Come out From Among Them

The apostle Peter warns his readers that, just as in Old Testament times (e.g. Deuteronomy 13), when there were false prophets among the people of Israel, so there will be false teachers among the Christian leadership who will bring into New Testament churches “damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction” (2 Peter 2:1); in other words, everlasting ruin in hell.

Their false doctrines, and they themselves, “deny the Lord that bought them” even while they pretend to be ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ, and servants of the Lord. Being in the office of a teaching minister, they have taken an oath of service to the Lord; but they are serving themselves.

Their “covetousness” is what drives them preach “feigned words,” by which they “make merchandise of you,” their congregation (v.3)—they themselves get rich by enslaving, exploiting, and selling you. They say that they have been “bought” by Christ as it were, from the slave market of sin; but their damnable heresies are proof that they do not belong to Christ but they really deny him. And in their preaching and ministries, what they are really about is buying souls and selling souls as their own merchandise.

Meanwhile their own “pernicious ways” are seen and mocked by a watching world, so that these pretended men of God and women of God bring the church of Christ into disrepute—“by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of” (v.2).

Does this sound like your church? Has Peter “hit the nail on the head”, or “nailed it”, as people commonly say these days? One prime example of this is the evil faith-prosperity/ faith-healing false gospel. But such buying and selling of Christian men and women by so-called Christian preachers—sadly this happens in many churches and denominations.

Wherever you see it, call it out. You must do whatever you can to warn your family and friends there, and to rebuke and correct the false teacher or teachers in your church’s pulpit. But—this rebuke and correction must be done in a loving way, intended to convert people out of such heresies (see James 5:19-20; 1 Peter 4:8). But, if they do not listen and repent, then you must leave them.

Swift Destruction

You really do not want to be part of a church that shames the Lord Jesus Christ. You do not want to find yourself under what he will swiftly bring upon them, when the time is right.

Now, there may be deceived, but genuinely Christ-bought teachers teaching “damnable heresies,” as well as unsaved false teachers who teach the same errors—these are indistinguishable, for a time. What a dreadful state a church has fallen into, when such heresies have taken over, where the pastors teach Christians sinful false doctrines—damnable heresies—and seek to recruit you to join the many who follow them in their pernicious ways! And what a seriously dreadful state a church has fallen into, when under these heresies and the sinful practices, there is no way of identifying who in congregation or pulpit is a true Christian and who is not, because all are in error and all are involved in corrupting doctrines and corrupt practices, careless that their reputation is spoilt before a watching world.

How does the Lord Jesus Christ deal with such compromised Christians and their churches? For he surely knows who are his people and who are not, even though some of his own people are (for a while) believers and even preachers of these heresies.

The Bible teaches us that Christ does deal with false teachers and their followers. For his own honour, he brings “swift destruction” upon them (2 Peter 2:1)—even upon some who have been blood-bought by the Lord. After repeated rebuttals, warnings and calls to repentance, and after chastisement of afflictions not being heeded, there is only one course of action remaining.

Judgment Must Begin at the House of God

There inevitably will come when this becomes true in a compromised and corrupted church: “For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17). We can be sure of this: Christ will not endure “the way of truth being evil spoken of” (2 Peter 2:2). He will allow these errors to run their course for as long as his purposes require, but then he will swiftly consign them to history. And woe betide any that revive ancient errors!

Many teachers of false doctrines are not true Christians but are unsaved. They may have deliberately infiltrated the Church of Christ in order to subvert it. They may through sheer self discipline withhold themselves from outward sin for a while, in order to pretend to be holy. But their true nature will eventually manifest itself—and it will especially come out in a church that they have turned evil by their damnable heresies.

The word evil does indeed apply here, as do the words “danmable” and “pernicious.” For besides contradicting the Bible, their false doctrine inevitably promotes and gives licence to sinful practices. As Peter himself says, the ungodly in church and pulpit “walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness,” and they behave as “natural brute beasts,” “having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin,” and they “allure through the lusts of the flesh, through wantonness” (2 Peter 2:10-18). They use all the tactics they can to enslave and make merchandise of you.

God will judge perverse heretics for their efforts to drag down Christians into becoming “servants of corruption”—turned evil, like themselves (v.19).

Again, if this sounds like the church you’re part of in any way—get out of it!

True Christians who are ensnared in such corrupt churches do eventually heed the warnings, and therefore they repent of the errors and they “come out from among them” (see 2 Corinthians 6:13-18). They do not remain, but they are compelled by God build a means of escape and to actually leave, as were Noah and Lot in times past (2 Peter 2:4-8). “The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished” (v.9).

Similarly, if a pastor or theological seminary teacher comes to understand that part of what he has been teaching is an error—even a damnable heresy, then he will know that he must repent even if it means he must leave his place and office, for the honour of his Lord Jesus Christ.

The Lord delivers his people from error. But fake Christians and false teachers are those who repeatedly and ultimately fail to repent and reform.

Appendix

Matthew Poole, Commentary on the Whole Bible, at 2 Corinthians 6:17. (Paragraph breaks added.)

The apostle here quoteth words out of the Old Testament, no where to be found there syllabically, without variation, but keeping to the sense of them, which is a thing very usual with the penmen of the New Testament. The first quotation seemeth to be taken from Isaiah 52:11: Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing; go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.

Interpreters are not agreed as to the term from whence the prophet there admonisheth the Jews to depart: some make it to be their former sinful courses; others make it to be the kingdom of the devil and antichrist; others make it to be literal Babylon; the prophet foreseeing, that when the Jews should have a liberty given them to leave Babylon, (which happened in the time of Cyrus the Persian monarch,) some of them (now as it were incorporated with the Chaldeans) would linger, and find a difficulty to pluck up their stakes in Babylon, though it were in order to their return to Jerusalem, heretofore the joy and praise of the whole earth.

Whatever was the prophet’s meaning, certain it is, the apostolical precept cannot be interpreted of a leaving literal Babylon, for neither the Christian Jews, nor Gentiles, were at this time there; he must therefore be understood of a mystical Babylon. And the sense must be this: Come out and be ye separate from those with whom your souls will be in as much danger as the Jews were in the literal Babylon.

But whether by these are to be understood idolaters only, or all notorious scandalous livers, is the question: The true determination of which, I conceive, dependeth upon the sense of those words: Come out, be ye separated; which words, I think, are not fully interpreted by those that follow, touch not the unclean thing; for, doubtless, the former words are a precept concerning the means to be used in order to that as an end, it being a hard thing to touch pitch, and not to be defiled therewith. On the other side, they interpret it too rigidly, who make it to be a prohibition of all commerce or company with such persons; for this is contrary to the apostolical doctrine in his former Epistle to this church, where he had allowed, 1 Corintians 5, a civil commerce and traffic with the worst of men; and, 1 Corinthians 7, had forbidden the separation of Christians and heathens, once joined in marriage, unless the unbeliever first departed.

The text therefore must be understood only of elective and unnecessary, intimate communion; and is much the same with that, 2 Corinthians 6:14: Be ye not unequally yoked with unbelievers. So as that it doth by no means justify the withdrawing of all civil or religious communion from those whose judgments or practice in all things we cannot approve; it only justifieth our withdrawing our communion from idolaters, and from notorious scandalous sinners in such duties and actions, or in such degrees, as we are under no obligation to have fellowship and communion with them in; and our forbearing to touch their unclean things in that fellowship and communion which we are allowed with them, having no fellowship with them in their unfruitful works of darkness, but reproving them, even while in civil things, and some religious actions, we have some fellowship with them.