2 Peter 2:13-16
Insatiable for Sin
In his letter to the Church at Rome, Paul displays the just recompense for those who willfully reject God, namely, darkened minds and hearts. And in the grips of that darkness, they follow their passions down every available path leading to destruction. And not content to traipse down to hell alone, they do their best to entice others to follow them. And for their pains, God allows them their choice of slavery and even turns them over to it; after all, it is what they wanted.
Peter agrees. He spends all of chapter two describing the false teachers, and here he presents them in all their true colors: blots and blemishes, deceivers, adulterers, unsteady, greedy, and one term that surely caps off the whole, “insatiable for sin.” And for all of this, they are accursed, or what Paul calls, given over by God.
And this is what happens to the one who gives himself over to falsehood. Wrong belief will give over to sinful behavior, or unrepentant sinful behavior will give over to wrong belief. To illustrate, the man whose belief begins with a god who cares not for sin or refuses to judge sin out of some misbegotten understanding of “love,” or perhaps counts the cross of Jesus Christ as a little thing—a mere example of sacrificial love by an ordinary man as opposed to the God-man giving himself for the sins of the world and providing the means for the new birth in the Spirit; or, the other man whose belief begins with his own sin, who refuses to repent of his sin, who must keep his sin at all costs—each of these men—the one who begins with his false belief and the one who begins with a tight grip on his sin—each of these will end up at the same place: Accursed, given over, with a false view of God due to an insatiable desire for sin, or an insatiable desire for sin due to a false view of God.
The Apostle compares these to Balaam of Numbers 22-24 and 31:16 who, when stifled by God for seeking money for his prophetic services for Balak of Moab, then led Israel astray into harlotry with the daughters of Midian. Greed and adultery, avarice and passion, always accompany false teachers. And churches will allow these to partake of the Lord’s Supper and commune with them. Even donkeys know better! “A little leaven leavens the whole lump,” Paul said (1 Corinthians 5:6; Galatians 5:9). Churches must do a better job of discerning the hearts and minds of false teachers by observing both their false doctrine and immoral lives. Anything less is irresponsible.
