These are they who set [themselves] apart, natural [men], not having [the] Spirit.
Jude has been describing men who slipped in among believers unnoticed. Here he sums them up in three short strokes, and older translations read "who separate themselves" and "sensual" — two words the whole verse turns on.
The word is easy to misread. It does not point first to immoral living, but to what these men lacked.
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."
The word also says what drives such men from the inside.
"Sensual" means soul-led: their own appetites and feelings govern them. Not having the Spirit, they know nothing of His power, as believers do.
The men Jude has in view had not walked out of the church. They drew a line inside it.
"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.
From inside, they kept up their work and blamed others for the trouble.
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!
Pride can dress itself up as faithfulness. Jude's one sentence shows what God sees underneath.
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.
The last phrase settles the case, and it also explains the divisions. Commentators differ over the exact wording of the first phrase.
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.
The Spirit marks off this present time from every age before it.
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.
The verse condemns one kind of standing apart, not every kind.
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.
- No Spirit. The last phrase is the root of the whole description. Having the Spirit is the sure mark of belonging to Christ.
- Only soul. With no life in Christ, these men have nothing but their natural soul. Appetite and feeling govern them. "Sensual" means natural; it does not by itself mean immoral.
- Inside, not outside. They had crept in, not gone out; like the Pharisees, they were separatists within, making a party of pride.
- Divisive by nature. The Spirit is the power of unity. Those without Him make the separations, then blame the faithful for the split.
- Two separations. God rejects the separation that feels superior. He delights in the separation that is to Him, out of love and devotion.
But *ye*, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,
Jude has been describing ungodly men inside the Christian company. Now he turns to the believers themselves and calls them "beloved." This verse gives them two things to do: a building work and a praying life.
Kelly notices who is missing from Jude's wording:
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.
Boyd points to where this faith came from:
"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.
Kelly insists "the faith" here does not mean the believing that goes on inside us.
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.
Some translations read "on your most holy faith" rather than "in." Ridout hangs the sense of the verse on that small word.
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.
Hole adds why nothing can be added to the faith itself:
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.
The Christian's Friend turns it into a daily question:
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.
Hole reads praying "in" the Spirit as the exact opposite of the men Jude has described:
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.
Kelly is candid that not all prayer qualifies:
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.
Hole explains why fighting comes after building:
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.
- Beloved — Jude names no leaders, guides or teachers here. He speaks straight to ordinary believers.
- Foundation — "the faith" is the thing we believe, not our believing. It was delivered once, complete, and the New Testament calls it "most holy" only here.
- Building — we cannot strengthen the foundation. We strengthen ourselves on it, by reading the word daily and taking it in as food.
- Breathing — prayer in the Spirit confesses our dependence. It is the reverse of men who think they are enough in themselves, and much prayer never reaches it.
- Result — build first, then fight. The faith must be our foundation before it becomes our banner.
keep yourselves in the love of God, awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
Jude writes to believers living among much evil, where some fall and others stand. Verse 21 tells them where to stay while that goes on, and what to watch for.
The love here is God's love to us, not ours to Him. The wording points to a state we are to stay in.
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.
Jude names the highest thing a believer could keep himself in. It is also the answer to the evil around us.
"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.
Staying in that love is not passive. God holds us, and we are to hold on to His love in return.
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.
Why does Jude say mercy? One writer ties it to what the sight of so much evil makes a believer feel.
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.
Mercy answers our weakness, and it runs the whole length of the road.
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.
The believer has tasted this life already. A last mercy brings him into its fullness.
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.
- Kept, not earning. The love here is God's love to us, unchanging; the call is to live in the conscious enjoyment of what already holds us.
- Kept from bitterness. Staying in that love is the answer to being provoked by the evil around us, or to giving way because others give way.
- Kept and changed. Held in that love like a vessel in the ocean, the love then fills us and marks our lives.
- Kept by mercy. When many fall away, mercy is what marks out those who stand — and God gives it all along the road, not only at its end.
- Kept to the end. The mercy waited for is the crowning one: out of the scene of need, into the fullness of a life the believer already has.