2 Peter 2:20-22

20. Certainly if after escaping from the defilements of the world by an accurate knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they get involved again with these very things and are overcome, their final state has become worse for them than the first.

21. It would have been better for them not to have accurately known the path of righteousness than after knowing it to turn away from the holy commandment they had received.

22. What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog has returned to its own vomit, and the sow that was bathed to rolling in the mire.”

Explanation

In these verses, Peter is addressing “false teachers” within the churches, not believers.

In fact, the whole chapter is on teachers in the church.

Even though these people were taught the truth about Christ and even knew how to be saved, they chose to reject the truth and return to their sinful ways. These were people who remained as unbelievers and even though they had a clear knowledge of the way of salvation they did not possess true saving faith.

So the immediate context of this verse does not indicate that the people were believers; rather it implies that they were never genuinely converted to Christ. Even the use of the phrases “holy commandment” and “to have known the way” are not terms typically associated with salvation but rather with a conceptual knowledge of Christian ethics and moral values.

The word ‘escape’ is also written in the aorist tense, which indicates that it was actually an event that took place in the past. At some point in time, these false teachers and their followers wanted to escape the moral contamination of the world system and so they sought religion, even Jesus Christ (on their terms, not His).

It was evident that these false teachers had never been truly converted to Christ. Although they heard the true gospel and moved toward it, they openly rejected Christ. This is a picture of apostasy, like the one described in (Heb 10:26,27).

The reason why Peter says the people are “worse off than before” is because they have rejected the only way out of sin, and the only way to salvation.

If one rejects truth deliberately, he or she incurs greater punishment from God than if he or she has lesser understanding and goes astray (Luke 12:47-48).

“John Piper – Peter is not teaching that God’s elect can lose their salvation. He is most definitely teaching that church members can be lost and people who make outward professions of faith and even begin to clean up their lives can turn away from Christ and be lost.”

But in verse 22 he explains to us in a proverb that we should not be overly surprised at this: dogs characteristically return to their vomit; and no matter how clean you make a pig on the outside, if it is still a pig it will return to the mire. In other words, those who leave the way of righteousness, never to return, simply show that their inner nature had never been changed.

This was Peter’s way of saying what 1Jn 2:19 says, “They went out from us, but they were not of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that it might be plain that they are all not of us.” Or as Jesus said, “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Mt 10:22).

Or as Hebrews puts it, “We share in Christ if we hold our first confidence firm to the end” (He 3:14–note).

Or as Paul says, “I preached to you the gospel which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast” (1 Cor 15:1,2) The whole New Testament is agreed: there is no salvation apart from persevering faith. And persevering faith always works itself out in the way of righteousness.

Therefore to abandon the way of righteousness is to exclude oneself from salvation.”

In conclusion, 2 Peter 2:20-22 is not a passage about true believers losing their salvation, but rather about individuals who, despite knowing the truth of the gospel, reject it and return to their sinful ways. Peter’s vivid descriptions emphasize that these false teachers and their followers were never truly converted to Christ.

Their superficial engagement with the faith was not genuine saving faith.

As seen throughout the New Testament, true salvation is marked by persevering faith that endures until the end. Those who fall away, like the false teachers in this passage, show that their inner nature was never truly transformed by the gospel.

Ultimately, this passage warns of the grave consequences for those who reject the only means of salvation and return to the defilements of the world.