Escaping the Pollutions of the World

The apostle Peter issues further¹ warnings in his second epistle. There are some verses in these later warnings that are sometimes offered by eternal-security deniers as proof that Christians can lose their salvation by sinning it away: “For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.” (2 Peter 2:20-21).

However, this “they” of whom Peter speaks, he has already described them as “unstable souls” who came to church but who did not believe the gospel of Christ, and who remained unsaved. They have been taught “the way of righteousness,” but they preferred false doctrines, and were “beguiled” by teachers and preachers whose false gospel promised them liberty, and much else besides (see 2 Peter 2:14,19).

Were there some people coming to church, in Peter’s day, in an effort to escape the worst of the corrupt culture around them? Did they come because they wanted to make themselves better people by becoming disciples of Christ? Were they using Christianity was yet another philosophical system of personal development; a self-help religion? Did they merely admire the preaching on moral purity and holy living that Christianity was gaining a reputation for, and they wanted the Christian example to be a good influence upon themselves? We are not told why these people came to church in the first place, only that they had benefitted for a while by having the influence of a Christian culture around them—an environment in which they had escaped the pollutions of the world “through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” But had they been converted? Had they remained unchanged in their heart?—because after a while, it turned out that they left the church and returned to their old ways.

The question is: did the apostle regard these “unstable souls” (v.14) as true Christians? No. Peter indicates that they were never saved. Notice how he concludes by referring to them metaphorically as having been still “dogs” and “sows” all along, whose unchanged nature becomes evident again after a period of suppression: “But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire” (v.22).

It would have been better for such temporary fellow-travellers if they had never known the “way of righteousness.” Now their latter end will be worse than the end of those who never heard the gospel of Christ.

Be Alarmed at Your Sins, and Repent

Peter’s warnings of perdition (i.e. complete and utter ruin, including everlasting punishment in hell) for apostasy are serious and genuine warnings; but these warnings always encourage true believers in Christ to persevere in the faith and to flee from such errors. They may drive us to despair at the terrible throught that we may not be saved after all—our assurance being defeated when we see our sins and ask, “Would a true Christian do what I have done? Woe is me for loving the mire and the vomit more than Christ!”—“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24).

Such full-on alarms are used by God to bring us to sense, to stir us to repentance, to pull us out of our lapses into old habitual sins, and to rescue us from damnable heresies and from succumbing to the world’s temptations—even when these same temptations are taught by so-called Christian pastors.

The Christian life is neither static nor passive. It is an active “walk” of persevering effort as God enables by his grace, but it is a walk in which the true Christian can sometimes, sadly, take a wrong path and fall into error and sin.

True, godly perseverance involves keeping on the right way—and where necessary, repenting and returning to the right way—following the Christian path by heeding such Scriptural warnings as these.

The great call of the gospel includes God’s great promise which he makes to all who turn to Christ in faith and repentance: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31; compare John 3:16; Romans 10:9).

Through “repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21), which God bestows as gifts by his sovereign grace, a spiritually regenerated sinner “closes with Christ,” as our spiritual forebears used to say. Born-again sinners come to Christ (and they are the only kind of sinner that truly comes to Christ) because the Father draws them to him (John 6:44). “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13). This is how God establishes his covenant of grace with his elect people.

God keeps his promises. God has promised in the law, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4,20; see also Deuteronomy 27:26; Galatians 3:10). And God has promised in the gospel, “whosoever believeth in should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

Turn From Your Sins With Grief and Hatred

Believe the gospel! Repent of your sins—turn from your sins with grief and hatred.² Turn to God, begging him for mercy and forgiveness. Work to cultivate “fruits meet for repentance” instead of continuing your sins (Matthew 3:8). And with God’s enabling you “to will and to do of his good pleasure,” this is how you will “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12-13).

There is no such person as a true Christian who does not grow as a Christian. Admittedly, some true believers struggle spiritually, but they will inevitably repent and return to God’s way—and grow in it. But there are many who claim to be Christians, but the absence of all real repentance, and their deliberate and ultimate failure to live as a Christian ought to live, reveals the fact that there has been no regeneration of their soul.

What our Lord says concerning false prophets holds true for all false converts: “By their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:15-20).

Jesus also warned certain religious leaders of woe to come for their attempts at appearing to be truly religious while being nothing of the kind inside their hearts: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27).

The apostle Paul teaches Christians: “Ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them [i.e. the practitioners of counterfeit forms of ‘Christianity’],³ and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” (2 Corinthians 6:16-7:1; see also Ezekiel 11:20; Zechariah 8:7-8; Revelation 18:4).

Let us not miss Paul’s continuing argument because of the chapter-break in our Bibles: “Having therefore these [covenantal] promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1).

Understand the apostle’s argument: true Christians—who are the “dearly beloved” to whom Paul writes, and the dearly beloved of God—possess these promises that are integral to the covenant of grace. And, seeing that these promised blessings are indeed ours, therefore we ought to cleanse ourselves of our former unchristian manner of life—cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, as Paul also says. We should put off the old man with his deeds, and we should instead strive toward perfecting holiness: completely manifesting holy living in the fear, or reverence, of God.

A heart-change outworked in a life set apart from sin and worldliness. Touch not the unclean thing, and God will receive you. Having therefore such promises as this, dearly beloved, let us…do what Paul said.

Appendix

Thomas Boston, Human Nature in its Fourfold State, Part 3 Chapter 1. (Paragraph breaks added.)

For the better understanding of the nature of regeneration,⁴ take this along with you, that as there are false conceptions in nature, so there are also in grace: by these many are deluded, mistaking some partial changes made upon them for this great and thorough change. To remove such mistakes, let these few things be considered:

(1) Many call the church their mother, whom God will not own to be His children (Song of Songs 1:6). “My mother’s children,” that is, false brethren, “were angry with me.” All that are baptized are not born again. Simon was baptized, yet still “in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity” (Acts 8:13,23). Where Christianity is the religion of the country, many are called by the name of Christ, who have no more of Him than the name; and no wonder, for the devil had his goats among Christ’s sheep, in those places where but few professed the Christian religion (1 John 2:19), “They went out from us, but they were not of us.”

(2) Good education is not regeneration. Education may chain up men’s lusts, but cannot change their hearts. A wolf is still a ravenous beast, though it be in chains. Joash was very devout during the life of his good tutor Jehoiada; but afterwards he quickly shewed what spirit he was of, by his sudden apostasy (2 Chronicles 24:2-18). Good example is of mighty influence to change the outward man, but the change often goes off when a man changes his company, of which the world affords many sad instances.

(3) A turning from open profanity, to civility and sobriety, falls short of this saving change. Some are, for a while, very loose, especially in their younger years, but at length they reform, and leave their profane courses. Here is a change, yet only such as may be found in men utterly void of the grace of God, and whose righteousness is so far from exceeding, that it does not come up to the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.

(4) One may engage in all the outward duties of religion, and yet not be born again. Though lead be cast into various shapes, it remains still but a base metal. Men may escape the pollutions of the world, and yet be but dogs and swine (2 Peter 2:20-22). All the external acts of religion are within the compass of natural abilities. Yea, hypocrites may have the counterfeit of all the graces of the Spirit; for we read of “true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24); and “faith unfeigned” (1 Timothy 1:5), which shows us that there is counterfeit holiness, and a feigned faith.

(5) Men may advance to a great deal of strictness in their own way of religion, and yet be strangers to the new birth (Acts 26:5), “After the most straitest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee.” Nature⁵ has its own unsanctified strictness in religion. The Pharisees had so much of it, that they looked on Christ as little better than a mere libertine. A man whose conscience has been awakened, and who lives under the felt influence of the covenant of works, what will he not do that is within the compass of natural abilities? It is a truth, though it came out of a hellish mouth, that “skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life” (Job 2:4).

(6) A person may have sharp soul-exercises and pangs, and yet die in the birth. Many “have been in pain,” that have but, “as it were, brought forth wind.” There may be sore pangs of conscience, which turn to nothing at last. Pharaoh and Simon Magus had such convictions as made them to desire the prayers of others for them. Judas repented himself, and, under terrors of conscience, gave back his ill-gotten pieces of silver. All is not gold that glitters. Trees may blossom fairly in the spring, on which no fruit is to be found in the harvest: and some have sharp soul-exercises, which are nothing but foretastes of hell.