having eyes full of adultery, and that cease not from sin, alluring unestablished souls; having a heart practised in covetousness, children of curse;
Peter is describing men who move among Christians while their whole inner life runs the other way. Verse 14 traces the ruin from their eyes to their heart, and it raises a hard question: how can people welcomed into the Christian company be called accursed?
The first mark is a look that never gets satisfied. One writer shows that the look is deliberate. These men are not ambushed by temptation; they aim at it.
Their eyes are not pure, but full of adultery. They are fully set on impure indulgence, with no desire to stop sinning. They use every trick to entice unstable souls into the same evil.
One writer notes that the charge need not always mean physical unfaithfulness. For teachers it covers what they teach or approve, and the damage spreads to others.
The adultery laid to their door may not be literal in every case. But in its spiritual meaning it does apply to all false teachers, because they all either teach or approve an unholy alliance with the world. So they amuse themselves with their own deceits — the foolish ideas produced in their own minds. They also mislead unstable and unsettled souls. They destroy themselves, but they also bring themselves under the curse of destroying others.
These teachers do not deny the truth openly. They blend it with error, and the blend is what catches souls that are not yet settled.
These men claim to be teachers, and so deceive the simple. As someone has said, they do it by "weaving error and truth together so that the truth attracts true souls, and so puts them off their guard against the error mixed with it." They are "among you," says the Apostle. Clearly they had made a fair profession of Christianity. It had deceived the people who let them into the Christian company. If such men arose in the Christian circle in the days after the Apostles, need we be surprised when false teachers arise today, even in the most enlightened companies of believers?
"Hearts trained in greed" describes a practised skill, not an occasional slip. One writer explains that the word covers more than money.
We are convinced that this word means "fleshly lust" as well as "covetousness." It stands for an unrestrained desire for what does not rightly belong to the person filled with it.
Another writer shows what such a heart is for. It keeps the self-indulgence going, in people who are bound to live the very opposite way.
Who could wonder that they "have a heart practised in covetousness," so that they can carry on the lowest self-indulgence? And all this where everyone is bound to renounce ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live a sober, upright and godly life in the present age, waiting for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ!
Balaam's story shows what a greedy heart looks like when it wears religion as a coat.
If Balaam's heart had been right with God, he would have dealt with Balak's message at once. Sending a reply would not have cost him a moment's thought. But Balaam's heart was all wrong. In chapter 22 we see him in the sad condition of a man pulled by conflicting feelings. His heart was set on going, because it was set on the silver and gold. At the same time he kept up some reference to God. He put on an appearance of religion as a cloak to cover what he was doing out of greed. He longed for the money, but he wanted to get hold of it in a religious way. Peter presents Balaam as a leading figure in one of the darkest pictures of fallen humanity — a model on which some of the worst characters are formed.
The verse ends with a verdict. One writer names the abuse behind it: treating the cross as permission to sin.
But what about these men, who act as if the cross of Christ opened the door for any abomination? Are they not "children of curse"? This was sinning so that grace may abound.
- Eyes — the look comes first: eyes fixed on indulgence, with no wish to stop, using every trick to draw others in.
- Heart — behind the eyes is a heart in training, and the word covers unrestrained desire of every kind, not money alone.
- Feet — the trained heart walks Balaam's road. He wears religion as a cloak over greed: he wants the money, but he wants it in a religious way.
- Others — the ruin spreads as they mix truth with error, so the truth itself disarms an unsettled soul. They destroy themselves, and they fall under the curse of destroying others.
- End — "accursed children" is the verdict on those who treat the cross as a licence — sinning so that grace may abound.
having left [the] straight way they have gone astray, having followed in the path of Balaam [the son] of Bosor, who loved [the] reward of unrighteousness;
Peter has been describing false teachers who rise up among Christians. Here he names the man they resemble: Balaam, a prophet who knew God and still sold his services. The verse turns on two moves: a road left behind and a road taken up. Behind both is one motive — love of money.
Peter does not say these men never had light. They left a road that was straight, and one writer names that road as Christ.
"Forsaking the right way" — and surely Christ is that way — "they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam." No warning in the Book of God is more solemn or more fitting. No man ever deceived himself and others more than he did. No other man joined such grand hopes for Israel from the Lord with such subtle efforts to trap them into evil that would compromise and endanger them.
They knew the way they were leaving.
They have willingly left the way that was shown to them as the right way, and they have gone astray on purpose. Their motive is greed. It was Balaam's motive too. He was a false prophet who tried to pass as a prophet of the Lord, while all the time he wanted the wealth that Balak offered him.
Balaam was no open enemy of God. That is what makes him such a dangerous example.
Balaam had a knowledge of God. He even says "the LORD my God" (Num. 22:18). He called Israel's God his God. But he had trained his heart in covetous practices, and he "loved gain from wrongdoing." Peter gives Judas the same character (Acts 1:18). Thirty pieces of silver were "the reward of his wickedness," paid to the man who said to Jesus, "Greetings, Rabbi!" Both men show a mark of religious apostasy, which in the end perishes in its own corruption.
He wanted the money, and he wanted it to come by a religious route.
His heart was bent on going, because it was bent on the silver and gold. At the same time he made a kind of reference to God. It was an appearance of religion, put on as a cloak to cover his covetous practices. He longed for the money, but he wanted to take hold of it in a religious way. Miserable man! most miserable!
Balaam is named three times in the New Testament, and one writer sets the phrases side by side:
"The way of Balaam" in 2 Peter 2:15. "The error of Balaam" in Jude 11. "The doctrine of Balaam" in Revelation 2:14.
Peter's phrase is his way. One writer sums that way up in a single word.
"The way of Balaam" was the way of self-will. He wanted to take a certain course, and it would bring him large gain if he succeeded. But his soul knew nothing of humble submission to the will of God. Let us beware! Above all we must be careful about the teaching we hold and pass on. But we must also let the truth of God humble us and put down every atom of self-will.
The warning still bites wherever money gets mixed with the things of God.
The two mentions of Balaam should make every one of us careful about trading in the things of God for money. Otherwise we may look, in some degree, like those who have forsaken the right way and gone astray, "following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing."
One writer points to a safeguard:
In Paul's first letter to Timothy words like these stand out: "not a lover of money," "not greedy for dishonest gain," "deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain... But godliness with contentment is great gain." If words like these govern us, they will keep us out of this snare.
- Left — these men knew the right way before they left it. One commentator names that way as Christ Himself. They walked away from light; they were not in the dark.
- Loved — the verse turns on one word: loved. Balaam did not just take the wages. His heart wanted them, even while he spoke God's name.
- Cloaked — greed dressed itself up as devotion. Judas shows the same mixture, and it makes Balaam the portrait of religious corruption.
- Followed — Peter calls it a way, Jude an error, and the Lord in Revelation a doctrine. The way itself is self-will that refuses to bow to God.
- Guarded — the safeguard is contentment. Godliness with contentment is great gain, and it keeps money from steering service to God.
but had reproof of his own wickedness -- [the] dumb ass speaking with man's voice forbad the folly of the prophet.
Peter's warning about false teachers reaches its sharpest point with one name: Balaam, a prophet who worked for pay and was stopped by his own donkey. Two questions follow — what was the "madness," and why did a rebuke this astonishing change nothing.
Peter has already compared the false teachers to unreasoning animals. When he reaches Balaam, one writer notes what was new about him, and how far he sank.
He was not the first person to prophesy for hire… but he appears to have been the first to offer to prophesy in the name of the Lord for hire. With Balaam the supreme question was "Will it pay?" If it was a paying proposition he would prophesy to order — as far as he could. This was terrible madness, involving terrible moral degradation. In verse 12, notice, the false prophets are on a level with "irrational animals"; in verse 15 Balaam is below them. A dumb donkey was able to rebuke him.
The humiliation runs deeper still when you compare what each of them could see.
He boasted that his eyes were open. Yet he did not see what the donkey was given to see. He did not know why she turned aside from the sword drawn in the angel's hand. He did not know why she pushed herself against the wall, so that Balaam might not have his head struck but at most his foot crushed. He did not know why she lay down where there was no other way for her or her master to escape destruction. How much more guilty are false teachers since the Son of God came and gave us understanding to know Him who is true!
The word Peter chooses is not "mistake" or "weakness." One writer spells out what Balaam was trying to do.
Madness indeed, to imagine that he could cancel or change the declared purpose of the Lord concerning His people! Madness to suppose that a kind Creator would allow millions of souls to be destroyed so that a practitioner of spiritism might earn a fee! But what madness are men not capable of when they are ignorant of God?
In Balaam, the pull of money worked underneath a religious surface.
Balaam's heart was all wrong, and we see him in Numbers 22 in the miserable condition of a man pulled two ways at once. His heart was set on going, because it was set on the silver and gold. At the same time he made some reference to God. It was an appearance of religion put on as a cloak to cover his greedy practices. He longed for the money, but he wanted to get hold of it in a religious way.
His knowledge of God was real, one writer notes. That is what makes his end so terrible.
A terrible end for a man who had a real knowledge of God. He also loved honour and reward on earth. That love made him a servant of iniquity and unrighteousness. He deceived himself, and yet he called the Lord his God.
The speaking donkey was an act of restraint on God's part, aimed at a conscience that had gone numb.
God rebuked his iniquity in a startling, miraculous way: He gave a voice to a dumb animal. That should have pierced his hardened conscience, but sadly it bore no fruit. The delusions he preferred had numbed his senses too far. Today too, how shocking is the number of such hardened cases!
Peter's subject is not ancient history. He puts three groups side by side: the false prophets of Israel, Balaam, and the false teachers he expects among Christians.
The false prophets of Israel, the false prophet Balaam, and the false teachers of the Christian world all belong to the same evil family. They shall all receive the just judgment of God.
The test that unmasks them has not changed either. One writer applies it to religious movements that trade on spiritual claims:
Spiritism, and the anti-Christian cults that are really forms of spiritism at bottom, are very largely money-making concerns. That is significant. The devil knows how to play on the greed of the human heart… If there were no "money" in these concerns, we believe they would soon die out.
- Wages. Balaam's driving question was whether it would pay; the love of reward turned a prophet into a hired voice.
- Madness. Peter's word fits. Balaam thought he could reverse God's declared purpose for His people. He thought God would let millions perish so he could collect a fee.
- Blindness. The donkey saw the drawn sword. The man who boasted of open eyes saw nothing. Greed had put him below the animal he rode.
- Mercy refused. God gave a dumb animal a voice to wake a numbed conscience. It bounced off. Miracles do not soften a heart that prefers its delusions.
- Warning. False prophets of Israel, Balaam, and false teachers today are one family with one end. Money still exposes them.
These are springs without water, and mists driven by storm, to whom the gloom of darkness is reserved [for ever].
Peter has just traced these men through Balaam's path of greed. Now he names what they are: two pictures from nature, and both promise what they cannot give. So what is a teacher worth who has nothing to give, and why does such emptiness end in darkness?
A spring is only as good as the water it gives. Commentators set the picture against what every believer receives. The contrast is what makes the charge so severe.
This is no longer a contrast with angels or a comparison with Balaam. It is the gravest picture of spiritual worthlessness, with the seal of everlasting darkness fixed on these men before judgment sends them into it. Every Christian has this privilege: he is not only born of God, he also receives the Spirit of His Son, to be in him a spring of water springing up into life eternal. But these teachers of Christendom, and certainly not of Christ, "are springs without water" (they never had any). They are "mists driven by storm," not lights directed by the Holy Spirit. They show human nature empty and fallen, blown by gusts of feeling if not by the enemy's power. And the end is not death only but divine wrath for ever, in keeping with the darkness they loved because their deeds were evil.
Another writer explains the image in one line. Someone who turns away from the faith — an apostate — is dry for a reason:
In 2 Peter 2:17 an apostate is a spring or fountain 'without water': he has left the only source of life.
These men hold honoured positions. That is what makes the emptiness bite: people come to them thirsty and leave as dry as they came.
And when preferred and in high office, what have they to give? Just, nothing. They are "wells without water," so they can never quench anyone's spiritual thirst. They are as "clouds carried by a tempest" which deposit little or nothing to refresh the weary earth.
People look to them because they claim the place of teachers:
They are springs without water. Men look to them for the refreshing water of life, because they claim to be teachers. But "the hungry sheep look up and are not fed." They know nothing of the water of life.
The second picture is movement without direction. Notice what does the driving:
They are "mists driven by storm" — the storm of their own passions — and they blot out the light of heaven. For such the gloom of darkness is reserved for ever.
Nothing about them holds steady:
They are mists carried by a tempest, blocking the light, yet bringing no rain to a thirsty earth. They are carried wherever the tempests of circumstances blow: no stability, no dependability.
Older translations end the verse with "the mist of darkness is reserved for ever." One writer asks a hard question about that phrase:
Suppose everlasting damnation is not everlasting. What right do we then have to conclude that the same word means a never-ending condition when it speaks of life, of salvation, of glory, and of the inheritance of the ransomed? What security do we have?
Commentators differ on the exact wording. Kelly points to what the oldest copies of the letter say:
In place of "clouds," the best manuscripts read "and mists," and they leave out "for ever."
- Departed. The man called a fountain without water "has left the only source of life." The dryness starts with a turning away.
- Empty. A spring proves itself by what flows out. These teachers "never had any" water — the emptiness is not a bad season but their nature.
- Useless. Ask what they have to give and the answer is "Just, nothing." They quench no thirst, and the hungry sheep look up and are not fed.
- Unstable. Their own passions drive them like mists. They blot out the light of heaven and blow wherever circumstances take them — no stability, no dependability.
- Dark. The end fits the character: they loved darkness, and darkness is what waits. The same word that makes punishment everlasting makes life, glory and inheritance everlasting too.