The Third Spiritual State: Turning Back

This is the fourth blog in the series “The Apostle Peter’s Relational Framework: The Structure of the Spiritual Life”.

In previous blogs, we have seen the first state of spirituality of the people Peter describes in his second letter. Peter describes them as rebellious and enslaved, as those who do not yet know Jesus. We have also seen the state of those who have moved from the first state to the second state of spirituality: the state of those who have come into a genuine and intimate relationship with Jesus as the Messiah and genuinely accepted from him the forgiveness of their sins. We now turn to a description of Peter’s third state, the unfortunate state of denying the Master who bought them, and forgetting that their sins were forgiven. This is the “Third State: Turning Back.”

Turning Back

3. The Third State: Turning Back

The third state is a tragic reversal of the second or middle state.  That is, these people intentionally and deliberately ended their participation in Christ. Peter’s argument unfolds with a deliberate precision that leaves no room for interpreting these individuals as merely exposed to the perimeters of Christian truth and going no further. In the previous blog, we noticed that Peter's language described not superficial association, but genuine, full participation in a relationship with Jesus as the Christ.

He spoke of people who "who received a faith equal to his own" and other Christians (1:1), and as those who had the opportunity to "become partakers of the divine nature", and those who “escaped the corruption of the world.”  Peter grounds their equal faith, their partaking, an their escape explicitly in “the knowledge (ἐπίγνωσις) of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

This word ἐπίγνωσις does not refer to casual acquaintance; ἐπίγνωσις consistently denotes relational, covenantal knowing—a full relational and experiential grasp of Christ that effects genuine transformation. He further says they “knew (ἐπίγνωσις) the way of righteousness” and had been “cleansed from their former sins” (1:9). These are not metaphors for moral improvement or distant proximity to Christian community. They are the very words that convey core realities that constitute genuine Christian conversion: knowledge of Christ, cleansing, righteousness, and deliverance from corruption. Peter never uses the word “salvation,” but he unmistakably uses the substance of it to describe the middle state of his readers; the state of genuine relational connection to Jesus and the resulting salvation experience.

To describe this third state of spirituality among his readers, Peter says, "For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge (ἐπίγνωσις) of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. ²¹ For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. ²² What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.” (2:20-22)

It is precisely this middle state of authentic participation that makes Peter’s later description of the third state so tragic and so rhetorically powerful. When Peter turns to their downfall, his vocabulary is carefully chosen to reinforce the reality of what they once possessed. The key expression πάλιν ἐμπλακέντες (“again entangled”) is decisive. The adverb πάλιν (“again”) presupposes two prior truths: a prior state, and the completed escape from that prior state. And now, Peter conveys a tragic return to that prior corruptive state. 

Peter’s logic is internally consistent and rhetorically forceful: a return is only possible if one has truly departed.  His argument collapses if their earlier deliverance were merely apparent rather than real. Also the very existence of the third state—turning back—presupposes the reality of the middle state. One cannot revert to a prior condition without having genuinely left it. Thus the third state of re‑entanglement is unintelligible and unattainable unless the middle state represents an authentic, lived participation in Christ. Peter’s relational framework requires this sequence: genuine escape, ... followed by a voluntary return. Without a real middle state, the logic of the passage disintegrates.

The grammatical form of the word (ἐμπλακέντες,) that Peter uses as a middle/passive voice adds further weight. The middle/passive voice signals voluntarily action; that is, voluntary action of the subject of the verb.  These people voluntarily chose to be ensnared again.  They deliberately re‑entered the patterns that ensnared them.  They exercised their own agency in their own return to entanglement.  These very same people who escaped the corruption of the wordl (1:4), they now voluntarily re‑embraced and volunteered themselves to be subsequently drawn back into the same bondage. The grammar does not describe a simple act of returning, but a clear and detailed process of becoming intentionally re-ensnared—caught, overtaken, and entangled by forces that initially exerted control over them. Peter is very clear about this.

This is not the language of people who merely drifted near the edges of Christian truth and never escaped the corruption in the world. It is the language of people who had truly experienced the full nature of forgiveness and escaped corruption of the world (1:4) and then, through a process of deliberate choice volunteered themselves to be willingly and genuinely re‑entangled in it (2:20).

Taken together, Peter’s lexical choices form a coherent picture. These individuals had experienced real cleansing, real knowledge of Christ, real righteousness, and real liberation from the world’s corruption. Their subsequent collapse is not the exposure of a false beginning but the tragedy of a true beginning now abandoned. Peter’s rhetoric depends on a deep understanding of their full adherence to the gospel message and their belief in Jesus as the Messiah. 

The force of his warning in the third state is grounded in the reality of their prior genuine participation. His vocabulary does not allow them to be reduced to mere observers, sympathizers, or moral reformers. They were knowing, genuine, real, full believers in Christ—people who had entered into the relational realities of salvation—and it is precisely this specificty of their spiritual condition that makes their return to corruption so tragic and makes their current third state of turning back “worse for them than the first.”

Peter cannot be any more precise in describing their intention: it was purposeful and volitional.  Peter’s logic cannot be any more precise: only those who truly knew Christ can meaningfully deny “the Master who bought them” (2:1). His imagery reinforces this reality. To “forsake the right way” (2:15) presupposes that one had truly walked the right way.

To Peter’s point, Peter uses Balaam as the model of “forsaking the right way” (2 Pet 2:15) and introducing him here at this point only strengthens his argument for the instability of one who walks away from the right way. 

Balaam first appears in Numbers 22–24 as a non‑Israelite prophet who nevertheless has gains genuine access to YHWH. God speaks to him directly (Num 22:9, 20; 23:4–5, 16), and Balaam repeatedly insists that he can only deliver the word YHWH puts in his mouth (Num 22:18; 23:12). He is depicted as a faithful and genuine prophet of God.  His oracles are fully orthodox and bless Israel (Num 24:5–9, 17).

However, the later Balaam narratives reveal a decisive state of reversal: later biblical texts remember only his corruption. Deuteronomy 23:4–5 recalls Balaam as one hired to curse Israel. Joshua 13:22 identifies him as a “diviner” who is eventually executed by Israel. Nehemiah 13:2 cites him as an example of opposition to God’s people, advising the strategy that leads Israel into idolatry and sexual immorality at Baal‑Peor (Num 31:16). Because of this turn, later Scripture remembers him only negatively (Deut 23:4–5; Josh 13:22; Neh 13:2).

And here, in 2 Peter 2:15 Peter makes this trajectory explicit by identifying Balaam as the very model of those who “forsake the right way and go astray,” using him as the paradigm of a leader who once stood in the right path but abandoned it for greed and corrupt influence (cf. Jude 11). Thus Balaam becomes the canonical example of a legitimate prophetic voice who ultimately “turned back” from his relationship with God.

To “turn back” (2:21) presupposes that one had truly gone forward. To “forget cleansing” (1:9) presupposes that cleansing had truly occurred. And to deny the Master presupposes, they had once confessed the Master as their Lord and Savior, the one who bought their salvation with his blood on the cross. 

To this end, in my next blog, The 3 Logical Conclusions Drawn from Peter's 3 Spiritual States, we will discuss how Peter addresses the consequences of such a calamitous denial.