The Danger of Confessions and Creeds - II Peter 2:1

"But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves." II Peter 2:1

My father had a very well-known and renowned New Testament scholar as a professor when he was in seminary. He really respected this man and looked up to him in a number of ways. But some years ago this same professor got enamored with the Westminster Confession of Faith and allowed it to replace the Bible as his ultimate source of truth. One of the doctrines he began to promote was limited atonement, even though that doctrine is contrary to the doctrinal statement signed by this professor, and more importantly, contrary to a number of Scriptures.

My father had the unhappy task of interviewing his former mentor about this situation. He asked this man about how he would reconcile his new-found belief witih several scripture passages, but one in particular was very telling.

I remember my father relating this scene to me several years ago. He was sitting across from this professor and looked him right in the eyes and asked him, "What about I Peter 2:1....you're a Greek scholar. Doesn't the word agorazw normally mean to "buy out of the marketplace"? My father said, "He just smiled at me". He knew that this word used in II Peter 2:1 clearly indicates that Jesus Christ our "master" paid for the redemption of the false teachers referenced in this verse with His own blood. And these "false teachers" are not among the elect as the verse tells us explicitly of their fate. This man had taught the truth of unlimited atonement to students like my father. But when believers begin to buy into theological systems and man-made creeds that are logical and reasonable, but not completely biblical, this is what happens to even very fine scholars.

The truth is that limited atonement is not heresy, and a lot of good Christians hold to it (including some of my close relatives). Depending on how far one takes it applicationally it may or may not be a problem in presenting the gospel. My concern is that it is a classic example of a doctrine that logically follows from the biblical doctrine of election, but it doesn't follow biblically. There are several passages that speak against it explicitly like II Corinthians 5:19 (see this post). Someone just pointed out Hebrews 2:9 to me the other day which says, "He [Christ] might taste death for everyone." But II Peter 2:1 is one of the very toughest passages to fit with the limited atonement view. I've read whole books by people trying to explain away the clear teaching of this verse. Someone tried to prove that the word agorazw means "to create". But it doesn't mean that in Greek, maybe in Martian. Others have tried to say that this verse is a reference to God's deliverance of Israel from Egypt. Nice try, but the subject is "false teachers", not Israel.

The bottomline is that it is a temptation for a lot of us to rely too heavily on theological systems or man-made confessions. But as the reformers proclaimed, we need to base all our doctrine on "sola scriptura". And that means all of scripture, not just the passages we like or that support our particular position. If  there are a number of verses that do not support a specific doctrine, we need to re-study it, and until then, hold it less dogmatically.