4For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; 5and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly . . . 9then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment …
God’s judgment on those who sinfully rebel against Him is sure, but so also is His rescue, His salvation of the godly. Peter begins an extended rant against all wickedness, which on one level may sound depressing, but keep in mind God’s righteousness is on display through His judgment. This should encourage us when we suffer at the hands of those who persecute us because of our faith and the righteousness that we have by God’s grace through faith. God keeps His Word, and He will set things right. He will bring justice to this decrepit, fallen world. Peter brings a brief litany of some of the more historic examples of God’s judgment and salvation.
The list begins with the pre-fall judgment in the angelic world. Before Adam and Eve sinned, the angelic world experienced its own fall. Scripture tells us God “makes His angels winds, and His ministers a flame of fire” (Heb. 1:7). They were to be God’s messengers (the Greek word for “angel” means “messenger”). Jude echoes similarly, “And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6).
It is possible that Isaiah’s taunt against the king of Babylon (Isa. 14:3–15) and Ezekiel’s taunt against the king of Tyre (Eze. 28:12–15) picture the rebellion of Satan (a.k.a. Lucifer, “star of the morning”). Combined with the cryptic reference in Revelation 12:4 (where the dragon sweeps a third of the stars from heaven), the long-held belief is that when Satan fell, he took many angels with him. At the time of the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3), we see Satan in the form of a serpent already in a fallen state, tempting our progenitors. Peter writes of angels being judged. Apparently, though, a vast number of fallen angels (which we would now call demons) have been removed from their nefarious active service and restrained in hell.
The connection in our passage with Noah’s flood suggests that God used the watery judgment on the world to at least partially restrain the demonic world until the end days (see Matt. 12:43, Luke 8:30–33). At the same time as God brings catastrophic judgment on the world, He is able to rescue from that judgment those who are faithful.
Lord, thank You for the promise of rescuing me from the end-time judgment.
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