"Great swelling words"

In the second letter of Peter found in the New Testament we find some very important information regarding false teachers. Many Christians today have not really studied their own Bibles. If they have most have only approached the study of it from one or two points of view. Mostly an "evangelical" popular view or "baptist/calvinistic" type view. These have been the popular views.

Thus they may only have become grounded on one popular modern view of Christianity without feeling the need to go deeper. These students can easily fall prey to false movements. The Bible warns us about false teachers. Starting in 2 Peter 2:18 we read:

"For when they [false teachers] 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."

Here Peter tells us that these false teachers speak "boastful words" [swelling words] by appealing to the lustful desires of human sinful nature. Here is described a false group of teachers who promise worldly glory. A regular teaching today within Pentecostal and Charismatic churches and ministries that compares to these false teachings that Peter is describing is the modern teaching that God wants all Christians to be financially wealthy. It seems that these false Christians also believed that to be "free from God's law" ment that they could break God's law. They thought that to be "not under law" ment that they were free from the moral restraint of God's law.

What does "free from the law" really mean? It simply means that Jesus Christ set us free from the guilt of the law. The law causes guilt because we cannot perfectly keep it. Jesus set us free from the "condemnation of the law" but Jesus never gave us license to break the moral standard.

Peter goes on in his explaination of the false teachers:

"While they promise them liberty [freedom], they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought to bondage." [2 Peter 2:19]

Here Peter suggests that those who do not want to be guided by God's moral standard inevitably get caught in sin and the bondage of it's grip. They become caught in the slavery of "self". True freedom from sin involves joyful "slavery" [service] to God. [see Romans 6:15-18] False teachers delight in making up their own rules to live by. To them "self" must always "feel good" and be "glorified".

It is easy to get caught in false teachings if you are not grounded in the Truth of God's word. People demonstrate what they value most by the time and energy they devote to something (see Matthew 6:21). When is the last time you truly studied your Bible? Many are waiting for somebody else to tell them what the Bible teaches, to follow the popular view, instead of searching God's word out for themselves.

Peter goes on in the passage that we are looking at to explain that these so called "christians" have returned to their sinful way of life while still calling themselves the followers of Jesus Christ. Their return to their old sinful ways showed that their knowledge of Christ was only superficial.

Peter says;

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

"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."

"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." [2 Peter 2:20-22]

So,dear Christian, where do you stand regarding these issues today?

Written by Eric W. King [March 2,2008]

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