Salvation Tense: Sanctification Warning (Present Tense)
2 Peter 2:20–22 — “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 therein and overcome, the last state has become worse with them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb, ‘The dog turns to his own vomit again,’ and ‘the sow that had washed to wallowing in the mire.'”
═══ OPORD ═══
WHO: Those who have known the truth and turned back. Peter describes a catastrophic sanctification failure — not the loss of justification, but the devastating consequences of returning to sin after knowing the way of righteousness.
WHAT: “Escaped” (apophygontes) is the same word from 1:4 — these people genuinely fled the world’s corruption through knowing Christ. But they became “entangled again” (emplekentes — wrapped up, trapped) and “overcome” (hettaomai — defeated). Their final condition is worse than their starting point. Peter uses two proverbs to illustrate: a dog returning to vomit, and a washed pig returning to mud. The animal’s nature did not change — and that is Peter’s warning: mere external change without internal transformation leads to regression. This is about the believer who has knowledge but abandons sanctification — they return to what once enslaved them.
WHERE: In the believer’s daily choices. Every day you either move forward in sanctification or risk entanglement.
WHEN: A present-tense warning with future-tense consequences.
WHY: Because going back is always an option — and always a disaster. Sanctification is not automatic. It requires daily, deliberate, Spirit-empowered forward movement. The pull of the old life is real. But you are not a dog or a pig — you are a new creation in Christ. Walk like it.
═══ PRAYER ═══
Lord, I will not go back. I have escaped the corruption of this world through the knowledge of You. I refuse to be entangled again. Keep me moving forward in sanctification. When the old life calls, remind me of the vomit and the mire — that is not my home anymore. My home is in You. Give me the strength to press on. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
═══ DAILY CHALLENGES ═══
Challenge 1: Identify one area where you have been drifting back toward an old pattern. Confess it to God and take one concrete step away from it today.
Challenge 2: Read Philippians 3:13–14. Like Paul, resolve: “Forgetting what is behind, I press on toward the goal.”