Tom,

A good many commentaries are now posted online...you can google Matthew Henry, or Adam Clarke, for example. I'll use those two in my blurb below so you can verify.

If it's commentators that might sway your vote, then I'll refer back to my earlier post here, that Paul in I Corinthians 4:10 is being sarcastic, in support of the view that sarcasm is legitimate turf for Peter as well, and say that Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke, and the Expositor's Bible Commentary all agree that Paul is speaking sarcastically to the Corinthians. In the case of Corinthians, Paul is aiming his spear at the Corinthians themselves but it was to edify them. Peter is not speaking sarcastically here to edify the false teachers whom he is speaking ironically about....he is showing the true brethren how ashamed those dogs ought to be so that believers will be on guard against them when they bark their heresy.

To further my point that Paul was indeed being sarcastic, I'll point out that his sarcasm goes even before these verses, up to verse 8, "Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign so that we might share the rule with you!"

As you can imagine, receiving such heat from an apostle might have been devastating.....would have been to me! To soften his blow, he says in verse 14 "I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish (King James says "warn") you as my beloved children....I urge you, then, to be imitators of me."

I trust that settles the matter of whether Paul was being sarcastic or not.

Indeed Paul is exonerating the position of someone who is of humble estate, that such an estate can still contain mighty Christians, but his tools here are irony and sarcasm against those Christians who were full of the pride of life, the vain puffing up of this world.

Likewise, Peter was being sarcastic against the false teachers in using the term "bought" as a sting of setting up their own preaching as bought brethren vs. their testimony as false brethren who preach apostasy. That notion has been duly noted by commentators also as I've already noted in a previous post.

Regarding 2 Peter then, Matthew Henry opts for the "sufficiency" idea, as I advocated in one example in my analogy for you. But we examined how, while not necessarily being outright conflicting, weaknesses may be found. People get easily bothered by speaking of "sufficiency" while holding fast to our calvinist doctrine. I for one still see no conflict necessarily so this is still a valid view for 2 Peter 2:1, though some won't be able to get past how "sufficiency" is a term that must suggest to some degree "applicability". There is an uneasiness in Calvinist ranks to speak this way.

Adam Clarke briefly examined the thesis repeated by Johan and rejects it, saying that Peter is speaking in a New Testament context and not an Old (saying: "It seems, however, more natural to understand the Lord that bought them as applying to Christ") , and I agree. In part, this is because the very context of the heretical false teachers was of New Testament events, ie speaking of the atonement of Christ as a purchase, rather than of solely Old Testament notions of God the Father making purchase of the Israelites unless that, of course, was there heresy...that there was no atonement in Christ and only the old covenant promises to Israelites still counted as a purchase for God's children. But it seems very far fetched to suggest that these people would have made it all the way to "teacher" status with the doctrine that Christ's sacrifice was just vanity and the Old Testament was all anybody needed. It just doesn't fit. This is also all the more reason to reject a thesis suggesting Peter was using such language...why in a church of people bought by Christ's blood would he invoke the salvific nature of the Old Testament as being inapplicable to only false teachers? Peter was expending effort, indeed his life, to show that the only path to salvation was through Christ. It is incredulous to suggest that Peter now means that these guys are "false" teachers only by old covenant standards. Unless, again, Peter was being sarcastic even about that.

But Adam Clarke, after briefly examining old or new and in opting for New Testament context of speech, says that if it be Christ of the New Testament Peter refers to and not God the Father of the Old, then doesn't this show that Christ died for them, too, and that their own wickedness was the cause of their separation from Christ? Clarke's own words are: "That through their own wickedness some may perish for whom Christ died."

I trust you see how a full-blood Calvinist would have a problem with that! Even in my analogies I didn't refer to the non-elect as having Christs price applied to their account (in spite of Pilgrims suggestions that I did), but Adam Clarke certainly seems to.

Nevertheless, while we may not have accurate enough words to fully capture what is happening vis a vis the atoning blood and the non-elect, it is all fair game to speak of how the lost are accountable by their own rejection of Christ, the worst of the evil works they do, and the price of his Son was sufficient for God to elect the whole world, while yet he did not. It is in the realm of that fairness I wrote the analogies that I did to account for how Peter could use "bought" and not mean saved/redeemed. As I trust you can see, both aspects of my story are legitimate within the context of the history of Christian analysis on 1 Peter 2:1, and should not be quickly or summarily rejected.

But standing on the shoulders of these giants, as we have the gift of God to do in these latter days, we may see farther than they even while we're of such humble estate with Paul our brother, mindful of our place in the order of things. And when we might look just a little distance more than they on this matter of 'bought' in 2 Peter 2:1, I am persuaded that the full weight of our New Testament, reformational doctrine will not grant as completely adequate any one of the particular perspectives, though they contribute greatly to our understanding. It seems to me that, unlike the inspired apostles, any of these commentators, Calvin included, would have expected their words, not to define Christian faith, but only as another step to refining it. Baby steps to sanctification, they might have said in What About Bob. and the Highway Forum is another place to take such steps.

I think it's sufficient to say that while indeed the atonement was sufficient for these false teachers then as today, just as the Old Covenant was sufficient for old Israel and indeed the whole world which was to receive what had come through the ancient Hebrews, God only elected a few which, by the fair play of biting sarcasm in 2 Peter 2:1, he reveals the gulf of difference between the dogs bound about their necks for hell, and we who are content to eat scraps from the Master's table.

If I'm being scrappy, then I have the humility to admit that I mean it not in the angry dog sense, but in the hungry dog sense ;-)