It is good to welcome all of you back to Deeper Waters, where we dive into the ocean of truth. We are doing a Trinitarian Commentary now and have thus far reached the book of 2 Peter. I ask for your continued prayers with what is going on in my own life. There is, of course, the continued need to grow to be more like Christ and truly have the fruit of the Spirit like never before in my life. I also ask for prayer in my continued financial situation, particularly around these Christmas holidays. Finally, there is another situation that I need to have my character refined in and to get past some issues in, but God knows what is going on. To get to the text, we will be having 2 Peter 2:1-3 shown for the whole context, but our interest lies in verse 1:
1But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. 2Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. 3In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.
Peter at the end of the first chapter spoke about the prophets and how their word was made more certain. As an aside, I’d like to be noted that Peter spoke of seeing the transfiguration of Jesus but then went and instead emphasized that the word of the prophets was made more certain. For Peter, the experience only served to further give glory to the Scriptures. The Scriptures did not give glory to the experience. Would that we would learn such a truth today in the church.
However, there were false teachers among the prophets and there will always be false teachers. Today, these are ones who are denying the sovereign Lord who bought them. Once again, the eternal security debate is not what this blog is interested in, but we are definitely interested in the idea of Jesus being described as the sovereign Lord.
The title itself should tell us enough as Peter has been challenging Caesar, even using the term majestic to refer to God in the last chapter and the majesty of Christ. Now, Christ is also being referred to as the sovereign Lord, a title that Ezekiel used to describe the Lord. If you recall from our look at Hebrews, Lord is a stronger title of deity than simply God.
Not also that Jesus is the one who bought them. From what? From the penalty of sin. This means Jesus has the power to deliver someone from sin, a power that resided in YHWH in the Old Testament. Even if a priest could be an instrument to do that, a priest could certainly not be called the sovereign Lord for doing such. We find again that Christ is both priest and king, and of course, he is the true prophet as well.
Since he is sovereign and since he is Lord and since he is able to buy from sin, we have then a strong statement of deity on the part of Peter in describing Christ. Again, this has been consistent with Peter’s letter thus far. It has been noted by historians that Caesar and Christ fared off in the arena of Rome and today, it is Christ who emerged triumphant. It happened so much so that as has been said, we name our sons “Peter” and “Paul” and our dogs “Nero” and “Caesar.” Christ conquered because of his superior nature. He is Lord and God.
We shall continue tomorrow.
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