Verse 17
These are springs without water, and mists driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved.
Springs without water ... mists driven by a storm ... These are metaphors of the utter emptiness and disappointment that always come of accepting the teaching of apostates. This absolute emptiness is what is wrong with all false teaching. "It is this feature of the movement known as `religious liberalism' which has caused great numbers of spiritually hungry people to desert cold, formal churches."[51] In the desert, a spring without water would be the ultimate disaster; and clouds, or mists that promised moisture for burning crops, which instead of doing so were driven away, would be exactly the same thing.
The blackness of darkness ... Macknight's comment on this is:
In Scripture darkness signifies a state of disconsolate misery. Here it denotes the punishment of the wicked after judgment, which our Lord also hath represented by persons being cast into outer darkness (Matthew 8:12).[52]
[51] Stephen W. Paine, op. cit., p. 997.
[52] James Macknight, op. cit., p. 554.
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