2 Peter 2:20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.
This verse echoes a common thought in the early church: it is a tragedy to turn away from Jesus once you believed. Hebrews 6:4-6 gives the strong warning that it is even “impossible” to come back to repentance after falling away. Peter is not quite so forceful in this verse but similar in intent. This verse is a strong warning to the false teachers and, by implication, to the readers of his letter who may be fooled and deceived into following false teaching. In this verse, the focus is on the “corruption of the world.” The meaning of this is broad enough to include many types of sins and evil influences found around us. This passage has hinted at the financial temptations and lure of wealth, but this can certainly be expanded to include many forms of selfishness, pride, and lusts of the flesh. We must be ever vigilant about the power of temptation. At first, many temptations are only a small compromise of conviction. As the temptations continue, the compromise gets bigger. The devil gets a foothold into the door of our lives and keeps pushing himself in. Peter uses the powerfully graphic word of “entangled” for how our lives can get caught up in the world. When we take our eyes off of Jesus, there is generally only one other place they go: to created things. As Paul wrote in Romans 1:23, people replace the worship of God with the worship of created things. Peter writes that this situation is even worse than before a person was a Christian. Why? Because they have deliberately turned from Christ. Such people are not innocent because they once knew Christ. They knew the truth about Christ, but because of their speculations and the enticement of the world, they drifted away.
What is the protection to keep this from happening? I find Galatians 2:20 a powerful help: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” We must be co-crucified with Christ. We must put ourselves before him every day and say, “Not my will, but yours.” We must choose to take up our crosses every day and follow Jesus. This commitment of self upon the altar of consecration will replace our own thinking with the mind of Christ. The Holy Spirit is the one who will help us stay true to the gospel as we daily and moment by moment choose the way of holiness, life, light, and love.
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