To Discern Truth from Error ...

Peter is aware of his impending death.  He knows it will be coming soon, and so his first and only priority is to put the early church into remembrance of the truth and power of the Gospel.  In our prior study we note how Peter relays once again his own eye witness testimony of the glory and majesty of Jesus Christ.  Peter recalls hearing the voice of God the Father stating plainly for James, John, and himself in the holy mount that Jesus was his only son, in whom the Father was well pleased.  Scripture pointed unerringly to the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies in Jesus Christ.  And lastly, Peter adds to all of these arguments the sure word of prophecy, which when inspired by God has only one target, only one fulfillment, that which is in Jesus Christ.  These things taken together are meant to be a proof, a surety of the gospel message.  This is not meant to validate Peter for his own sake, but to put the early church in remembrance that the transforming love of Jesus Christ impacts the life in the here and now.  The power of the Gospel is found in the removing our sins, not in allowing us to linger in them.  Forgiveness is not the ultimate goal.  It is a step on the path to reform, to re-creation, to a different nature that is not bound in the slavery of self-love, but made free to love others.

This is the key distinction about the Gospel message that Peter wishes for the early church to keep front and center in their thoughts … the love of Christ is transformative.  Through our daily submission of our will and our desires to Jesus Christ, He remakes the core of “who” we are into someone else.  The changes in our desires, lead us to behave differently.  Because we “want” different things, we begin to act in concert with our “new” desires, and find ourselves loving others as a natural state of being, instead of a forced one.  This transformation is the “evidence” of God being alive within us, and of our having “accepted” the Gospel message of hope against hope.  That I could be saved from who I am, is nearly beyond my comprehension.  That I could no longer even “want” to sin, is nearly beyond my greatest hope.  That this process is something Jesus Christ does for me, with only my consent to it, is a gift beyond my wildest dreams.  My deepest fear becomes allowing my arrogance or my pride or my stubborn will to interfere with it, or to fall from it.  Peter too, worried about the influence of self, in the process of salvation.  He knew that when any potential spiritual leader allowed “self” to enter the thinking of salvation, the entire process would be perverted.

So Peter begins in the last few verses of chapter one of his second letter to the church outlining counsel meant to keep believers from this error, as he begins in verse 20 saying … “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.”  The great temptation of those who study scripture is to believe that “they alone” have discovered some truth that no-one else is aware of.  It then becomes “their burden” to preach and relay this message to others, as ONLY they can.  But this is nothing more than a submission to pride.  The intent of God in the revelations contained throughout ALL scripture, was to communicate with His people, with ALL of His people.  God does not purposefully cloud the meaning of scripture in order that only one reader “gets it”.  If He needed to speak to only one person, He would do so.  What the inspired text of God is intended for, is a revelation of Himself to ALL the people who might pick up that text and read.  That is not to say there is only one truth in a given passage or story.  But that is to say, that any real truth, will be discernable by more than one reader.

In our day, there are many who argue that scripture is not complete as we know it.  They argue that there are more volumes of works that “should” be a part of our Bibles; things like the gospel of Judas, or of Mary Magdalene.  Some of these additional works may disagree with the bulk of the Bible as it exists today.  Some may be entirely counterfeit.  It is hard to know if the book of Enoch should be included in our canon, as Jesus appears to make reference to it in one of his talks.  Yet for a book of Enoch to have endured, it would have had to be carried and transcribed by Noah through the flood – or perhaps re-written by Moses much later through prophetic revelation.  The intent of all this study about the completeness of the scripture is to cause doubt about what is written within it.  If the Bible is not complete, perhaps it is not accurate either.  But this misses the point Peter is here trying to make.  The Bible is not about limited understandings unique to a single person.  It is about general communications with enough information and truth so that any and every reader can know about the one and only true God, and His Son Jesus Christ, and their united desire to save mankind from himself and the evil that lies within him from loving himself.

If our God did not allow us to see enough of Himself in scripture, then none of us could ever make a truly informed decision of whether we wanted His love or not.  If scripture is inaccurate or incomplete then we do not have enough truth to make a real decision, and the entire plan of salvation becomes moot.  To think that Jesus Christ would come to this world, live and die for us, loving us to the maximum amount possible, showing what the true definition of loving others means; only then to have the record of Himself and His Father be distorted by omission or in-accuracy is senseless.  We may not have a record of every single event that has transpired throughout the history of God attempting to save mankind.  But we certainly have more than enough to see His Truth and make a decision based upon what we have read and experienced in our own lives.  The point of trusting God is doing so despite what we may lack in our lives.  To know we will be saved by Christ, in spite of the fact that we have been completely unable to save ourselves, takes trust.  Scripture provides enough information for us to make this choice, but it still remains a choice for us to make.

Peter is here telling the early church not to worry about some obscure text is some mountain cave, that only one person ever sees.  Instead the church should be able to rely on scriptures that are already in wide circulation, that are NOT intended to be hidden and used for private gain, but intended to be shared widely so that all might gain from them.  He continues in verse 21 … “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”  Peter reminds everyone that the Holy Spirit has been alive and working towards our salvation since long ago.  It is not just since the day of Pentecost that the Holy Spirit has been working in concert to save us.  He has been inspiring men to write down truth long before, and since, the days of Peter.  He will continue to inspire until the work is completed.  He acts as a mechanism in the transformation of men from our base selves to the holy versions we were intended to be.  He interacts with our will.  He transforms our prayers so that they might present before a perfect God better than our feeble words and selfish intentions would otherwise display.

Peter in this passage is not just affirming the truth of scripture past.  He is also affirming the mechanism for prophecy that is current in his own day.  John’s revelations of Jesus Christ are inspired and relayed to him through the mechanism of the Holy Spirit.  Peter’s own foreknowledge of his impending death is relayed to him through the Holy Spirit.  The purpose behind this knowledge was not to scare or frighten, but as revealed in this letter, it was to focus his priorities with the time he has left on the most important thing in his life … reaching the early church with the truth.  Peter is here affirming once again that any true prophecy, or prophet is moved by the Holy Spirit.

But Peter was equally aware that for every truth, Satan must introduce a counterfeit.  He continues his thoughts in chapter two of his first letter beginning in verse one saying … “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.”  Here is where the danger and perversion of introducing “self” into the process of salvation reaps its harvest.  The damnable heresies introduced by false teachers fall into a single line of thinking … a denial of the transformation the Lord is responsible for.  Instead these false teachers begin to teach concepts like “balance”, and “doing your best”, and “just say no to sin”.  Any concept that teaches us that “we” have some measure of “control” in the process of our salvation denies that the Lord does all the work for us.  In so doing, we take away from God, the work He is supposed to perform, and put that burden on our own failing shoulders, with results that should have been predictable.

The swift destruction that follows is certain and completely predictable, though when it comes, it always seems to surprise its victims.  As we embrace the evil of self-love, we cause pain, destruction, and death to ourselves, to those who love us, to those who encounter us.  We send out ripples of pain that travel uninterrupted through our lives and those we encounter.  It is unavoidable when self-love is embraced.  When we rely upon self in any way for our own salvation and transformation we fail.  There is no “balance” in our salvation and re-creation, it is entirely a one-way street.  The work of saving us is done by Jesus Christ and He alone.  We do nothing but get out of His way.  We allow Him to save us, and trust that He will save us.  When we attempt to take the reins and fix some “slight” problem in ourselves by force of will, or self-denial, we only delay the transformation that would otherwise completely eliminate even the desire for that thing.  It is the introduction of self into our process of salvation that is the common denominator in false teachers who arise in the church.

It is the subtle doctrine of Satan they introduce into the heart of Christianity itself … to rely upon our common sense, and will to decide our salvation and fate.  To introduce the idea that “we” have some measure of control which we must exert, and then wait for God to make up the difference, is the heresy that acts against a real transformative experience that would have us living salvation instead of theorizing about it.  The introduction of self into our thinking about salvation, quickly begins to infect our ideas about worship as well.  The “worship service” becomes something we intend to provide “us” a blessing.  We tailor the music, format, and content to “feed us”.  We intend to reap emotional highs, and good feelings from our worship services.  In so doing we completely forget that true worship is offering service “to others”.  We forget that we most resemble our God when we are “loving others”, or meeting their needs, or getting out of our confining buildings and confining wardrobes of finery, in order to REALLY minister to someone in need, often in dirty places, that are not so attractive as church pews, in air-conditioned buildings, only once a week for a few hours.

Inserting “self” into Christianity denies us our real focus of reaching others, ministering to their needs ahead of our own, sacrificing what we have because the needs of someone else means more to US than we do.  Inserting “self” into Christianity denies us our ideas of family.  We restrict our notions of family to those who relate by blood, or marital contract.  After this the line is drawn in the sand, all others become strangers.  If we removed the notion of self from salvation, we would see that each and every other life is as precious, beautiful and meaningful as our own.  Our notions of family would extend freely to those in the church pews beside us, but would grow within us, until the homeless person becomes so important to us, that we can pass them by no longer.  This is what it means to be transformed to love others like Christ loved others.  Can you imagine Jesus passing by the homeless man, simply because he is mentally ill, and homeless?  No the Lord of Love does not pass by those in need, He meets their needs, offering healing, and hope.  As His representatives, can we do any less?  It is the introduction of the perversion of “self” into our salvation that would allow us to remain apathetic.

Peter continues in verse 2 … “And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. [verse 3] And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.”  When once the notion of self is embraced, a degenerative addiction is the unavoidable path it must travel.  It begins with the idea that we alone understand the scripture.  It ends with indulging ourselves to the point where we would think nothing of taking offerings from other believers and expending them on ourselves.  I can drive the Rolls Royce, and live in my mansion here on earth, because I have figured out how to profit from running a “ministry”.  But the destruction to my soul from embracing self-love is guaranteed, and it will not linger long.  I will indulge myself in what I consume, how I live, and my choices will impact and degrade my health.  I will make enemies as my need to please me, exceeds my desire to see anything of value come to you.  My enemies will rejoice when I fall, and take pleasure in my destruction.  They will judge me rightly that I am no real servant of the Most High, but instead through the introduction of self into my salvation, I am become a servant of filthy lucre, and the father of lies behind it.  This is the fate of those who would deny the Lord purchases their salvation for them.

Peter concludes these ideas of false teachers beginning in verse 4 … “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; [verse 5] And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; [verse 6] And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; [verse 7] And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: [verse 8] (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;) [verse 9] The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:”.

The destiny of those who would save themselves is enumerated above.  When once trust was broken with God in heaven, when the angels decided to trust themselves and their own common sense above the word of the Most High, they embarked upon a path of self-destruction and self-addiction and were cast out of heaven above.  The “hell” of separation from God was to be their continued fate, cut off from the source of all love.  When the old world had reached its zenith in embracing self-love, only Noah would be willing to be saved.  When Sodom and Gomorrah had reached their zenith in self-love, only Lot would continue to be grieved at the level of their corruption, and would be willing to be saved.  Even his wife would turn back to the evil that had captured her heart and lose her life becoming a pillar of salt.  Only those who would trust in God instead of themselves would be saved.  Those who refused to trust in God would not be spared.

The essential issue that was founded in the conflict in heaven has not lost any urgency here on earth even 4,000+ years later in the time of Peter, or 6,000+ years in our own day.  Do we rely upon self?  Do we trust in ourselves, and in our will, and in our common sense?  Or do we trust in God, despite what we “know”, or what we “see”, or what we “believe” to be true?  The destiny of false prophets of old, was to be the same as false teachers who were already entering the early Christian church.  When once the ideas of “self” are introduced into the process of salvation, they pervert it until it consumes them in evil.  The power of the gospel is found in the absence of self.  The power of transformative love of Jesus Christ, is that re-creates in us “new” desires to love others instead of loving ourselves.  It is this transformation that carries weight and meaning in our day to day lives, not in some distant future one.  This is what Peter would have the early church remember.  This is what he would spend what little time left he had on planet earth worried about accomplishing.  Peter had the foreknowledge of the ending of his life, and it was in these passage he chose to spend his time and energies.

To discern truth from error was important to Peter.  To keep the church engaged in the transformation that Jesus Christ brings was the most important thing in his mind, and with his time left.  Might we take his example and begin to understand why it meant so much to him?  And the counsel of Peter was far from over …