Beloved, using all diligence to write to you of our common salvation, I have been obliged to write to you exhorting [you] to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints.
Jude sat down to write one letter and ended up writing another. He meant to write about the salvation Christians share, but sent instead an urgent call to defend a faith already given and now under attack.
One writer calls this change of plan unique, and shows why the dropped subject was not needed:
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.
The redirection itself teaches something about how Scripture came to us:
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.
Jude's word "faith" needs care here:
"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.
And Jude means the faith — the whole of it, not one favourite doctrine:
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.
The small word "once" carries the weight of the verse (older versions read simply "once delivered"):
"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.
That closes the door on later additions, however respectable their source:
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.
The word Jude uses is strong. Older translations read "contend earnestly," and one writer renders it "to earnestly agonize for the faith" (F. B. Hole). But the direction of that effort matters:
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."
Jude addresses ordinary believers, not a qualified few:
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.
One writer compares us to the men who rebuilt Jerusalem's wall under Nehemiah, working with a weapon at hand:
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.
- Diverted. Jude meant to write about the salvation all believers share. The Spirit turned his pen to a warning instead. That turn shows how God's Word was given.
- Deposited. "The faith" is not your believing but the thing believed: the truth, handed over as a whole, not in pieces.
- Final. "Once" means once for all — no additions, no development, no tradition or creed allowed to reshape it.
- Defended. Aim at the truth, not at error. Jude's word means to agonize for it.
- Everyone's. The call came to ordinary believers, not only to apostles and teachers. Every believer builds with one hand and holds the sword with the other.
For certain men have got in unnoticed, they who of old were marked out beforehand to this sentence, ungodly [persons], turning the grace of our God into dissoluteness, and denying our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.
Jude has just urged his readers to fight for the faith. Here is the reason: the danger was already inside the door. These men slipped in unnoticed, and the verse names two marks of them. They twist grace into an excuse for sin, and they deny the Master they claim to serve.
The word "unnoticed" carries the whole force of the warning. These men looked respectable enough to be welcomed in. In John's letter the bad people went out; here they stayed:
"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."
Two things stand side by side here. God had already seen these men, and those guarding the door failed to spot them. The same writer explains what "ungodly" means:
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.
The first mark is a twist. God's grace saves people and teaches them to say no to worldly desires. These men used it as cover for indulging themselves:
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.
Some people say grace is too dangerous a teaching to preach openly. The answer here runs the other way:
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!
The word behind "Master" is not the usual word for "Lord." It speaks of ownership, not of nearness:
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 did not deny Him in words. They refused His will, and that refusal is lawlessness at its root:
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.
Jude does not leave the "condemnation" vague. Later in the letter he says who carries it out:
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.
- Entry. The danger walked in quietly and looked respectable. The antichrists went out; these men stayed inside.
- Character. "Ungodly" means living with no reference to God, while still passing as a Christian.
- Grace. They took the very thing that teaches us to say no to worldly lusts and used it as permission to indulge them.
- Authority. Denying "our only Master" means refusing His will so they can do their own — the essence of lawlessness.
- End. God marked them out long ago, and the Lord will judge them when He comes. Meanwhile the answer to abused grace is not to drop it but to contend for it.