Well, today we are beginning a study in the book of Jude. It should last only about three weeks or so, and then, Lord willing, we will begin the book of James. It was my intention to go directly to James, but I felt that in some ways, Jude continued some of the same themes that John had been addressing in his epistles, and so it seemed fitting to include a brief series in Jude.
John as you know, if you’ve been here for our last series, was concerned with the truth. In his last two epistles, he commended the churches he was writing to because they were walking in the truth. John was concerned about walking in the truth, and loving in truth, and about the enemies attacks on the truth.
John warned about the antichrists whom he said were already present and working to distort the truth. Satan has done everything he could to distort the truth, to cover the truth, to hide the truth, to twist the truth, to bring about lies and deceptions. One way or another, the truth has always been under attack. Because the devil knows that the best way to destroy the church, to defeat the gospel, is by subverting the truth to the point that men and women are not able to believe the truth to be saved.
And so that concern on John’s part about the attacks against the truth leads us to the study of Jude, because Jude is concerned about contending for the truth. He calls it contending for the faith, but it’s really speaking of the same thing. He is not talking about having faith, but the faith as the body of truth which leads to salvation. It’s believing in the truth, or believing in the faith.
So the theme of Jude’s letter is stated in vs 3; contend for the faith. He goes on to say that the faith is being challenged by “certain people” who remain unnamed, but nevertheless are distinctly described. He has a lot to say about these people, and the methods they use to attack the truth. He describes it as a very long battle waged between the people of God and the enemies of God which was started in the Garden of Eden, and continues to this day. In fact, we might suggest that the battle is even more desperate today, as it seems that the truth is under greater attack than ever before, from both without and within the church.
So I think this letter, though written 2000 years ago to the churches of that day, is very relevant to our day, and it’s message is very pertinent to the difficulties that are going on in the church in the 21st century.
The letter begins with the identification of the author. Letters in those days typically began by identifying the author, rather than waiting until the end of the letter to sign off, which is the custom today. Jude is the author, however his name actually was Judah in the Hebrew and Judas in the Greek. Jude then is short for Judas. Judas was a popular name, such as John is popular in American culture. Jesus had two disciples named Judas. However, this Jude is not one of the apostles. This Jude identifies himself as a servant of Jesus Christ, and the brother of James.
It is as the brother of James then that we determine his heredity. James, the author of the book of James, is the half brother of Jesus. We say half brother, because Joseph was the father of James, but not of Jesus. The Spirit of God is the father of Jesus the man. And so that makes Jude the half brother of Jesus as well.
But it’s very interesting that Jude doesn’t identify himself as the half brother of Jesus. And that says a lot about the character of the man. Here he has the greatest claim which any Christian could have made so as to be an authority in the church, and yet he doesn’t use it. Instead, he mentions James perhaps only to distinguish himself from many other Judes, or Judas’s.
Most importantly, however, he describes himself as a bond-servant of Jesus Christ. That reveals that he considers that the basis for his relationship with Jesus Christ is not familial, not on the basis of heredity, but his relationship is spiritual. To be a bond slave is to be one who is pledged to serve Jesus Christ as Master and Lord, to love Him as the Lord God, with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. So he doesn’t rely on his natural birth as a claim to Christ, but on his spiritual birth.
However, according to his natural birth he was the half brother of Jesus. In Matthew 13:55 we are told people asked the question concerning Jesus, “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary, and His brothers, James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?” But even though Jude is related by blood to Jesus according to the flesh, yet according to the faith he is happy to call himself a bond servant of Christ. Even the family of Jesus needed to believe in Jesus by faith. And it’s interesting that John 7:5 says that His brothers did not believe on Him. Before Christ’s resurrection, they were skeptics.
Another point that bears mentioning there is that Jude considered himself in subjection to Jesus Christ. You cannot be a servant without a Master. To be a servant means that you belong to someone, you bow to someone, you are subject to them. You submit to them. In a day and age when people rebel against the idea of submitting to any authority, of anyone, or anything, it should be instructive for us to remember Jude, who counted it a privilege to submit to the authority of his Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. To be a Christian means that you submit to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Master.
So the author of this letter is Jude, then who is the audience? Jude says it’s “to those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ.” The NASB says “the called.” In this way, he is speaking of those who are effectively called unto Christ. Remember Romans 8:3 which says, “and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.” As the scriptures tell us, salvation is of the Lord. Those whom He effectively calls to salvation, those He justifies, and those He will glorify. So its addressed to those that the scriptures calls the saints, or those that are saved, whom God has effectively called unto salvation.
And then Jude adds two qualifiers to those that are called. He says that in addition to being called, they are beloved. The love of God has been poured out to them. To be saved is to know the love of God which has been manifested by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf, by dying in our place, to pay the price for our sin. And as the recipients of God’s grace, to be adopted into His family.
And being beloved by God is a special love. Yes, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. But to be a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ means that we benefit from the special love which the Father has for His children. As Romans tells us, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Rom 8:38-39 “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
And that leads to the principle that we are kept for Jesus Christ. We are the bride of Christ. Notice the benediction with which Jude concludes this letter in vs Jude 1:24-25 “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, [be] glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”
That’s what he’s talking about when he says we are kept for Jesus Christ. We are kept from sin, we are kept from falling from grace, we are kept in the fold of Christ’s church, we are kept in the family of God, we are kept through trials and tribulations, we are kept from the power of Satan, we are kept from death, we are kept until the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are kept for eternity.
This is a triple guarantee, a triple blessing that should be dwelt upon, thought upon, and rejoiced in. That we are called, beloved, and kept is a triple guarantee of our faith that should undergird us to be courageous as we contend for the faith once delivered. Like the song “In Christ Alone” that we sing, “No power of hell, no scheme of man, could ever pluck me from His hand…” Take comfort that you have been called, beloved, and kept by the Lord God Almighty.
Jude then closes out his introduction with a prayer for his audience, the churches, in vs 2. Using another triplet, he prays “May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you.” I don’t think that Jude is praying that the mercy, peace and love of God be multiplied to them, but perhaps that the mercy, peace and love of the church be multiplied. As the church does what it is commanded to do, to show mercy to one another, to love one another, to forgive one another, to have peace with one another, these gifts are multiplied by the number of people in the church as they are obedient to the command to love one another. So Jude is praying that they receive the benefit of the multiplication of grace from the church.
Now contrary to the mythology of some church’s teaching concerning Jude, this Jude, the author of this letter was not an apostle. He was in some respects a late comer to the faith. He’s probably just a pastor of a church, or perhaps an evangelist. He is rarely found mentioned in scripture, and would be a rather obscure figure in church history were it not for this little letter. But what we learn about Jude in this tiny epistle is that he was ready and willing to contend for the faith. He proves to be a valiant warrior for the kingdom of God, to take a stand against those who have crept in to the church to take advantage of it.
In vs 3 and 4, we see that aspect of Jude manifested as he pens his reason for this letter. He begins by saying that he was preparing to write to them concerning their common salvation but he found it necessary to write otherwise. Undoubtedly, the Holy Spirit impressed on Jude the necessity to issue a warning to the church about the apostasy which was infiltrating the church.
Notice how Jude says it, in vs 3, “Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.” It’s funny how sometimes we begin to do something which we believe the Lord is leading us to do, and somewhere along in the process of doing what we set out to do, God either changes our purpose, or changes the result, so that what we end up doing is not what we started to do, but it is better, because it’s what God intended for us to do. Sometimes we get a prodding from God to do something, to say something, but in the process, we end up saying something altogether different, which we see afterwards was due to the hand of God.
But I also think that perhaps Jude was a reluctant warrior. What I mean by that was he wasn’t spoiling for a fight, he wasn’t setting out to pick a fight with people who didn’t see eye to eye with him on every issue. Sometimes, pastors seem to think that is their calling, to point out every other church’s faults and problems. Jude wasn’t looking for that. Rather, he was preparing to write about what they had in common, their salvation. There are essential aspects of our salvation that are indisputable. They are common to all who are saved. And so as Christians we should be more concerned about those common truths rather than our differences on non essential issues. For instance, we could be what is called a pre-tribulationist, and we could go on the offensive against all the amillenialists. But we are not tasked with that. We are called to as much as possible be at peace with one another. To rejoice with one another. To focus on the majors and not the minors. No one is going to hell because he is an pre tribulation guy or an amillenial guy.
But Jude says though he wanted to write one thing, he felt the necessity to write another thing. The writers of scripture were inspired by the Holy Spirit. Inspiration means God breathed. Peter said it this way in 2Peter 1:21 “for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” Jude intended to write one thing, but God had another message He wanted to deliver. And so Jude writes, “I felt it necessary to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.
To contend earnestly is an athletic term in the Greek. It’s pronunciation sounds similar to our word agonize. It’s talking about intensely struggling, competing, even fighting with all their might. It’s talking about expending great effort in a noble cause. That’s the call of Jude to the church. To rise up and contend for the faith, because it is under attack.
So Jude has blown the trumpet for battle, so to speak, but then he adds what the great cause for the battle is. It is for the faith. He means faith in all it’s fullness. The full scope of the faith. It’s the complete revelation of God to man contained in the scriptures, handed down from the apostles, and by which our salvation is possible. It is the gospel in it’s completeness, from Genesis to Revelation. It’s the truth of God by which we are set free from sin and death. The truth of the gospel is under attack, and Jude says we must rise up and fight for it.
Notice that Jude gives us an important distinction about the faith. He says it was once for all delivered to the saints. That was important in his day, with all the spurious apostles that were running around claiming to have a message from God and fleecing the churches. It was important considering that the antichrist and false prophets were already at work in the church. And it’s important in our day, a day in which the authority and reliability of scripture is being questioned by theologians and seminarians, not to mention scientists and professors.
It’s important because Jude says it was once for all delivered. The truth of our faith is not a work in progress. The truth doesn’t change from culture to culture, or from generation to generation. It’s not that it was almost finished and then 1500 years later someone comes along who has a dream or vision and adds to it. It’s not something that needs reinterpretation by the heads of mainstream denominations in order to be relevant to our culture. It’s the faith in it’s fullness, and in it’s completeness. When Jude wrote this letter some 30 years or so after the resurrection of Christ, the gospel was already in it’s final form. All that was necessary was already revealed and established truth.
Then in vs 4, Jude identifies those people with whom they needed to contend; those false prophets, those antichrists that were already at work in the church. He calls them certain persons. “For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”
Notice how Jude describes these people. He says they crept in, unnoticed. That’s the deceit of the enemy. They are disguised as godly people, as those of the faith. They seem to be righteous. They fit in, they look the part.
He also says they were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation. To me, that means that they are really not saved. Before you are saved, you are condemned. Once you are saved, you are no longer condemned. The fact that they long beforehand were marked for condemnation indicates that they were pretenders who were never saved. They were like the other Judas, the disciple of Jesus who betrayed Him. He pretended to believe, he even worked miracles in Jesus’ name, but he was called the son of perdition. And likewise these “certain people” claimed they were Christian, they may have claimed they were from the apostles, they may have claimed that they were from the church of Jerusalem, but in fact, they were pretenders. They were not really believers.
You know, that’s a scary thing. That certain people can know a lot of facts about the gospel. They can quote scripture. They can do mighty signs and wonders. They can pray and call on Jesus. They can have all the outward appearances of a Christian, or even a Christian pastor or leader, and yet not be saved. That’s scary to me.
Jesus said in Matt. 7:22-23 "Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’” It’s scary that they can be so close, and yet not a part of the kingdom of God.
But Jude gives us the telling indication of their spiritual nature. Here is the key to gauging a real Christian from the pretender. Jude says they are ungodly. Jesus said in Matt. 7:15 "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.” That’s what Jude is talking about when he says they are ungodly. Their fruit doesn’t match their claim. Their life doesn’t match their profession. They claim they are Christians, but their lives say otherwise. Rather than their lives being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, their lives are ungodly. They are immoral, they live to fulfill their sinful passions.
Jude describes that ungodliness more fully. He says they are “ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” First, they were perverting the grace of God into sensuality, and second, they were denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. In other words, they were taking advantage of God’s grace and setting aside God’s authority.
Rather than living a life modeled after Christ, these people exercised their “freedom” by living according to the lusts of the flesh, particularly in sexual matters and in greed. They had gutted the faith of it’s moral imperatives. They claimed the grace of God covered their sin and so they allowed themselves sexual liberties. And they used the same liberty in regards to money. The love of money is the root of all evil.
You know, I think that these two evil attributes are often to be found together. And those certain persons are no less than many of the false prophets that are on so called Christian television. They love money and never tire of asking for it. And if what we know about many of those televangelists that have made the headlines in the recent past is any indication, they seem to have a penchant for sexual immorality. Sexual immorality and the love of money goes hand in hand, and often characterizes these charlatan evangelists on television.
I believe that it is those type of people who Jude is warning against. People who have promoted themselves as some sort of prophet, some sort of teacher, who draw away disciples after themselves, who fleece the sheep, the weak Christians who are beguiled by their promise of health, wealth and prosperity. Jude says they presume upon the grace of God. That’s a dangerous thing, to presume upon the grace of God. To take advantage of the blood of Jesus Christ by which we were saved for the sake of fulfilling your sinful desires. It should be remembered that Jude says such people were long beforehand marked out for condemnation. They may think they are getting away with it, but one day they will face God and have to give an account of their unrighteous deeds.
The second criticism Jude writes of is that they deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. Not only were Jude’s opponents antinomian, but they were anti authority. They rejected Jesus as Master and Lord. Oh, I’m sure that they said “Lord, Lord,” I’m sure that they waved their hands when the songs were being sung, that they shed some tears as they talked about their experience, but their life was not lived as though it was not their own, but as if they were still sitting on the throne.
They failed to obey the commands of Jesus as Lord. Romans 10:9 says we must confess Jesus as Lord. Not just as a friend. Not even just as our Savior. But as Lord. As Jehovah God. As Sovereign. As King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. And to Him we give our lives in service. That’s why Jude started out by saying he was a bond servant of Christ. That’s what it means to be saved. To surrender to Jesus, to live for Him, to be changed by Him, to be transformed into His image, that is, His life is lived out in us. Paul said in 1Cor. 6:19 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” You are not your own. You’ve been bought and paid for by Jesus Christ. You belong to Him now. That’s the reality of our Christian faith. We are no longer free agents. We are servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is our Master and Lord.
Let me tell you something. You think the only way you are going to be able to find happiness and fulfillment and satisfaction in life is if you are able to be the captain of your destiny, to be the king of your castle, to be independent, to submit to no one. I can assure you that such a pursuit is in vain. It only leads to ruin. It leads to eternal death, eternal separation from God and an eternity in hell. But I will tell you this, which is what the prodigal son finally figured out in the pigpen of life; to be even the lowest servant in the Father’s house is far better than being a king, or a celebrity, or a rock star in the world.
As it says in Psalm 84:10 “For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand [outside.] I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God Than dwell in the tents of wickedness.”
We have a choice to make. To surrender our lives to live for God, or to try to create happiness for ourselves as our own god. I chose to surrender to Him who calls me, who loves me, and who will keep me for Himself, forever. And as His servant, I will continue to contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. I hope you commit to do the same.
“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, [be] glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen."
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