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.