2 Peter 2:3b-5. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, August 9, 2026.
Today’s subject connects with 1 Peter 3:19-20. We preached on this verse on March 8, 2026.
Peter brings up the rebellion of certain angels before The Flood of Noah’s days in order to make the point that false teachers will not get away with their rebellion against the truth of God.
Chapter 2 starts with the point that false prophets and false teachers will be a problem for churches. However, verse 3 makes it clear that their judgment from God will catch up with them. Thus, Peter follows this statement up with several examples from the Old Testament demonstrating just how certain the judgment of God is.
In our modern world, science and technology tend t create in us a snobbery towards things in the Bible, i.e., an attitude that we know better than what is recorded. It also tends to create a myopia in which we only see things that our “greatness” will allow us to see while ignoring (or missing completely) other important things.
We can end up reinterpreting what the Bible says and what the apostles believed because we are smarter and know better. An example of this is how many Christians follow in the footsteps of the Sadducees before them by denying the existence of demons. They believe that mental illness was misunderstood and called demon possession in the biblical days. Of course, this undermines the veracity of the Bible which is supposed to be the very words of God.
The reality of what Peter is talking about in this passage is another area where modern Christians tend to reinterpret so as to make the passage more palatable to our senses.
God has revealed in His Word that there are things in our future that He has been restraining. Real, spiritual enemies who have been locked up for thousands of years by God will eventually be released upon a world that has rejected Jesus.
This restraining of particular spirits is of a greater nature than the restraints placed on Satan. Satan is not locked up right now. Yet, there are limitations on what he can do, as we see in the book of Job.
Only those who read the Word of God and believe it have a true picture of where this world is headed.
Let’s look at our passage.
All false prophets will be judged by God. If we look at a particular individual, that judgment may come quickly or appear to never come at all. However, all false prophets will find themselves in torments in the grave at their death. Eventually, they will stand before the Great White Throne of God to receive the judgment upon their wicked actions. We don’t know when, but we do know their judgment is certain.
Peter parallels the ideas of judgment and destruction. Their judgment is not idle. If you imagine a car idling, you may get the wrong idea. An idling car is a picture of a car that is ready to go. Whereas an idle worker or an idle officer of the law is a picture of something that is inactive or not operating. The judgment of God is His decision about the things the people do. A person who misleads others through false prophecies or false teaching will be held accountable for destroying the lives of others. They are not “getting away with it.”
Peter also says that their destruction is not sleeping. This is the same image as the idle judgment. Their destruction is alive, awake, and coming for them.
All false teachers and those who mislead others will be destroyed by God Himself. They have destroyed the lives of people in the now and also destroy their future. They are one with The Destroyer, whether we think of the devil or the angel king held in the bottomless pit of Revelation 9. Whoever works with the devil to destroy people’s lives will find themselves participating in God’s judgment that the devil and his followers will be destroyed.
A similar picture is given in the book of Revelation. All humans must pick a side. Who is your champion? Is it the ferocious beast, or is it the slain lamb? Through the prophets of Israel, God has made His decision clear to all the world. A day is coming when all the rebels of the heavens and of the earth, angelic and human, will be removed from God’s good creation.
Peter gives an example of God pouring out His judgment in the past. He mentions God not sparing the “angels who sinned,” but instead casting them down to hell. Verses 4 through 11 parallel Jude chapter 1. Both Peter and Jude use the judgment on the pre-flood world and the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah as examples and warnings to us today.
What is this mention of angels who sinned before the flood and were cast down to hell? We can piece some of it together with Scripture. Genesis 6:2-4 states that the Sons of God took wives from among humans and created giant, hybrid offspring.
It is common today to claim that these Sons of God were actually sons of the godly line of Seth, or that they were human kings. The problem with this is that the phrase Sons of God elsewhere in the Old Testament is used of spiritual beings and not humans. Also, it is hard to imagine how the intermarriage of godly people and ungodly people would give rise to giants.
The truth is that until the late AD 300’s most bishops and teachers taught that these were fallen angels. Over time, it became more and more uncouth to believe and teach such things.
By the way, this is what Jude 1:6 is talking about. “The angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day…” Their proper domain was the spirit realm. Any interactions with humans and the earth would have to be sanctioned by God for His purposes. They abandoned their posts in the heavenlies and interfered with humans on earth for their own purposes in rebellion against God’s.
This is also connected to the “spirits in prison” to whom Jesus proclaimed his victory after his death (1 Peter 3:19-20).
You could say that Genesis 1 through 11 is depicting the fallenness of humanity as not just a problem of human sin. Rather, at all three points, there is some spiritual interference. Genesis 3 depicts the devil interfering in God’s relationship with Adam and Eve causing the fall. Genesis 6 depicts a group of angels who also follow the devil in his rebellion. Genesis 11 is not as clear, but the fact that Nimrod was trying to build a tower into the heavens begs this question. What did he really think he would accomplish? We know from the ancient writings in this area that they used pyramidal structures to serve as a gate or portal for connecting with the spirit realm. Humanity has a sin problem, but it also has a problem of spiritual entities who are working to separate us from God.
Genesis does not tell us exactly what spirits were imprisoned for their sin. However, the Old Testament does show God giving judgment and punishments upon these spiritual interlopers. Genesis 3 actually gives God’s judgment against the ancient serpent, the devil. Isaiah 14:12-15 also uses the imagery of judgment against a spiritual being. We see it again in Ezekiel 28:12-17.
It is in the book of 1 Enoch that we have the details filled in for us. 1 Enoch is being referenced by Peter and Jude. In fact, Jude even quotes from 1 Enoch at Jude 1:14-15. Let’s be clear that 1 Enoch was never regarded as Scripture. Just like we would not treat a modern commentary on the Bible as Scripture itself, so the Jews did not treat 1 Enoch as Scripture. Yet, it represented a commentary on the Genesis 6 event that was in existence at least 200 years before the apostles and Jesus. It isn’t scripture, but it tells us what is in the minds of men like Peter and Jude as the Holy Spirit directs them to warn us about the reality of the judgment that lies ahead for all who join in league with these fallen spirits.
In 1 Enoch, it is the fallen angels of Genesis 6 who are imprisoned. God did not spare them. Instead, He had them cast into a pit and bound there. Almost all translations of 2 Peter 2:4 say that they were cast into “hell.” This is an unfortunate translation because it masks the reality of what is being said.
In fact, three different Hebrew and Greek words were all given the same translation of “hell.” The Hebrew word “Sheol” (Greek Hades) is probably best translated as the grave. The Grave is a spiritual holding place for the spirits of departed humans. Jesus pictured it as having 2 compartments in his story of The Rich Man and Lazarus. One side was for the wicked and sounds a lot like what we imagine in “hell.” However, the other side was for the righteous and was a paradise called Abraham’s Bosom.
The word translated as hell in our passage today is literally to be cast into Tartarus. If you know your Greek mythology, then you know that Tartarus was pictured as being as far below Hades (the holding place for human spirits) as Hades was beneath the earth. It corresponds to the Hebrew concept of The Pit. In the book of Revelation, it is called the Abyss or Bottomless Pit. So, the rebel angels of Genesis 6 were chained in the bottomless pit in order to be held until the great judgment day.
Thus, Peter pictures these angels as committed into pits of darkness, being held for judgment. This is the background to the opening of the bottomless pit in Revelation 9 which allows a horde of scorpion beings to exit with their king being an angel named Apollyon (Abaddon in Hebrew), which means The Destroyer.
Revelation is depicting the end times judgment of God upon mankind as a kind of spiritual copy of The Flood. Just as flood waters fell upon the earth from the heavens and also shot up as geysers from under the earth, so the spiritual rebels will be pushed out of the heavens down onto the earth. At the same time, the bottomless pit (Tartarus) is opened, and spiritual rebels flood the earth with a fury. Both these spiritual beings and the wicked humans they torment will then come under the judgment of God.
Just as these angels were not spared, so too the humans of the ancient world who followed them were not spared. Those who turn away from God’s ways and follow the powerful rebels will receive a rebel’s reward, aka destruction.
A judgment of global proportions may evoke fear in those who are righteous. However, the flip side of the judgment of those who lead others into wickedness is the protection (vs. 5) and the rescue (vs. 7) of those who were spared.
In the flood, Noah and his family were spared. Genesis 6:5 shows us the effect of the Genesis 6 rebel-angel incursion. “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Yet, “Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD!” How? By trusting God in the midst of a world that was falling away from truth into apostasy.
Noah is described as a preacher of righteousness, a proclaimer of following God’s ways and not the ways of the fallen angels and their gigantic, wicked offspring. Through the wisdom of God, Noah constructed an ark and saved his family. He is a type of Christ. Jesus is the Greater Noah who has constructed a means by which all his family (those who believe on him) can be protected and rescued from the coming judgments upon humanity. In fact, the seven family members represent the whole group of the righteous, however many that will be.
Humans seem bent on rejecting the Father and His Messiah, Jesus. In doing so, they ally (whether knowingly or unknowingly) with the devil and his rebel angels. Part of the wrath of the Lamb (see Revelation 6:16-17) will be to stop restraining all the wickedness that the devil wants to bring forth upon this earth. When the rejection of the love of the truth (that is found in the Gospel of Jesus) is completed, then God will allow these things to come forth. This will be the final days of the world as we know it.
Let us remain faithful to the Lord. Let it not be because we imagine this will procure for us a future absent any suffering. Rather, let us suffer whatever it takes now to join in the glory that is coming for all the righteous!