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.
But I would put you in remembrance, you who once knew all things, that the Lord, having saved a people out of [the] land of Egypt, in the second place destroyed those who had not believed.
Jude has just described people who slipped in among Christians and turned God's grace into an excuse for sin. Then he reaches back to Israel's rescue from Egypt. God saved that people, and later destroyed them. Jude asks his readers to remember what they already know.
Jude says he is stirring up memory rather than supplying information. One writer explains why Jude repeats such a familiar fact, and which state of soul he targets.
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 word "saved" here needs care. Saved from what, and saved for how long? One writer marks the limits.
"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.
Some read the word translated "afterward" as "the second time." That points to a second act of God toward the same people. One phrase then holds forty years of judgment.
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.
Jude does not blame immorality for their end. He names unbelief. One writer marks who this warning pictures, and who it does not.
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 is not only describing an evil. He is showing where it ends.
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.
One writer explains why Israel's case belongs here, and why the three examples come in this order.
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.
The verse leaves the reader with something to settle, not just something to observe.
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.
- Remember — Jude adds no new teaching. He wakes up truth they already knew, to break the idea that past blessing rules out danger.
- Rescued — the salvation here is rescue out of Egypt by the Passover lamb. It was sovereign grace to a whole people, not a promise of everlasting glory.
- Rejected — the charge against them was unbelief. Bad behaviour was the symptom, unbelief the root. Profession alone saved no one.
- Repeated — all three examples show the same slide: first unbelief, then disobedience, then the flesh let loose.
- Reckoned — an outward link to God's testimony gives no security. Each reader must settle the question of new birth himself.
And angels who had not kept their own original state, but had abandoned their own dwelling, he keeps in eternal chains under gloomy darkness, to [the] judgment of [the] great day;
Jude is warning believers about ungodly men among them. He backs the warning with three examples from the past. The second example goes beyond the human race. God gave these angels a place, they walked out of it, and He has held them ever since, waiting for judgment.
The verse sits between two other examples: Israel, and the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Each one makes the same point from a different angle.
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!
"Their own position of authority" and "their proper dwelling" describe something given, not taken. Their sin was not a lack of standing. It was refusing to stay where God put them.
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.
These chained angels are not the evil powers at work in the world now. One writer connects them instead with the "sons of God" of Genesis 6, and points to the contrast with Satan, who is still free.
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.
Commentators differ on how far this reaches. Some take it of one group of angels only. Others think it may describe the state of all fallen angels, and admit the point is hard to settle.
The word rendered "eternal" is one of two words Scripture uses. One writer explains why the chains take this one and not the other. Older translations render it "everlasting."
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.
As for when "the great day" arrives, writers are careful not to say more than the text does.
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.
Taken with the other two examples, the verse traces a sequence in four steps.
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.
The examples are ancient. The danger they point to is present.
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.
- Kept, given. God gave these angels a position of dignity and a home. The place was a gift, not something they earned.
- Kept not. They left it. Lust led to rebellion. Rebellion led them out of the place God had set, and that is what the writers call apostasy.
- Kept now. The chains and gloom show God's power acting in judgment. These are not the spirits roaming free today, but angels already confined.
- Kept until. Their case waits for "the judgment of the great day." Scripture says no more, and the writers refuse to add to it.
- Keep watch. Corruption and rebellion mark the Christian name today, and they lead the same way. For apostasy there is no recovery and no remedy.
as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities around them, committing greedily fornication, in like manner with them, and going after other flesh, lie there as an example, undergoing the judgment of eternal fire.
Jude points to Sodom and Gomorrah as his third and final warning from history, and he says those ruined cities are still on display. Two hard questions follow: what was their sin, and how can a fire that fell so long ago be called "eternal"?
Jude has just named Israel in the wilderness and the angels who left their place. One writer reads all three as the same pattern.
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."
Jude does not just say these cities sinned. He shows how far past ordinary sin they went.
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.
The verse says these cities "serve as an example." Their ruin is still there for anyone to see.
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!
Some say the phrase means only that the cities burned up and lie in ruins to this day.
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.
The same word "eternal" describes other things in Scripture. Weaken it here and you weaken it there too.
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.
One writer reads Jude's three examples as steps in a single slide downward.
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.
One writer weighs what an angel said to Lot before the fire fell.
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.
- Lust — all three of Jude's examples start with desire. Desire grows into rebellion against God.
- Leaving — each group walked out of the place God gave them. Sodom walked out of the natural order He had set. That is apostasy.
- Limit — their sin broke through a boundary. It went beyond even what fallen nature does.
- Lasting — the fire from heaven was only the pattern. Strip "eternal" of its weight here, and you strip it from salvation and glory too.
- Lot — judgment could not fall while one righteous man was still inside. The verse that warns the ungodly also reassures the believer.
Yet in like manner these dreamers also defile [the] flesh, and despise lordship, and speak railingly against dignities.
Jude has just set three ruined examples in front of his readers — Israel in the wilderness, the angels who left their place, and Sodom and Gomorrah. Now he turns to the men who had slipped in among the saints, and the same marks are on them: defiled flesh, contempt for authority, and a loose tongue.
The "yet in like manner" is not a change of subject. It ties the men described in verse 4 to the judgments just recited. The writers below use an older wording: "despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities" where the ESV reads "reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones."
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.
The word "filthy" in the older wording was added by the translators. The charge here is subtler than open indecency.
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.
Another writer reads the dreaming as a preference for private revelation over what God has already said.
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.
The first mark is corruption of the body, and it keeps strange company with religion.
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.
The second mark is not a quarrel with one particular ruler. It is a temper of soul.
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.
The seed of it, one writer says, is not only in false teachers.
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.
The third mark grows out of the second. Contempt inside becomes railing outside.
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.)
One writer gives a careful answer about who these dignities are.
The false teachers spoke evil of glories, which I assume suggests angelic powers.
The next verse answers these men by contrast, and the contrast reaches even to Satan.
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.
Jude warns against a second error too, so that avoiding one does not tip us into the other.
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."
- Dreaming first. The root sin is living by your own imagination instead of by the word of God, which carries His authority.
- Then the body. Dreaming ends in defiled flesh. In Scripture, a big religious profession with nothing behind it always sits next to shameful sin.
- Then authority. Self-will refuses every authority above it. Jude names no particular office, because he condemns the unsubmissive spirit itself.
- Then the tongue. Railing is the fruit of that contempt. It is the speech of people who give reverence to no one, in heaven or on earth.
- The pattern to copy. Michael would not rail even at Satan. Copy that restraint: never weaken true God-given authority, and never flatter men to gain advantage.
But Michael the archangel, when disputing with the devil he reasoned about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a railing judgment against [him], but said, [The] Lord rebuke thee.
Jude has just described men who defile the flesh, reject authority, and insult glorious beings. Beside them he sets Michael the archangel, who would not insult even the devil when the two argued over the body of Moses.
Jude does not tell this story to satisfy curiosity about angels. He holds it up against the men he is exposing.
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).
Scripture names Michael in only a handful of places, and one pattern runs through them all.
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.
Why fight over a dead body? One answer looks at how Israel treated Moses while he lived, and at what his corpse could have become.
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.
Commentators differ here, and some refuse to settle it at all.
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.
Because the event appears nowhere else in Scripture, some have treated it as borrowed folklore. Others answer that the source is the Spirit, not tradition.
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.
What matters is who is speaking.
If this is confined to that one Scripture, so be it; one clear word of God is as sure as a thousand.
Michael's restraint is a pattern to copy. Insults drag the better man down to the worse.
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.
There is also something owed to what Satan still is, fallen though he is.
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.
- Contrast. Jude sets men who insult authority beside the archangel who would not. The verse exists to make that comparison sting.
- Contender. Scripture names Michael five times. He leads the angels and guards Israel's interests, so his restraint is not weakness but rank under orders.
- Corpse. The devil wanted Moses' body. Many say he meant to make it a relic for worship, which is why God buried Moses Himself. Others say the reason stays God's secret.
- Confidence. Scripture records the event nowhere else, yet one clear word of God is as sure as a thousand.
- Copy it. Answering abuse with abuse lowers you to the abuser's level. Michael's "The Lord rebuke you" hands the case to the Judge. That is the pattern to follow.
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.
raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shames; wandering stars, to whom has been reserved the gloom of darkness for eternity.
Jude ends his list of pictures with the sea and the sky. He is describing men who had slipped into the Christian gatherings. Both look impressive from a distance. Both end in nothing. So where does a life cut loose from God finish?
The sea image is force with nothing steering it. Notice what these waves put on display, and that the word for shame is plural.
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.
adds missing word-meaning of "foaming out"; tightens lead-in
"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."
A star is meant to hold a course. These had broken from theirs, and nothing could pull them back.
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."
What holds a planet steady is not itself but the sun it circles. Take that away and you have the description of every man apart from God.
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).
These men set themselves up as lights. Jude says where that light ends, and what happens to shame that is never covered.
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.
That darkness is not an arbitrary sentence. It is what is left when God is shut out.
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.
The sting is where these people stood: not outside the church, but among those gathered in the Lord's name.
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?
Darkness is what is "reserved" for the wandering star. The letter ends on the opposite note.
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.
- Loose — the waves are uncontrolled and the stars have left their orbit. Nothing holds either one on course.
- Loud — the foam they throw up is their own shame. The word is plural: the disgraceful things themselves, which they gloried in instead of blushing at.
- Lightless — they set up as lights, yet they have none to give, and nothing will ever cover their shame.
- Locked in — the gloom reserved for them is what remains when God, who is light, is shut out.
- Kept — the danger sat inside the circle of those gathered to the Lord's name. The only rest is in "Him who is able to keep you from stumbling."
And Enoch, [the] seventh from Adam, prophesied also as to these, saying, Behold, [the] Lord has come amidst his holy myriads,
Jude has been describing men who slipped into the Christian company unnoticed. Now he quotes Enoch, who spoke before the flood, and those old words raise three questions: why Enoch is called the seventh from Adam, who comes with the Lord, and how the prophecy reached Jude.
The words are not a general announcement of judgment. Jude says Enoch prophesied "about these" — the very men he has been describing.
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.
That gives the whole letter its shape. One writer traces the line from the opening warning to this closing scene:
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.
Commentators differ on those four words. One takes them as plain identification, then explains how a prophecy from that far back reaches beyond its own day:
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.
Another finds meaning in the number itself:
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.
Scripture names more than one future judgment, and only one fits a Lord who arrives with others. (Where the ESV says "holy ones", the writers quoted here say "saints".)
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.
If the Lord arrives surrounded by His own, a question follows about how they got there.
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's own life pictured that answer:
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.
Many suggest Jude borrowed from an old Jewish book that carries Enoch's name. Comparing the two settles it:
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.
One writer leaves open how Jude got the words:
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.
Enoch's message grew out of his manner of life.
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.
- Walk — Enoch walked with God, and that fellowship gave him God's message of coming judgment to pass on.
- Warning — Enoch spoke "about these": the men who slipped into the Christian company unnoticed, who face the Lord's judgment when He appears.
- Withdrawal — God took Enoch to heaven before the flood, a picture of saints caught up before the tribulation.
- With — the Lord returns with His holy ones, so He must first come for them.
- Warrant — the words do not come from a Jewish book that has the Lord judging His own saints. The Spirit gave them, and they carry God's authority.
to execute judgment against all; and to convict all the ungodly of them of all their works of ungodliness, which they have wrought ungodlily, and of all the hard [things] which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
Jude quotes a warning that Enoch spoke before the flood, and that day of judgment has still not come. The verse names what the Lord comes to do — and it lists words alongside deeds on the charge sheet.
This is the earliest prophecy the Bible records. God took Enoch out of the world before judgment fell on it.
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.
The verse puts two groups in view. The "all" who face judgment are not the ones who arrive with the Lord.
"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."
required note on non-ESV wording
That order of events explains how believers can be with Him at the very moment judgment falls.
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.
One word keeps returning in this verse. Each use covers a different part of a person's life.
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!
Jude charges words as well as deeds. Kelly weighs which of the two does more harm.
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.
Jude charges these words as spoken against the Lord Himself. That charge reaches further than it looks.
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.
Enoch spoke to the world before the flood. Jude applies the words to a narrower target.
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"!
Because the verdict is certain, believers can leave insults unanswered.
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.
- Spoken first. The earliest recorded prophecy came from a man God took out of the world before judgment fell. God fixes His purposes long before He carries them out.
- Comes with. The saints come with the Lord, not among the "all" He judges. He caught them up first.
- Convicts fourfold. "Ungodly" appears four times over character, conduct, motives and words — the whole person, religious pretence and all.
- Counts words. Hard speeches stand beside ungodly deeds, and mockery aimed at His people is counted as spoken against Him.
- Closes the case. Jude aims the warning at Christendom itself. Mocked believers can stay silent now, because every hard speech will get its answer then.
These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their lusts; and their mouth speaks swelling words, admiring persons for the sake of profit.
Jude has just recalled Enoch's prophecy of the Lord coming to judge. Now he turns back to the men he is exposing and describes their words, their motives and their manners. The picture is ugly: grumbling, self-pleasing, big talk and flattery for profit. Commentators press one uncomfortable question. Is this only about them?
The first two words are not just synonyms. One commentator explains the exact sense of the second:
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.
That explains why their grievances never get resolved. The problem is not where they think it is:
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.
Many read "following their own sinful desires" as sexual sin only. Kelly, using the older wording "lusts", widens it and links that appetite to the flattery at the end of the verse:
"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."
Jude's words carry the reader back to a nation that grumbled its way through the desert. They also expose what the flattery is for:
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.
The verse before speaks of harsh words against the Lord. This verse speaks of boastful words about men. One writer sets the two side by side:
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.
The habit Jude names is not confined to the men he is exposing. It can hide behind a good profession:
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".
Why aim a prophecy from Enoch's day at people troubling Christians now? Because the type of man has not changed:
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.
- Root — Their own desires drive everything else in the verse. Those desires include the refined kinds: vanity, pride and ambition.
- Grumbling — Desire rules them, so they grumble and complain. Their grievance lies in themselves, not in the people they blame.
- Flattery — The same appetite produces big talk and flattery. They fawn on important people to get something out of them.
- Exchange — Belittling Christ and admiring man travel together. They keep their praise from Him and spend it on people who can pay.
- Mirror — This fault is not far from us. A good show of faith can still hide a heart that values riches and status above the lowly graces of Christ.
But *ye*, beloved, remember the words spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Jude has just described men who crept in among God's people, and now he turns to the believers themselves. His first instruction to them is not something new: he tells them to remember what the apostles had already said.
Jude now speaks to the saints, who had kept clear of the evils he described.
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!
The name Jude gives them carries more than his own affection:
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.
Jude tells them to remember words. Older translations read here "the words spoken beforehand by the apostles."
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).
These readers had heard the apostles with their own ears.
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.
Jude does not name the apostles he means. We can still read their warnings.
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.
One writer points to the place where such a warning stands written:
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.
God warns His people ahead of time, and that changes how they meet the evil when it comes.
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).
Corruption in the church can then be met without shock, and even with strengthened confidence:
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.
Jude gives the beloved several things to do, and this one comes first.
"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.
- Beloved — Jude turns from the men who abandoned the faith to the saints he loves. What he hands them first is a memory, not new teaching.
- Remember — the call is to the very words the truth came in through the apostles. Scripture calls those words the commandments of the Lord.
- Not tradition — the readers had heard the apostles speak. What those spoken words were to them, the apostles' writings are to us.
- Forewarned — Paul and Peter wrote the warnings down. So evil in the church brings no surprise and no discouragement.
- Resource — remembering comes first in what Jude asks. Scripture is the sure foundation and unfailing resource for faith in an evil day.
that they said to you, that at [the] end of the time there should be mockers, walking after their own lusts of ungodlinesses.
The apostles had already warned that scoffers would come, and Jude tells his readers to remember it. Nothing about them should shake believers, because that warning named both the time they would appear and the desires driving them.
Jude does not claim a fresh revelation; he points back to what the apostles had said. One writer counts at least two of them who left the warning in writing. Jude, he says, describes a worse stage of the same 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.
A mocker treats sacred things as a joke while wearing the Christian name.
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.
Kelly ranks mockery among the worst features of evil, and traces it to men who set themselves up as thinkers.
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"!
The phrase is tighter than it first sounds. It is not simply that these men have strong desires and happen to be ungodly; ungodliness is the thing they want.
"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."
Jude's mockers are not outsiders throwing stones at the church from a distance.
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.
One reference work ties the phrase to a mark rather than a date, and separates it from the "last days" spoken of elsewhere:
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.
Kelly presses the point home for today: "The last time was therefore to be an especially evil time, and it is a very solemn thing that we are in that time most fully now."
The point of remembering the warning is not gloom. Seeing the prediction come true should have the opposite effect.
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.
- Foretold — Jude adds nothing new. Paul and Peter had already written the warning down. Jude records a later, worse stage of the same evil.
- Mockers — the mark is not lawlessness alone but scorn. These men profess the name of Christ and scoff at everything divine.
- Lusts — "ungodly passions" is exact language. Ungodliness itself is what these men want, not just what they fall into.
- Insiders — they were once received, baptised, and part of the assembly, perhaps even preaching. Then they turned on the truth that had separated them from the world.
- Steadying — the warning came in advance. Seeing it come true is no reason for surprise or discouragement. It confirms that the apostles' words are true.