The Epistle of Jude
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:
I greet you in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is my sincere Prayer that you are being Blessed even as you read this email.
Today, we study the Epistle of Jude.
1 Sanctified and preserved are in the perfect tense: Christians are once and continually "set apart" and "kept." They are kept for the return of Christ (see verse 21).
2 Believers who have sought God's mercy also receive peace ("inner assurance" and "stability") and love.
3 Beloved indicates the close relationship between Jude and his readers. Jude was evidently planning to write a less urgent doctrinal letter but was forced by developments to pen this earnest exhortation. Jude conceives of Christian faith as having a definite, unchanging, and unchangeable content.
4 Before of old ordained is probably not speaking of predestination in the sense of God deciding in advance that He would condemn these men and so seeing to it that they sinned. Rather Jude recognizes that Scripture often predicts the demise and judgment of any who flaunt God's will. The men in question are wrongly assuming that grace means "no moral laws." They thus effectively deny the sovereignty and eternal moral lordship of both the Father and the Son.
5 I will: Jude expresses the burden of wanting desperately to warn his readers. Jude sees Old Testament example as extremely important for Christians (see Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 10:11). The writer of Hebrews expands greatly on a similar insight regarding Israel's demise in the wilderness (Numbers 14:28-35).
6 See Genesis 6:1-4. Jude here as below seems to make use of 2 Peter 2:4. The non-canonical Book of Enoch, chapters 6-10, may also be quoted here or an oral tradition that is also in that book. His apparent use of non-canonical writings does not mean he considered them to be on the same level as Scripture itself. See Paul's references to secular writers, in order to make a point, in Acts 17:28; 1 Corinthians 15:33; Titus 1:12.
7 See 2 Peter 2:6 and Genesis 19:1-29. Sodom and Gomorrah are mentioned often in Scripture as examples of God's severe judgment on sexual sin, in particular sexual perversion. From this verse and verse 6 immorality has clearly entered the ranks of believers to whom Jude writes.
8 Jude describes the false teachers against whom he writes. Instead of God's revealed Word they pay attention to their own vision or dreams. In doing so they lapse into immorality and insubordination, refusing to obey authorities (whether angelic or perhaps apostolic) and even criticizing them openly.
9 Jude evidently refers to a Jewish tradition (preserved, according to ancient authorities, in a work called the Assumption of Moses), according to which Michael the archangel refused to be provoked by Satan, who charged that Moses was a murderer (Exodus 2:11, 12) and therefore undeserving of a proper burial.
10 See Philippians 3:19 and 2 Peter 2:12.
Yours in Jesus Christ,
Bishop William B. Caractor
