This is Spoken Gospel.

We’re dedicated to seeing 
Jesus in all of scripture.

In each episode, we see what’s 
happening in a Biblical text

and how it sheds light
on Jesus and his gospel.

Let’s jump in.

Peter is on the attack.

False teachers have accused 
him of teaching the myth  

that Jesus will return to judge 
their sexuality and greed.

This false teaching denies Jesus’ authority
to rule and denies a coming day of judgment—

and so denies that Christians are 
obligated to any one moral code.

In other words, if God isn’t going 
to judge, we can do what we want.

But Peter attacks each of these assumptions.

First, and with regard to Jesus’ authority,
Peter says it’s no myth that he and the other apostles
are eyewitnesses to Jesus’ transfiguration.

Jesus’ transfiguration in the
Gospels is the moment when

the apostles realize that Jesus
has the authority to rule the world.

God speaks from heaven that 
Jesus is his coronated Son.

And he’s joined by Moses, Israel’s 
first king, and Elijah the Restorer,  

the first person in the Bible to
raise someone from the dead.

The false teachers are wrong.

The transfiguration reveals that
Jesus has been given authority over

life, death and the universe—
and Peter is a witness.

Second, Peter proves a coming day of judgment.

Part of the false teachers’ argument was that the idea of a
prophesied day of judgment was man’s invention, not God’s.  

“Judgment” is a tool used by the religious 
to force moral control through fear.

But Peter says that prophecies of 
judgment are not man-made constructs.

Instead, they are product of the Holy Spirit.

The idea that there is no coming
judgment is what's man-made,  

and in fact this objection has also been 
prophesied by the Holy Spirit they deny.

This denial of inevitable judgment 
is ancient and it has consequences.

Peter then proves this with three famous 
stories of judgment from the Old Testament:  

the fall of the sons of God, Noah’s 
flood, and Sodom and Gomorrah.

In these stories, angelic beings, Noah’s 
contemporaries, and the citizens of the  

twin cities all reject God’s moral authority, 
they indulge in their sexual and material lusts,  

and then become examples of
what will happen to all the ungodly.

They will be judged.

Finally, Peter addresses the false teachers’ 
claims about morality by pairing the inevitable

judgment of the ungodly with the inevitable
rescue of the morally righteous.

Noah and Lot were both righteous men grieved by the moral
and spiritual evil around them, and they were both saved.

Righteousness matters.

In denying that Jesus will return and 
in promoting an anything-goes morality,  

these false teachers
aren’t just denying Scripture.

They’re also denying any 
rescue from a world of evil.

Peter calls this type of thinking animalistic.

These false teachers slouch from appetite to appetite, 
barking about things they refuse to understand.

Driven by money, they’re like Balaam,
an old testament prophet who sold  

his incantations to the highest bidder and 
whose animal was more sane than his master.

Like a waterless spring, 
preaching so-called freedom  

while denying Jesus’ coming is 
useless at best, and inhuman at worst.

These false teachers are so afraid of God’s authority,
they enslave themselves to their own primal passions.

And like dogs and pigs, they
can’t help but eat their own filth.

[music]

Peter is on the attack—and you can tell.

He’s speaking to us by speaking 
against these false teachers.

Some of us might need to hear Peter’s harsh 
rebuke about the inevitability of judgment.

Others might share the false 
teacher’s skepticism about  

Jesus’ coming and are intrigued 
by a less morally rigorous faith.

So some of you need to hear Peter’s warning about
the inevitable implosion of a life ruled by your
appetites, and submit to a Ruler other than yourself.

But all of us need to hear the good news that
rescue and deliverance are inevitable for the righteous.

Peter has already said that those who
know Jesus share his divine nature.

If we are in Jesus, our rescue is secure!

Like Noah, we can boldly preach 
righteousness to a world going under.

Like Lot, we can weep over a 
world lost in its debauchery.

And like both of them, we can be confident that the closest
we will come to experiencing judgment is reading about it.

God has a history of saving the righteous, and he will do
it for all of us who know and trust his Son, the King, Jesus.

May the Holy Spirit open your eyes 
to see the God who judges evil.

And may you see Jesus as the one who rules
the world and saves the righteous from judgment.