2 Peter 2:22
Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.”
Truth to Learn
Without the God-given new birth, we will all return to our former ways.
Meaning Explained
For the past two verses Peter has been talking about people who confess to be believers but who never really became Christians. These people, under their own power, have attained a sort of intellectual salvation from their former way of life but without the quickening of the Spirit of God. Instead, they have been lured back into their former sinful ways.
Peter herein describes this return to their former manner of life with two proverbial expressions. The first is a reference to Proverbs 26:11, which says:
As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.
This is Peter’s off-handed way of saying that these people were fools to have thought that they could have attained their own salvation. They have proven their folly by returning to their former manner of life.
The other proverbial phrase that Peter uses is not a reference to anything found in the Bible, but it is common in rabbinical writings and is also found in classical Greek writings. No matter how much effort you may put into cleaning up a pig, when left to its own devices it will return to the mud as is the manner of pigs.
Although this and the two previous verses have been used by some to show that it is possible to “fall from grace” and lose one’s salvation, as usual with proof texts for false doctrines, it actually demonstrates the opposite. Peter is pointing out that these people never were changed. If they had been truly saved, they would have a different nature and would never have returned to their former manner of life. Likewise, someone who has been truly saved has a new nature. Peter even used this image in the opening verses of this epistle where he said:
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1:3,4)
The Apostle Paul said it another way in 2 Corinthians 5:17,
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
True salvation is something that God does, not something we do. When He does it, according to Paul, we become a new creature. And even though we still have our sin nature and our propensity to sin, we are truly changed, and we will demonstrate that change by developing different habits and a different lifestyle.
Application
In light of all that the Apostle Peter has taught us, let us all live like the new creatures we are, forsaking our old way of life. Stop living for yourself and your fleshly desires. Live for Him, for He is worthy!
In God’s service, for His glory,
Copyright © 2009 Will Krause. All rights reserved.
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