GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
2 PETER 2:12-13
12 But these men blaspheme about matters they do not understand. They are like irrational animals, brute beasts born for capturing and killing. They too will be destroyed and perish. 13 They will be paid back harm for the harm they have done. They consider self-indulgence in broad daylight to be a pleasure. Those stains, those disgraces, revel in their deceptions while they feast with you.
Peter’s warning about the unrighteous now brings us into the mind-set of the wicked, and the truth is that there is no “mind-set” at all. They are animals. They do not live according to faith, nor even human reason, or compassion of any kind. They are animals, irrational animals. When Peter says that they are “born for capturing and killing,” he means one of two things. Either they are like those animals who do nothing but hunt and kill, “like wolves, lions, bears, sparrow hawks, and eagles, since they scrape and tear from the people everything they can, property and honor.” Or else they should be given no more consideration than those animals that we breed for table. We don’t need to give any more concern for them than we do for the fish, the chicken or the cow that is butchered for our supper. Judgment Day will dispatch them for all eternity.
That judgment is the Lord’s to give, not ours; especially the punishment for wrongdoing. God will separate the wheat from the weeds on the Last Day (Matthew 13:40), and the wicked are of course those weeds. All we need to do is to trust in the Lord, and not take such matters into our own hands. Of course, we will separate ourselves from false teaching and from false teachers (Romans 16:17), but we can and should still pray that they will learn their error and repent. But if they do not, then “they will be paid back harm for the harm they have done.” For when anyone hears the word of God and lives by it, he will receive from the Lord everything the Lord has promised: forgiveness, life, salvation, and even earthly blessings such as “a godly spouse, godly children, godly workers, godly and faithful leaders, good government, good weather, peace and order, health, a good name, good friends, faithful neighbors, and the like” (Small Catechism, Fourth Petition). But if anyone hears the word of God and does not repent, then they only add to their sins, and will receive the very opposite from God. This is what it means to be paid back harm for the harm they have done.
Peter adds: “They consider self-indulgence in broad daylight to be a pleasure.” This means that what most people, slipping into temptation, would only tremble to do, hesitantly, under the cover of darkness, the wicked do in broad daylight. They throw caution to the wind and don’t care who knows about their foul, sinful habits. They are like a thief who doesn’t care about his stealing or who knows about it, and so he takes the wallets and purses he’s stolen, empties them into his own drawer, then tosses them outside his bedroom window, leaving all the evidence of his sins for the world to see. The wicked consider their disgraceful lives to be proper and praiseworthy, and they attack anyone who says otherwise. They roar with laughter at the proverb: “Better a little with righteousness than wealth with wrongdoing.”
Since some of these wicked men and women are hypocrites within the membership of our churches, Peter adds even more to his warning. He calls them “stains and disgraces” or “spots and stains” who “feast with us.” Part of this feasting is enjoying the privilege of the Lord’s Supper, but also the other feasting that is available to the church: all of the spiritual eating and drinking that comes into our ears through the preaching and teaching of the gospel. When they take communion, they do it to their own judgment, as Paul warns (1 Corinthians 11:31). But those hypocrites don’t miss any of the blessings that could have been theirs; they have been right there in the pews and chairs with the rest of us. Perhaps there have been some who have taught in our schools, and even preached in our pulpits. I don’t mean that pastors and teachers should be sinless. Such a thing is impossible for fallen humanity. But there may have been some who have disguised their unbelief, or who have gotten so wrapped up in a foul life of sin that they couldn’t bear to think of a life without that sin, and stopped thinking of it as a sin at all (1 Timothy 4:2). When they are found out, they don’t repent and remain in the pews. They just up and leave, “believing that God’s anger never punishes, and that he does not take the least notice of wickedness” (Job 35:15). But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord at all. He doesn’t bless them in any way, but he hides his face from them because of the evil they have done.
And yet, when hypocrites have disguised their sinful hearts and have stood in a position to serve, the Lord is able to work even through their sinful works. He blessed Israel through many wicked kings and priests. And we confess as a church: “Since in this life many hypocrites and evil persons are mingled with believers, it is allowable to use the sacraments even when they are administered by evil men, according to the saying of Christ, ‘The scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat’ (Matthew 23:2). Both the sacraments and the word are effectual by reason of the institution and commandment of Christ even if they are administered by evil men” (Augsburg Confession, Article VIII, par. 1-2). Because the word and sacrament is given by God, it is food for the soul no matter what hand passes it along as it comes down the table to each one of us, just as your mother’s cooking is good for you even though a sneak thief or robber is sitting at your table and passing the dish to you.
Be thankful that God works in our sinful world despite the sins of so many. Who among us could ever say that he has been a sinless husband, an ideal citizen, a perfect pastor, a paragon of godly virtues? The sins we have committed are more in number than the sand of the sea. Yet the word of the Lord works! This is the daily miracle of God’s will for us. He wrote our names in his book before he set the world on its foundations, and he has moved history, brought down nations, and raised up generations of Christian teachers, pastors, and parents, to bring his gospel of forgiveness and life to our very ears, to put faith into our hearts. By his grace, he has even used us, you and me, in this same great work for the generations that follow. “The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.”
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
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Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota
God’s Word for You – 2 Peter 2:12-13 Hypocrites and hedonists