<p>3:17- see on 2 Pet. 1:12.</p><p><i>Therefore beloved, you, knowing these things beforehand, beware; lest, being carried away with the error of the wicked, you lose your own stability</i>- In some of his very last words, facing certain death, Peter alludes to this great failure of his- his second denial of the Lord. He pleads with his sheep to hold on to the true grace of God, lest &ldquo;you <i>also</i>, being led away (s.w. Gal. 2:13 &ldquo;carried away&rdquo;) with the error of the lawless, fall&hellip;&rdquo; (2 Pet. 3:17). You <i>also</i> invites the connection with Peter himself, who was led away by the error of the lawyers, the legalists- whereas his sheep had the error of the law<i>less</i> to contend with. The point surely is that to go the way of legalism, of denying the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, is every bit as bad as going to the lawless ways of the world.</p><p>&quot;Stability&quot; or 'strengthening' is the essential outworking of the Spirit abiding in our hearts (Rom. 1:11 s.w.; Eph. 3:16). If we are certain of salvation by grace, this is what Hebrews calls an anchor of our soul. The Lord used the same word in telling Peter to strengthen or stabilize his brethren (Lk. 22:32). It was therefore Peter's deep concern that his brethren might lose their stability. His worry about the false teachers was that they would destabilize his brethren and that therefore he would not be fulfilling the commission which the Lord had potentially empowered. But looking at this another way, we could conclude that the Lord may give us commissions to achieve and the power to do so- but that is only in potential, because all the same human freewill is respected by the Lord, and those who wish to call away or listen to false teachers shall do so. And the failure is theirs rather than ours, if like Peter we have done all we humanly can.</p><p>The &quot;things&quot; of :14 which the beloved look for&nbsp;are those spoken of in :17: &quot;Beloved, seeing ye know <i>these things</i> before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own steadfastness&quot;. &quot;These things&quot; are therefore not just concerning the coming Kingdom, but also the warnings of the uprise of false teaching, the prophecies of their success, and the fact that the apparent delay of the Lord's return was to give the opportunity for repentance. Peter's double warning is because he knew how prone we are to forget such warnings, and to lose the reality of our love for the Lord's coming. It is as if Peter is speaking to us personally, as the last (?) generation before the full &quot;day of the Lord&quot;. &quot;Seeing ye know these things <i>before</i>&quot; (:17) is yet another Olivet allusion- &quot;False prophets shall rise... take ye heed: behold, I have <i>foretold </i>you all things&quot; (Mk. 13:22,23) about this apostasy. &quot;Take ye heed&quot; is matched by &quot;beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked&quot; (2 Pet. 3:17). &quot;The wicked&quot; are the false teachers within the ecclesia, referred to in 2:14,18 as &quot;beguiling unstable souls&quot; (= 3:16) and 'alluring'. It follows therefore that the false Christs and prophets which our Lord warned of, would come, in whatever form, from within the ecclesia. The bizarre claims of the few bogus Messiahs that have appeared are hardly much temptation to us- but how different if they are to come from within the ecclesia?</p>