Jude 3-7 (Wednesday Evening Bible Study)

Jude 3-7

• Jude 3
• 3 Dear friends, although I was eager to write you about the salvation we share, I found it necessary to write, appealing to you to contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all.
  • Here we find out why Jude is writing the letter. He has been engaged on writing an essay about the Christian faith; but news had come that evil and misguided people had been spreading destructive teaching. He became convinced that he must lay aside his essay and write this letter
  • Jude fully realized his duty to be the watchman of God’s flock. The purity of their faith was there’d, and he rushed to defend both them and the faith
    • That involved setting aside the work on which he had been engaged; but often it is much better to write an article for the the times than an essay for the future. It may be that Jude never again got the chance to write the essay he had planned; but the fact is that he did more for the Church by writing this urgent little letter than he could possibly have done by leaving a long essay on the faith
  • In this passage, there are certain truths about the faith which we hold
    • The faith is something which is delivered to us
      • The facts of the Christian faith are not something which we have discovered for ourselves. In the true sense of the word, they are tradition, something which has been handed down from generation to generation until it has come to us. They go back in an unbroken chain to Jesus Himself
      • There is something to be added to that. The faces of the faith are indeed something which we have not discovered for ourselves. It is, therefore, true that the Christian tradition is not something handed down in the cold print of books; it is something which is passed on from person to person through the generations. The chain of Christian tradition is a living chain whose links are men and women who have experienced the wonder of the facts
    • The Christian faith is something which is once and for all delivered to us
      • There is in it an unchangeable quality. That is not to say that every age does not have to rediscover the Christian faith; but it does say that there is an unchanging nucleus in it—and the permanent center of it is that Jesus came into the world, lived, and died to bring salvation to us
    • The Christian faith is something which is entrusted to God’s consecrated people
      • That is to say, the Christian faith is the possession not of any one person but of the Church. It comes down within the Church, it is preserved within the Church, and it is understood within the Church
    • The Christians faith is something which must be defended
      • Every Christian must be its defender. If the Christian tradition comes down from generation to generation, each must hand it on uncorrupted and undistorted. There are times when that is difficult. The word Jude uses for “contend for” contains the root of our word agony. The defense of the faith may well be a costly thing; but that defense is a duty which falls on every generation of the Church
• Jude 4
• 4 For some people, who were designated for this judgment long ago, have come in by stealth; they are ungodly, turning the grace of our God into sensuality and denying Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord.
  • Here is the peril which made Jude lay aside the essay he was about to write and take up his pen to write this burning letter. The threat came from within the Church
  • Certain people had come in by stealth. The Greek is a very expressive word. It is used of the plausible and seductive words of someone who pleads their case cleverly, espying gradually into the minds of a judge and jury; it is used of an outlaw slipping secretly back into the country from which he has been expelled; it is used of the slow and subtle entry of innovations into the life of society, which in the end undermine and break down the ancestral laws
  • It always indicates a stealthy insinuation of something evil iota a society or situation
  • Certain evil people had worked their way into the Church. They were the kind of people for whom judgment was waiting. They were irreverent and godless in their thoughts and in their lives. Jude picks out two characteristics about them
    • They perverted the grace of God into an excuse for sensuality
      • The Greek is a grim and terrible word. Most people try to hide their sin; they have enough respect for common decency not to want to be found out. But those described here are people who are so lost to decency that they  do not care who sees their sin. It is not that they arrogantly and proudly flaunt it; it is simply that they can publicly do the most shameless things, because they have ceased to care for decency at all
      • These people are undoubtedly tinged with Gnosticism and its belief that, since the grace of God was wide enough to cover any sin, they could sin as they liked. The more they sinned, the greater the grace—therefore, why worry about sin? Grace was being perverted into justification for sin
    • They denied our only Lord and Master, Jesus Christ
      • There is more than one way in which people can deny Jesus
        • They can deny Him in times of persecution
        • They can deny Him for the sake of convenience
        • They can deny Him by their lives and conduct
        • They can deny Him by developing false ideas about Him
      • If these people were Gnostics, they would have two mistaken ideas about Jesus. First, since the body, being matter, was evil, they would hold that Jesus only seemed to have a body and was kind of spirit ghost in the apparent shape of a man. The Greek for seem is dokein; and these people were called Docetists. They would deny the real humanity of Jesus Christ
      • Second, they would deny His uniqueness. They believed that there were many stages between the evil matter of this world and the perfect spirit which is God; and they believed that Jesus was only one of the many stages on the way
  • No wonder Jude was alarmed. He was faced with a situation in which some had wormed their way into the Church., and these people were twisting the grace of God into a justification, and even a reason, for sinning in the most blatant way. They denied both the humanity and the uniqueness of Christ
• Jude 5-7
• 5 Now I want to remind you, although you came to know all these things once and for all, that Jesus saved a people out of Egypt and later destroyed those who did not believe; 6 and the angels who did not keep their own position but abandoned their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deep darkness for the judgment on the great day. 7 Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns committed sexual immorality and perversions, and serve as an example by undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.
  • Jude issues a warning to the evil intruders who were perverting the belief and conduct of the Church. He tells them  that he is, in fact, doing nothing other than reminding them of things of which they are perfectly well aware. In a sense, it is true to say that all preaching within the Christin Church is not so much bringing new truth as confronting people with truth they already know but have forgotten or are disregarding
  • To understand the first two examples which Jude cites from history, we must understand one thing. The evil people who were corrupting the Church did not regard themselves as enemies of the Church and of Christianity; they regarded themselves as the advanced thinkers, a cut above the ordinary Christian, the the spiritual elite. Jude choose his examples to make clear that, even if people have received the greatest privileges, they may still fall away into disaster, and even those who have received the greatest privileges from God cannot consider themselves safe but must be on constant watch against mistaken beliefs and error
  • The first example is from the history of Israel
    • He takes his story from Numbers 13-14. The mighty hand of God had saved the people from slavery in Egypt What greater act of deliverance could there be than that? The guidance of God had brought the people safely across the desert to the borders of the promised land. What greater demonstration of His providence could there be than that?
    • So, at the very borders of the promised land, at Kadesh-barnea, spies were sent to spy out the land before the final invasion took place. With the exception of Caleb and Joshua, the spies came back with the opinion that the dangers ahead were so terrible, and the people so strong, that they could never win their way into the promised land. The people rejected the report of Caleb and Joshua, who were for going on, and accepted the report of those who insisted that the case was hopeless
    • This was a clear act of disobedience to God and a complete lack of faith in Him. The consequence was that God gave sentence that of these people , with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, all those over the age of 20 would never enter the promised land but would wander in the wilderness until they were dead
    • This was a picture which haunted the minds of both Paul and the writer to the Hebrews. It is the proof that even those who have the greatest privilege can meet with disaster before the end, if they fall away from obedience and lapse from the faith. The Glasgow minister George Johnston Jeffrey tells of a great man who absolutely refused to have his biography written before his death. “I have seen too many men fall out on the last lap.” The Methodist John Wesley ward; “There none presume on past mercies, as if they were out of danger.” In his dream, Joh Bunyan saw that even from the gates of heaven there was a way to hell
    • Jude warns these intruders that, great as their privileges have been, they must still take care in case disaster should come upon them. It is a warning in which each of us would do well to heed
  • The second dreadful example which Jude takes is the fallen angels
    • The Jews had a very highly developed doctrine of angels, the servants of God. In particular, the Jews believed that every nation had its presiding angel. In the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures, Deuteronomy 32:8 reads; “When the Most High divided the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the nations according to the number of the angels of God.” That is to say, to each nation there was an angel
    • The Jews believed in a fall of the angels, and much is said about this in the Book of Enoch, which so often lies behind the thought of Jude. In regard to this, there were two lines of traction
      • The first saw the fall of the angels as due to pride and rebelliousness
        • That legend gathered particularly round the name of Lucifer, the light-bringer, the son of the morning. Isaiah 14:12, “Shining morning star, how you have fallen from the heavens! You destroyer of nations, you have been cut down to the ground.” 
        • When the 72 returned from their mission and told Jesus of their successes, He warned them against pride; Luke 10:18, “18 He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like lightning.”. The idea was that there was a civil war in heaven. The angels rose against God and were cast out; and Lucifer was the leader of the rebellion
      • The second stream of traditions finds its Scriptural echo in Genesis 6:1-4, “When mankind began to multiply on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of mankind were beautiful, and they took any they chose as wives for themselves. 3 And the Lord said, “My Spirit will not remain with mankind forever, because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth both in those days and afterward, when the sons of God came to the daughters of mankind, who bore children to them. They were the powerful men of old, the famous men.”
      • In this line of thought, the angels, attracted by the beauty of mortal women, left heaven to seduce them and so sinned
    • In the first case, the fall of the angles was due to pride; in the second case, it was due to lust for what was forbidden. In effect, Jude takes the tow ideas and puts them together. He says that the angels left their own rank; that is to say, they aimed at a position which was not for them. He also says that they left their own proper home; that is to say, they came to earth to live with moral women
    • Jude’s warning is clear. Two things brought ruin to the angels—pride and lust. Even though they were angels, and heaven had been their dwelling place, they nonetheless sinned—and, for their sin, they were marked for judgment. To those reading Jude’s words for the first time, the whole line of thought was plain, for Enoch had much to say about the fate of these fallen angels. So, Jude was speaking to his people in terms that they could well understand and was telling them that, if pride and lust ruined the angels in spite of all their privileges, pride and lust could ruin them as well
    • The evil intruders within the church were proud enough to think that they knew better than the church’s teaching and were lustful enough to pervert the grace of God into a justification for blatant immorality. Whatever the ancient background of his words, Jude’s warning is still valid. The pride which knows better than God and the desire for forbidden things are the way to ruin in time and in eternity
  • The third example Jude chose is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
    • Notorious for their sins, these cities were obliterated by the fire of God. The traveller and writer George Adam Smith, in The Historical Geography of the Holy Land, points out that no incident in history ever made such an impression on the Jewish people, and that Sodom and Gomorrah are time and time again used in Scripture as the supreme examples of human isn and the judgment of God; they are used in this way even by Jesus Himself. “The glare of Sodom and Gomorrah is flung down the whole length of Scripture history.”
    • The story of the final wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah is told in Genesis 19:1-11, and the tragic tale of their destruction is told immediately following in 12-28. The sin of Sodom is one of the most horrible stories in history. H. E. Ryle, in his commentary on Genesis, has called it a “repulsive incident”. 
    • Two angelic visitors had come to Lot. He urged them to come in, and they entered his house as his guests. When they were there, the inhabitants of Sodom surrounded the house, demanding that Lot should bring out his visitors that they can have sex with them. What the men of Sodom were intent on was homosexual intercourse with Lot’s two visitors—sodomy, the word in which their sin is commemorated
    • It was after this that Sodom and Gomorrah were obliterated from the face of the earth. The neighboring cities were Zoar, Admah, and Zeboim. This disaster was localized in the dreadful desert region of the Dead Sea, a region which George Adam Smith, who travelled extensively in Palestine, calls: “This awful hollow, this bit of the infernal regions come to the surface, this hell with the sun shining into it.” It was there that the cities were said to have been; and it was said that under that scorched and bare earth there still shouldered an eternal fire of destruction
    • The should is bituminous with oil below, and Adam Smith conjectures that what happened was this: “In this soil took place one of these terrible explosions and firestorm which have broken out in the similar geology of North America. IN such soli reservoirs of oil and gas are formed, and suddenly discharged by their own pressure or by earthquake. The gas explodes, carrying high into the air masses of oil which fall back in fiery rain, and are so inextinguishable that they float afire on water.”
    • It was by such an eruption of fire that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. They awful desert was only a day’s journey from Jerusalem, and this divine judgment on sin was never forgotten
  • So Jude reminds these evil people of the fate of those who in ancient times defied the moral law of God. Jude is insisting that they should remember that sin and judgment go hand in hand, and that they should repent in time