2 Peter 2:2

And many shall follow their lascivious doings; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

Many shall follow ... True Christianity was prophesied to be followed by a period of wholesale defection from the truth. The vast majority of people will fall in with error and immorality. The truth will not be popular in the period foretold here. As Adam Clarke said:

Lasciviousness points to the nature of the heresies, a sort of Antinomianism; they pampered and indulged the lusts of the flesh; and if the Nicolaitans are meant, it is very applicable to them, for they taught the community of wives, etc.[14]

The way of truth ... This was an early name for Christianity (Acts 9:2).

Shall be evil spoken of ... According to Plummer, Clement of Rome in the second epistle to the Corinthians (xiii), elaborated this clause extensively, indicating that, "this epistle was known to him."[15] Regarding the date of this Clement, see introduction.

Antinomianism has foundation in the misunderstanding of Paul's teaching on salvation "by faith," which people have willfully perverted to mean "by faith alone," being apparently blind to the fact that if one is saved by faith alone; he is by that very definition saved without morality of any kind. The scholars, many of them, do not understand this; but the great multitudes make their own application of the obvious meaning of it.

[14] Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Holy Bible, Vol. VI (London: Carlton and Porter, 1829), p. 885.

[15] Alfred Plummer, op. cit., p. 451.