Does anyone have an exegetical understanding of this passage that lines up with UR? I’m having trouble with this one…
It’s quite pessimistic.
Everything evil will absolutely be destroyed; people who persist in evil will suffer whatever punishment is just and necessary. That’s not pessimistic in my view–I mean, would you really want to hear that perpetrators of evil would get away with it? That justice would not be done? That God would be lenient and give the unrepentant bad guys a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ pass? 
But, is there something specific you are having trouble with in this passage?
Sonia
It does not line up with UR, unless you mysteriously ( without scripture support) have the people mentioned in this Chapter( along with all the other unbelievers) repenting and leaving the final judgment in the lake of fire… Rev 20:11-15. 
2 Peter 2 is a warning to all false prophets and false teachers in the body of Christ! Peter is talking about and to believers. The book of Jude is parallel in content to 2 Peter 2. There are serious consequences of teaching false doctrine to the point of offending or making believers stumble in their faith! Unrepentant bad guys? Nope, they were unrepentant born again believers denying Christ with their teaching and preaching. Lets look closely at a few verses in this chapter that support this:
2Peter 2:1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
Denying the Lord that bought them. Hmmm. Sounds like they were onced saved to me. Damnable heresies? Sounds like their teaching has brought them damnation and loss of salvation to me.
2 Peter 2:18-22 " 18For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
19While 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.
20For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
21For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
22But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
Again, these are believers who have lost their salvation due to entangling themselves in false doctrine. Therefore Christians should keep close to the word of God, and watch against all who seek to bewilder them. A state of apostacy is worse than a state of ignorance. These people have crossed the point of no return ( Hebrews 6: 4-6 ; 10:26-29) 
Sonia, I haven’t looked at it in about a week or so; I’ll have to go back and look at it and see if I can be more specific.
It seems that the chapter as a whole though, is aimed specifically at false prophets; so depending on who you think they are, could be considered positive or negative. I’ll have to get back to you on more specifics.
Aaron, be careful before pulling the damnation trigger! You, yourself, have brought in heresies to this forum.
Ah, I see the A37 virus has already corrupted this thread.
Not that I’ll see the reply (because I won’t), it’s a rhetorical question; what if you and others like yourself are the false prophets, Aaron? 
The text actually reads false teachers. I’m not sure why the difference, but he says (paraphrasing) “Just as false prophets came among them, so also false teachers will come among you.” It’s my inclination to take it just as parallelism–does anyone here know of any reason for a distinction?
I agree it doesn’t sound optimistic for the ‘false teachers’ – there are fearful consequences for corrupting the truth. They will suffer just punishment–whatever it takes to get them out of themselves. I view the discipline of God as being for the good of the sinner; it is always toward reconcilliation. It is, no doubt a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God–but it’s also the best place to be.
Sonia
Hi Mel,
Your question for Aaron37 reminded me of the following paper by Thomas Talbott: willamette.edu/~ttalbott/false.html
Right; I guess (false) teachers fall into the same category of spiritual leader, even though it’s a different gift from prophecy. It’s definitely a stern warning against those who would corrupt the truth. There may be a lot of people getting a nasty surprise on this one, I fear. I’m not sure if it’s easy to determine from the context if the false teachers are being intentionally misleading, or if they are doing it in ignorance. There seems to be a false sense of security among those who hold traditional mainstream views on certain things that those who teach differently (like us universalists) are the ones spoken of here, among others.
I think there’s another 2 Peter 2 thread around here somewhere, that I’ve already written some extensive comments on, especially in regard to the phrase that “their last state is worse than the first”.
For purposes of reference here, I’ll try to summarize (in no particular order).
1.) The phrase “their last state is worse than the first” was also spoken by Jesus in regard to backsliders who have been delivered from sin into freedom and yet don’t do anything positively about this but leave themselves open for being overwhelmed by sin again. Specifically, Jesus was talking about the deaf-mute guy whose exorcism prompted Jesus’ Pharisaical enemies to counter the crowd’s acclamation with charges that Jesus was exorcising by the power of Satan (leading to the pronouncement by Jesus of the sin against the Holy Spirit, not incidentally. 
) According to GosMatt’s report, this fellow had already been exorcised and healed recently (maybe the night before) and Jesus was healing him of a worse demonization a second time.
So on one hand, by Jesus’ own action this isn’t a hopeless situation; it ought to be translated something like “latter”, not “last”, because it clearly wasn’t the last state for the man He healed and saved! And indeed He saves and heals the man without being sought for healing (although his friends or family bring him again). On the other hand, there’s arguably a distinction between the case of the demonized deaf-mute (who didn’t necessarily ask to be demonized again, much less even worse so) and the opponents who are willing to contradict their own principles in order to slanderously attack Christ without a cause–a far more obviously willful sin.
2.) The denunciation here is clearly aimed at Christian teachers, or maybe formerly Christian teachers who are now backsliding into something else while still acting as Christian teachers. And despite the qualifications I am about to mention, I do in principle and in practice take this as a stern warning as a Christian teacher to be careful in what I am doing.
3.) That having been said, the details in chapter 2 don’t really fit anyone here either. No one here is disowning our Owner Who buys us (2:1) (indeed universalists of all people are the last people who could be said to be denying the name of “Jesus”!–so long as we remember that the salvation is from sin); and no one here is teaching that sin is unimportant and that our salvation is not from sin. Certainly no one here is reassuring people that they can go ahead and do whatever previously sinful things they want, especially in regard to sexual pleasure. The false teachers being talked about in chapter 2 promise a freedom to sin (2:19 for example, but far from the only one in this chapter.)
4.) Remember that term {kolasis} from the judgment of the sheep and the goats? This chapter is one of the few other places it shows up again in the NT (twice, actually, once in reference to sinning angels thrust into the gloomy caverns of Tartarus, and once in reference to the unjust generally but especially those who go after the flesh in defiling lust and who despise lordship.) If kolasis is an explicit reference to remedial punishment, then in fact we’re talking about remedial punishment of both false teachers and rebel angels here as well.
5.) Talking about Christian authorities “disowning the Owner Who buys them” (2:1) – again, far from a hopeless state of salvation from sin (even if they will not be saved from chastening). How do we know? Because Peter himself disowned the Owner Who purchased him! True, Peter wasn’t teaching freedom to be wanton (like the teachers he is fulminating against in this chapter); he only CALLED VIOLENT CURSES AGAINST HIMSELF TO EMPHASIZE HIS DISOWNING OF CHRIST IN ORDER TO PROTECT HIMSELF! (Same term in the Greek, not incidentally.) But God’s love was superior to Peter’s sin, and inspired repentance in him. The Lord sought Peter out for reconciliation and restoration, which Peter accepted.
The point is that this in itself does not involve hopelessness of salvation from sin; and really there’s nothing in the chapter to indicate any such ground for hopelessness. Such people will be punished, but the punishment is not said to be hopeless either.
Nor does the text spell out exactly why such people will not be saved from punishment, leaving any theologian to have to try to infer why not. Arms and Kaths both could easily agree to infer that they will not be saved from punishment due to continuing impenitence on the part of the teachers; but Arms will have to read in some rationale if not a flat assertion for hopelessly continuing impenitence. (Calvs, to be fair, could be said to have a much stronger position than at least Arms in this chapter, as it and its parallel material in EpistJude look like the punishment and even the acts of the false teachers are predestined by God somehow!–but they’d still have to read hopelessness into the text, too.)
6.) It’s interesting that Peter includes a reference to the souls destroyed during the flood; because we all know what 1 Peter has to say about what Jesus did for those imprisoned spirits, right? If their fate is far from hopeless there, thanks to Christ, then it isn’t hopeless here either–moreover, if it isn’t hopeless for them, then it isn’t hopeless for the other two groups mentioned with them either. (Obviously this depends on an exegesis of 1 Peter 3:17-4:6 coming out in favor of hope for those spirits once stubborn thanks to the gospel of Christ Himself. I only mean that if hopeful salvation for them is in view there, then logically it must be in view here as well.)
Thanks for that summary Jason, it’s helpful.