Since the false teachers deny judgment, they have indulged their sinful desires and left the ways of Christ. Now they are overcome by their desires having committed apostasy from which there is no escape (see also Hebrews 6:4–8; Hebrews 10:26).1 They sin with full knowledge of God’s moral demands, spurning the grace available through Christ for holy living.2 As a result they are worse off in two senses. For one, they have greater culpability before God compared to those who are ignorant of his law and the gospel of Christ.3 For another, they are very unlikely to return to Christ since they think they already belong to him and that there is no need for repentance. Their condition echoes Jesus’ teaching about the person from whom unclean spirits have been driven only to return (Matthew 12:43–45; Luke 11:24–26).4
20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.