Pilgrim,

Thanks for taking so much time to consider my thoughts, often spelled out here in more length than you'd have liked. I'm going to return now to Tom's question having considered these things and hopefully not do any injustice by placing words in your mouth you didn't mean to say. But I think there's enough here now for me to have sharpened my iron a bit, plus still have some more to sharpen, so that's the takeaway. Feel free to respond further, and I might jump back in again. Otherwise, for Tom's sake, I'm going to wrap up some thoughts.

Tom,

If you're still reading, I will put my summary first, then give more detailed thoughts on those summarized items then a conclusion.


To Pilgrim,

SUMMARY
I take Dr. North’s answer to Tom's question to be that bought never meant bought really, so we don’t have to worry about how the false teachers are not redeemed. Your response seems (to me) to be that there are two linguistic realms in which we can refer to bought, one the day to day commercial realm, the other theological/salvific. Because these two realms are so separate when we speak of them, we can use the same word and mean two different things, as if bought means one thing in a world called commerce and another in a world called salvation. To me your answer has an important similiarity to Dr. Norths. Both seem to say bought never means bought when we’re talking about 2 Peter 2:1. If benefit of the doubt is given to you, it’s reasonable that bought used by Peter is describing some kind of mitigated bought that, whatever it means, does not result in God taking into his kingdom those teacher. Since yours and Dr. Norths approaches don’t grant that Peter meant bought in the commercial sense (the only sense there really is, there really are no separate linguistic schemes) then I am not prepared to give you the benefit of that doubt. Peter is not dealt with quite squarely enough for my liking. I dealt more squarely with Peters use of bought, but, without realizing it, reworked Peter’s ‘bought’ to only say ‘sufficient to be bought’, which is not what he said.

EXPANDING ON MY SUMMARY

THE TROUBLE MY ANALOGY
Your tenacity over keeping Unconditional Election clear of the pollution of universalism achieved something for me, that in wrangling with 2 Peter 2:1 we will have to always be crystal clear as to how our comparisons must always line up with election so folks don’t confuse our argument as being the same as any kind of universalism. You were confused by that. If we fail, the perils of modified Calvinism lie in waiting. My problem with my analogy is that either I speak of the price being actually laid down for the redeemable coupon, which could, as you have rightly pointed out, be translated as at least a hypothetical purchase if not a real-value purchase of the item. This must be interpreted as meaning that Christs sacrifice was to any degree a real price applied to a purchase covering their sin. You criticized this view saying that I can’t speak of purchase without meaning saved, which tips the scale to universalism. As Tom points out in his question, we do not assume that the false teachers are brethren so the question is unanswered.

If I amend my story to say the currency used to pay the price was an indivisible jewel and not cash, then I have solved the problem of payment of their sins since the excess value was never applied to them, but have trouble trying to show how they could be spoken of as “bought”, when they never were actually bought. I would be interpreting Peter to mean “bought, but not really” or “sufficient to be bought”, which is not wrong…we Calvinists believe that. It just isn’t what Peter said, that’s all.

You never raised that point against me because of how it might offend another doctrine, preferring to emphasize that my “sufficient to be paid” might be construed as just “paid”. But if I invert your criticism by taking my own words at my word, that bought only means “sufficient to be bought” and point it back to 2 Peter, it’s devastating. I have no place to rewrite what Peter wrote. I think this criticism really shows the weakness in my example the best. I’m my own worst critic sometimes ;-)

YOUR ANALOGY
You said this as your answer to Toms question:

I believe Peter is using the commercial use of the word, familiar to most, and bringing it over and applying it to these false teachers. A quick example would be the redeeming of Ruth's husband's parcel of land by the paying of a price which entitled him to the land, including Ruth. Boaz didn't actually 'save' Ruth via the redemption of a piece of property.  But the transaction of paying a price to purchase something and thus taking ownership of it IS used in a salvific sense in the NT when speaking of Christ redeeming His people.

I have some problems with your analogy. Ruth here is equated to the false brethren who, by your analogy, go with the purchase of the land without her soul actually being saved because the context is not about saving souls. By this analogy you answer Tom by saying “bought” only refers to saving a soul when the verse is speaking about saved souls and not speaking about saved souls when speaking either commercially, or about the non-elect. If you take the commercial sense of bought in Ruth and apply it to 2 Peter 2:1, you mean that Christ commercially bought them and I don’t what that means. Boaz actually took possession of Ruth and the land into his realm. Does Christ likewise take these heathen into his realm? The example of Boaz is a Christ figure, and we are his possession. Both Ruth and the land were purchased in the same sense, Ruth being part of the consideration in the deal as much as the land. When you apply that example to 2 Peter now, you want to claim the right to use “bought” in a sense of a price paid yet without there being any salvific redemption. Isn’t that question begging since Toms question was, how can there be bought without redemption? Your answer is, because they were bought without redemption. That is no answer. You have to still explain what, then, was bought by the Lord in 2 Peter 2:1? Going back to the Ruth analogy, suppose we say that ‘bought’ only applies to the turf they are on, ie the general groundwork of the New Testament Church and, like Ruth, we find false teachers on it. But that doesn’t work since the the story in Ruth is that she, too, was bought and redeemed and the reference in 2 Peter is not just that the groundwork is bought, or even that the faithful around them are bought, the false brethren are ‘bought’. Ruth was redeemed, not cast out…she was part of the purchase.

Even if I grant you that bought can mean without salvation, then you may be contradicting yourself since that is exactly the charge laid against my example….you would not permit me to speak of the false teachers as bought without also meaning that their sins were actually paid for. Here you want to do exactly that, and then say “but I only mean in the commercial sense”. Commercial sense of buying what? The price for their sin? Square one then. What was bought?

I think the reason Dr. North’s article appeals to you, as it does to me, as he argues that while the word bought is used, it never means bought, and he tidily brushes the word bought away completely, which brings me to my third problem.

DR. LONGS ARTICLE.

Dr. Long takes 2 Peter 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.”
to say:

“There shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who created them and bring upon themselves swift destruction.”

My problem with Dr. North’s exegesis is that by the time he has done, the notion of bought, agorazo, is no longer even present in the verse! It seems as though it is such a problem that the best thing to do is rid ourselves of it. Tempting, but I am troubled by how he stretches the connection vis a vis Deutoronomy. Peter had the other words at his disposal to use, but unlike Dr. North, he did not use them…in fact, the other words were specifically excluded and only agorazo was brought in. Very troubling to me that Peter would use the one word that he specifically did not actually mean simply because of a linguistic trick of shortening up the reference.
If the idea is that God, like Boaz, takes possession of the property by making a purchase, but then we say God needs to make no purchase because it was all his by divine right having created the property, then we would not speak of payment in this way. The reason Peter speaks of payment is in reference to the shed blood, which brings us back to Toms question.

CONCLUSION
How can bought not mean bought in the sense of full redemption? I’ve tried two ways; 1) to show that money is shown without being handed over, which fails, and 2) to show how the money is actually handed over but thieves stole the purchased goods, which is troubling to the doctrine of Unconditional Election, or at least the efficacy of the price paid.


Others try by linguistic efforts to show that bought doesn’t really mean bought at all. This is not necessarily illegitemate, they just need to show how in some other sense they were bought. And I don't believe anyone is doing that sufficiently.

So for now I'm dropping these thoughts and have another thought as to how they are bought and not redeemed; Peter is being sarcastic. I'll post that in a separate response and will like to hear responses to that.