The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Peter — Section 60

fishers of men, but not with the gospel net; they hide their deadly hook with an alluring bait. But the end of these things is death; for impurity is deadly sin in the sight of God. The body of the Christian is a temple of God the Holy Ghost; and "if any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy." III. THEIR COVETOUSNESS. 1. Their example. Not Christ the Lord, not his holy apostles, who could say, as St. Peter once said, "Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee;" but Balaam the son of Beor-that unhappy man who "heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High," and yet loved the wages of unrighteousness; who was a prophet, and yet mad and foolish; who could pray, "May 1 die the death of the righteous," and yet tried, and in some measure succeeded, to entice the people of God to deadly sin, and himself perished miserably amoncr0 the enemies of the Lord. His guilt was awful exceedingly. He sought to destroy souls for the sake of his own wretched gain. So it was with these false teachers. The love of money, the root of all evil, had taken possession of their heart; they shrank from no sin, if only they might gratify that tyrant passion. 2. The result. 'l'hey became trained in covetousness. They were like athletes, practised wrestlers; but the prize which was always before their eyes was, not the crown of glory that fadeth not away, but those poor earthly treasures which fall away from the dying man, and leave the unhappy soul desolate in the hour of its utmost need. For this prize, the reward of unrighteousness, they sought, like Balaam, to lure souls to ruin. 'fherefore were they children of curse; for the souls of men are very precious in the sight of God, and his awful curse must light upon the heads of those wicked men-all the more intensely wicked if, like Balaam, they hold sacred offices-who cause Christ's little ones to stumble and fall, and destroy the souls for whom the Lord Jesus died. IV. Tm:m TEACHIKG. 1. It is 'Vain. They are wells without water. God is the Fountain of living waters. True believers become, in a secondary sense, fountains also. The water that he giveth is in them a well of water spricging up unto eternal life. These men exhibit the appearance of wells; they profess to be teachers, but there is no living water in them. They have none themselves; they cannot give it to others. They are like clouds that promise rain, but are driven away by the wind, and fail to satisfy the thirsty land. They speak great swelling words, but they are words of vanity, empty and profitless, not like the words of eternal life which the Lord Jesus hath; not like the word of reconciliation which he bath committed to his faithful dis- ciples. 2. It is dangerous. For those high-sounding phrases cover an evil life. They gather followers round them by means of their specious eloquence, and then entice them to destruction by wicked example. They bait their hook with their own licentious practices, and sometimes, alas! succeed in destroying souls that were just escaping from evil influences. They promise them liberty, but the liberty of which they boast is not that liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free-the liberty which recognizes the freedom of the Christian within the sphere of things indifferent, but even within that sphere carefully avoids giving offence to the cocsciences of others, and sensitively shrinks even from the appearance of evil. '£heir liberty is libertinism. It is freedom from moral restraints; it is a revolt against the holy Law of God; it is a lie, for it contradicts both the moral instincts of human nature and the truth of God. It is not liberty; for those only are free indeed whom the Son of God makes free in that service which is perfect freedom. This false liberty is really slavery, bondage to sic. V. THEIR MISERABLE CONDITION. 1. They are slaves. 'l'hey talk loudly about liberty, but they are slaves themselves. '!'hey have yielded themselves up to the evil one; he has corrupted their whole nature, and uses them to corrupt others. 'fbey are slaves of corruption, overcome by it, and brought into bondage to it. Vice allures men at first. It offers a deceitful pleasurt:; it makes the restraint~ of virtue seem irksome; it presents a show of freedom. It entices men; then it ecsnares them. Now acd then they offer a feeble resistance: it draws its net tighter and closer; their struggles become contioually fainter; it holds them secure; they are captive. They find out, when it is too late, the deceitfulness of sin. The false pleasure becomes real misery. 'l'h~y feel it, but their strnngth is gone. 'l'hey arc overcome; they are in bondage from wlnch they cannot escape. Such is the pretended freedom of vicious men. Only those whom the truth makes free are free indeed. 2. Perhaps some of them were once free, Christians have escaped from the bondage of sic, Ouce, it may be, they lovJd lln. n, 1-22,] TllE SECOND EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER. 65