Apostasy is a deviation from fundamental truth or belief.

[jidong xiao]

彼得后书写于召会堕落且背道的时候。这背道是本书的背景。彼得的负担是要使信徒能豫防背道的毒素。背道是偏离基要的真理或信仰。召会建立大约三十年以后，背道开始偷着进来，人就偏离基本信仰的路。有些人教导异端。其中一个异端是，关于主耶稣在荣耀里回来的传讲是虚构无稽之事，是不可信或不可靠的传说。我们来到三章，就会看见有些好讥诮的人说，“主来临的应许在那里？因为从列祖睡了以来，万物依然存在，如同从创造之初一样。”（4。）这些异端者和背道者把主要在荣耀里回来审判地的教训，看作迷信的传说。

写本书信时的异端者可以比作今天的摩登派。摩登派是一班教师，他们宣称圣经不是神所默示的，并且圣经里所记载的神迹仅仅是迷信的传说。例如，摩登派不信以色列人是以神奇的方式过红海。有些摩登派的人以为以色列人所走过的只是浅水，就是因强风吹袭而变浅的水。同样，摩登派不信主耶稣用五饼二鱼食饱群众。他们解释这点说，群众带了食物，他们不过是吃他们所带的。更严重的是，摩登派教导人，耶稣不是由童女而生，并且祂不是神。他们宣称祂不是为着救赎我们而死在十字架上，乃是为着祂所相信的那种主义牺牲。不但如此，他们也不相信主耶稣的身体复活。在许多方面，今天的摩登派和第一世纪的异端者很类似。

This Epistle was written in the time of the church's degradation and apostasy. This apostasy was the background of this book. Peter's burden was to inoculate the believers against the poison of apostasy. Apostasy is a deviation from fundamental truth or belief. Approximately thirty years after the church had been established, apostasy began to creep in. There was a deviation from the track of fundamental belief. Certain ones were teaching heresy. One of these heresies was that the preaching concerning the coming back of the Lord Jesus in glory is a myth, a tale that is not believable or trustworthy. As we shall see when we come to chapter three, certain mockers said, "Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation" (3:4). These heretics and apostates regarded the teaching that the Lord would come back in glory to judge the earth as a superstitious tale.

The heretics at the time this Epistle was written can be compared to today's Modernists. The Modernists are a class of teachers who claim that the Bible is not inspired by God and that the miracles recorded in the Bible are merely superstitious stories. For example, Modernists do not believe that the children of Israel crossed the Red Sea in a miraculous way. Instead, some Modernists think that the children of Israel walked through shallow water, water that was made shallow by the blowing of a strong wind. In like manner, Modernists do not believe that the Lord Jesus fed the multitude with five loaves and two fishes. They explain this by saying that those in the crowd brought food with them and simply ate whatever they had brought. Even more serious, Modernists teach that Jesus was not born of a virgin and that He was not God. They claim that He died on the cross not for our redemption, but as a sacrifice for the kind of ism in which He believed. Furthermore, they do not believe in the bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus. In many respects, the Modernists of today and the heretics of the first century are similar.