Scripture Reading: Jude 1:1-7
With this message we begin the life-study of the book of Jude. The subject of Jude is contending for the faith. In verse 3 Jude entreats us to “contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” In this message we shall cover the first seven verses of this Epistle.
Verses 1 and 2 are the introduction to the book of Jude. In these verses Jude says, “Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ: mercy to you and peace and love be multiplied.” Both Jude and James were brothers of the Lord Jesus in the flesh (Matt. 13:55). James was one of the apostles (Gal. 1:19) and one of the elders in Jerusalem (Acts 15:2, 13; 21:18), reputed with Peter and John to be a pillar of the church (Gal. 2:9). He also wrote the Epistle of James (James 1:1). Jude was not listed among the twelve, nor are we told that he was an elder in a church. Nevertheless, he wrote this Epistle, a short yet excellent book.
According to verse 1, this book is addressed to “those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ.” The Greek word rendered “by” may also be translated “for.” “By” denotes the strength and means of keeping; “for” denotes the purpose and object of keeping. All the believers have been given to the Lord by the Father (John 17:6), and they are being kept for Him and by Him.
Many Bible teachers believe that this Epistle, like 1 and 2 Peter, was written to Jewish believers in Christ. In Jude’s words, these believers were called, beloved in God the Father, and kept by Jesus Christ.
In verse 2 Jude says, “Mercy to you and peace and love be multiplied.” The fact that mercy is mentioned instead of grace in this greeting may be due to the church’s degradation and apostasy (see vv. 21-22). In 1 and 2 Timothy Paul includes God’s mercy in his opening greeting. God’s mercy reaches farther than His grace. In the degraded situation of the churches, God’s mercy is needed.
As sinners, we were in a pitiful situation. But God’s mercy reached us and brought us out of that situation and qualified us to receive His grace. In principle, grace requires that we be in a somewhat good condition. However, because mercy reaches farther than grace, it is able to reach those who are in a most pitiful condition.
Verse 3 says, “Beloved, using all diligence to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you, entreating you to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.” Here Jude speaks of our common salvation. This is general salvation, which is common to and held by all believers, like the common faith (Titus 1:4).
Some Christians misapply Jude’s word about contending for the faith. They think that to contend for the faith means to contend for matters such as baptism and foot washing. Some argue concerning head covering or about the kind of bread used in the Lord’s table. However, the faith in verse 3 does not refer to such matters.
The faith in this verse is not subjective; it is objective. It does not refer to our believing, but refers to our belief, to what we believe. The faith denotes the contents of the New Testament as our faith (Acts 6:7; 1 Tim. 1:19; 3:9; 4:1; 5:8; 6:10, 21; 2 Tim. 2:18; 3:8; 4:7; Titus 1:13), in which we believe for our common salvation. This faith, not any doctrine, has been delivered once for all to the saints. For this faith we should contend (1 Tim. 6:12).
In the Old Testament God gave Abraham a promise. Later, through Moses God gave the law to the children of Israel. In the Gospel of John we are told that when the Lord Jesus came, grace came (1:17). Here we have three important matters: promise, law, and grace. Some Bible teachers speak of the dispensation of promise, the dispensation of law, and the dispensation of grace.
In order to understand the truth in the New Testament, we need to see that God first gave a promise to Abraham. We may say that this promise was on the “main track” of God’s dealing with man. But because of the ignorance and unbelief of God’s chosen people, it was necessary for God to give the law to the children of Israel. In the book of Galatians Paul likens the law to Hagar, Abraham’s concubine, not to Sarah, Abraham’s wife (Gal. 4:21-25). This means that Hagar was a type, or prefigure, of the law. Hence, the position of the law is not that of the wife, but that of a concubine. Now in the New Testament God gives faith instead of the law.
With the faith given by God there is both a subjective side and an objective side. The subjective side concerns our believing, and the objective side concerns the things we believe. In verse 3 the faith does not denote our ability to believe; rather, it refers to what we believe. Hence, the faith refers to the contents of the New Testament.
Peter tells us in his second Epistle that like precious faith has been allotted to us (2 Pet. 1:1). This faith is subjective and refers to the faith that is within us. This differs from the faith in Jude 1:3, for the faith here is objective.
The faith in the objective sense is equal to the contents of God’s will given to us in the New Testament. The law includes the contents of the Ten Commandments and all the subordinate ordinances. The law was given in the Old Testament, but what God gives in the New Testament is the faith that includes all the items of God’s new will. This will even includes the Triune God. However, it does not include such matters as head covering, foot washing, or methods of baptism. Nevertheless, some believers contend for such things, thinking that they are contending for the faith. But that is not the correct understanding of what Jude means by contending for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
To contend for the faith is to contend for the basic and crucial matters of God’s new will. One of these basic matters is Christ’s death for our redemption.
Suppose a modernist tells you that Jesus died on the cross not for redemption, but because He was a martyr and sacrificed Himself for His teachings. This understanding of the death of Christ is heretical. It is contrary to one of the main items of God’s new will. We need to contend for the truth concerning Christ’s redemption.
Many years ago in China we contended for the truth of redemption when we fought against the book For Sinners Only, a book which claims that a sinner can be favored by God or saved apart from the blood of Jesus. The Bible clearly says that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins (Heb. 9:22). We fought against that heretical book and inoculated the believers against its modernistic teachings.
We thank the Lord that in this country today many fundamental Bible teachers are also fighting against heretical, modernistic teachings. This is to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. This faith has been delivered to the saints once for all, and what we need to do now is to contend for it.
In verse 4 Jude goes on to say, “For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who of old have been written of beforehand for this judgment, ungodly men, perverting the grace of our God into licentiousness, and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” Verses Jude 1:4-19 are in close parallel with 2 Pet. 2. This indicates that the Epistle of Jude was written in the time of the church’s apostasy and degradation.
In verse 4 Jude says that certain men have “crept in unnoticed.” Literally the Greek means to get in by the side, or slip in by a side door. We may compare this with “secretly bring in” in 2 Pet. 2:1. As the enemy crept in to sow tares among the wheat (see Matt. 13), the apostates have crept in unnoticed.
The words “this judgment” refer to the judgment of the creeping in unnoticed of the apostates, the judgment unfolded in the following verses. Judgment here is the condemnation for punishment, and it refers to being condemned to be punished.
Here Jude speaks of ungodly men, who pervert the grace of God into licentiousness and deny our Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. The evil of these heretical apostates is twofold: perverting the grace of God into wantonness, that is, into the abuse of freedom (see Gal. 5:13; 1 Pet. 2:16), and denying the headship and lordship of the Lord. These two go together. Turning the grace of God into an abused freedom for wantonness requires denying the Lord’s rule and authority.
In verses 5 through 7 Jude gives some historical examples of the Lord’s judgment upon apostasy. The first example is that of the children of Israel: “But I intend to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe” (v. 5). There was apostasy among those who were led out of the land of Egypt. This means that the unbelieving children of Israel became apostates. In this verse Jude tells us that the Lord destroyed those who did not believe.
Verse 6 says, “And angels who did not keep their own principality, but abandoned their own dwelling place, He has kept in eternal bonds under gloom for the judgment of the great day.” The angels here are the same as those in 2 Peter 2:4; they are the “sons of God” in Genesis 6. The Greek word translated “principality” is arche. This word means the beginning of power, the first place of authority; hence, original dignity in a high position. The fallen angels did not keep their original dignity and position, but abandoned their own dwelling place, which is in heaven, to come to earth at Noah’s time to commit fornication with the daughters of men (Gen. 6:2; 1 Pet. 3:19). The “gloom” is the gloomy pits of Tartarus (2 Pet. 2:4), and the judgment of the great day will probably be the final judgment of the great white throne.
In verse 7 Jude continues, “As Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, who in like manner with these gave themselves over to fornication and went after other flesh, are set forth as an example, undergoing the penalty of eternal fire.” The word “as” here is important and means in the same manner as. This word proves that the angels in the preceding verse are the sons of God in Genesis 6:2, who committed fornication with strange flesh and were condemned by God for the judgment of the great day, for immediately following that was the judgment on Sodom, Gomorrah, and the cities around them. The relative pronoun “who” in verse 7 refers to Sodom, Gomorrah, and the cities around them.
The phrase “in like manner” means in the manner of committing fornication with strange flesh, as the fallen angels did. The fallen angels committed fornication with another race, which to them was strange flesh. The Sodomites indulged their lusts with males (Rom. 1:27; Lev. 18:22), with flesh different from and strange to what God ordained by the nature of His creation for human marriage (Gen. 2:18-24). In verse 7 “other flesh” denotes flesh that is strange or different, and “these” refers to the fornicating angels in the preceding verse.
If we compare Jude with 2 Peter, we shall see that these two Epistles cover many of the same points. This indicates that the apostles and early teachers must have had fellowship regarding these matters. Otherwise, how could Peter and Jude have written in a way that is so similar? These two brothers, both of whom had a Jewish background and bore the responsibility to sound the trumpet for the New Testament truths, condemned the same things and emphasized the fact that anyone who takes the way of apostasy will suffer God’s judgment.
It is extremely serious to deny the Lord’s Person and His redemptive work. Certain modernists who deny the Lord in this way have suffered God’s judgment even in their lifetime. When the Oxford movement, or Buchmanism, was active in China, some modernists were so bold as to say that Jesus Christ was not the Son of God born of a virgin, but was the illegitimate son of Mary. This is not only heretical; it is blasphemous. What blasphemy it is to claim that our Lord Jesus Christ was the illegitimate son of Mary! Eventually, some of those who taught such heretical and blasphemous things did not have a good end in life. Not only will they be judged by God in the future — they were judged by God during their lifetime. As a result, the ending of their life was not at all good.
We need to learn from the books of Jude and 2 Peter to fear God and to be very careful concerning the Lord’s Person and His redemptive work. Because we live in a perverted age, the young people especially need to be on the alert. We all must have a basic understanding of the Word of God. This will protect us. As Peter says, the Word will be a lamp shining within us (2 Pet. 1:19). Then if we come in contact with apostates and heretics, we will know that their teaching concerning the Person of Christ and His redemptive work is false and blasphemous, and we will not listen to them. Because we fought against modernism when we were in China, the Christians there were protected. Of course, other Christians were also faithful to fight against heretical teachings. Today we all need to be faithful to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
