Jude 1:1–25

It is true James does not call himself "the Lord's brother," but "the Lord's servant"; and this is very beautiful. If there had been any self-seeking, he would have been the one to say, "I am the Lord's brother! You must not forget I am the Lord's brother." But that would not have been from the Spirit of God at all. When he was the Lord's brother, he was an unbeliever... He had received the truth of Christ's Person not as son of Mary but as the Son of God, as the Messiah, the Lord of all.

He is content with two titles — "servant" (bondman) "of Jesus Christ, and brother of James."... then Jude too was a brother of the Lord by natural birth. If so, what grace and humility he shows in not calling attention to it! And what a lesson for all who take, or try to take, a place among believers on the ground of human distinction or birth!

Jude reminds his readers that if they were saints, they were saints through grace, by a divine and sovereign call. That call came to them in the power of the Holy Spirit through the word of God. It reached their hearts and consciences, and separated them from the world, to be God's people. We cannot recall too often that it was God's call that made us saints. So we are not called to be saints; we are saints by God's calling.

He does not write to the saints of one particular assembly, nor to Jewish believers as distinct from Gentile ones. All saints are before him. He views them in two ways: first in relation to God the Father, and then in relation to Jesus Christ. The word "beloved" seems to be better supported than "sanctified."

So Jude sets the saints in the immediate presence of God. He teaches them that they are the objects of His heart. He wants them to know that God has brought them, as such, to enjoy a close relationship with Him; for He is their Father, as well as God.

It is not exactly "preserved in." It may be "by" or "for." These are the two options for that word. I do not see how it can be "in"... It brings in another idea, and it is true either way. We are preserved by Christ, and we are preserved for Christ.

This is especially comforting. No matter how dark the days may be, and however strong the current of evil, those who are "the beloved of God called saints" will be preserved in Jesus Christ. They are kept for Him as members of His body, till He comes. He keeps His own... It is the blessed assurance that the believer's keeping rests in His own hands.

Jude begins by declaring the faithfulness of God and the character of His care for the saints. This answers to the prayer of Jesus in John 17. They were called ones, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ. What a happy testimony! It magnifies the grace of God. "Holy Father," our Lord said, "keep them": and these were sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ. The apostle writes in view of many abandoning the holy faith; he addresses those who are kept.

This epistle of Jude, which in an especial manner treats of the ruin, as well as that of John, which puts the faithful on their guard against the antichrists, by no means address themselves to a church, but to all who compose the church in general, to the faithful as having a common interest, a common destiny.

Then in verse 2 we have, "May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you." This is the only place where mercy is wished to believers as a whole. When the apostle writes to individual people, to Timothy and Titus for instance, he says "Mercy." But when he writes to believers as a whole, he says "Grace and peace."

Why does Jude bring "mercy" in here? Because they badly needed the comfort. A person should always feel the deep need of mercy. That is true above all when danger is near, and true again when he feels his own unworthiness. So Jude now gives that comfort to all these believers, because their danger is close at hand.

He wishes them mercy first, not grace, as he does when writing to churches. Here the believers are not viewed as "in Christ," but as people in circumstances of serious need. Peace and love come with it, to make a threefold provision for meeting the adversity. And since God is the source, these things can be multiplied.

Mercy is the first thing (see v. 21), for in the circumstances they were in this was their first need: mercy for their weakness. It is the constant outflow of God's tender compassion to protect them, to sustain them, and to guard them among the dangers of their path. Also peace — not peace with God, but peace itself, absolute peace, which fills the whole soul. In its power we can walk calmly in the face of the greatest dangers and the most vicious enemies. Love is added — the expression of the divine nature, that holy circle and atmosphere into which God brings the redeemed, and in which they live and move and have their being. And Jude desires all these to be multiplied to them. Note the order: mercy, then peace as the fruit of mercy, then love as the sphere of the soul's life.

Multiplication increases numbers far more than addition does. If you add 10 and 10 together you make 20, but if you multiply them you make 100. So God promised to Abraham: "I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore" (Genesis 22:17). Our God and Father always delights to make His blessings abound toward His own. And we are so needy that we need them all.

What is more, believers can still enjoy the blessings of "mercy," "peace," and "love," however dark the day. And not only enjoy them, but see them "multiplied." If evil abounds and difficulties multiply, then mercy and peace and love will also be multiplied.

Only in Jude do we have "May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you." Then in verse 21 we read, "waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life." Here Jude has in view the drift of Christendom away from God, at a time when things were moving fast toward judgment. So we find believers urged to keep themselves "in the love of God." This is again a question of their state, and it shows that when the Christian profession had slipped, and was still slipping, personal dependence becomes urgent.

Jude had planned to write a treatise about "the common salvation." But he found himself turned aside from that plan. Instead he wrote this short letter, urging the defence of the faith. This is a remarkable admission and quite unique. The "common salvation" — that is, the salvation we all share — is indeed an endless theme... In fact an inspired explanation of that salvation was already available in Paul's letter to the Romans. And in the inspired Word God does not repeat Himself.

Here is a very fine illustration at the close of the New Testament of how the Word of God was given. Jude had a desire to write about the common salvation. But the Holy Spirit wanted him to write about something else and made him do so — not in his own words but in words given by God.

"The faith" Jude speaks of is not the personal faith by which we believe, but that which is to be believed — the truth. When error spreads and opposition raises its head, explaining the truth is not enough. We must contend for it. This means conflict. But when Christ is attacked and the truth is at stake, we must not shrink from fighting the good fight of faith on any plea of Christian love.

We are not simply to contend for a particular truth. This has indeed been done. The result is that the truth as a whole has been lost. Sects have formed to hold on to one truth, such as holiness, the presence of the Spirit, the unity of the church, or the coming of the Lord.

"Once" is an ambiguous word. It might mean "once upon a time," once at a particular moment; but that is not the force of the word here at all. It means "once for all." And what a blessing it is that in this book... we have the holy deposit we are called to believe, given to us in full, "once for all." Every truth we are to receive is revealed in the word of God. Every difficulty and every departure from the truth is guarded against there in one way or another.

The faith allows no addition, no change and no development... We may have much to learn about the truth. God may grant fresh light on truth already revealed, and we should grow in our grasp of it. But the truth itself has been delivered to the saints once for all. And it is for this that we are to contend. Not the truth held in part by the early Fathers, handed down by tradition, hardened into creeds or blurred by faulty teaching. It is the faith once delivered to the saints, in the very form it was delivered.

There are times, indeed, when contending for the truth means exposing evil. But the great business of God's people is with the truth, not the error. Jude does not say earnestly expose the error, but "earnestly contend for the faith."

Only the Apostles were given the authority to explain the faith and commit it to the inspired Writings. Only a few were given to be pastors and teachers... How likely, then, that most believers would jump to the conclusion that defending the faith was also the business of a few. That is why this call was needed.

He would have us, in a word, like Nehemiah's builders, with the sword in one hand and the trowel in the other... Notice that the sword is more for defence than for attack. But we must not avoid conflict when the faith once delivered to the saints is at stake.

"For certain people have crept in unnoticed." Jude writes at a slightly earlier point in time than John. When John wrote his First Letter, the bad people went out — the antichrists went out (1 John 2:19). But the danger here was that they were inside. Certain men had crept in unnoticed. That is, at first they looked respectable, of course. "Who long ago were designated for this condemnation" — "condemnation" is not exactly what the word means; it is "to this judgment."

First, they had crept into the assembly "unnoticed." That is, no one saw what they really were when the assembly received them. In a day of evil there is no more serious responsibility than that of the gatekeepers (see 2 Chronicles 23:19), whose duty is to admit only those with a clear right to enter… The gatekeepers had failed. Yet these men had been "marked out beforehand to this sentence." The all-seeing eye of the Spirit of God had seen them already, and the ground of their condemnation had been settled and announced in advance. In their essential character they were "ungodly" men. They had no fear of God before their eyes. They acted with no reference to Him, shutting God out of their thoughts, acts, and ways.

First they turned the grace of God into sensuality. In the letter to Titus we learn that grace is the principle on which God is saving men. By it He teaches the believer to say no to ungodliness and worldly desires and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age (Titus 2:11-12). These ungodly men took the great principle by which God saves men from sin and teaches them self-control, and used it as their chance to gratify the flesh and indulge their lust — while keeping up a respectable Christian profession and moving in the Christian circle.

We sometimes hear people today objecting to the doctrines of grace on the ground that they may be abused. The answer is that they have been abused, and the abuse was in full swing before the first century ended. Scripture tells us how they were abused. Yet instead of advising us to drop the doctrines of grace, it urges us to contend for them!

Note that the word used here for "Lord" is not the usual one. The same term occurs in Luke 2:29, Acts 4:24, Jude 4. It means the Lord as "sovereign master." It is also used in 2 Peter 2:1: "even denying the Master who bought them." Here we do not have the nearness in which we know Him as "our Lord." We have the general relation of authority, in which the Lord is Master of the whole world — of all men, bad or good.

They seized on grace as an excuse for sin, continuing in sin so that grace might abound (Romans 6:1). And they rejected the authority of Christ, who was in fact their only Master… In a word, they refused the will of Christ, so that they might be free to do their own will… This is the essence of all lawlessness. It was therefore a true falling away from the faith, even though they still stood outwardly on Christian ground… These ungodly men existed in Jude's day. But do not forget that they have their counterparts in every age of the church, and so in our own time.

Verse 4 shows the character that suits the enemy to take at a particular time. Those who had "crept in unnoticed" are the ones on whom the Lord will carry out judgment when He comes. Enoch prophesied about them (v. 14, 15). The Lord will judge the same set of people who were coming in during the apostle's days.

That fact is a very solemn thing for the writer to bring before them. It was meant to make them serious, and to deliver them from that careless state of soul which takes it for granted that no harm can happen, because we have all been so blessed and led into the truth.

"The Lord, having saved a people" — mark that — "out of the land of Egypt" — that is the sovereign grace that shows the salvation. I am not speaking of it now as eternal salvation. It was sovereign grace that chose Israel. They were not chosen for everlasting glory, but only delivered out of Egypt… In one sense they came into the narrower circle of what were God's people, and in one sense they were also saved. But they gave up the grace; they abandoned God.

The first act was that He "saved" them, He brought them out by means of the Passover lamb, which was His first great act of "saving"… What was "the second time"? When He "destroyed" them. It is not vague; it says "the second time," and that is the great point. When Israel set up the golden calf, "the second time" began. God went on striking and striking until everyone was destroyed except Caleb and Joshua.

The things that happened to them are not pictures of true believers. They are pictures of those who profess faith in Christ, and most of these today have no faith in His sacred Word. This is the sense of the warnings of Scripture — "afterward destroyed those who did not believe"; "they were unable to enter because of unbelief" (Hebrews 3:18-19). The unbelief shows itself in unholy and unrighteous behaviour. Those things have to be dealt with, but the root evil is unbelief. The mere profession of faith in Christ saves no one.

Jude not only portrays the character of the evil, but he also shows what it involves and where it leads. It involves the hopeless state of people who abandon the faith, and it leads to overwhelming judgment. To prove this, Jude recalls three terrible examples from history. The first is Israel, saved out of Egypt but later destroyed in the wilderness. What was the secret of their downfall? Lust and lawlessness. They lusted after the things of Egypt, and they rebelled against God.

The case of Israel shows that the judgment will proceed on the ground of their having occupied the place of the people of God… The Israelites destroyed in the wilderness did not believe; they were children with no faith. Only two of those who came out of Egypt were spared — Caleb and Joshua… The sin of the angels who did not keep their first position was rather that of disobedience… In the case of Sodom and Gomorrah it was the will of the flesh, self-will in lust. And note the moral order: first unbelief, then disobedience, and finally the flesh given free rein — an order shown again and again in the word of God.

Though Israel was brought out of Egypt, this was no proof that all were believers. Later on, because of unbelief, many were destroyed. A mere outward connection with God's testimony gives no security. They had seen God's power and grace, yet they were destroyed… Let each one make sure he is truly born again, and not in such a condition.

In verses 5-7, we have three cases. They show that God's judgment cannot be reversed, and that it rests on the kind of evil these ungodly men were committing. With Israel the evil was plain, complete unbelief. The unbelievers were destroyed, even though at the start they shared in many privileges. In the case of the angels, their sin was in one word, apostasy. They totally abandoned their original place and state. That is apostasy: and for any creature to do that, whether angel or man, is to be doomed beyond hope. Sodom and the cities around her gave themselves up to unrestrained vice. They broke through boundaries that God had set, and their judgment is eternal. Three terrible warnings!

Fallen angels are another example of those who enjoyed a position of favour and yet left their original place. There is no suggestion that these had eternal life, but they had a position of dignity from which they fell, leaving their own dwelling — that is, the place in which God had put them, which is of course rebellion. In this case there is no possible salvation for them.

But angels other than the devil also fell. Of some, Scripture says they are kept "in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day." But Satan roams all over the world now, and others with him, so they are not in chains under darkness... "The sons of God," in Genesis 6:2, were angels, just as in Job, "the sons of God" presented themselves before God.

The "everlasting chains," in which He has kept and still keeps the apostate angels under gloomy darkness, point to the judicial action of His power. They do not point to His nature or to His gracious purposes, which suit and call for the other word.

Scripture says nothing about angels being judged at the Great White Throne, so we must be content with Jude's general statement: they will be judged at the great day. The apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 tells us that we will judge angels together with Christ.

First, the underlying evil in every case was lust in some form. Second, the effort to satisfy that lust led to rebellion against the authority of God. Third, rebellion against God meant abandoning the position in which God had placed them. This is apostasy. Fourth, in every case apostasy brought overwhelming judgment. There is no hope for the apostate.

How solemn the warnings of these terrible examples are! How plainly they announce that the corruption and rebellion which marks the great mass of people claiming the Christian name today is leading to the hopeless horror of apostasy — the total abandonment of the Christian position. For apostasy there is neither recovery nor remedy.

Israel fell to lusting, rebelled against God, and so abandoned the place of outward relationship with God that He had given them. This was apostasy and led to their judgment — they were destroyed. The angels lusted and abandoned the angelic position in which God had set them. This, too, was apostasy, and as a result they are abandoned to judgment. Sodom and Gomorrah lusted and abandoned the natural order which God had ordained. This again was apostasy, exposing them to the judgment of "eternal fire."

Here it is clear that this was a breaking out, not just into sin, but into something outrageous beyond measure. It was not only evil. It went against even fallen nature. That is what is in view here. The Holy Spirit describes the very same people in a different way, to suit His purpose.

Those cities still lie under the weight of their doom, swallowed up in the judgment that overtook them. The Spirit of God points to this as both a warning and an example. It warns that judgment is certain to come. It shows that this judgment is eternal. Let all such as these corrupters of God's grace and rebels against the authority of Christ beware!

It is not very hard to see that Jude, in speaking of these "cities," speaks of the people in them. The people had sinned, and the judgment fell on the people. The fire and brimstone from heaven was the type or pattern of that "eternal fire" in which they suffer still. The temporary fire that destroyed them from the earth was not the eternal one, and Scripture does not say it was. But the wrath of God shown against them is a sample, a specimen, of what could not be temporary: that wrath against sin which is the "eternal fire." The fire that destroyed them was "eternal fire" if you look, not at the material fire, which was both its instrument and its symbol, but at the divine wrath shown in it.

If destruction in 2 Thessalonians 1:9 is not really "everlasting," then salvation in Hebrews 5:9 is not either. And if the fire in Jude 7 is not "eternal," then neither is the glory in 2 Timothy 2:10.

All apostasy starts with unbelief in what God has spoken… They gave up the place assigned to them. This is the next step in the progress of apostasy. Unbelief leads to rebellion against God. Sodom and Gomorrah come next. Here we find the grossest immoralities, and the pursuit of unnatural desire. These vicious things are still in the world, and why are they so prominent in our days? Because of unbelief… So apostasy develops like this: unbelief, then rebellion against God and His revealed truth, then immorality, then anarchy. We can trace these steps in our own times.

The angel said, "I can do nothing till you arrive there." Why could he not? Not because God lacked power to judge, but because it is a fixed principle of God's ways that punishing, eternal wrath must never touch His people. The judgment of these cities was not only a matter of God's government. Punishing wrath was involved too, as we see in Jude 7. The "punishment of eternal fire" could never touch Lot, since he was a righteous man, though a misguided one.

He now returns and points out that these men followed similar courses. They did so despite these public and well-known examples of the certainty of God's judgment against evil.

What he says is, "Likewise also these dreamers." I do not know any reason for putting in the word "filthy." You will see the word is in italics. There is a great deal of wickedness where there is nothing wrong in the words used. It is only in the idea. Nothing may sound offensive, yet it undermines all that is precious in people who live in the imagination of their own hearts instead of letting the word of God guide them. Why? Because the word of God is an expression of God's authority, and His will is the only thing that ought to guide us, as well as all mankind.

Their dreaming may be taken as an indication that they had forsaken reality for unreality. How many a false teacher would rather regard his dreams as directive and revelatory than God's sound and inerrant Word.

They "defile the flesh" — a phrase that means moral and bodily corruption. It is remarkable that everywhere in Scripture a high religious profession with nothing real behind it is always joined to abominable sins.

This is self-will in man fully grown. He asserts himself and his rights, and at the same time refuses to acknowledge any authority above him. The text does not say which dominion or "lordship" is meant. What it condemns is the spirit of these dreamers — a spirit that will not submit to anything. It is the spirit of insubordination, the growing spirit of the world today.

Refusing to submit to lawful authority — that was the principle at work. Verse 8 describes it again as lordship despised. And, oh, beloved, are not the seeds of it found in each heart? It first shows itself when a small child disobeys his parents. It shows itself still in the desperate waywardness, self-will and rebellion of our hearts, even though we are the Lord's children.

Last comes the fruit of despising dominion: speaking evil of dignities, railing against them. It is the tongue fully let loose. These people have no reverence for God or man, and they disown all allegiance. They say, in the words of the Psalmist, "With our tongue we will prevail, our lips are with us; who is master over us?" (Psalm 12:4.)

The false teachers spoke evil of glories, which I assume suggests angelic powers.

Even Michael the archangel is a sobering example for us. Though himself in a high position, he would not dare to rail against Satan, who is a dignity also. We must show him serious respect, for he is a dignity. Satan is not an authority over believers, and they must not obey him. But they must not ridicule him or dare to show contempt toward him.

God forbid that anyone should say or write anything that would tend to weaken or undermine the spiritual authority of rulers, pastors, teachers or overseers given by the Lord Himself. God forbid that anyone should stir up in the churches a spirit of disregard and opposition against any true spiritual authority appointed by God. Such a spirit is not from above but from beneath. Jude warns us against two evil extremes. One is "showing favouritism to gain advantage." The other is "despising dominion and speaking evil of dignities."

The only reason this dispute between the archangel and Satan is brought in is to show the real character of those who speak evil of dignities. These men allow themselves to speak with insults. The archangel would not, even when dealing with Satan, the embodiment of all evil, and even though he knew Satan's hatred of the people of God. Instead he acted "with the seriousness of one who acts according to God," and appealed to the judgment of God Himself. And in doing so he uses the very words the Lord Himself uses: "The Lord rebuke you." The Lord said this when Satan stood at His right hand to resist Jehovah's gracious action for Jerusalem, represented by Joshua the high priest (Zechariah 3:1-2).

But who is Michael (which means "who is like God")? This distinguished angel is named five times in Scripture (Daniel 10:13, 21; Daniel 12:1; Jude 9; Revelation 12:7). He seems to be the leader of the angelic ranks, since Jude calls him "the archangel." In Daniel 10:13, where Michael is first named, the margin calls him "first of the chief princes" (ESV: "one of the chief princes"). In each of the five passages where his name occurs, and in their contexts, the Jewish people are in question. Clearly he is the angel charged with guarding the interests of Israel.

The accounts of Moses in Exodus and Numbers show how constantly the people of Israel argued with him, grumbled against him, and spoke evil of him... But the moment he was dead, what would that same devil not have given for the body! He had stirred the people up against Moses while Moses was alive. The dead body would have become a relic... So the devil would have gained twice over. First he set them against Moses while he was alive. And he would have gained still more after Moses' death, by making them worshippers of Moses. So we can easily understand why the Lord buried the body Himself.

Of the nature of his reasoning with the devil about the body of Moses we have absolutely no knowledge. Speculations on the subject have been endless, above all those built on the mysterious statement in Deuteronomy 34:6. But this is one of God's secrets, and man cannot penetrate it.

Jude does not quote from tradition. He does not quote from a source that is no longer available, nor, as some suppose, from one of Zechariah's visions (chapter 3). The Holy Spirit revealed to him what actually happened when Moses had died.

If this is confined to that one Scripture, so be it; one clear word of God is as sure as a thousand.

Suppose two people are trading insults, a good man and a bad man. If the bad man's abuse provokes the good man to answer in kind, the good man comes down to his level. It does not lessen the other man's abuse at all... Here we have the beautiful conduct of the angel as a pattern for the saint. We should not be provoked. When people insult us, we should not insult them back, but act as the Lord Himself acted. He committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.

The devil is fallen now, but he was once a high dignity in the angelic realm. Until God strips him of that rank, his dignity should be respected. Even so high an angelic dignity as Michael respected it. He did not take it on himself to rebuke him, but left the Lord to do it.

"But these speak evil" — this now refers to people who had been baptised and had taken their place in the church. Even so, they were giving in to every form of corruption, and were abandoning the very things they professed. I do not say that they were outside. This is the difference between Jude and John. When we come to John's Epistle they went out; but the corrupting thing in Jude is that there they are poisoning others.

epistamai mainly means to know something by being close to it… It is the knowledge gained by experience — the knowledge of an expert… In Jude 10 there is what they do not know (they had no conscious knowledge of it, oida), and what they know naturally, epistamai.

The reader will notice how the word railing keeps coming back. In verses 8 and 10 it is translated "speak evil." To show what it means, it is enough to say that the gospels use the same word in the phrase "blaspheme against the Holy Spirit" (Mark 3:29). It is a word that shows the will and the corruption of the heart at deadly work… They speak abusively against the things they do not know. These are probably the spiritual things, the divine truths the Christians around them spoke of — things they could not grasp. For "the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Cor. 2:14). As for the things they understand by mere nature, in these they corrupt themselves, using them only to satisfy their own appetites and passions.

In the things they know naturally they corrupt themselves. As one has truly said, "a man cannot become like an animal without sinking far below the animal; and what in the animal only shows the absence of a moral element, in man will show the presence of an immoral one."

Verse 10 contains a very cutting indictment. Men who are ignorant as well as arrogant usually fall to abusing what they do not understand. These men did that. They also corrupted themselves in the natural things they did understand… Things spiritual they rail at. In things natural they corrupt themselves. Truly a terrible indictment!

Suppose two people are railing, a good man and a bad man. The bad man's railing provokes the good man to rail. Then the good man goes down to the level of the bad. It does not lessen the other man's railing at all… The angel's beautiful conduct is a pattern for the believer. We should not be provoked. When we are insulted, we should not insult back, but act as the Lord Himself acted. He committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.

Strong language against what is good is disgraceful. Against what is bad it is thoroughly right… Railing is abuse of what is good. Here we have the sharpest and most cutting exposure of what is evil.

He traces the progress of the apostasy that he foretells, under three heads. First, "the way of Cain," which was a way of self-will in approaching God: he ignored God's way and came in his own way. Second, "the error of Balaam for reward." This was self-seeking under cover of religion. Third, "Korah's rebellion," which was self-assertion in the things of God. Jude shows that when the opposers reach this third stage, they will perish.

Note the progression in these statements: "gone"; "ran greedily after"; and "perished." … The Apostle Jude places "the rebellion of Korah" out of its historical order, for Korah came before Balaam in the history of Israel (Num. 16). But Jude mentions Korah's great sin last in this passage because it is so serious.

Cain sees nothing wrong with the offering itself — with the materials it was made of. But there was one vital defect that ruined him completely: there was no faith. There is no mention of God, which there must be; and there was no judgment of his own sinfulness either.

That was "the way of Cain," and millions are rushing along that road at this moment. Such people are by no means without the religious element in their character. They would like to offer something to God; to do something for Him. They deem it right to present to Him the results of their own toil. They are ignorant of themselves, ignorant of God … They reject God's remedy to cleanse, and they put man's effort to improve in its place. This is "the way of Cain."

Covetousness ruled this desperately wicked man. To get gain he would gladly make money out of the people of God. He was even ready to preach error if that would win him the reward. This has rightly been called the church error. Think how many people hold high office in the professing church and simply use the position to make money out of the people of God. They are ready to teach error to get rewards.

Korah's rebellion is a revolt against the authority of Christ and against the special character of His priesthood. A man stirs up this revolt who holds the position of a minister but pretends that he is a priest. In doing so he sets aside the only true heavenly priesthood, the priesthood of Christ.

The sin of Korah was twofold. He openly rebelled against Moses and Aaron, saying, "You have gone too far! … why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?" And, not content with his own position, he seized the place of priestly intercession that belonged to Aaron alone (Num. 16:3, 9-10). He sought to drag Moses and Aaron down to the level of the congregation, and to lift himself up to the level of Aaron. … Christ is degraded to the level of fallen man, and man is exalted to the level of God.

For the person who slips back there is a way of recovery. For the apostate there is nothing but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fiery anger that will consume God's enemies.

Some scholars think the word for spots is better translated "sunken rocks" (spilos). They are like icebergs, hiding their danger below the surface. This was what the ones Jude writes about were like while revelling at the love feasts (agapai). These feasts appear to have been a shared evening meal among the Lord's people in the early years of the church. The meal ended with the Lord's Supper... These men were spots or blemishes in the Christian company. They had crept in among the saints at this early date, but they had no link with Christ their Head. They were pasturing themselves, tending their own wants, seeking their own things. These intrusions were false shepherds without an atom of love for others. This is like the shepherds in Ezekiel 34:8 who "have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep." They not only neglect the sheep, they also lead them astray.

These men were a hidden danger to the saints they met with. Being what they were, they feasted together with them without fear, pasturing themselves. What a proof of hard hearts and seared consciences! They were hypocrites, yet they mingled with the saints of God. They claimed to enjoy what the saints enjoyed, and they were not afraid.

They are like clouds carried along on the winds, yet without water. In the land where Jude wrote, clouds were welcome as giving promise of rain. So these men looked as if they were bringing refreshment to God's weary people. But they had nothing to give. Satan's power drove them along, and the wind is a picture of that power.

Clouds, with great promise of blessing, but empty of true refreshment. They are carried about by winds, shifting in any direction that circumstances and their own inclinations lead them.

Then again they are like trees "whose fruit withers," or "autumn trees." Autumn is when we expect to find fruit on the trees, but these trees have none. These men are marked by promise without performance, for they are twice dead — first by nature and then as coming under the judgment of God. When Jude speaks of them as rooted up, he is no doubt looking ahead to the judgment they will come under.

They are twice dead. First in nature, which is true of all unbelievers. Second in regard to their spiritual pretence. They had the advantage of a link with the testimony of God, in which there is life, but they revolted from it into the dead state of apostasy. Being plucked up by the roots is no doubt prophetic.

I cannot imagine anyone but an inspired man daring to use such firm and solemn language about those who were inside the church. That is a marked point of this letter... Jude looks especially at those who took the place of salvation, those who gathered to the name of the Lord... There is nothing more dangerous than a departure from the faith.

They are also like waves of the sea, raging and foaming. They were uncontrolled except by the power of Satan, and it was their own shame that they displayed. The word, we are told, is in the plural, "shames." It means the things which were a shame to them, not that they felt any shame in them. Probably they did not, but gloried in them.

"But the wicked" — a solemn word of contrast — "are like the tossing sea; for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up mire and dirt." Or, as we read in Jude, "wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame." What a vivid picture, drawn by the Holy Spirit, of the state of a soul without God! And at the foot of the canvas He adds only this word, as an eternal inscription: "There is no peace," says my God, "for the wicked."

They were also "wandering stars," stars which had left their own orbit and were now rushing, uncontrolled and uncontrollable, to their destruction; and so Jude adds, "for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever."

Instead of being like a planet, shining with steady light and moving evenly onward in its orbit, controlled by the sun, man has become like a "wandering star," pursuing an erratic course he knows not where; though Scripture significantly says, "for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever" (Jude 13).

He speaks of these would-be "illuminators" and says they are like comets or shooting stars. They are not exactly on an aimless wander. Like planets moving on a fixed path, they are set in their harmful ways, wandering from the way of truth and following a path of error and deceit. They have no light to give. Only a fearful gloom and murkiness of spiritual darkness is reserved for them forever. Their doom there is a perpetual exposure of their shame. They remain eternally unforgiven and forever unatoned for, with nothing to cover their sins and shame.

It is the home of wicked spirits and will mark the place of punishment of the wicked. Matthew 8:12; 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6, 13. God is light, and Christ came into the world as the true light. Everything shut out from God, or opposed to God and to the Lord Jesus, must share in moral darkness.

I cannot imagine anyone but an inspired man daring to use such decided and solemn language about those who were within the church. Jude looks especially at those who took the place of salvation, those who were gathered to the name of the Lord... There is nothing more dangerous than a departure from the faith, the Christian faith. We are responsible not only for what man is and has done, but also for what grace has made known — most of all if we turn from it in unbelief. What is so evil as apostasy?

When we come to verses 24 and 25, how delightful is the contrast with all that has gone before! We come out from the darkness of human wickedness and apostasy. We come out even from the struggles and efforts of true saints in the presence of the evil. We come into the clear light of the power and glory of God. Our eyes are lifted to "Him who is able to keep you from stumbling." Here, and here only, is real rest for the heart.

The epistle is striking in this: it shows the decline of the church. False brothers came in unnoticed. Their character marked out the state of the professing church in the last days. They are the object of the Lord's judgment when He appears.

Certain men have crept into the Christian profession (verse 4) — that is the start. Enoch's prophecy, that judgment will be executed on all (verses 14, 15), declares the finish.

There is something unusual when it says, "Enoch, the seventh from Adam." People have made something of that because they do not understand it. But it is very simple. There was more than one Enoch. There was an Enoch before this one — an Enoch the son of Cain. We should not look for prophecy in a son of Cain... We can hardly doubt that Enoch prophesied about the people of his own day. Prophecy always takes its start from what is present... But the Spirit of God also reaches from the beginning right on to the end.

Enoch was number seven in the line of descent through Seth. Genesis 5 shows it plainly. But one might wonder why Jude should spend even four words drawing our attention to it. Seven is in Scripture the number of perfection and completeness... Ten patriarchs lived before the flood. It was fitting, then, that number seven should be the one in whom faith and the life of faith came out in its completeness.

Now there are only two scenes named in Scripture to which this can refer. One is the judgment of the great white throne at the end of the world, and Scripture says nothing there about the saints being present. The other is the coming of Christ to take His earthly dominion. There, as we have already seen, the saints go out with Him as the armies of heaven, clothed in His likeness. They are His companions in executing judgment on His foes.

A thoughtful listener might have asked, "How can so many saints come with the Lord?" The obvious answer would be that He must come for them before He can bring them with Him.

Enoch was taken up to heaven so that he would not see death. He was carried away from the earth before the judgment of the flood. So he is a type of the church — a picture of the saints who will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. That happens before the man of sin appears and the great tribulation comes.

The existing book of Enoch, translated into the Ethiopic language, may have had a Hebrew original, as it is a Jewish production... It was probably written after Jude gave the words of Enoch by divine inspiration. Jude's words (verses 14, 15) are divine truth, so the matching language in the Ethiopic is certainly false. For this fake book makes the Lord execute judgment on His saints. That goes directly against His own word in John 5:24.

We have no indication that it was passed down in any written form, and it was quite possible for the Holy Spirit to have given it again to Jude. I do not venture to say that this is how it happened; we really do not know. But we do know, however Jude got it, that it is divine.

The man who walked with God was entrusted with a testimony... God is sure to reveal His mind to the man who values fellowship with Him, for He loves to share His thoughts with His own.

To a Christian, the preservation of this prophecy has a moving interest. The passage adds, to a truth taught elsewhere, that Enoch prophesied it. So we have a testimony that even before the flood the man of God had already announced the judgment of the world he was leaving. He "walked with God," and God took him out of the world, as the church will one day be taken. "Known to God are all His works, from the beginning of the world." He fixes all His purposes beforehand. That stays true whatever His patience may be, and however He deals with man in long-suffering and righteousness before He carries those purposes out.

"Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to" — what does Scripture say? — to "execute judgment upon all." This is not the saints. The "all" are completely distinct from the saints. The saints had been caught up, and now come with Him who executes the judgment on all the sinners found in that day. "To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all" — to make it perfectly plain who are meant — all "that are ungodly among them."

When the wickedness of man rises then to its full height, God will strike in judgment. The Lord Jesus, who once bore judgment for our sakes, is then to be its Executor, and that oldest of all prophecies given through the lips of a man will be fulfilled: "Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints to execute judgment upon all" (Jude 14, 15). Beforehand the saints will have been "changed" according to 1 Corinthians 15, and "caught up" according to 1 Thessalonians 4, so they are with Him in a glorified condition.

He will execute judgment, bringing solemn conviction to all the ungodly. This word "ungodly" comes four times in verse 15. It marks first men's characters, second their conduct, third their motives, and fourth their words. In all of these things they choose to refuse any recognition of God, and yet they keep up a pretence of religion. What sheer terror it will be for them when their hypocrisy is unmasked!

Here it is plain that ungodly words are just as bad in their own way as ungodly deeds. Sometimes an ungodly word does more harm than an ungodly deed. For instance, an ungodly deed might be an act of unrighteousness in a man, but an ungodly word might be a slur on Christ. This is worse, especially if people accept it. People are quite ready to cry out against an ungodly deed. Even worldly men can judge ungodly deeds well enough. Yet the same people would be deceived by hard and ungodly words against the Lord and His grace and truth.

We are told that one special thing the Lord is coming to judge is "all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him," Jude 15. There is no present ridicule of His saints that will not be counted as against Himself in that day.

It is important to notice the use the Spirit of God makes of Enoch's words in Jude. He does not apply them to the world, but to the professing Church. This short letter has for its theme the entry, growth, and judgment of evil in Christendom. "The ungodly amongst them" means wicked men amongst Christians. How many in our day, in pulpit and press, are saying "hard speeches against Him"!

Hard speeches against the Christ of God must stir the righteous indignation of the true children of God. And yet to a very large extent they can afford to treat the authors of these hard speeches with silent contempt. They know that the time is soon coming when God will deal with all in judgment. For centuries He has kept silence and borne with long-suffering patience. All that time men have grown ever bolder in rebellion, heaping up wrath against the day of wrath. But at last every "hard speech" will receive its crushing answer, and every opposer will be silenced and condemned.

He says, "These are grumblers," and he adds, "malcontents" — not content with their lot. That is the strict literal meaning of the word. They are people who like to be something more and greater than they are — greater than God ever called them to be. They want to be somebody.

Jude calls them grumblers and complainers. They are dissatisfied people with grievances. But the cause of it all does not lie in the people they blame. It lies in their own lusts. Their lusts so dominate them that nothing would satisfy them.

"These are grumblers, malcontents"; and what is the cause of that? "Walking after their own lusts." Do not suppose that lust means only gross lust. There are refined lusts — vanity, pride, ambition. What are all these but lusts? They are all lusts. They are the lusts of the devil... They love to gather a party around them, above all if they can count some rich people in it, "to gain advantage."

Grumbling and complaining marked Israel in the wilderness, above all the mixed crowd who travelled with them... The next clause goes down to the root of the evil — following their own sinful desires. They were governed by their own inclinations and desires, and not by the will of God... Finally, they were loud and boastful talkers, using swelling words. They were flatterers too, fawning on anyone they could make a profit out of. Scripture tells us again and again that God shows no favoritism. But favoritism is exactly what these "dreamers" showed, and they showed it for their own advantage.

But those who have belittled Christ have always exalted man. If they have spoken harsh words against the Christ of God, they have also spoken boastful words about sinful men. Belittling Christ is always linked with admiring man. And behind the harsh words against Christ there is always a low way of life... Lust is the real secret of antagonism to Christ and admiration of man.

We may put on a good show of faith in front of one another. Yet too often, in our hearts which God sees, we may be "showing favoritism to gain advantage". We then value riches and social position more than spirituality and the lowly graces of the One who was "gentle and lowly in heart".

Enoch prophesied of these. I do not know anything more striking than that. There are the same people now as in Enoch's day... But Jude carried us on to the coming of the Lord. The people on the earth when the Lord comes will be the same kind of wicked people as in the days of Enoch and of Jude. Evil, you see, goes on. Evil retains its own terrible character.

Jude next turns his attention to the saints themselves, to those who were walking apart from the evils he had pointed out. He strengthens their souls with the words of wisdom and guidance they needed. He also shows them how they may be kept safe from the tricks and seductions of the enemy. And what a relief it must have been to turn from his solemn condemnation of these men who had abandoned the faith to the encouragement of the beloved saints!

Jude addresses the saints here, and in verse 20, as "beloved." In this he expresses his own love in the Spirit, and he is also in communion with the heart of God the Father concerning His people.

If we are to contend for the faith, how important it is that we "remember" the very words in which the truth came to us through the apostles. Critics may question the apostles' words, and theologians may belittle them. But the Word itself states that if a man is spiritual, he will acknowledge that the things written by the apostles are "the commandments of the Lord" (1 Cor. 14:37). What is more, submitting to apostolic teaching is the great test that shows by what spirit a man speaks (1 John 4:6).

So Jude points out the antidote: "the words spoken beforehand by the apostles." Notice, not traditions, but words spoken in their own hearing. "They told you" — the apostles' own words. What those words were to the people who heard them, their writings are to us.

Well, we have at least two of these apostles. Surely that is quite enough. Very likely the other apostles taught the very same things by word of mouth. But we have this warning about these characters, written down by two besides Jude: one the apostle Paul, the other Peter in both his letters.

Jude also tells us to remember the things the apostles of the Lord had said before he wrote this letter. In 2 Peter 3:3 we read about mockers coming in the last time, following their own lusts. But clearly the other apostles had testified to the same effect.

First and foremost, he would have them recall the warnings the apostles had given... The Lord never leaves His people without advance warning about the dangers and enemies they will meet. If they store His warnings in their minds, they are neither surprised nor discouraged when there are fears inside as well as fights outside. They are ready for conflict with every form of Satan's hostility. The Lord Himself said to His disciples, "For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand" (Matt. 24:24-25).

So while we cannot help grieving over the corruption, there is no reason for surprise and no need to be disheartened; rather our faith should be confirmed as we see the apostles' words fulfilled.

"But you, beloved" (verses 17, 20) — how refreshing to see how Jude marks out the loyal-hearted and holy brothers of Christ... And the first thing he asks is this: "remember" the spoken words of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. This points us first of all to the supreme authority of Scripture, the sure foundation and unfailing resource for faith in this day of evil.

We have at least two of these apostles. Surely that is quite enough. Very likely the other apostles taught the very same things by word of mouth. But two others besides Jude wrote this warning down about these characters — the apostle Paul, and Peter in both his letters... And I think that Jude goes still further, and that his letter came after Second Peter, for this reason: there is an advance of evil. Peter speaks of unrighteous men; Jude speaks of men that once seemed to have the truth, and through their bad life, bad ways, pride, vanity, or whatever it was, they lost it.

He tells the saints that they have been well warned of these things. "There will be mockers, walking after their own worldly, ungodly lusts." You will not only find men of God — they are always there. You will find mockers and scoffers, who profess the name of Christ and scoff at everything that is divine.

Not merely unrighteous men, or lawless men, but one of the worst features of evil — "mockers"... Here we find that it is not little children in their folly, but the case of men who claimed wisdom; and the way they showed it was by "mocking"!

"Mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts" — their own lusts of ungodly things. The wording is stronger than that. Their lust was after ungodliness. This is what characterised their lust. It is not a vague term; it is a very exact term — "lusts of ungodliness."

These mockers once looked respectable. They once spoke well. They were received, they were baptised; they remembered the Lord Jesus, taking part in the assembly, no doubt. Very likely they had been preachers. But here it was clear that they were given up to their own lusts of ungodliness, and that they were mockers. So they turned with the greatest spite and hatred against the truth that once separated them from the world. They claimed to be believers, but in reality they were clearly Satan's agents.

The apostle John spoke of this as already present. There were many antichrists, and this showed that the last time (literally, hour) had begun. 1 John 2:18. Turning away from apostolic doctrine was a sign of the last time (it was not exactly the "last days," as in 2 Timothy). No further revelation was to come, and if people refused this doctrine, nothing but judgement could follow.

What a comfort that we have not been left unwarned of the terrible evil. Enoch prophesied of the evil; the apostles warned us of it. So we cannot help grieving over the corruption. But there is no ground for surprise, and no need to be discouraged. Instead, seeing the apostles' words come true should confirm our faith.

Every man has a soul, converted or not. Now, when we believe, we receive a nature that we never had before; we receive life in Christ. These men described here had nothing but their natural soul. They had not received life in Christ. They were merely "natural" men. "Sensual," in our language, is very often taken to mean people who are abandoned to immoral ways. These people may have been so, but that is not the meaning of the word. It is the same word that 1 Cor. 2:14 translates "natural man" and sets against the "spiritual man." So he adds here, "not having the Spirit."

"Sensual" means soul-led: their own appetites and feelings govern them. Not having the Spirit, they know nothing of His power, as believers do.

"These are they who separate themselves" means separating "within," not "without," at all. The early part of this letter makes this plain: certain men crept in. Unnoticed, they had "crept in," not "gone out." We can understand it if we bear in mind the Pharisees. The Pharisees never separated themselves from Israel. Yet the very name Pharisee means "a separatist." They were separatists within Israel, and these men were separatists within the church. In both cases it was not going out, but making a party of pride and self-righteousness within.

The false teachers were separating themselves. That does not mean they had left the meetings of the saints; they made subtle distinctions between themselves and others. They carried on their corrupting work from within. They made separations by their false course — no doubt accusing the saints who stayed in the truth of being the real cause of the division!

They will, all the same, "separate themselves" — not from evil, moral or doctrinal, of course, but in a proud, Pharisaical spirit. They boast of superior knowledge or intellectual progress. They pretend to despise the humble Christians who still believe and rest in the word of God. They take a position apart, and may form themselves into a school of opinion. But God does not approve those who commend themselves. In one sentence Jude strips these apostates of their fine clothing and shows them as they appear before the eye of God.

To have the Spirit is the sure mark of really belonging to Christ. Jude describes these men as "they who separate themselves." It is very much open to question whether the word "themselves" is really in the original. The Revised Version puts it simply "who make separations." The Holy Spirit is the power of unity. These men without the Spirit were the ones stirring up disunity.

To be without the Spirit is to lack the great privilege of a Christian. Here is the great difference between a believer now resting on redemption and an Old Testament believer. Those believers were waiting for the Spirit in the days of the Messiah. The Messiah has been rejected, yet God has poured out the Holy Spirit on us — not on those who are still waiting for the Messiah. These men had taken their place in the church, but they did not have the Spirit.

This kind of separation is completely unacceptable to God because it comes out of a feeling of superiority to others. In contrast with this there is a separation that God delights in, because it is a separation to Him. In such a case there is an answer in the heart to what He has worked in it. There is love and devotion to Him and a desire to please Him.

This is very carefully worded. This letter says nothing at all about leaders, or guides, or rulers, or preachers, or teachers either. As far as there were any, they generally have a very bad character... The saints themselves are here exhorted directly.

"Building up yourselves on your most holy faith." As men depart from it, you be more careful of it. Get your soul better built up in it. It is a most holy faith. It is not the invention of man, and the devil has never had anything to do with it. That faith is from heaven itself.

This is the only place in all the New Testament where faith is called our "most holy faith."... It is the thing that we believe, which is the meaning of it here. It is not about praising people, but about what these people receive from God... There is a great difference between faith and "the faith." Here it is "the faith." Faith is a quality of you, and me, and every believer. But that is not the sense here, which is, "the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints," as he says in this very letter.

That verse is often misquoted. People say, build up yourself in your most holy faith. They speak as if the faith were something inside us, to be strengthened and built up in. That is not the thought. We are to build ourselves up on that solid, holy foundation — the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. That is the faith. We cannot strengthen that, but we can strengthen ourselves upon that.

We have already seen in this letter that God has committed the faith to us as a perfect and completed thing. It needs no building up: we can add nothing to it. It is we who need the building up... We do not have a most holy place today as Israel had long ago. Instead we have a most holy faith. No one may trespass on it or tamper with it.

Do we go to the word of eternal truth every morning? Do we read it and think it over, depending on the Spirit? Do we pray over it, and take it in as food that renews our inner self?... And we can be sure that those who build themselves up will value what others build into them, and will gain from the ministry God has given those others.

Not "to the Holy Spirit," as though we were to think of Him as an Object of faith outside ourselves. It is "in" Him that we are to pray. Now prayer is the expression of dependence upon God, who is outside ourselves. We are very dependent. We are to know it, and to confess it in practice by praying. In this we shall be the very opposite of the ungodly men whom Jude has described to us. They feel they are enough in themselves.

There is a great deal of prayer that is not in the Holy Spirit... Where there is prayer in the Holy Spirit, every word of it is fully acceptable to God. Every word of such prayer expresses exactly what God means at that time. But there are prayers that begin in the Spirit and do not end in the Spirit.

Remember that the main burden of this letter is that we should earnestly contend for the faith... Some people love a fight for its own sake. They would rush into conflict for a cause they hardly understand, if they understand it at all... We must first be built up on the faith. Only then does it become the banner we fight under.

Notice that the word "keep", as often happens in similar exhortations, is in a past tense (the aorist). Its force is that we are to seek to be in that state. Perhaps it also reminds us of our own powerlessness, and of our need of constant grace to be kept there. The love referred to is God's love to us, which never varies and never changes. Jude simply wants us to live in the sense and enjoyment of it. Nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. Most Christians know this. It is quite another thing to live with that awareness in our souls.

"Keep yourselves in the love of God." Could we keep ourselves in anything better? Was there ever anything higher? Love is of God, and we are to keep ourselves in it, instead of being provoked by the evil things around us, instead of yielding because others yield. This must mean great confidence in God, and delight in what God's own nature is — the activity of His nature. Light is the moral character of God's nature; love is the active character of God's nature. Light does not allow any impurity; love goes out to bless others. We are called to keep ourselves not only in the light of God, but in the love of God. We are in the light already; God brought us there as Christians.

His love has a firm hold on us, and He will never let us go. But we are also to have a firm hold on it in the quiet places of our hearts. We are to be bathed in it, just like a bucket or some other vessel that has been thrown into the ocean. Then it is in the ocean, and the ocean is in it. So if we keep ourselves in the love of God, the love of God will be in us, giving its beautiful character to our lives.

In fact, when one sees the fruits of man's heart, one feels that it must be His mercy. His mercy presents us without spot before His face in that day, for eternal life with a God of holiness. No doubt it is His unchangeable faithfulness, but in the presence of so much evil one thinks rather of the mercy. It is mercy that has made the difference between those who fall and those who stand.

I think mercy is brought in here especially because of the great need — the distress, the weakness, everything that tended to cast people down. No, he says, do not be downcast, look for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Is it only along the way? No, it is all along the way, to the very end — "that leads to eternal life", the great consummation. This could not be unless they already had eternal life in Christ now.

Keeping ourselves in the love of God will lead to "waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life." Mercy upon mercy meets our need at every step of our journey. But the crowning mercy will take us right out of the scene of need. It will take us to meet the Lord in the air, and into the fullness of life in life's eternal home. On earth we may have caught a glimpse of its glory and a taste of its sweetness. In heaven we enter on its fullness.

"And of some have compassion." If we are to fulfil that exhortation, compassion must first flow into our hearts, and where does it come from? It does not spring up from false teaching, or from the flesh, or the world. This tender pity that spends its all to bless those in distress and danger is a divine quality. And if our hearts are to be full of it, we must build ourselves up in the faith, pray in the Spirit, and keep ourselves in the love of God. We must be conscious of the eternal and incorruptible riches that are ours in heaven above.

"Of some have compassion, making a difference; and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire." Some might say there is partiality, that this is never right; yet God calls upon us to make a difference. But we must take care that we do not make differences in order to please ourselves, but because we believe God would have us do it. Nothing more calls for an exercised conscience than this. Saints very often have a common routine, a rule for dealing with everybody: but this is not God's way. The saints of God must weigh many circumstances, principles, and states of souls in each case that comes before them. There may be hardly two persons who would have to be dealt with alike.

It would be much easier, no doubt, to have a rigid rule applicable in all cases, which would remove all exercise of mind as to how things should be dealt with, but such is not God's way.

One more thing to notice: dealing with such people needs discernment. "Of some," says Jude, "have compassion, making a difference." There may be leaders in the evil, corrupters of the truth. We should keep completely apart from them; they are to be rejected altogether. Others are misled — simple souls whom clever speech has deluded and plausible reasoning has entangled. We are to seek these out and recover them.

Unbounded compassion for the people of God must always go together with uncompromising separation from the evil that holds them. So it was with Christ. Of Him one has rightly said: "In Christ there is a compassion that knows no limit to the sinner combined with infinite separation from his sin." To show compassion we shall need divine love. To make a difference will call for divine wisdom. To pull any "out of the fire" will need divine power. And to "hate the garment spotted by the flesh" will demand divine holiness.

"Of some have compassion, making a difference." ... There are poor, feeble Christians who need your help; lame ones, ready to turn out of the way. They have to be sought out, to be cared for. They may sometimes tell you they do not want your care, but we are not to be discouraged. Go after them, seek them. Seek them in the grace of Christ, and the love of Christ.

It is a fatal mistake to think that we must go into the fire ourselves to pluck people out of it. This would never do... How can I best pull a man out of a swamp? Surely not by going into the swamp, but by standing on firm ground and from there lending him a helping hand.

I find this passage unusually hard to explain, and the reason is this. The original authorities and the best authorities are all in confusion about it. This is very rarely the case in the New Testament, but it is the case here... Now I believe there are three classes, and not two only. That will show how uncertain it is.

When we come to verses 24 and 25, how delightful is the contrast with all that has gone before! We come out from the darkness of human wickedness and apostasy, and even from the struggles and efforts of true saints in the presence of the evil, into the clear light of the power and glory of God. Our eyes are lifted to "Him who is able to keep you from stumbling." Here, and here only, is real rest for the heart.

We are to contend for the faith, building ourselves up on it, and we are to work to rescue others from defilement and doom, but we can find no rest in ourselves or our efforts. We may have grace to keep ourselves in the love of God, at least in some measure, yet we can only find rest in the fact that He is able to keep us from falling, and to present us faultless before the presence of His glory.

How fitting, when the dangers, the evils, the horrible wickedness of turning away from all Christian grace and truth might have the effect of greatly discouraging a weak soul! No one ought to be discouraged; not one. "Now to Him who is able to keep" clearly refers to every step of the way, and there is power in Him to keep. It is we who fail in dependence. Never does He fail in power to preserve.

It is still true that God is able to keep us from falling, however hot the fiery trial or fierce the temptation. There is no excuse, then, to be offered if we fall; the fault is wholly our own, and it demands unsparing self-judgment.

The word "faultless" is the same one used of the Lord Himself when it says He "offered himself without blemish to God" (Hebrews 9:14). Such will be the perfected condition of the saints; and it must be so, since otherwise they could not stand before the presence of the glory of God.

That will only be because we are glorified; that will only be because we are like Him. He was the only One intrinsically faultless, and He is the One who, by redemption — and then by its completion for the body, since redemption now concerns only the soul, but when He comes it will be for the body as well — will present us faultless in both soul and body.

He is their only Resource, sufficient in this way for the present; and as to the future, He will present every believer without blemish before the presence of His glory. What wonderful power and grace, so far above the vanities of religious pretence! And it will be "with exceeding joy" — that is, His joy will exceed. Ours will certainly be unspeakable and full of glory, but His will exceed ours.

Whose joy is that? Not simply our own — that "exceeding joy," though we share in it and it is reflected in us. The "exceeding joy" is the joy of the Father who has got back the lost, now found, the one dead, now alive again, and He makes the whole house ring with the music that is in His own heart first.

"I see the corruption that has come in, I see the rising tide of evil, I see that the saints may fail in 'building,' and 'praying,' and 'keeping themselves'; but I see there is One in the glory who is able to keep them from stumbling, bring them safely home, and present them faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. I see the judgment day is coming for the ungodly professors — a day of gloom and sorrow; but I see the presentation day is coming for all His saints — a day of glory and exceeding joy."

Can He not do it — a God of limitless power? You might not think it, but the heart believes it, because He has said it. Is it enough to wait for it, until the church is presented faultless? Surely not. We want to walk according to it now.

Jude has exposed the evil in all its horror. He has warned, encouraged, and urged on the believers. But his final resource is God Himself, and all that God is for His people. The size of the evil and the weakness of the believers fade from his view, and God alone remains. So he can close the most solemn letter ever written with the most glorious burst of praise.

Now Jude adds, "To the only God." Who could have met all this confusion? Who could have planned and provided all this grace and truth? Who could have kept people like us through it all? Remember our total weakness and how exposed we are. Remember the hatred of the enemy, and the contempt of those against us and of all who are drawn away. Remember every pull to go wrong, and worst of all, the hostility that any measure of faithfulness stirs up. Yet He does keep us through it all. It is "the only God our Saviour", not only Christ our Saviour. Christ is the One who accomplishes it all, but here Jude looks at God as the source, and that takes nothing away from Christ. It was the delight of Christ on earth to present God as a Saviour God, and not merely that He Himself was that personal Saviour, the Son of man.

Who is able to keep us?… Here it is the only God, our Saviour. Why does he give these great things to God? Because there are those who deny the only Lord God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ. The apostle gives glory and majesty, dominion and power to the One whom man throws off.

"To the only [wise] God." The word "wise" has crept in here. In all the correct texts the word "wise" drops out in this place. It is right in Romans 16:27… I suppose it was that verse that led the ignorant monk, or whoever was copying Jude, to "correct" it, as he thought. But we cannot correct it. All these human corrections are innovations, and our aim is to get back to what God wrote and what God gave.

It is very interesting to notice how fitting Jude's closing words are… He looks at the full extent of eternity. This is much more precise than the wording of the Authorised Version, and it follows the reading of the best authorities.

All events, from the beginning on into the future, are clearly in His hands. Through them all He stays the same… This is His true glory. He does not get it from anything else. It shines out of Himself, the shining out of what He is, for the full blessing of eternity, whatever the ages still to come may discover of Him in their turn.

Their joy will surely find its voice in this song of praise, which was given to them while they were still down here in the stress of the conflict… So the songs of heaven can be learned on earth. God is above all time and He never changes, so His praise is eternal.