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.