OSAS And 2 Peter 2

Q

Can you please help me understand 2 Peter 2:20-21 and how it lines up with OSAS?

 

A

2 Peter 2:20-21 reads,

If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.

The context of 2 Peter 2 is false teachers and their destruction. From other clear passages explaining the certainty of our salvation and the Lord’s commitment not to lose even one of us, we can conclude that those Peter refers to are not and never were saved.

Knowing the Lord and knowing the way of righteousness  does not mean that a person has believed in his or her heart. The Greek words used there are all forms of “gnosis,” which means to know. The Greek word for believe is not related to “gnosis”, and it doesn’t appear anywhere in the passage.

Those Peter is describing have learned enough to be teachers, but haven’t believed what they’ve learned and are actually leading their students astray. Peter said it would be better for them if they had remained ignorant.

Speaking about false teachers John said, “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us” (1 John 2:19).

In summary, 2 Peter 2:20-21 can’t be used in reference to OSAS because it isn’t about believers.