2Peter 2:20-22 - Home Where They Belong

20-22 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”


Does this mean that these false teachers were once saved and that now they have lost their salvation? No! A genuinely saved person can never be snatched from God’s hand.

But it is possible for the knowledge of God’s word and the testimony of Christ to make an effect upon a person without actually saving him. We need only think of the parable of the sower {Matthew 13:1-23} to understand this. The hearing of the word is often enough to bring about some outward reform, some external sign that imitates true salvation in some people. But they were never truly born of God’s Spirit to begin with. They were not regenerated. They had no new heart. Some false teachers may start out in this way - with an outward and sincere response to the word - but lacking a proper root and foundation (which is Jesus Christ) and increasingly unwilling to be taught, they ultimately prove their true unregenerate nature.

But what condemnation lies in this! To hear and to understand the word and yet not to come to repentance! To have the word make them clean by temporarily lifting them above some of the world’s defilements - yet never to walk in the Word by the indwelling power of the Spirit, in a regenerate heart, given by God’s grace. To have the word as a series of moral regulations which, by dint of mere human effort, they strive to follow until they become discouraged by their lack of true power to obey it.

These are they who become entangled again in the defilements of the world and whose last state is worse than their first. It is worse not because they lost salvation (an impossibility) - but because they came so close to it without receiving Christ. They hardened their hearts. And the false teachers who are in this condition also do this same thing to many - they harden hearts against the true gospel and the true Christ.

How many times can a person walk an aisle without truly repenting, be told that they have "accepted Jesus" just because they parroted a prayer, be foisted off with some mere emotional experience - and then be disillusioned because they have no true root in themselves? Each time this happens the heart becomes more callused, more cynical and less apt to hear the real truth. Well does the proverb speak of the dog returning to its own vomit and the washed sow wallowing in the mire. The dog is still a dog and the sow cannot change her own nature. Changing the outward appearance can have no effect upon the inner condition.

All such people are in need of great love and prayer. For though false teachers are accountable for much hardening, and men are responsible for believing the lie, and even we the true church are accountable for saying, "Peace, peace!" where there is no peace - or for failing to warn or rebuke or correct false teachings - though all these be true, yet God is still a merciful God, and He is able to save the person with the hardest heart. He saved me.

So long as we all bear in mind that there is a holy commandment given to all hearers, which is this - "Repent and believe the gospel." {Mark 1:14-15} It is a command and not an invitation.