What does it mean to be twisting the Scriptures to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16)?

Yet he had to say that in Paul's epistles there were things "hard to be understood." In so saying he wrote doubtless as the apostle to the circumcision identifying himself with the believers of his own nation. All the truth concerning the church, its place in the purposes of God, its privileges, its composition of an election gathered from Gentiles as well as Jews, all that which Paul speaks of, in short, as "the mystery of Christ" (Eph. 3:4) was bound to be "hard" to a Jew. It cut across every fibre of their national feeling which had been fostered for centuries. The truth was simple enough from an intellectual point of view but the eyes of their hearts needed opening to see it. This was recognized by Paul in Ephesians 1:18, where the word "understanding" should be "hearts". Except we too have the eyes of our hearts opened we have to sadly confess when we read God's Word it is hard to be understood.

Scripture too may be wrested or distorted to the destruction of those who so treat it. Those who do so are "unlearned and unstable." "Unlearned," or "untaught," means of course untaught, not in the wisdom of the world, but in the things of God. Here Peter may have been especially referring to a Gentile danger, the sort of thing that Paul himself warns Gentiles against in Romans 11:13 to 29. If Gentiles misunderstand and misuse God's truth so as to become "wise in their own conceits" they are very near destruction. Still even if Peter did especially refer to this his words are capable of a much wider application. Let us all beware of twisting the Word of God!

Now, we have been forewarned. Thus we are forearmed against the error of the wicked, lest we should fall. The error of the wicked was fully exposed in 2 Peter 2. It is not enough however to be warned against evil; we must be in the positive enjoyment of truth. The way not to go back is to go on. Like a man on a bicycle, the Christian must go on if he would avoid falling off. Hence we must "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

Yet, terrible as it was, this and even worse is the condition of the professing Church of God to-day. You may say, "Yes, I see how wrong people are." But look within and you will see the counterpart of all the wrong there is around you, in your own heart. We have not come here to run down our fellow-Christians. We are come to humble ourselves before God and to learn of Him. If we are not spiritual we shall not profit much by the guidance which the scriptures give, and unless we are humble and broken in spirit we shall go utterly wrong in our interpretations. We only understand scripture up to the measure of our spirituality and by the Holy Spirit's teaching, and if we are not spiritual we shall go astray even though we have the scriptures. I will prove this to you. Look at 2 Peter 3:16; there, in speaking of the apostle Paul, he says, "As also in all his epistles, speaking of these things in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction." What did they do with scripture? Why, they turned it up the wrong way, and to their own destruction. It is very easy to do that if unlearned and unstable in the things of God. We may be learned and stable in the things of this world, but this will not help us unless taught of God and established by Him. Our present spiritual condition is the measure of our understanding of the mind of God. Having been spiritual yesterday will not enable me to understand to-day. Hence it is that we see sometimes the mighty man of yesterday misses the simplest road to-day. Why is this? He is out of communion, and is seeking to interpret God by means of his intellect and not by the Spirit of God. There is no possibility of getting the mind of God merely by reading the scriptures intellectually. How differently people interpret scripture. Why is this? Because there is so little spirituality in us.

V.16 adds that in all of Paul's epistle the same line of truth is followed, that is, that God's counsels are calm, deliberate, all things ordered by Divine wisdom, all to take place as He has purposed, while He Himself shows marvelous longsuffering with men. If some of these things are hard to be understood, Peter does not for that reason dismiss them, nor does he excuse, those who are ignorant and unstable for the way in which they wrest these and other Scriptures, that is, twisting their meaning to suit them-selves. Such men are tragically inviting their own destruction. Observe that Peter fully approves Paul's epistles as Scripture.

But the apostle closes still with the word of warning. We are to account, as he reminds us again, that the longsuffering of the Lord is salvation. That is His meaning in it. It is not tolerance of evil in any wise, and we must not use it as an argument for any tolerance on our part of what is contrary to Him. The fruit of this longsuffering we are, every one of us: therefore we may well rejoice in it. And Peter has here a tender reference to that beloved brother, Paul, to whom the gospel of salvation was in an eminent way committed. It is the only passage, perhaps, in the New Testament in which we find the commendation of one inspired apostle by another. How suited here, where there had been, as we know, for a moment an apparent breach, which men have worked, after their manner, into a strife between two contradictory systems — Christian both, and which had finally, by some way of compromise, to be brought together and welded into one. Peter's words here are surely intended in divine wisdom to meet any such thought, and the very letter to the Hebrews is what Peter refers to in this case. "According to the wisdom given unto him," he says, he "hath written unto you." Yet here, above all, were, as we know, some of those things hard to be understood which would be found especially by Jews, more or less, in all his epistles. That does not, in Peter's eyes, evidently, diminish the wisdom of them. There are those who wrest them to their own destruction, but they have to wrest them in order to this, and those who do so are the untaught and ill established — the people who, therefore, have not bent their hearts really to the establishing truth, and have not submitted their souls to the discipline of it. Destruction could not come otherwise to any from the blessed Scriptures, the witnesses of the fulness of God's love for men; yet even those truly His might need the admonition. God works in this way, by His admonitions; and the apostle bids them, knowing these things before, to beware lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked, they fall from their own steadfastness. He returns in his last words here, to that with which he had begun the epistle. If they would not fall or be carried away, they must "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." They must learn more and more the grace expressed in Christ; for growth in grace is surely, on the other side of it, but growth in the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour. In that knowledge he has told us at the beginning, all things are found that pertain to life and godliness. "To Him," therefore, "be glory, both now and forever."*

It is said that "Paul is without authority," and that in many important matters he is at fault, but of himself and his writings Paul declared "Which things we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teaches" (1 Cor. 2:13), and "If any man think himself a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write to you are the commandments of the Lord" (1 Cor. 14:37). And of these epistles of Paul, Peter wrote: "And account that the longsuffering of the Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given him has written to you; as also in all his epistles speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to understand, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:15-16). Here then we have a divinely given description of those who imagine themselves learned enough to criticize and wrest the Scriptures, whether these be the writings of Paul or any other, they are "unlearned and unstable," and blind and foolish too, for they do not harm the Scriptures that they endeavour to destroy; instead they destroy themselves, for salvation is only found in God and the word of His grace which they refuse.

The character of evil, against which the warning is here given, is defined with great width of expression; and yet precise enough in the terms employed to furnish believers at all times with available counsel in similar cases. Anything which on any pretence led the souls of God's sheep away from Christ, was to be shunned. It might not amount, perhaps, to a patent heresy; but on pretence of refinement of exposition, or of a deeper investigation of the more recondite mysteries of the faith, an imposing claim might be set up to the ready attention of those who were eager to advance in the knowledge of Divine truth. This is an ancient device of Satan, and one which he continually practises in the Church. The moment our minds are accustomed to regard the truth of God as an abstruse subject, we are in a fair way to trip into some snare of this description. The word of God is never abstruse, in the ordinary sense of that term. There are, indeed, things hard to be understood, even in the writings of our apostle (2 Peter 3:16). But the difficulty arises from the subject being the unsearchable way of God. Now the teacher of this way is God Himself, who pours His instruction only into the obedient ear (Isa. 50:4). Child-like patience, waiting upon Him, and pondering, not so much with effort of mind as with simplicity of sober-minded faith, the sure testimonies of God, finds nourishment in that which the unlearned and unstable man wrests, in his impatience, to his own destruction. It is the fancying that intellectual effort is the first condition of a proper understanding of Scripture, which leads so many persons, who are clever theologians, into paths of inquiry which conduct only to fields of profitless disquisition, to the exhaustion rather than the enrichment of the soul. Scientific theology (in popular phrase) is no sure or safe exponent of the truth of God.

Many godly people then, but, if godly, not established in grace, are just such as find most difficulty in the fulness of God's provision. Incredulous minds are not troubled in general by such things, being rather glad to fasten on any inspired words which might seem to give them a loophole and excuse for sin; for so it is that they wretchedly pervert the Scriptures to their own destruction. I speak now of such as love the Lord, but have never been brought to nought in their eyes, nor to rest only in the grace of God; and such are apt to be particularly tried by what exceeds their measure.

Many godly people then, but, if godly, not established in grace, are just such as find most difficulty in the fulness of God's provision. Incredulous minds are not troubled in general by such things, being rather glad to fasten on any inspired words which might seem to give them a loophole and excuse for sin; for so it is that they wretchedly pervert the scriptures to their own destruction. I speak now of such as love the Lord, but have never been brought to nought in their own eyes, nor to rest only in the grace of God; and such are apt to be particularly tried by what exceeds their measure.

Once more, if anyone comes to you with doctrines, to support which he has to twist Scripture either by giving strained meanings to words in our English version, or by continually referring to the Greek or Hebrew original and translating to fit with his ideas, or if he tears texts away from their contexts or surroundings, which always decide their meaning, you have every reason for considering his doctrines with the gravest suspicion. "No prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation" (2 Peter 1:20). Remember, also, that the Bible is one whole; thus one part dovetails into the rest, not only agreeing but explaining.

He warns us against disputes of words and recalls us, not only to the word of truth, but to the word of truth rightly divided. All Scripture is the word of truth and yet what disaster may be wrought by giving Scripture a private interpretation, or by using texts out of their context, and thus, as Peter says, wresting Scripture to our destruction.