In light of the damage done by the false teachers, Jude exhorts the members of these churches to “have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.” It was the sacred duty of the pastors, elders, and members of these churches to resist these false teachers, and at the same time to be compassionate towards all those whom the false teachers have duped. Since God’s judgment upon these men was inevitable, Jude’s plea is that Christians snatch the wandering sheep back from the edge before it was too late. Indeed, our common salvation teaches us that we are saved by God’s grace–specifically Jesus’ death for our sins and his righteousness being imputed to us through faith–nevertheless, Christians must be warned that if they trust in Christ, they cannot continue to seek to live so as to gratify the desires of the flesh.

A First Century Sermon
Have you ever wondered what a sermon would be like in one of the churches founded during the time of the apostles? How did those in the apostolic circle preach? Since the New Testament was not yet completed, how did they utilize the Old Testament, so as to show forth Christ? In verses 5-16 of the Epistle of Jude we find such a sermon (or at least a portion of such a sermon) which serves as the main body of Jude’s epistle. Citing from both the Old Testament as well as apocryphal Jewish writings, Jude is able to remind his readers that God has a long history of dealing with false teachers and apostates, and those men who were currently troubling the churches to which Jude is writing, face certain judgment. Even as Jude’s readers are to earnestly contend for that faith “once for all delivered to the saints,” they are to also build themselves up in the most Holy faith, and to pray in the Holy Spirit.
In part one, we dealt with introductory matters and the first four verses. Recall that this epistle was written by Jude–the brother of James and Jesus–as early as the mid-fifties of the first century. While Jude doesn’t give us any of the specifics about the churches to which he is writing, there is enough information here to gather that Jude is writing to a church (or churches) which was composed largely of Jewish converts to Christianity. The members of these church were steeped in Jewish mysticism and end-time speculation–we’ll see why that is important momentarily. Jude has learned that these unnamed churches were facing a very serious internal crisis, prompting Jude to write this epistle which is an urgent warning to his brethren.
Apparently, Jude was planning on a writing a letter to these churches about “our common salvation,” when word reached him that a group of traveling prophets and teachers had crept into these churches, introducing the dangerous heresy of antinomianism. Antinomianism is the notion that since we are saved by God’s grace and not by our works, Christians are not in any sense bound to keep the law (the Ten Commandments). This particular group of false teachers had infiltrated their ranks, and were men who were using the grace of God as an excuse to engage in all kinds of sexual immorality. Furthermore, these men were claiming that God was revealing himself to them through dreams and visions, which, supposedly gave great credibility to their deceptive message. Upon learning that this was indeed going on, Jude sends this epistle to these churches exhorting them to deal with these men before they can do any more damage.
The Old Testament Background
Although quite short, this epistle is packed with content. In the first four verses, Jude exhorts his readers/hearers to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. In verses 5-16, Jude makes his case that the actions of these false teachers was foretold throughout the Old Testament. In these verses, we find a sermon of sorts, drawn from a number of Old Testament texts as well as the apocryphal Book of Enoch. Jude demonstrates that the history of redemption indicates that God’s judgment will certainly befall upon these men now plaguing the churches. And then, in verses 17-25, Jude concludes by reminding his beloved brethren that this was the very thing the apostles (whom many in the congregation had heard preach with their own ears) warned them would happen. Even as they are contending for the faith once for all delivered, these Christians are to use this time to build themselves up in the most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit, while they wait for the coming of the Lord.
We turn to the first part of our text, verses 5-16 of Jude, which is, in effect, Jude’s sermon on the threat to the churches to which he is writing. In verses 5-7 of Jude’s sermon, Jude gives us three illustrations drawn from the Old Testament and Jewish apocalyptic sources regarding those who claimed to be servants of the Lord, but whose conduct proves them to be anything but. Before setting out his case, Jude issues an important reminder in the first clause of verse 5– “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it . . .” a statement which I take to be a reference to the fact that Jude’s readers already have been thoroughly instructed in “the faith” at the time they came to faith in Christ.
Since many of these people received their initial instruction in Christian doctrine (catechism) directly from the lips of apostles, Jude has no need to instruct his readers in that doctrine. Rather, he is writing to exhort them to put into practice what they have already learned.[1] This also implies that the apostles have already taught us everything we need to know about the gospel, and the person and work of Jesus. If that is the case, could anything possibly be missing from that doctrine taught them by the apostles, which God was supposedly revealing to these false teachers through their dreams and visions? Of course, not. Jude speaks of a “common salvation,” and “a faith, once for all delivered.”
Jesus and the Exodus from Egypt
Jude’s first illustration is taken from one the most famous episodes in Israel’s history. It is noteworthy that Jude tells us that it was Jesus who called the Israelites out of their captivity in Egypt, “that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” Anyone who knows the Passover/Exodus story as found in the Book of Exodus knows that it was YHWH who killed the firstborn males of Egypt, and who delivered the people of Israel on the night of the Passover. It was YHWH who then led the people through the Red Sea on dry ground. After Jesus died and then rose again from the dead, and after Jude came to faith in Christ, Jude now looks back at the Old Testament through the lens of Christ’s fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. No question, the apostolic church believed that since Jesus was God in human flesh, Christians can properly speak of Jesus as YHWH, the one who rescued Israel from the clutches of the Pharaoh.
After the Israelites left Egypt, Moses warned them that the unbelievers and grumblers among them were rejecting God’s covenant promise to grant them the land of promise. Even after seeing YHWH’s awesome power first-hand, these Israelites still doubted whether YHWH was actually capable of defeating the Canaanites. They began to grumble against the Lord, and would come under God’s covenant curse. They would be forced to wander for forty years in the wilderness of the Sinai until their entire generation died off. All of them, except the families of Joshua and Caleb, died in the desert.
Remarkably, Jude ties all of this directly to Jesus. The implication is that preachers in the apostolic circle, like Jude, were led by the Holy Spirit to read the Old Testament through the lens of the person and work of Christ–the very thing which our dispensational friends say should not be done. Jude also has no trouble in applying an Old Testament example of Israel’s disobedience directly to the situation then facing the churches when Jude wrote his epistle. And so in his sermon, Jude argues that it was Jesus who rescued Israel from Egypt. And it was Jesus who allowed the faithless grumblers to wander in the desert for forty years until that entire first generation of Israelites was wiped out. Jude’s readers were, no doubt, very much aware of the story of Israel’s disobedience and God’s judgment. No doubt, they also fully understood Jude’s application of this account from Israel’s history directly to the disobedient and faithless individuals then creeping into the churches. As God had done with Israel, so now he does with his new covenant people, the New Israel. He dealt with apostates then. He will deal with them now.
The Book of Enoch?
Jude’s second illustration comes from a Jewish legend found in the Book of Enoch about angels leaving heaven and then inter-marrying with women so as to corrupt the human race. A number of Jewish writers living before the coming of Christ interpreted the account of the “sons of God” in Genesis 6:1-4 precisely in this manner. Although by the end of the first century, most Rabbis, as well as most subsequent Christians writers rejected this idea–instead seeing the “Nephilim” as fully human thugs and warlords building harems, not the product of sexual relations between women and fallen angels–the notion of angels supposedly procreating with humans is quite prominent in the Book of Enoch, a Jewish apocryphal book then popular in both Jewish and Christian circles.[2]
Even though the Book of Enoch is apocryphal, Jude utilizes Enoch’s legend to make a point. In verse 6, Jude is clearly alluding to a passage in Enoch, “And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.” Without comment upon the erroneous nature of the interpretation held by those in his audience who were influenced by the Book of Enoch, Jude reminds his readers that those angels who followed Satan, and who fell from their place in heaven (“did not keep it”), have been “kept” in chains until the day of judgment. Whatever we make of Jude’s use of an apocryphal source like the Book of Enoch, Jude sees nothing wrong with alluding to it to make an important point–those angels, who according to Enoch, abandoned their place in heaven so as to engage in sexual relations with women, were immediately subject to God’s judgment. Therefore, in his “sermon,” Jude uses Enoch’s legend to make the point that while the angels did not stay (“keep” their place), the Lord now “keeps” them in chains until the time of the end. Jude reinterprets Enoch’s legend in light of the truth of the gospel.
In verse seven, Jude takes up the account of Sodom and Gomorrah, cities well-known to every reader of the Old Testament as places characterized by their open and rampant immorality.
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Written by Samuel D. James |
Saturday, December 11, 2021
The place we need to look is not toward the most visible and intuitive exits, but the ones behind us. Behind us are the sirens of history, in which we learn that unprecedented times are not really unprecedented, and that the church was born with everything she seeks from political or cultural magnificence. The exit behind us is the exit of temporal bandwidth, the ability to imagine ourselves and our worship not in the pressure cooker of contemporary dramas but in the sober sanctuary of God’s century-over-century promises to preserve us.

When sensing an emergency, human nature tends to look for somewhere to run. This is true physically as well as spiritually. Every commercial airliner reminds passengers before takeoff of where the exits on the plane are: “Keep in mind the closest exit may be behind you.” Of course the exit doors are visible enough. Why the reminder? I think part of the answer is that when we’re trying to escape, we tend to only look ahead. It takes a kind of self-control to stop pressing forward toward the biggest exit to look for a different one that may be not in our immediate vision.
A crisis is an epistemological event. When something goes terribly wrong, when we feel threatened or know something must change to avoid catastrophe, how we process information and make decisions changes. In many cases, our singular focus becomes how to relieve the pressure and defuse the danger. And that kind of tunnel vision can take us places that won’t actually help us.
Much of what I see that troubles me in Christian rhetoric and culture is, I think, the straightforward epistemological consequences of a church that feels itself in crisis. Many of us can’t even explain how the world could have changed so much so fast. A transformed public conscience has led to unfathomable revolutions in law, which have in turn reeducated the public conscience. In the 1990s the main concern for many evangelicals was how to preserve purity in a vulgar media age. Now the concern is how to preserve a right to say what people find vulgar in a legalistically progressive media age. To pickup on an infamous metaphor that one conservative pundit used of the 2016 election: many Christians feel like the oxygen masks have deployed and the plane is falling apart.
The sense of crisis conditions how we respond to the world and to each other. If you think your survival depends on how quickly you can get off the plane, you will look for the exit, but not in the way you would look for an exit after a smooth landing.
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We can all rejoice that God is the God of light and that his Son Jesus is the Light of the World and the glorious fulfillment of Day One of Genesis. “In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it” (John 1:4-5).

Human beings have a natural love for light. It is no wonder, for light and all it represents was the very first thing that God introduced into his creation.
The first two verses of the Bible proclaim,

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” (Gen. 1:1-2)

Creation was a structureless, lifeless, lightless, and watery chaos. And the Spirit of God hovered like a mother bird over the chaos. He loved the chaos, cared for the chaos, and was about to develop the chaos over a period of six days. Remember that we shouldn’t, strictly speaking, talk of “six days of creation,” for creation was achieved in a moment. Rather, Genesis 1 describes six days of God enlightening, ordering, filling, and enlivening his creation. This is day one:

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening and there was morning—the first day (Gen. 1:3-5).

1. God spoke light into existence.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light (Gen. 1:3). Witness first the power of God: he speaks, things happen. In other words, what God wills happens. As Basil of Caesarea explained in his sermons on Genesis 1: “The divine will and the first impetus of divine intelligence are the Word of God.”
What happens, happens because God wills it to happen. There is no higher will than God’s, there is no will strong enough to compete with God, and there is no realm where God is not present and where his will does not rule. This is the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, and it is inherent in the word “God.”  God by definition is the eternal being whose will reigns supreme and unchallenged. Thus, we call God “Lord” or “The Lord Almighty” or “King of kings and Lord of lords.”
In the Greek Pantheon, each god competes with the others. Even Zeus—king of Olympus—is outwitted and manipulated and frustrated by the mischievous wills of both gods and men. Elohim is not at all like this. He rules, full stop.
Note especially the power of God’s words. For Paul, this underpins the gospel mission. The gospel is God’s Word, so it is inherently powerful. Mighty Rome might find it pathetically weak, and the philosophers might find it grotesquely foolish—but even the “foolishness” of God is wiser and mightier than the power and wisdom of humanity (1 Cor. 1:18-25). And when God speaks directly to the human heart and spirit, his word is invincible (2 Cor. 4:6).
2. Light is a marvelous thing.
For starters, light is very quick, moving just shy of 300,000 kilometers per second. If you drove your car to the sun at 110km/h (the speed limit) it would take you 157 years to arrive. But if you could ride a beam of light to the sun, it would take you only eight minutes and twenty seconds. I am always delighted by the thought that when I look up at the stars, not only do I see a glorious picture of the number of Abraham’s descendants, I see also the distant past, the light of far distant stars and galaxies that may have taken thousands of years to reach me.
Our amazing scientists still do not wholly grasp the paradoxical nature of light. Physicists talk about “wave-particle duality,” or a “duality paradox”; for on the one hand light behaves like waves and has frequency and amplitude, but it also behaves like particles that can be amassed and focused into a laser beam that can cut through steel. The Jedi knight’s brilliant light sabre might be mythical, but the sheer awesome potential of light is not. These two distinct properties of light have not yet been harmonized. Albert Einstein said,

It seems as though we must use sometimes the one theory and sometimes the other, while at times we may use either. We are faced with a new kind of difficulty. We have two contradictory pictures of reality; separately neither of them fully explains the phenomena of light, but together they do. (The Evolution of Physics, p. 278)

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