promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for a man is brought into bondage by whoever overcomes him.
Parallel Translations
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promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for a man is brought into bondage by whoever overcomes him.
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They promys them libertye and are them selves the bonde servauntes of corrupcion. For of whom soever a man is over come vnto the same is he in bondage.
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Promising vnto them libertie, and are themselues the seruants of corruption: for of whomsoeuer a man is ouercome, euen vnto the same is he in bondage.
Cross-references (11)
Passages linked to 2 Peter 2:19 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- John 8:34 Jesus answered them, “Most certainly I tell you, everyone who commits sin is the bondservant of sin.
- Romans 6:16-22 Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered. Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification. For when you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now, being made free from sin and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification and the result of eternal life.
- Galatians 5:1 Stand firm therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
- Galatians 5:13 For you, brothers, were called for freedom. Only don’t use your freedom for gain to the flesh, but through love be servants to one another.
- 1 Peter 2:16 as free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bondservants of God.
- Titus 3:3 For we were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
- Jeremiah 23:9 Concerning the prophets: My heart within me is broken. All my bones shake. I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine has overcome, because of Yahweh, and because of his holy words.
- Romans 6:12-14 Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin will not have dominion over you. For you are not under law, but under grace.
- 2 Timothy 2:26 and they may recover themselves out of the devil’s snare, having been taken captive by him to his will.
- 2 Peter 2:20 For if, after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.
- Isaiah 28:1 Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fertile valley of those who are overcome with wine!
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 19. While they promise them liberty. He shews their…
19. While they promise them liberty. He shews their inconsistency, that they falsely promised liberty, while they themselves served sin, and were in the worst bondage; for no one can give what he has not. This reason, however, does not seem to be sufficiently valid, because it sometimes happens that wicked men, and wholly unacquainted with Christ, preach usefully concerning the benefits and blessings of Christ. But we must observe, that what is condemned here is vicious doctrine, connected with impurity of life; for the Apostle's design was to obviate the deceptive allurements by which they ensnared the foolish. The name of liberty is sweet, and they abused it for this end, that the hearer, being loosed from the fear of the divine law, might abandon himself unto unbridled licentiousness. But the liberty which Christ has procured for us, and which he offers daily by the gospel, is altogether different, for he has exempted us from the yoke of the law as far as it subjects us to a curse, that he might also deliver us from the dominion of sin, as far as it subjects us to its own lusts. Hence, where lusts reign, and therefore where the flesh rules, there the liberty of Christ has no place whatever. The Apostle then declares this to all the godly, that they might not desire any other liberty but that which leads those, who are set free from sin, to a willing obedience to righteousness.
We hence learn that there have ever been depraved men who made a false pretense to liberty, and that this has been an old cunning trick of Satan. We need not wonder that at this day the same filth is stirred up by fanatical men.
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The Papists turn and twist this passage against us, but they thereby betray their ridiculous impudence. For in the first place, men of the filthiest life, in public-houses and brothels, belch out this charge, that we are the servants of corruption, in the life of whom they cannot point out anything reproachful. In the second place, since we teach nothing respecting Christian liberty but what is derived from Christ and his Apostles, and at the same time require the mortification of the flesh, and the proper exercises for subduing it, much more strictly than they do who slander us, they vomit forth their curses, not so much against us as against the Son of God, whom we have as our certain teacher and authority.
For of whom a man is overcome. This sentence is derived from military law; but yet it is a common saying among heathen writers, that there is no harder or a more miserable bondage than when lusts rule and reign. What then ought to be done by us, on whom the Son of God has bestowed his Spirit, not only that we may be freed from the dominion of sin, but that we may also become the conquerors of the flesh and the world?
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are…
19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
Ver. 19. Promise them liberty] As Mahometism, and Popery, which is an alluring, tempting, bewitching religion. Sir Walter Raleigh knew what he said, that were he to choose a religion for licentious liberty and lasciviousness, he would choose the Popish religion. No sin past, but the pope can pardon; no sin to come, but he can dispense for it. No matter how long men have lived in any sin (though it be the sin against the Holy Ghost), extreme unction at last will salve all.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain While they promise them liberty; liberty for their lusts,…
While they promise them liberty; liberty for their lusts, and so from the yoke of the Divine law. They abused the name of Christian liberty, and extended it to licentiousness.
They themselves are the servants of corruption; under the power and dominion of sin.
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For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage: he alludes to the law of war, according to which, he that is overcome, and taken captive by his enemy, becomes his servant. These false teachers, that talked so much of Christian liberty, yet being overcome by their own lusts, and kept under by them, were the worst of slaves.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain Observe here, 1. How the old pretence for the…
Observe here, 1. How the old pretence for the most unbounded licentiousness has been liberty; they promise you liberty; a liberty to do any thing without fear: But this is not liberty poperly, but licentiousness, which in reality is the greatest slavery.
Accordingly it follows, they themselves are the servants of corruption; that is, such as promise you a sinful liberty, are the greatest slaves to sin and corruption themselves. All sin is servitude and slavery; and when sin and sinners flatter men with the great opinion of liberty, it makes them the most miserable vassals, and the worst of slave; for so many lusts, so many lords, so many vices, so many tyrants has a sinner over him; for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. As when the conqueror brings the vanquished into captivity, he makes them slaves, and imposes on them vile and servile offices; in like manner, those lusts, by which sinners have been conquered and brought in bondage, they must needs be slaves unto. Is this liberty, to obey every lust as a petty slave? Call you this freedom, when a man cannot choose but sin? If to sin be the only liberty, they have no liberty in heaven; no, this is the service of corruption; a thraldom, not a freedom: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain While they promise them liberty,.... Not Christian liberty, which…
While they promise them liberty,.... Not Christian liberty, which lies in a freedom from sin, its dominion, guilt, and condemnation, and in serving God with liberty, cheerfulness, and without fear; but a sinful carnal liberty, a liberty from the law of God, from obedience to it as a rule of walk and conversation, and from the laws of men, from subjection to the civil magistrate, and from servitude to masters, and obedience to parents; a liberty to lay aside and neglect the ordinances of the Gospel at pleasure, and to live in all manner of sin and wickedness; a liberty which is contrary to the nature, will, and work of Christ, to his Spirit, and to the principle of grace in the heart, and to the Gospel, and to the conduct and conversation of real saints. Now this was the snare by which the false teachers beguiled unstable souls; liberty being what is greatly desirable to men, and is suited to their carnal lusts and interests: but a vain promise was this, when
they themselves are the servants of corruption; of sin, which has corrupted all mankind in soul and body; and particularly the lust of uncleanness, which these men walked in, and by which they not only corrupted themselves, but the good manners of others also; and which tended and led them both to ruin and destruction, signified by the pit of corruption: and yet these very preachers, that promised liberty to others, were the servants of sin; they were under the power and government of sin. They were not only born so, and were homeborn slaves to sin, but they sold themselves to work wickedness; voluntarily and with delight, they served divers lusts and pleasures, and were slaves and drudges thereunto; as likewise to Satan, whose lusts they would do, and by whom they were led captive; so that their condition was mean, base, and deplorable, and therefore could never make good their promise, or give that which they had not themselves: and which is confirmed by the following reasoning,
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for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage: as this is a certain point in war, that when one man is conquered by another, he is no longer a free man, but the other's prisoner and captive, and is in a state of servitude and bondage; so it is when a man is overcome by sin, which must be understood not of a partial victory or conquest, for a good man may be surprised by sin, and overtaken in a fault, and be overcome and carried captive by it for a time, as was the apostle, see Rom 7:23; and yet not be a servant of corruption, or properly in a state of bondage to it; but this is to be understood of a total and complete victory, when a man is wholly under the dominion of sin, it reigns in his mortal body, and he obeys it in the lusts of it, and yields his members instruments of unrighteousness; such a man is neither a free man himself, nor can he much less promise and give liberty to others.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain While they promise them liberty - From needless restraints…
While they promise them liberty - From needless restraints and scruples; from the bondage of the law. Themselves are slaves of corruption - Even sin, the vilest of all bondage.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 19. While they promise them liberty] Either to…
Verse 19. While they promise them liberty] Either to live in the highest degrees of spiritual good, or a freedom from the Roman yoke; or from the yoke of the law, or what they might term needless restraints. Their own conduct showed the falsity of their system; for they were slaves to every disgraceful lust.
For of whom a man is overcome] This is an allusion to the ancient custom of selling for slaves those whom they had conquered and captivated in war. The ancient law was, that a man might either kill him whom he overcame in battle, or keep him for a slave. These were called servi, slaves, from the verb servare, to keep or preserve. And they were also called mancipia, from manu capiuntur, they are taken captive by the hand of their enemy. Thus the person who is overcome by his lusts is represented as being the slave of those lusts. See Ro 6:16, and the note there.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain While they promise them liberty - True religion always…
While they promise them liberty - True religion always promises and produces liberty (see the notes at Joh 8:36), but the particular liberty which these persons seem to have promised, was freedom from what they regarded as needless restraint, or from strict and narrow views of religion.
They themselves are the servants of corruption - They are the slaves of gross and corrupt passions, themselves utter strangers to freedom, and bound in the chains of servitude. These passions and appetites have obtained the entire mastery over them, and brought them into the severest bondage. This is often the case with those who deride the restraints of serious piety. They are themselves the slaves of appetite, or of the rules of fashionable life, or of the laws of honor, or of vicious indulgences. “He is a freeman whom the truth makes free, and all are slaves besides.” Compare the notes at 2Co 3:17.
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For of whom a man is overcome ... - Or rather “by what (ᾧ hō) anyone is overcome;” that is, “whatever” gets the mastery of him, whether it be avarice, or sensuality, or pride, or any form of error. See the notes at Rom 6:16, where this sentiment is explained.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain promise . . . liberty--(Christian)--These promises are instances of…
promise . . . liberty--(Christian)--These promises are instances of their "great swelling words" (Pe2 2:18). The liberty which they propose is such as fears not Satan, nor loathes the flesh. Pauline language, adopted by Peter here, and Pe1 2:16; see on Pe1 2:16; (compare Pe2 3:15; Rom 6:16-22; Rom 8:15, Rom 8:21; Gal 5:1, Gal 5:13; compare Joh 8:34).
corruption--(See on Pe2 2:12); "destroyed . . . perish . . . corruption."
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of whom--"by whatever . . . by the same," &c.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 4. Their corruption and utter apostasy, 2Pe_2:19-22.
4. Their corruption and utter apostasy, 2Pe_2:19-22.
19. Promise… liberty—Rather, Promising them liberty, themselves being. The great swelling was about liberty; nominally the Christian freedom which Christ effects for his people, (1Pe_2:16,) but really a freedom to do as they pleased, being under no law and without restraint. Yet these promisers were most abject slaves, and ignorant of real liberty. The proof is on the very surface; they were overcome by corruption, and so were made slaves to corruption, Joh_8:34; Rom_6:16.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 19. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are…
19. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption] We have here the characteristic feature of the teaching which St Peter condemns. It offered its followers freedom from the restraints which the Council of Jerusalem had imposed alike on participation in idolatrous feasts and on sins of impurity (Act_15:29). That this was the key-note of their claims we have a distinct indication in St Paul’s teaching on the same subject. His question “Am I not free?” (1Co_9:1), his condemnation of those who boasted of their “right” (“liberty” in the English version) to eat things sacrificed to idols (1Co_8:9), who proclaimed that all things were “lawful” for them (1Co_10:23), shew that this was the watchword of the party of license at Corinth, and the language of St Peter, though more coloured with the feeling of a burning indignation at the later development of the system, is, in substance, but the echo of that of his brother Apostle. In his contrast between the boast of liberty and the actual bondage to corruption we may trace a reproduction of our Lord’s teaching in Joh_8:34, of St Paul’s in Rom_6:16. The word for “they are the servants” (literally, being the servants) implies that this had been all along their settled, continuous state. The very phrase bond-slaves of corruption seems to reproduce Rom_8:21.
of whom a man is overcome …] The Greek leaves it uncertain whether the pronouns refer to a person, or to a more abstract power—wherein a man is overcome, to that he is enslaved. On the whole the latter seems preferable. Here again we have an echo of St Paul’s language in Rom_6:16.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (19) Promise them liberty.—A specimen of the “great swelling…
(19) Promise them liberty.—A specimen of the “great swelling words”—loud, high-sounding talk about liberty. The doctrines of Simon Magus, as reported by Irenæus (I., chap. xxiii. 3) and by Hippolytus (Refut. VI., chap. xiv.), show us the kind of liberty that such teachers promised—being “freed from righteousness” to become “the slaves of sin.”
Servants of corruption.—Better, bond-servants, or slaves of corruption. Our translators have often done well in translating the Greek word for “slave” by “servant” (see Note on 2Pe_1:1), but here the full force of the ignominious term should be given. Tyndale, Cranmer, and Geneva have “bond-servants;” Rheims “slaves.” (Comp. “bondage of corruption,” Rom_8:21.)
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Brought in bondage.—Or, enslaved. We seem here to have an echo of Joh_8:34 (see Notes there): “Every one who continues to commit sin is the slave of sin,” words which St. Peter may have heard. Comp. Rom_6:16-20, which the writer may also have had in his mind. There is nothing improbable in St. Peter being well acquainted with the Epistle to the Romans during the last years of his life; the improbability would rather be in supposing that he did not know it.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain While they promise them liberty; literally, promising. The words…
While they promise them liberty; literally, promising. The words cohere closely with the preceding clause. Liberty was the subject of their great swelling words of vanity; they talked loudly, made a great boast, about liberty. Perhaps they were wresting to their own destruction. (comp. 2Pe_3:15, 2Pe_3:16) the teaching of St. Paul concerning Christian liberty. St. Paul had spoken of the liberty of the glory of the children of God; (Rom_8:21) he had again and again asserted the liberty of Christians in things indifferent (see 2Co_3:17; 1Co_8:9 1Co_10:23, etc.) But he had insisted on the paramount duty of giving no offence, (1Co_8:13, etc.) and had earnestly cautioned his converts to "use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh." There were false teachers who maintained that the true Gnostic was free from moral restraints, in fact, that liberty meant libertinism, liberty to sin. (comp. 1Pe_2:16) They themselves are the servants of corruption. The construction is still participial, "being" (uJparcontev) being from the beginning servants of corruption. Those who talked about liberty were themselves all the time the bondservants, the slaves, of corruption. The word rendered "corruption" (fqora) in cludes the sense of" destruction," as in verse 12 and 2Pe_1:4. (comp. Rom_8:21) For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. "Of whom," or "by whatever;" by Satan, the personal tempter, or by sin, the innate tendency; the Greek word will bear either meaning. Some good manuscripts add "also," which strengthens the assertion; "is he also brought in bondage." St. Peter"s teaching corresponds exactly with that of St. Paul in Rom_6:16. There is a very close parallel to this clause in the "Clementine Recognitions" (5:12; quoted by Dr. Salmon, in his "Historical Introduction to the Books of the New Testament"): "unusquisque illius fit servus cui se ipse subjecerit.
Slaves promise liberty!
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1. In denouncing the delusions promoted by false teachers, St. Peter passesfrom invective to irony. He exhibits in this verse, not merely the impiety, but the very absurdity, of sinners, who, themselves enslaved to sin, are so unreasonable as to offer freedom to their dupes and victims! The language which he uses gives an insight into religious truths of the highest practical importance.
I THE TRUE CHRISTIAN IS FREE FROM SIN, AND IS IN BONDAGE TO CHRIST. There was a time when he was the captive, the thrall of error, perhaps of vice or of crime. From that bondage Divine grace delivered him. But, in renouncing the serfdom to sin, he became the Lord"s freedman. Yet the highest use the Christian makes of his freedom is to submit himself to the holiest and the kindest of Masters. Even apostles felt it an honour to subscribe themselves bondservants of the Lord Christ. The will of the Saviour is the law of the saved.
II THE FALSE CHRISTIAN IS FREE FROM CHRIST, AND IN BONDAGE TO SIN, He whose religion is only a name may call himself Christ"s, but in fact he has renounced the yoke that is easy and the burden that is light; he has given himself over to work the will of the tyrant who has usurped the throne which is by right Divine the proper inheritance of the Son of God. He may boast his liberty, but the boast is empty and vain.
III THE PROMISE OF LIBERTY ON THE PART OF SIN"S SLAVES IS FALLACIOUS AND VAIN. In politics it has always been common for those bound by their own lusts and vanity to make loud professions of liberty, and to invite men to partake of its delights. These were the men of whom Milton said they
Bawl for freedom in their senseless mood, And still revolt when truth would set them free. License they mean when they cry, "Liberty!" For who loves that must first be wise and good.
These were the men who led Dr. Johnson to denounce "patriotism as the last refuge of a scoundrel." These were the men whose conduct during the French Revolution led to the famous exclamation, "O Liberty, what crimes have been wrought in thy name!" It has been, and is, the fashion with socialists and communists, anarchists and nihilists, to sing the praises of freedom; but the "mountain-nymph, sweet Liberty," will have no homage from such professed admirers as these. What they want is license for their own sins and scope for their own vanity. So has it ever been, and so is it still, in religion. In the early ages of the Church the Gnostics professed to be wise, to have found the secret of spiritual freedom; but in too many cases these professions were a cloak for licentiousness. Again and again in the history of Christendom have there occurred outbursts of fanaticism, of which the text supplies explanation. The antinomian is a "bondservant of corruption;" but who so loud as he in the proclamation of liberty, in the promise to all men of a life of spiritual freedom? But freedom is worthless unless it be freedom from sin"s vile, debasing chains, unless it be the practical repudiation of the tyranny of the prince of darkness. There is a servitude which it is an honour for a free man to accept; it is the service of Christ, which is "perfect liberty. J.R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 19. Promising liberty. Liberty from all restraint, complete freedom…
19. Promising liberty. Liberty from all restraint, complete freedom to serve their own wills, such liberty as those who rail against God's law are wont to offer. Servants of corruption. Those who offer liberty are themselves slaves, serving their own passions and lusts. He who is swayed by appetite or habit cannot be free.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 2:19 One of the great lures of false teaching…
2:19 One of the great lures of false teaching through the centuries has been the promise of freedom from authority, but such freedom is illusory (Rom 6:16). The false teachers, while reveling in their freedom from authority (see 2 Pet 2:10), were in fact slaves to sin and corruption.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.