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New Defender's Study Bible Notes
2:11 railing accusation. Compare Jude 9. These false teachers are quite ready to rail against angels and other dignities, but the holy angels do not reciprocate, for even wicked humans still were created in God’s image. Only Satan has the effrontery to do this (Revelation 12:10).
2:14 exercised. “Exercised” is the Greek gumnazo, whence we get our word “gymnasium.” The false teachers have practiced covetousness as intensely as an athlete exercises before a contest.
2:14 cursed children. This means, literally, “children of cursing,” evidently implying that, despite their religious facade, they remain under God’s curse of sin and death.
2:15 Balaam. Balaam could have been a true prophet of God, but became a false prophet because of covetousness. He actually “loved” (with an agape-type love!) money.
2:16 dumb ass speaking. Peter here confirms the historicity of the remarkable miracle when the ass spoke to Balaam with a human voice. For the story of Balaam, see Numbers 22–24, especially 22:28-33. Note also Joshua 13:22 for the sad end of Balaam the covetous prophet.
2:17 mist of darkness. Compare Jude 13. The false teachers are destined for the outer darkness of eternal hell.
2:18 great swelling words. “Vanity” here means “emptiness.” False teachers have the remarkable ability of clothing vapid thought in pseudo-intellectual verbiage.
2:18 clean escaped. “Clean escaped” should better read “just escaping.” The picture here is of people who have been given some information about God and His salvation and are interested in learning more, but they have not yet accepted Christ as Savior.
2:18 live in error. They have been associating with a crowd of people who literally “order their whole lives” around error—that is, willingly rejecting God and wanting nothing to do with living under His domain.
2:19 servants of corruption. These who are preaching freedom to these undecided inquirers are themselves slaves of corruption, in absolute bondage to sin.
2:20 latter end is worse. It is thus very dangerous to know how to be saved and to understand the complete situation mentally, and then deliberately to turn Christ down. This is the same situation as described in Hebrews 6:4-6 and 10:26-31.
2:21 known the way of righteousness. Knowledge is necessary, but knowledge alone is insufficient for salvation. One must not only know the basic facts about salvation, but must receive Christ as personal Savior in true repentance and faith.