In his final temptation of Jesus, Satan proposes a “better” alternative to receiving universal dominion than the long path of obedience and the suffering it will entail. He offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if he will simply fall down before Satan and worship him (Matt. 4:8–9). But rather than choose the path of least resistance, Jesus rejects Satan’s offer and reaffirms his loyalty to the Father (Matt. 4:10–11). At every point where Adam and Eve had failed to resist the wiles of the serpent, Jesus obeyed!

The Authority of Jesus

Both Peter and Jude are confronted with opponents who deny the authority of Jesus Christ over them through the indulgence of their sinful passions. In both situations it seems that the opponents rejected the possibility of facing final judgment for their actions, though this is clearer in 2 Peter than in Jude. The opponents demonstrate their departure from the one true gospel proclaimed by the apostles and confirmed by the Old Testament through lives that are out of step with the moral imperatives that flow from what Jesus has done for his people. Peter is dealing with opponents who explicitly deny the return of Christ and twist Scripture; neither seems to be the case with Jude’s opponents. Although more speculative, there is also likely a difference in the context in which their respective audiences live. Jude appears to have been written to believers who were familiar with Jewish traditions and noncanonical Jewish literature, whereas Peter seems to be addressing readers living in a more Greco-Roman context.

One key takeaway from both 2 Peter and Jude is the inseparable relationship between orthodoxy (right belief/doctrine) and orthopraxy (right living). In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus warned that false prophets would enter in among God’s people as wolves looking to devour the sheep (Matt. 7:15–20). He gave a simple yet powerful way of identifying these false prophets and false teachers:

You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will recognize them by their fruits. (Matt. 7:16–20)

Taking Jesus at his word, both Peter and Jude go to great lengths to expose the rotten fruit of their opponents as a means of inoculating the sheep from the disease that the wolves have brought with them.

The Core of False Teaching

Understanding the similarities and differences between the opponents that Peter and Jude addressed in their respective letters is an important first step. But in order to set the false teaching of these opponents within a broader biblical and theological context, we need to go back to the very beginning of the biblical story, because at the core of what Peter and Jude must confront is an error first propagated in the garden of Eden by the serpent himself. What we see there is a pattern that, at some level, all subsequent false teaching follows. That pattern has three steps.

1. False Teachers Question What God Said

The initial sign of trouble is in the opening description of the serpent (who is later explicitly identified as Satan in Rev. 12:9) as “more crafty than any other beast of the field” (Gen. 3:1). His initial question to the woman confirms his craftiness: “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Gen. 3:1). There should be little doubt that Satan knew God had not prohibited eating from any tree but rather just from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. His purpose is to raise questions and doubts about what God had actually said. Eve responds by going beyond what God had actually said: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die’” (Gen. 3:2–3). But a closer look at what God had actually told Adam reveals that Yahweh never prohibited touching the tree but only eating from it (Gen. 2:17). Satan has managed to muddy the waters, creating confusion as to the exact nature of what God had or had not commanded.

2. False Teachers Defy or Reject What God Said

The serpent moves from questioning God’s word to direct rejection of it in his response: “You will not surely die” (Gen. 3:4). Yahweh had been emphatic with Adam when he gave the commandment: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17). Not maybe. Not even probably. Disobedience to this one commandment would bring certain death. But Satan, emboldened by the confusion he has created in Eve’s mind about the specifics of what God actually said, is now able to openly reject what God said. He is even so bold as to use the same wording that God spoke to Adam and that Eve spoke to the serpent. In effect, the serpent accuses God of lying.

3. False Teachers Offer a “Better” Alternative by Appealing to the Natural Appetites

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