But these, whatever things they know not, they speak railingly against; but what even, as the irrational animals, they understand by mere nature, in these things they corrupt themselves.
Jude has just pointed to Michael the archangel, who would not hurl abuse even at the devil. These men are his opposite: they attack what they cannot know, and they ruin themselves by what they do know.
The word "these" points back to people Jude has already described. They are not outsiders attacking from a distance. They hold a place inside the church.
"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.
The verse uses two words for knowing. What they "know not" is conscious knowledge. What they "know naturally" is knowledge picked up by experience, the way an expert knows his trade.
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.
"Speak evil" translates a harsh word — the same one used for blasphemy. What they attack is the very thing their condition shuts them out of.
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.
The comparison to unreasoning animals is not just calling these men animal-like. An animal that follows instinct is only being an animal. A man who does the same adds something the animal never had.
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."
Neither side of their life escapes. Their ignorance produces abuse. Their knowledge produces filth. Older translations put the second half of the verse as "in these things they corrupt themselves," and the writers quoted here follow that wording.
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!
Jude's contrast between Michael and "these" leaves a lesson about our own speech. Answering abuse with abuse never wins.
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.
Yet Kelly is careful to separate two things that look alike. Jude himself writes with great force against these men, and that is not the same fault.
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.
- Inside. These men are not outside critics. They hold a place among Christians and poison others from within.
- Ignorant. They attack spiritual truth. As natural men, they cannot reach it.
- Abusive. The word for "speak evil" is the word for blasphemy. It shows the will and the heart's corruption at work.
- Debased. What they do understand, they understand only by instinct. In a man, instinct produces immorality, not innocence. It sinks him below the animal.
- Answered. Michael is the pattern. He did not insult back but left the case with the Lord. Naming evil is still right, because exposing what is bad is not railing.
Woe to them! because they have gone in the way of Cain, and given themselves up to the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.
Jude pronounces a woe on men who teach error inside the church, and points back to three names: Cain, Balaam and Korah. Commentators read the three as one road with three stages, and the road ends in the word "perished."
The three names are not chosen at random. Each marks a distinct way the self takes control of religion.
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.
Korah lived long before Balaam, so Jude's list is not a timeline. The three verbs climb instead — here in an older translation — and Jude holds Korah back to the end for a reason.
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 took the place of a worshipper, and there was nothing wrong with the offering he brought. The defect lay somewhere else.
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.
Cain's way is not irreligion at all.
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."
Balaam is the man who made religion pay. Jude ties his error to gain.
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 was a grab at the priesthood. Commentators read it as a revolt aimed at Christ.
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.
Korah's sin ran in two directions at once, and both are visible now.
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.
Jude does not say these men were in danger of perishing. He says they perished. Commentators draw a line here between slipping back and apostasy — abandoning the faith for good.
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.
- Self-will — Cain's way is worship on man's own terms: an offering without faith, and no judgment of his own sin.
- Self-seeking — Balaam's error turns religion into a trade. It teaches what pays, and makes money out of God's people.
- Self-assertion — Korah's rebellion is the end of the road. A minister claims to be a priest, and pushes aside the priesthood of Christ.
- Progression — the verbs mark the slide: they went, they ran, they perished. Jude lists Korah last, out of historical order, because his sin is the worst.
- Finality — the one who slips back can be restored. The apostate has no road back, only the judgment this woe announces.
These are spots in your love-feasts, feasting together [with you] without fear, pasturing themselves; clouds without water, carried along by [the] winds; autumnal trees, without fruit, twice dead, rooted up;
Jude piles up image after image. He is describing men who had slipped in among believers and sat at their shared meals as if they belonged. Each picture takes something that ought to promise good — a meal, a shepherd, a cloud, a tree — and shows it empty.
The words "hidden reefs" point to a danger under the surface. The setting is a shared meal the early Christians called a love feast.
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.
"Without fear" here is no compliment. It shows a hard heart at a sacred table.
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.
In a dry land a cloud on the horizon raises hope. Jude's point is what happens when it passes over and nothing falls.
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.
Grant looks at what steers them.
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.
Autumn is the test. A tree with no fruit at harvest has failed at the one time it was meant to deliver.
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.
Commentators differ on the second death. Hole ties it to judgment. Grant ties it to apostasy — turning away from a faith once claimed.
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.
Walter Scott presses what that second death looks like from the outside: it is "the open, public renunciation of all external relationship to God, as in Jude 12 — 'twice dead,' even when physically alive."
The shock of the verse is who it is about. Jude is not describing the world outside. He is describing people at the same table.
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.
- Promise. Every image in the verse offers something: a shared meal, a shepherd, a rain cloud, a fruit tree. Every one of them fails to deliver.
- Emptiness. The clouds hold no water. They look like refreshment, but they have nothing to give. A power not their own drives them along.
- Season. Autumn is when fruit is due, so barren trees at that point mean promise without performance.
- Death. "Twice dead" means dead by nature, like all unbelievers, and dead again by turning away from the testimony of God.
- Uprooting. Jude speaks of the uprooting as already done. Their judgment is settled.