But to him that is able to keep you without stumbling, and to set [you] with exultation blameless before his glory,
Read Full Chapter →Commentary for this Verse
Jude ends a letter full of warning — false teachers, fallen angels, apostasy, coming judgment — with a burst of praise. The last word is not about what the believer must do, but about what God is able to do: hold the wavering upright now, and set them one day before His own glory without a flaw.
From the Wreck to the Rest
The turn at verse 24 is deliberate. After pages of human corruption, the letter lifts the reader's eyes to Someone else.
F. B. HoleWhen 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.
Earlier the letter told believers to build themselves up, to pray, to keep themselves in the love of God. Those commands do not carry a person home.
F. B. HoleWe 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.
Able to Keep — Every Step
The promise is not a single rescue but a continuous holding. Where the ability lies, and where failure lies, are two different places.
William KellyHow 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.
Because the power is His and never short, stumbling can never be blamed upward.
Edward DennettIt 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"
This is not a mild word. It is the word Scripture uses of Christ's own offering.
The Christian's FriendThe 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 condition is not reached by improvement here. It arrives when the body is redeemed too.
William KellyThat 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.
Whose Exceeding Joy?
Commentators differ on whose joy the verse names. One reads it as God's joy overflowing beyond even ours.
Leslie M. GrantHe 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.
Another names that joy as the Father's, and traces it to the same source as the welcome of a son who was lost.
Numerical Bible NotesWhose 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.
Two Endings, One Doxology
The letter closes by setting the end of the corrupters beside the end of the faithful.
Hamilton Smith"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."
The certainty of that day is meant to shape today, not only to be awaited.
The Bible TreasuryCan 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.
Summary
- Able — The verse moves the eye off our own contending and onto God's power; that is the only place a heart finds rest.
- Kept — His power covers every step of the road, so failure is never a shortage in Him but a lapse in our dependence.
- Faultless — The word is the one used of Christ's own spotless offering; nothing less could stand before the glory of God.
- Presented — The flawless condition comes with glorification, soul and body, when He comes — not by gradual self-improvement now.
- Joy — Commentators read the exceeding joy as God's own, overflowing beyond ours; and a coming day that certain should govern how we walk today.