solid argument can be based upon them. Moreover, we must remember that the writers in both cases were Jews, writing in Greek, while thinking probably in Hebrew, so that the same Hebrew thought might suggest a different Greek expression in the two cases. When we have deducted all that might easily be accounted for in this way, and also all that is perhaps purely accidental, from the not very numerous instances of a similar kind that have been collected, we shall not find much on which to build the hypothesis of these Epistles being translations from Hebrew originals. (See Introduction to Jude, II.)

Clouds that are carried with a tempest.—Better, mists driven by the storm-wind. Wiclif has “myistis.” The words for “clouds” and “carried about” in Jud_1:12, are quite different, so that our version creates a false impression of great similarity. The idea is not very different from that of the “wells without water.” These mists promise refreshment to the thirsty soil (Gen_2:6), and are so flimsy that they are blown away before they do any good. So these false teachers deceived those who were thirsting for the knowledge and liberty promised them by raising hopes which they could not satisfy.

To whom the mist of darkness.—Better, for whom the gloom of darkness. (See Note on Jud_1:6.) “For ever” is wanting in authority; the words have probably been inserted from the parallel passage in Jude.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

17. These are wells without water] In the parallel passage of St Jude (2Pe_2:12) we have “clouds without water.” In St Peter’s variation we may, perhaps, trace an allusive reference to our Lord’s teaching as to the “fountain of springing water” in Joh_4:14, or to St James’ illustration from the “fountain” (the same word as that here translated “well”) that sends forth fresh water only, and not salt and fresh together (Jas_3:11-12). We are reminded also of the “broken cisterns that can hold no water” of Jer_2:13. There, however, we have in the LXX. the proper Greek word for cisterns as contrasted with the “fountain of living waters.”

clouds that are carried with a tempest] More accurately, mists driven about by a whirlwind, the better MSS. giving “mists” instead of “clouds.” The word was probably chosen as indicating what we should call the “haziness” of the speculations of the false teachers. The Greek word for “tempest” is found also in the descriptions of the storm on the Sea of Galilee in Mar_4:27; Luk_8:23. Did St Peter’s mind go back to that scene, so that he saw, in the wild whirling mists that brought the risk of destruction, a parable of the storm of heresies by which the Church was now threatened? The imagery, it may be noted, is identical with that used by St Paul, when he speaks of men as “carried about by every wind of doctrine” (Eph_4:14).

to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever] The two last words are omitted in some of the best MSS. and versions. For “mist” it would be better to read blackness, as in Jude, 2Pe_2:13. It is noticeable that the word had been used by Homer (Il. xv. 191) of the gloom of Hades, and so had probably come to be associated in common language with the thought of Tartarus, as it is here and in 2Pe_2:4.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

These are wells without water,.... Which look large and deep, promise much, and have nothing in them; so these men looked like angels of light, transformed themselves as ministers of righteousness, had a form of godliness, and boasted of their great knowledge; promised great advantages to their followers, but were like deceitful brooks, or dry wells, and so disappointed those that came to them, and attended on them; having nothing but the filth and slime of error and iniquity, being destitute both of the grace of God, comparable to water, and of the truth of heavenly doctrine, which is like the rain that fills the wells, pools, and fountains.

Clouds that are carried with a tempest; these false teachers may be compared to clouds for their number, for many antichrists and false prophets soon came into the world; and for their sudden rise in the churches, into which they crept privily and unawares; and because of the general darkness they spread, for when errors and heresies prevail it is a dark and cloudy day with the churches, a day of gloominess and darkness, of thick darkness, a day of trouble, rebuke, and blasphemy; and because of the height of them, especially light clouds, as these are compared to, who are high in their own conceits and imaginations, and think, and give out themselves to be some great persons; and also because of their sudden destruction, which lingers and slumbers not, but comes upon them in a moment, and their glory passes away like the morning cloud: and these may be said to be as clouds "carried with a tempest": of their own lusts and passions, by which they are governed, and are led, and carried away with the force of them, and have no power to resist them, being under the dominion of them, and captives to them; and of Satan's temptations, who works effectually in them, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness, and being taken in his snare, are led captive by him at his will: Jude says, "carried about of winds", Jde 1:12, with every wind of false doctrine, like meteors in the air; are never at a point, always unsteady and unsettled, and ready to embrace every new and upstart notion:

to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever; the nature of their punishment is expressed by "darkness", the blackest darkness, the mist of darkness, and which Jude calls blackness of darkness, the same with utter darkness; and which signifies a most forlorn and uncomfortable condition, and is a righteous judgment, and just retaliation upon them who studied to darken counsel by words without knowledge; and the certainty of their punishment is signified by its being "reserved", even as the happiness of the saints, and the safety and sureness of it are represented by an inheritance reserved in heaven: and as God has his treasures, magazines, and stores of grace and mercy, felicity and glory, for his people; so he has his wrath and vengeance reserved, laid up in store with him, and sealed up among his treasures, which he will surely bring forth in his own time: and the duration of this punishment is "for ever"; it is a worm that never dies, a fire that is never quenched, Isa 66:24 Mar 9:44; it is everlasting fire and burnings, the smoke of which ascends for ever and ever.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

17 These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.

Ver. 17. These are wells, &c.] Not fitted nor filled with wholesome doctrine, but as the brooks of Tema, Job 6:17, in a moisture they swell, in a drought they fail. The river Novanus in Lombardy at every midsummer solstice swelleth, and runneth over the banks; but in midwinter is clean dry. So these.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

These are wells without water - Jud 1:12-13 employs several other epithets to describe the same class of persons. The language employed both by Peter and Jude is singularly terse, pointed, and emphatic. Nothing to an oriental mind would be more expressive than to say of professed religious teachers, that they were “wells without water.” It was always a sad disappointment to a traveler in the hot sands of the desert to come to a well where it was expected that water might be found, and to find it dry. It only aggravated the trials of the thirsty and weary traveler. Such were these religious teachers. In a world, not unaptly compared, in regard to its real comforts, to the wastes and sands of the desert, they would only grievously disappoint the expectations of all those who were seeking for the refreshing influences of the truths of the gospel. There are many such teachers in the world.

Clouds that are carried with a tempest - Clouds that are driven about by the wind, and that send down no rain upon the earth. They promise rain, only to be followed by disappointment. Substantially the same idea is conveyed by this as by the previous phrase. “The Arabs compare persons who put on the appearance of virtue, when yet they are destitute of all goodness, to a light cloud which makes a show of rain, and afterward vanishes” - Benson. The sense is this: The cloud, as it rises, promises rain. The expectation of the farmer is excited that the thirsty earth is to be refreshed with needful showers. Instead of this, however, the wind “gets into” the cloud; it is driven about, and no rain falls, or it ends in a destructive tornado which sweeps everything before it. So of these religious teachers. Instruction in regard to the way of salvation was expected from them; but, instead of that, they disappointed the expectations of those who were desirous of knowing the way of life, and their doctrines only tended to destroy.

To whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever - The word rendered “mist” here, (ζόφος zophos,) means properly muskiness, thick gloom, darkness, (see 2Pe 2:4); and the phrase “mist of darkness” is designed to denote “intense” darkness, or the thickest darkness. It refers undoubtedly to the place of future punishment, which is often represented as a place of intense darkness. See the notes at Mat 8:12. When it is said that this is “reserved” for them, it means that it is prepared for them, or is kept in a state of readiness to receive them. It is like a jail or penitentiary which is built in anticipation that there will be criminals, and with the expectation that there will be a need for it. So God has constructed the great prison-house of the universe, the world where the wicked are to dwell, with the knowledge that there would be occasion for it; and so he keeps it from age to age that it may be ready to receive the wicked when the sentence of condemnation shall be passed upon them. Compare Mat 25:41. The word “forever” is a word which denotes properly eternity, (εἰς αἰώνα eis aiōna,) and is such a word as could not have been used if it had been meant that they would not suffer forever. Compare the notes at Mat 25:46.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

These are fountains without water. The like lively description is given of the manners of these heretics by St. Jude, so that the text of one of these apostles helps to expound the other. (Witham)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

These are wells without water: he compares seducers:

1. To wells without water; because as a well invites a traveller to it in hope of quenching his thirst, but being without water, mocks his expectation; so false teachers, making a show of true wisdom and saving knowledge, draw men to them, but being destitute of it, delude them, and make them no wiser than they were.

Clouds that are carried with a tempest;

2. To clouds, & c.; because as clouds many times, promising rain and refreshment, either are scattered by the wind, or break out into a tempest; so these, when they promise to refresh their hearers’ souls with the truth of God, being themselves destitute of it, do them no good, or with their pernicious errors, or corrupt manners, do them much harm. By this comparison he sets forth:

(1.) Their inconstancy, that, like clouds driven with the wind, they are tossed to and fro, from one doctrine to another, Eph 4:14. And:

(2.) Their deceitfulness, that they make a show of what they have not, as clouds do of rain, when yet they are scattered, without yielding any.

The mist of darkness; i.e. the darkest darkness, called outer darkness, Mat 8:12; 22:13; 25:30; by which the torments of hell are sometimes set forth, as well as sometimes by fire.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

17. Wells—They promise water to the thirsty traveller in the desert; but on his coming to them, they are dry. So these professed greater knowledge and purer truth, but the water of life they could not give to thirsty souls.

Clouds—The best authorities read mists, which are clouds condensed, and darker, and give more promise of rain, so welcome in time of drought; but a whirlwind seizes and drives them away, and no rain falls. So with these teachers; they disappoint those that long for the truth. But their awful doom awaits them, for there is reserved for them the mist—rather, the blackness (which makes the chains of the fallen angels in Tartarus, 2Pe_2:4)—of darkness, the deepest pit of hell.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

These are wells without water. St. Peter has spoken of the vices of the false teachers; he goes on to describe the unprofitableness of their teaching. They are like wells without water; they deceive men with a promise which they do not fulfill. In Jud_1:12 there is a slight difference without water". (comp. Jer_2:13) Clouds that are carried with a tempest; better, mists driven by a tempest. The best manuscripts have oJmiclai, mists, instead of nefelai, clouds; they are driven along by the tempest; they give no water to the thirsty land, but only bring darkness and obscurity. The Greek word for "tempest" (lailay) is used by St. Mark and St. Luke in their account of the tempest on the Sea of Galilee. To whom the mist of darkness is reserved for over; rather, as in the Revised Version, the blackness of darkness. The words are the same as those of Jud_1:13 (comp. verse 4 of this chapter; also 2Pe_3:7; and. 1Pe_1:4, where the same verb is used of the inheritance reserved in heaven for the saints) The words "for ever" are omitted in the Vatican and Sinaitic Manuscripts; it is possible that they may have been inserted from the parallel passage in St. Jude; but they are well supported here.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Fountains and clouds promise water: so do these promise, but do not perform.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The spiritual slavery of the false teachers and its consequences:

v. 17. These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever.

v. 18. For when they speak great, swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.

v. 19. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption; for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

v. 20. For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

v. 21. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

v. 22. But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire.

The apostle opens this paragraph by picturing the deceitful manner of alluring men which the false teachers use: These are springs without water and fogs driven by a storm-wind, for whom the gloom of darkness is reserved. In the teaching and preaching of the false prophets there is much sound, sputtering and bubbling, but there is no substance which will quench the thirst of the soul, a characteristic which is demanded of the true teachers, Isa 58:11; Joh 7:38. The false teachers are like banks and billows of fog as it rolls in from the ocean, driven by a strong gale, but all their promises do not result in such a rain as is needed to cause spiritual fruits to grow, Isa 55:10-11. Their end, therefore, will be everlasting destruction in the darkness of hell.

The manner of teaching affected by the false teachers is now described: For, uttering ponderous things of vain speaking, they deceive by the lascivious lusts of the flesh those that had but recently escaped (from) those that live in error. Here the heartless heinousness of the offense is brought out with great force. The false teachers use great, swelling, but empty words and phrases; their sophistry is clothed in language whose grandeur is designed to impress the unlearned. But the bait which they use is, after all, filthy lust, the sensuous desires of the flesh. Thus they caught people, managed to win them for their views, who had but recently been impressed with the truth of the Christian religion, but who had not yet found strength to separate themselves from their old surroundings and customs. The glittering compromises offered by the false teachers were just the thing to impress such as had but recently escaped their old heathen companionships and were loath to give up all their former delights.

For the insidiousness of the danger lay in this: While they promise to them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for to that by which a man is vanquished, to this he is a slave. The false teachers themselves confused liberty and license, and in this sense made alluring promises to those whom they could persuade to listen to them. They held out to possible converts freedom from all legal restraint, intimating that the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free consists in this, that everybody acts as he likes. But herein lies the service of sin; in this respect these men were themselves slaves of corruption, of destruction. For since they willingly performed the lusts of the flesh, deeming this the proper expression of their Christian liberty, therefore they were in subjection to the flesh, they were slaves of sin and on the way to damnation.

The consequences of such behavior are brought out in a striking manner by St. Peter: For if, after having escaped the pollutions of the world in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again taken captive and vanquished by these, their latter state is worse than the first. The men whom the apostle had in mind had probably been converted to Christ in all good faith. They had fled from the pollutions, the profanations, the sins of the world, and taken refuge in the redemption of Christ. Having learned to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, they had truly abhorred their former sinful life. It is for this reason that the apostle speaks such solemn words of warning. For if a person has had the sound, saving knowledge of Jesus the Savior, if he has chosen Jesus as his Lord, and then deliberately turns back to his former lusts, permits himself to be governed by the sinful desires which he knows to be wrong, then, indeed, his spiritual state after such defection is worse than it was before his conversion, Mat 12:45. Note that the false teachers are described as belonging to the truly converted Christians, to the Christian congregation. It is the false teachers that have fallen away from the truth which they formerly confessed that are the most dangerous, the most hostile to the truth.

Therefore St. Peter rightly says of them: For better it would have been for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to know it and yet to turn from the holy commandment committed to them. The people that never hear anything of the way of salvation, that have never heeded the voice which bids them search for the true God, Act 14:17; Act 17:27, will indeed receive stripes, Luk 12:48. But he that has become acquainted with the way of righteousness, that knows the way of salvation, and then deliberately spurns the will of God and refuses to be obedient to the Gospel-message, will be in greater condemnation and will be subject to a worse fate, Luk 12:47. In the case of such people, as St. Peter writes with some show of irony: It happened to them according to the true proverb, The dog turns back to his own vomit; and the sow, having been washed, to her wallowing in the mire. As a dog will eat what he himself has just vomited, as swine delight in wallowing in the deepest filth, even though they have just been washed, so people such as have just been described will leave the purity and the glory and the salvation of the Gospel-message and of a life of sanctification and return to the filth of a life of sin and shame. What a stern warning to all Christians not to sell their immortal souls for a few bits of dross, not to abandon themselves to the sins which they have so freely renounced!

Summary

In warning against the false teachers of all times, the apostle depicts them and their punishment, substantiating his statements by examples taken from Old Testament history; he characterizes them as followers of Balaam and describes the curse of their spiritual slavery.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Still our apostle proceeds in characterising and describing these seducers, which were then amongst them. He describing them before by their luxury and licentiousness, by their incontinency and uncleanness, by their insatiableness and covetousness, now he proceeds to discover their vanity and emptiness. They pretended indeed to be deep fountains of saving knowledge, but they were like wells without water; and to be clouds, containing abundance of rain, for the watering of the church; whereas they were like clouds carried about with the tempest of pride and ambition, from one vicious doctrine and practice to another, darkening the church; for whom, by the just judgment of God, is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

Note here, 1. The ministers of the gospel ought to be as wells, for depth of knowledge, for purity of doctrine, for residency and fixed-ness of abode; every one knows where the town-well stands; though ministers are wells of clay, yet should they be always full of the water of life, and always at hand for the people to have recourse unto.

Note, 2. The ministers of Christ must be full and watery clouds, able and apt to teach, able to open Scriptures, able to convince gainsayers, continually dropping down the heavenly dew; but not as clouds without water, without the water of true knowledge, without the water of holiness, sanctify both of heart and life, nor without the water of consolation and refreshment. The highest commendation of a minister is industry for, and usefulness to the souls of others: clouds consume themselves by watering others.

Note, 3. That although seducers are wont to make great shews and appearances of worth in themselves, yet it is a great and inexcusable sin to make shew of that goodness of which we are wholly void, and to which we are also opposite; to be wells without water, and clouds without rain, big and black, accompanied with emptiness and dryness. Appearing goodness sets men at the farthest distance from real goodness; they that satisfy themselves in appearances, will never labour after holiness in reality.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

17–19. These are springs without water. They promise much but disappoint. Mists driven by a storm. The thought is the same. These mists promise rain, but it fails to descend. For whom. For these apostates the “blackness of darkness is reserved.”

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

These men are springs without water

Springs flowing with water promise refreshment for thirsty people, but "springs without water" will leave the thirsty disappointed. In the same way, false teachers, although they promise many things, are unable to do what they promise. (See: Metaphor)

mists driven by a storm

When people see storm clouds, they expect rain to fall. When the winds from the storm blow the clouds away before the rain can fall, the people are disappointed. In the same way, false teachers, although they promise many things, are unable to do what they promise. (See: Metaphor)

The gloom of thick darkness is reserved for them

The word "them" refers to the false teachers. This can be stated in active form. AT: "God has reserved the gloom of thick darkness for them" (See: Active or Passive)

They speak with vain arrogance

They use impressive but meaningless words.

They entice people through the lusts of the flesh

They appeal to the sinful nature to engage people in immoral and sinful actions.

people who try to escape ... promise freedom ... slaves of corruption

Peter speaks of people who live sinfully as if they are slaves to sin who need to be released from their captivity. (See: Metaphor)

people who try to escape from those who live in error

This phrase refers to people who recently became believers. The phrase "those who live in error" refers to unbelievers who still live in sin. AT: "people who try to live rightly, instead of living sinfully as they used to and as other people do" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

They promise freedom to them, but they themselves are slaves of corruption

"Freedom" here is an idiom for the ability to live exactly as one wants. AT: "They promise to give them the ability to live exactly as they want to live, but they themselves cannot escape their own sinful desires" (See: Metaphor)

For a man is a slave to whatever overcomes him

Peter speaks of a person as a slave when anything has control over that person, and that thing as the master of that person. AT: "For if something has control over a person, that person becomes like a slave to that thing" (See: Metaphor)

translationWords

fountain

darkness

vain

arrogant

lust

flesh

promise

free

servant

corrupt

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

17. “Waterless springs and mists driven by a gale: for whom darkness is reserved.” In Jude the list of comparisons is longer; Waterless clouds, barren trees, wild waves, wandering stars, for whom darkness is reserved. It is conceivable that some words have dropped out of the text of our Epistle.

πηγαί. One who sets up to be a teacher ought to be a fountain of wisdom. These men yield none.

ὁμίχλαι κ.τ.λ. “Mists” which veil the light, not clouds which promise fertilising rain. And the mists are to be swept away by a tempest into darkness. Compare Wis 5:14 “the life of the ungodly is ὡς φερόμενος χνοῦς ἀπὸ ἀνέμου καὶ ὡς πάχνη ὑπὸ λαίλαπος διωχθεῖσα λεπτή.”

οἷς ὁ ζόφος κ.τ.λ. This cannot be pressed into connexion with the metaphor of springs: to the mists it is not inapplicable. In its original place in Jude it applies, with complete suitability, to stars. The masculine οἷς here must, as the text stands, be referred to the men who are described under these various images: but a lacuna seems not improbable.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

17.] These are wells without water (in ║ Jude, clouds without water. Œc. understands this, ἐπεικάζει αὐτοὺς πηγαῖς ἀνύδροις, ὡς ἀπολωλεκότας τὸ τῆς ζωῆς ὕδωρ, τουτέστι, τὸ τοῦ κηρύγματος καθαρὸν κ. πότιμον ὕδωρ. But this is going too far into specialities: the comparison, in both Epistles, is simply to that which may be expected to yield water, and yields none. In this case the πηγή seems to be the spring itself, which ought to send forth water but does not), and mists (οὐκ εἴσι, φησί, διαυγεῖς ὥσπερ οἱ ἅγιοι οἱ ὄντες νεφέλαι, ἀλλʼ ὀμίχλαι, τουτέστι σκότους καὶ γνόφου μεστοί, ὑπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ πνεύματος ἐλαυνόμενοι. Comm. in Catena) driven along by a whirlwind (λαῖλαψ, according to Aristotle de mundo, is πνεῦμα βίαιον καὶ ἐλούμενον κάτωθεν ἄνω), for whom the blackness of darkness is reserved (see ║ Jude. It is obvious that no just charge of inappropriateness can be brought against our passage because this clause occurs in a different connexion from that in Jude. There it is said of wandering stars, here of driven clouds: of each, with equal appropriateness: darkness being predicable of clouds, as well as of stars extinguished).

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Wells [πηγαι] . Better, as Rev., springs; yet the Rev. has retained well at Joh 4:14, where the change would have given more vividness to Christ 's metaphor, which is that of an ever upleaping, living fountain. Without water. As so often in the East, where the verdure excites the traveler's hope of water. Compare Jer 2:13, and the contrast presented in Isa 48:11; Pro 10:11; Pro 13:14.

Clouds. The A. V. has followed the Tex. Rec., nefelai, as in Jude 1:12. The correct reading is oJmiclai, mists, found only here in New Testament. So Rev.

With a tempest [υπο λαιλαπος] . Rev., by a storm. The word occurs only twice elsewhere - Mr 4:37; Luk 7:23 - in the parallel accounts of the storm on the lake, which Jesus calmed by his word. There on the lake Peter was at home, as well as with the Lord on that occasion; and the peculiar word describing a whirlwind - one of those sudden storms so frequent on that lake (see note on the word, Mr 4:37) - would be the first to occur to him. Compare Paul 's similar figure, Eph 4:14. Blackness [ζοφος] . See on ver. 4, and compare Jude 1:13.

Of darkness [του σκοτους] . Lit., the darkness, denoting a well - understood doom.

Is reserved [τετηρηται] . Lit., hath been reserved, as Rev. See on 1Pe 1:4; 2Pe 2:4.

Forever. The best texts omit.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.