Be Alert (2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, Jude)

Beware of the Religious Impostors

Warren W. Wiersbe

• Publisher: David C Cook
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780781404419
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

The study guide for life's true or false questions

The world is filled with counterfeits. And the church is not immune, as false ideas and doctrines can infect believers and congregations. So when it comes to spiritual teachers, messages, and movements, how can we tell fact from fiction? The answers are found in 2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, and Jude, where the apostles provide practical insights for discerning truth. Part of Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe's best-selling "BE" commentary series, Be Alert has now been updated with study questions and a new introduction by Ken Baugh. A respected pastor and Bible teacher, Dr. Wiersbe shares how to spot spiritual errors and fallacies. You'll discover foundational principles from God's word that will help you determine the true from the false.

Chapter One

Knowing and Growing

(2 Peter 1:1–11)

If anybody in the early church knew the importance of being alert, it was the apostle Peter. He had a tendency in his early years to feel overconfident when danger was near and to overlook the Master’s warnings. He rushed ahead when he should have waited; he slept when he should have prayed; he talked when he should have listened. He was a courageous, but careless, Christian.

But he learned his lesson, and he wanted to help us learn it too. In his first epistle, Peter emphasized the grace of God (1 Peter 5:12), but in this second letter, his emphasis is on the knowledge of God. The word know or knowledge is used at least thirteen times in this short epistle. The word does not mean a mere intellectual understanding of some truth, though that is included. It means a living participation in the truth in the sense that our Lord used it in John 17:3: “This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent” (italics mine).

Peter opened his letter with a description of the Christian life. Before he described the counterfeits, he described the true believers. The best way to detect falsehood is to understand the characteristics of the truth. Peter made three important affirmations about the true Christian life.

1. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE BEGINS WITH FAITH (1:1–4)

Peter called it “like precious faith.” It means that our standing with the Lord today is the same as that of the apostles centuries ago. They had no special advantage over us simply because they were privileged to walk with Christ, see Him with their own eyes, and share in His miracles. It is not necessary to see the Lord with our human eyes in order to love Him, trust Him, and share His glory (1 Peter 1:8).

This faith is in a person (vv. 1–2). That person is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior. From the very outset of his letter, Peter affirmed the deity of Jesus Christ. “God” and “our Saviour” are not two different persons; they describe one person, Jesus Christ. Paul used a similar expression in Titus 2:10 and 3:4.

Peter reminded his readers that Jesus Christ is the Savior by repeating this exalted title in 2 Peter 1:11; 2:20; 3:2, 18. A savior is “one who brings salvation,” and the word salvation was familiar to the people of that day. In their vocabulary, it meant “deliverance from trouble,” particularly “deliverance from the enemy.” It also carried the idea of “health and safety.” A physician was looked on as a savior because he helped deliver the body from pain and limitations. A victorious general was a savior because he delivered the people from defeat. Even a wise official was a savior because he kept the nation in order and delivered it from confusion and decay.

It requires little insight to see how the title “savior” applies to our Lord Jesus Christ. He is, indeed, the Great Physician who heals the heart from the sickness of sin. He is the victorious Conqueror who has defeated our enemies—sin, death, Satan, and hell—and is leading us in triumph (2 Cor. 2:14ff.). He is “God and our Saviour” (2 Peter 1:1), “our Lord and Saviour” (v. 11), and “the Lord and Saviour” (2:20). In order to be our savior, He had to give His life on the cross and die for the sins of the world.

Our Lord Jesus Christ has three “spiritual commodities” that can be secured from nobody else: righteousness, grace, and peace. When you trust Him as your Savior, His righteousness becomes your righteousness, and you are given a right standing before God (2 Cor. 5:21). You could never earn this righteousness; it is the gift of God to those who believe. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us” (Titus 3:5).

Grace is God’s favor to the undeserving. God in His mercy does not give us what we do deserve; God in His grace gives us what we don’t deserve. Our God is “the God of all grace” (1 Peter 5:10), and He channels that grace to us through Jesus Christ (John 1:16).

The result of this experience is peace, peace with God (Rom. 5:1) and the peace of God (Phil. 4:6–7). In fact, God’s grace and peace are “multiplied” toward us as we walk with Him and trust His promises.

This faith involves God’s power (v. 3). The Christian life begins with saving faith, faith in the person of Jesus Christ. But when you know Jesus Christ personally, you also experience God’s power, and this power produces “life and godliness.” The unsaved sinner is dead (Eph. 2:1–3), and only Christ can raise him from the dead (John 5:24). When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, He said, “Loose him, and let him go” (John 11:44). Get rid of the graveclothes!

When you are born into the family of God by faith in Christ, you are born complete. God gives you everything you will ever need “for life and godliness.” Nothing has to be added! “And ye are complete in him” (Col. 2:10). The false teachers claimed that they had a “special doctrine” that would add something to the lives of Peter’s readers, but Peter knew that nothing could be added. Just as a normal baby is born with all the “equipment” he needs for life and only needs to grow, so the Christian has all that is needed and only needs to grow. God never has to call back any of His “models” because something is lacking or faulty.

Just as a baby has a definite genetic structure that determines how he will grow, so the believer is “genetically structured” to experience “glory and virtue.” One day he will be like the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:29; 1 John 3:2). We have been “called … to His eternal glory” (1 Peter 5:10), and we shall share that glory when Jesus Christ returns and takes His people to heaven.

But we are also “called … to virtue.” We have been saved so that we might “show forth the praises [virtues] of him who hath called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). We should not wait until we get to heaven to become like Jesus Christ! In our character and conduct, we should reveal His beauty and grace today.

This faith involves God’s promises (v. 4). God has not only given us all that we need for life and godliness, but He has also given us His Word to enable us to develop this life and godliness. These promises are great because they come from a great God and they lead to a great life. They are precious because their value is beyond calculation. If we lost the Word of God, there would be no way to replace it. Peter must have liked the word precious, for he wrote about the “precious faith” (2 Peter 1:1; cf. 1 Peter 1:7), the “precious promises” (2 Peter 1:4), the “precious blood” (1 Peter 1:19), the precious stone (1 Peter 2:4, 6), and the precious Savior (1 Peter 2:7).

When the sinner believes on Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God uses the Word of God to impart the life and nature of God within. A baby shares the nature of its parents, and a person born of God shares the divine nature of God. The lost sinner is dead, but the Christian is alive because he shares the divine nature. The lost sinner is decaying because of his corrupt nature, but the Christian can experience a dynamic life of godliness because he has God’s divine nature within. Mankind is under the bondage of corruption (Rom. 8:21), but the believer shares the freedom and growth that is a part of possessing the divine nature.

Nature determines appetite. The pig wants slop and the dog will even eat its own vomit (2 Peter 2:22), but the sheep desires green pastures. Nature also determines behavior. An eagle flies because it has an eagle’s nature, and a dolphin swims because that is the nature of the dolphin. Nature determines environment: squirrels climb trees, moles burrow underground, and trout swim in the water. Nature also determines association: lions travel in prides, sheep in flocks, and fish in schools.

If nature determines appetite, and we have God’s nature within, then we ought to have an appetite for that which is pure and holy. Our behavior ought to be like that of the Father, and we ought to live in the kind of “spiritual environment” that is suited to our nature. We ought to associate with that which is true to our nature (see 2 Cor. 6:14ff.). The only normal, fruit-bearing life for the child of God is a godly life.

Because we possess this divine nature, we have completely escaped the defilement and decay in this present evil world. If we feed the new nature the nourishment of the Word, then we will have little interest in the garbage of the world. But if we “make p...