Jude (ESV)
As we enter the New Year, we are looking at the five books in the Bible that have only one chapter.
The Bible Project produces short videos that “help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus.” It is entertaining and informative to watch and learn!
HERE is their 8-minute presentation on Jude.
Greeting
1Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James
Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ — The highest glory which any, either angel or man, can aspire to. The word servant, under the old covenant, was adapted to the spirit of fear and bondage that clave to that dispensation. But when the time appointed of the Father was come, for the sending of his Son to redeem them that were under the law, the word servant (used by the apostles concerning themselves and all the children of God) signified one that, having the Spirit of adoption, is made free by the Son of God. His being a servant is the fruit and perfection of his being a son. And whenever the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in the new Jerusalem, then will it be indeed that “his servants shall serve him,” Revelation 22:3.
–John Wesley
To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:
We are called, beloved, and kept. Let that thought sink all the way in! What privilege, what inspiration is ours in that truth!
2May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Judgment on False Teachers
Here Jude warns readers to be on guard against all who might pervert the grace of God by teaching dangerous practices and doctrines that put the gospel of Jesus Christ in peril.
3Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
- The ancient Greek word translated contend comes from the athletic world — the wrestling mat. It is a strengthened form of the word meaning “to agonize.” Contend speaks of hard and diligent work.
- The verb translated contend earnestly is in the present infinitive, showing that the Christian struggle is continuous.
–David Guzik
“Fight the good fight of faith, and God will give you spiritual mercies.”
–George Whitefield
We are never to lie down and allow lies to take hold and fester. We are to relentlessly assault error with the truth. That is our battle.
–Brandon N. Davison
4For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
Jude could not be more clear in his terminology when referring to false teachers. I have underlined the epithets he uses when speaking of false teachers. He bolsters his argument by giving three examples which show the certainty of God’s judgement against those “certain people” — the example of the people of Israel (verse 5), the example of the angels who sinned (verse 6), and the example of Sodom and Gomorrah (verse 7).
5Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
8Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
The post-modern culture of today dismisses the notion of any absolute authority and encourages individuals to be their own judges of what is right and what is wrong. People can do this by picking and choosing what in the Scripture they will believe and follow. Or they can do this by mixing up teachings from many religions and believing what they think is nice. Or we can do this by proclaiming ourselves to be Christians yet acting no differently from our non-believing neighbors. (Pause for self-examination.) Doesn’t it remind you of the book of Judges: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25).
9But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” 10 But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.
And now three more bad examples: Cain, Balaam, and Korah.
Cain offered his sacrifice to the Lord without faith, and was therefore unacceptable to God (Genesis 4, Hebrews 11:4). Then Cain became angry at his brother Abel (who had offered the Lord an acceptable offering) and killed him. Jude says that Cain typifies a way that the “certain men” follow in. It is the way of unbelief and empty religion, which leads to jealousy, persecution of the truly godly, and eventually to murderous anger.
The story of Balaam is found in Numbers 22 to 25 and 31. Balaam, a prophet, disobeyed the Lord’s plain instructions and tried to curse the people of Israel because he would be paid handsomely for doing so. Jude says there are “certain men” leading and teaching the church who are willing to sell out everything for personal financial gain.
Korah resented the authority that God had given to Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and tried to get more power for himself. God destroyed him and his followers, as found in Numbers 16. “Certain men” try to do what they want for themselves rather than following Christ to the work he has called them to do.
11Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion. 12These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; 13 wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
2 Corinthians 10:5-6 (NIV)
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.
14It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones, 15 to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” 16These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.
A Call to Persevere
17But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. 18They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” 19It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.
Jude points out to his own people that nothing has happened which they might not have expected. The apostles had given warning that in the last times just such evil men as are now among them would come. The actual words of Jude’s quotation are not in any New Testament book. He may be doing any one of three things. He may be quoting some apostolic book which we no longer possess. He may be quoting, not a book, but some oral tradition of the apostolic preaching; or some sermon which he himself had heard from the apostles. He may be giving the general sense of a passage like 1 Timothy 4:1-3. In any event he is telling his people that error was only to be expected in the church.
–William Barclay
20But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.
Here James describes the characteristics of goodness.
(i) The good man builds up his life on the foundation of the most holy faith. That is to say, the life of the Christian is founded, not on something which he manufactured himself, but on something which he received. There is a chain in the transmission of the faith. The faith came from Jesus to the apostles; it came from the apostles to the church; and it comes from the church to us. There is something tremendous here. It means that the faith which we hold is not merely someone’s personal opinion; it is a revelation which came from Jesus Christ and was preserved and transmitted within his church, always under the care and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, from generation to generation.
(ii) The good man is a man of prayer. It has been put this way: “Real religion means dependence.” The essence of religion is the admission of our total dependence on God; and prayer is the acknowledging of that dependence, and the going to God for the help we need. As Moffatt has it in a magnificent definition: “Prayer is love in need appealing to love in power.”
(iii) The good man keeps himself in the love of God. What Jude is thinking of here is the old covenant relationship between God and his people as described in Exodus 24:1-8. God came to his people promising that he would be their God and they would be his people; but that relationship depended on their accepting and obeying the law which he gave them. “God’s love,” Moffatt comments, “has its own terms of communion.” It is true in one sense that we can never drift beyond God’s love and care; but it is also true that, if we desire to remain in close communion with God, we must give him the perfect love and the perfect obedience which must ever go hand in hand.
(iv) The good man waits with expectation. He waits for the coming of Jesus Christ in mercy, love and power; for he knows that Christ’s purpose for him is to bring him to life eternal, which is nothing other than the life of God himself.
–William Barclay
22And have mercy on those who doubt; 23save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.
Doxology
Having warned us about the destiny of false teachers, as well as our need to build ourselves up in the faith and pursue those led astray by error, Jude concludes his letter with one of the most beautiful doxologies found in the Bible. It is indeed right for Jude to end with praise and worship, for what else can we do but give glory to God once we have received His Word?
This doxology teaches us several things about our Lord. Verse 24 tells us God is able to keep us from stumbling. “Stumbling” here is a reference to eternal stumbling; thus, this verse assures us of the power of God to keep His people in His grace, thus securing us in our salvation. Those with true faith will not finally fall away.
This does not mean God’s people are incapable of committing gross sins. In fact, the examples of David (2 Sam. 11) and Peter (Luke 22:54–62) show us those with faith can fall into heinous sin. While God is certainly able to keep His people from such sins, there is no guarantee He will do so. But though they may sin, they may always return to Him in faith before they die (John 6:35–40).
We must never use this promise of preservation to presume upon the kindness of God. When we disobey Him, the fault is our own; we cannot blame Him for not keeping us from sinning (James 1:13–15). We are called to keep ourselves from wickedness (Jude 20–23), and all those whom God preserves will grow more eager over the course of their lives to flee from even the appearance of evil. Still, while we must continue to fight against sin, it is God’s preserving power that keeps us eternally safe.
The remainder of the doxology offers “glory, majesty, dominion, and authority” to God through Jesus Christ, who as the God-man is our mediator now and forever. Let us then be quick always to offer praises to the Lord of glory through His only begotten Son.
–ligonier.com
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Music:
1) Several years ago my late father, then aged 96, visited us, and we talked at some length about his time fighting in New Guinea during World War II. He said something which quite moved me — that it was in battle where he learned what kind of a man he was. But actually, isn’t that true for all of us? It is the hard times which show most truly our inner character.
Jude calls us to be contenders for the faith, willing to fight against our own selfish desires and habits, against the perverse and unkind ways of the world. Jude cheers us on to work at building our faith and prayer life, to love each other with mercy and Christ-likeness. It is not necessarily easy, but it is of eternal value. My prayer for all of us readers of DWELLING in the Word is that we will not grow weary in the battles of our lives, but keep our eyes on Jesus, who has already, and forever, won the victory!
HERE is a rousing version of “Lead On, O King Eternal”!
2) The benediction in the last lines of Jude is truly beautiful, and has been put to music a number of times. Some choices for you: HERE from Maranatha. HERE from a Salvation Army young men’s quartet. HERE for an acapella version. Let this praise and blessing follow you all day!
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English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.
Posted by Rebecca 
DWELLING in the Word 
