What does "present you faultless" mean in Jude 1:24?

Jude ministers, however, not only present consolation through the mighty succour of God, but also encouragement in the glorious prospect when, all the trials past, God Himself would present the saints faultless before His glory with exceeding joy. The word "faultless" is the same as is used of the Lord Himself when it says, He "offered Himself without spot to God." (Heb. 9:14. See also Eph. 1:4; 1 Peter 1:19, etc.) Such will be the perfected condition of the saints; and of necessity so, as otherwise they could not stand before the presence of the glory of God. It is no wonder then that the words are added, "With exceeding joy;" for then they will perceive the full results of their "common salvation," and understand, as they had never understood before, that all the blessedness into which they have then been brought, full and entire conformity to Christ in glory, as well as their preservation from all the dangers attendant upon their wilderness journey, has flowed from the heart of Him before whom they now stand in eternal blessedness. And their joy will doubtless find expression in this ascription, provided for them when down here in the stress of the conflict, "To the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and power, before all time, and now, and for evermore. Amen." (Revised Version.) The songs of heaven may therefore be learnt on earth; for God is above all time, unchanging, and His praise is therefore eternal. But it is brace, and grace alone, that can open our lips to sing His praise. E. D.

"Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling." How appropriate when thus presenting the dangers, the evils, the horrible iniquity of apostasy from all Christian grace and truth that might have the effect of greatly dispiriting a feeble soul! No one ought even to be dispirited; not one. "Now unto Him that is able to keep" clearly refers to every step of the way, and there is power in Him to keep. It is we who fail in dependence. Never does He fail in power to preserve. "Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless." Where? "Before the presence of His glory." Where is that? Is not that the very glory into which the Lord has now gone? And does not He say, "that where I am there ye may be also"? Here we find that the hope of the Christian and the hope of the church is entirely untouched by all the ruin that had come in. Spiritual power remained intact. And not only that: this glorious, blessed hope remains for our consolation and our joy in the darkest day.

"Now unto Him that is able to keep you without stumbling and to set you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy." There we have what falls in not with Peter, but with Jude. Jude, of course, entirely agrees with Peter, and confirms Peter as to the judgment that is to fall on those that were not only unrighteous but apostate. But then Jude does not forget that there are those that are true, that there are those that are faithful, that there are those that are waiting for Christ, that there are those that are even more appreciative of the blessing because of the unbelief of man. Therefore it is that he brings in this present power which depends entirely on the Holy Spirit's presence to keep us; and, further, he speaks of the blessed hope depending upon Christ's coming to receive us to Himself, "and to present us faultless." That will only be because we are glorified; that will only be because we are like Himself. He was the only One intrinsically faultless, and He is the One Who, by redemption, and then also by its accomplishment for the body — for redemption now is only as far as the soul is concerned, but when He comes it will be for the body as well — will present us faultless both in soul and body "before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy."

The beloved by God the Father and preserved in Christ Jesus, are also called to a great destiny, and we might well expect this. How could grace that began with the Father's kiss have any mean end in store for us? The epistle shows what this destiny is. It says, "Now to Him that is able to keep you from falling and present you faultless in the presence of His glory with the exceeding joy." A GLORIOUS DAY IS COMING, we are to be presented faultless before the presence of God's glory, and He is going to do it with exceeding joy. You might say, "I do not feel very blameless now, I find a great deal of fault in myself every day." No doubt that is true, but all that belongs to you as you are as having the flesh in you, and that flesh really is not part of you as a child of God, and the day is coming when everything of the flesh will be dropped, and we shall be there in that glory entirely and altogether according to what we are in Christ. There will not be a spot in us then, we shall stand there without blame, and God will exult in the grace that brought us there.

Consider further this wonderful statement He is able to keep you from falling—more than equal to every snare and power of evil below—“ and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy .” Such is the efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ, such the perfection of the righteousness in which we stand in Him that the glory of God will discover no imperfections therein but will make manifest its exceeding blessedness, and so will God have exceeding joy in the results of His wisdom and grace. Well might we sing unto Him, the only wise God and our Saviour, glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and for ever. Amen.

The closing doxology is precious, and consistent with the message of this book. All glory is to be God's; but the same eternal God is able to keep the saint from stumbling, as so many do because of self-confidence. He is their only Resource; sufficient in this way for the present; and as to the future, He Will present every believer without blemish before the presence of His glory. Wonderful power and grace, so high above the vanities of religious pretension And it will be "with exceeding joy," that Is, "His joy will exceed. ours will certainly be unspeakable and full of glory," but His will exceed ours. Precious contemplation!

Jude closes with an ascription of praise — most appropriately in keeping with his name, "praise" — a praise how sweet and solemn as we stand amidst the wreck of all that can be wrecked, the shaking of all that can be shaken, with the confidence of those who know that God is able, nevertheless, to keep us from stumbling, and to set us blameless in the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. Whose joy is that? Not simply our own, that "exceeding joy," although we share in it and it reflects itself in us; but the "exceeding joy" is the joy of the Father who has got back the lost, now found, the one dead, now alive again, and He makes the whole house ring with the music that is in His own heart first.

"Now unto Him that is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen."

Beautiful doxology with which this Epistle ends! His own are being kept in the evil days with which the age closes. They are the preserved in Jesus Christ kept for Him. And while we wait for Him, He is able to keep us not only from falling, but from stumbling. And then comes that day in which He will present His own, His beloved people, whom He bought by His own precious blood. He will present them faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. And what a day of joy and gladness, as well as of glory, it will be, when He shall see the travail of His soul and will be Satisfied, the day in which He will present to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blame! (Ephesians 5:27)

Presented faultless before the presence of His glory! What a thought and what a prospect. For a victorious army to be marched before a monarch, or a veteran to be presented to his king, that were an honour; but here is the church—the saints—presented before the very glory of God, by whose grace they have, in a day of sore temptation, if not actual apostasy, been kept from falling, and are now presented in a blaze of glory, as faultless, by virtue of the atoning death of the Son of God, as victors over the seductive powers of evil, and as, most assuredly, trophies of His saving and sustaining grace. It is well to look forward to that great presentation, and to all the glory attaching to it; while, in view of it, chanting heartily the exultant doxology: “To Him be glory and majesty, dominion and power, from before the whole age, and now, and to all the ages. Amen”.

Verse 24. There is a power able to keep the saints above circumstances. "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only (wise) God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen." Faultless as to our walk, our life. He is able to keep one. "Exceeding joy?" Yes. We must not lose sight of that, that there is a power efficient to keep us from falling. We are apt to get into Romans 7 as a practical state. There is an evil nature and it will out. "That ye may not do," etc. The Spirit hinders you from living after the flesh; v. 23. "Saving saints." He sees the saints in conflict, but above the circumstances. A saint above circumstances knows how to abound and to be hungry. We do not realise sufficiently that the power is there to keep us from falling - in all things more than conquerors, that is, over circumstances.

The word here rendered "without blemish" is found seven or eight times in the New Testament. Twice it is used of our blessed Lord and Saviour — in the scripture given above, and in Heb. 9:14, where it is translated "without spot." As the Lamb of God He was without blemish, the Lamb by whose precious blood we have been redeemed; and "through the eternal Spirit" He "offered Himself without spot to God." In every other place of its occurrence it is applied to believers. Thus we read, in Ephesians 1:4, that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, "that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love;" in Phil. 2:15, of "the children of God, without rebuke,* in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation," etc.; in Col. 1:22, that God hath reconciled His people, to present them "holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight;" in Jude 24, that we shall be presented "faultless before the presence of His glory," etc.; and lastly, in Rev. 14:5, it is said of the 144,000 who will stand on Mount Zion with the Lamb, that "they are without fault before the throne of God." Leaving the reader to follow out the teaching of the several scriptures, we may call attention to two or three things: First, that our present standing before God is "without spot" — that God sees us, in a word, on the ground of the work of Christ, as spotless as He who accomplished it; secondly, that it is our present responsibility to be "without spot" ("without rebuke," Phil. 2:15) in our walk through this world; and lastly, that we shall be finally presented before God actually "without spot," entirely and perfectly conformed to Christ. What unspeakable and infinite grace! E. D.