Please accept my thanks for your comments and concerns about my shoulder replacement surgery. Also, I'm very thankful to say I have gotten much relief in my hands. Bill

Bill Fitzhenry's Thoughts For Today…

Understanding important truths from the Bible….

II Peter 2:1

¹ But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction.

After a seasonal layoff, here I come at you again. For all of you who read and tolerate my considerations, please understand I take full responsibility for them. I have two controlling concerns. First is to stay within the bounds of the Scriptures as they have been and are presently understood by orthodox teachers of the historic church. Secondly, it is to be in submission to my church and confession of faith. If you want to know what these are please contact me personally.

II Peter 2:1 is a continuation of what Peter is writing in chapter 1. Just as Scripture is inspired, it is not the opinion of an individual. This is a fact of our faith. With equal certainty, the church will experience false teachers. Like the false prophets of old they are certain to be present and equally certain to have no part in the true Word. Cf Isaiah 8:20. To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

These false teachers have a common feature of departure, “They deny the despotes who bought them.” What Peter is plainly saying is that they commonly - whatever else may be special about them – deny the atonement.

They deny the character, the nature, and the efficacy of the death of the God man.

Let’s look at this denial. First, they deny the character of the atonement. They will neither accept nor allow the justice of God to be the grounds of the atonement. They do not see their god as either caring about justice or able to do anything about it. If he ever had any concern about justice or his personal holiness, he has now left this to man to figure out and balance out in his own way.

Secondly, they both deny, and are completely ignorant of, the nature of the atonement. They do not know or accept it as covenantal because they are unwilling to admit God is organized and determined enough to have a covenant. The false teacher passes over the fact that the death of the Savior is a divine transaction. It is done by God for His own purposes and its application to man is a result. Cf Acts 2:23; Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; Eccles. 3:14 I know that whatever God does,
It shall be forever.
Nothing can be added to it,
And nothing taken from it.
God does it, that men should fear before Him.

Thirdly and more broadly applicable, false teachers deny the efficacy of the atonement. The atonement is approached by these teachers three ways:

A. The death of Christ is not better at the best than the death of a great martyr who is to be an example or chosen as some model for a self-sacrificing life.

B. The death of Christ is a real possibility for pardon of sin, nothing more, if one will let him be or accept him as such.

C. The most evangelical of this false theology allows that the death of Christ purchased for man the ability to choose. Gospel salvation is if he wills, his will being free and able to choose. And it has reconciled God to the whole sinful race leaving it to the sinner to give up his enmity to God. Always the crux of the issue lies in the will of man.

To be forewarned is to be to forearmed. We have no excuse for falling under the spell of these false teachers. And it follows that it is a terrible sin on the part of any believer to believe wrongly about God. The first commandments warn against idolatry. There is an absolute certainty in application of these two commands, it is as disobediently sinful to think wrongly about the true God as it is to have a false God.

More to follow…