The Meaning of 2 Peter 2:20-22

Another passage that some refer to as teaching that a genuine believer can lose their salvation is found in 2 Peter. This passage reads:

For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “A dog returns to its own vomit,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.” (2 Peter 2:20-22)

To begin with, this passage is taken from a larger passage which consists of 2 Peter 2 in its entirety. The subject of the passage is false teachers and their impending doom and judgment by God (2 Peter 2:17). So immediately we see that those under consideration in the context of this passage are not true believers, but false teachers.

In verse 20, Peter said that these individuals “have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”. These again are those individuals who heard the proclamation of the Gospel message. They had received “knowledge” of Jesus Christ and had

“escaped the defilements of the world”, in that they were present in the congregations of the early churches and partakers with genuine believers in hearing the preaching and teaching of the word of God (Compare Hebrews 6:4-8). But they were not changed by the Gospel message; they never came to faith in Christ. They were in fact unregenerate and bore only bad fruit, as is abundantly clear from the context of 2 Peter 2.

When Peter spoke of these individuals as being “again entangled” and “overcome” by the defilements of the world, we know that he is not speaking of believers, because as John taught: “for whatever is born of God overcomes the world…” (1 John 5:4, emphasis added). No genuine believer is overcome by the pollutions of the world. Rather, everyone who has been born of God will overcome the world and all of the defilements in the world by the power of the One living within them, Jesus Christ Himself.

The unregenerate condition of the individuals to whom Peter referred in 2 Peter 2:20-22 becomes even clearer when we look at verse 22, where he wrote: “It has happened to them according to the true proverb, ‘A dog returns to its own vomit,’ and, ‘A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.’” A dog and a pig were both considered unclean animals, according to the Old Testament dietary laws.

The point to be made when looking at verse 22 is that though these individuals may have professed a faith in Christ, they were in fact unregenerate, or unclean. They did not persevere in the faith, but they went back to the unclean ways they had known before because there had never been any change in their lives; they had never come to faith in Christ. Just as the unclean dog and pig both go back to the uncleanness to which they have always been accustomed, so also these professing but unregenerate individuals went back to the defilements of the world.