Bible Commentaries
Jude 1

Introduction

:-. ADDRESS: GREETING: HIS OBJECT IN WRITING: WARNING AGAINST SEDUCERS IN DOCTRINE AND PRACTICE FROM GOD'S VENGENANCE ON APOSTATES, ISRAEL, THE FALLEN ANGELS, SODOM AND GOMORRAH. DESCRIPTION OF THESE BAD MEN, IN CONTRAST TO MICHAEL: LIKE CAIN, BALAAM, AND CORE: ENOCH'S PROPHECY AS TO THEM: THE APOSTLES' FOREWARNING: CONCLUDING EXHORTATION AS TO PRESERVING THEIR OWN FAITH, AND TRYING TO SAVE OTHERS: DOXOLOGY.

Verse 1

servant of Jesus Christ — as His minister and apostle.

brother of James — who was more widely known as bishop of Jerusalem and “brother of the Lord” (that is, either cousin, or stepbrother, being son of Joseph by a former marriage; for ancient traditions universally agree that Mary, Jesus’ mother, continued perpetually a virgin). Jude therefore calls himself modestly “brother of James.” See my Introduction.

to them ... sanctified by God the Father — The oldest manuscripts and versions, Origen, Lucifer, and others read, “beloved” for sanctified. If English Version be read, compare :-; :-. The Greek is not “by,” but “in.” God the Father’s love is the element IN which they are “beloved.” Thus the conclusion, :-, corresponds, “Keep yourselves in the love of God.” Compare “beloved of the Lord” :-.

preserved in Jesus Christ — “kept.” Translate not “in,” but as Greek, “FOR Jesus Christ.” “Kept continually (so the Greek perfect participle means) by God the Father for Jesus Christ,” against the day of His coming. Jude, beforehand, mentions the source and guarantee for the final accomplishment of believers’ salvation; lest they should be disheartened by the dreadful evils which he proceeds to announce [Bengel].

and called — predicated of “them that are beloved in God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ: who are called.” God’s effectual calling in the exercise of His divine prerogative, guarantees their eternal safety.

Verse 2

Mercy — in a time of wretchedness. Therefore mercy stands first; the mercy of Christ ( :-).

peace — in the Holy Ghost ( :-).

love — of God ( :-). The three answer to the divine Trinity.

be multiplied — in you and towards you.

Verse 3

Design of the Epistle (compare :-, :-).

all diligence — ( :-). As the minister is to give all diligence to admonish, so the people should, in accordance with his admonition, give all diligence to have all Christian graces, and to make their calling sure.

the common salvation — wrought by Christ. Compare Note, see on :-, “obtained LIKE precious faith,” This community of faith, and of the object of faith, salvation, forms the ground of mutual exhortation by appeals to common hopes and fears.

it was needful for me — rather, “I felt it necessary to write (now at once; so the Greek aorist means; the present infinitive ‘to write,’ which precedes, expresses merely the general fact of writing) exhorting you.” The reason why he felt it necessary “to write with exhortation,” he states, :-, “For there are certain men crept in,” etc. Having intended to write generally of “the common salvation,” he found it necessary from the existing evils in the Church, to write specially that they should contend for the faith against those evils.

earnestly contend — Compare :-, “striving together for the faith of the Gospel.”

once, etc. — Greek, “once for all delivered.” No other faith or revelation is to supersede it. A strong argument for resisting heretical innovators ( :-). Believers, like Nehemiah’s workmen ( :-), with one hand “build themselves up in their most holy faith”; with the other they” contend earnestly for the faith” against its foes.

the saints — all Christians, holy (that is, consecrated to God) by their calling, and in God’s design.

Verse 4

certain men — implying disparagement.

crept in unawares — stealthily and unlawfully. See on :-, “privily shall bring in damnable heresies.”

before ... ordained — Greek, “forewritten,” namely, in Peter’s prophecy :-, :-; and in Paul’s before that, :-; :-; and by implication in the judgments which overtook the apostate angels. The disobedient Israelites, Sodom and Gomorrah, Balaam and Core, and which are written “for an example” ( :-, and :-, :-, :-). God’s eternal character as the Punisher of sin, as set forth in Scripture “of old,” is the ground on which such apostate characters are ordained to condemnation. Scripture is the reflection of God’s book of life in which believers are “written among the living.” “Forewritten” is applied also in :- to the things written in Scripture. Scripture itself reflects God’s character from everlasting, which is the ground of His decrees from everlasting. Bengel explains it as an abbreviated phrase for, “They were of old foretold by Enoch ( :-, who did not write his prophecies), and afterwards marked out by the written word.”

to this condemnation — Jude graphically puts their judgment as it were present before the eyes, “THIS.” Enoch’s prophecy comprises the “ungodly men” of the last days before Christ’s coming to judgment, as well as their forerunners, the “ungodly men” before the flood, the type of the last judgment ( :-; :-). The disposition and the doom of both correspond.

the grace of our God — A phrase for the Gospel especially sweet to believers who appropriate God in Christ as “our God,” and so rendering the more odious the vile perversity of those who turn the Gospel state of grace and liberty into a ground of licentiousness, as if their exemption from the law gave them a license to sin.

denying the only Lord — The oldest manuscripts, versions, and Fathers omit “God,” which follows in English Version. Translate as the Greek, “the only Master”; here used of Jesus Christ, who is at once Master and “Lord” (a different Greek word). See on :-. By virtue of Christ’s perfect oneness with the Father, He, as well as the Father, is termed “the ONLY” God and “MASTER.” Greek, “Master,” implies God’s absolute ownership to dispose of His creatures as He likes.

Verse 5

( :-; :-.)

therefore — Other oldest manuscripts and Vulgate read, “But”; in contrast to the ungodly :-.

though ye once — rather, “once for all.” Translate, “I wish to remind you, as knowing ALL (namely, that I am referring to; so the oldest manuscripts, versions, and Fathers) once for all.” As already they know all the facts once for all, he needs only to “remind” them.

the Lord — The oldest manuscripts and versions read, “Jesus.” So “Christ” is said to have accompanied the Israelites in the wilderness; so perfectly is Jesus one with the God of the Israelite theocracy.

saved — brought safely, and into a state of safety and salvation.

afterward — Greek, “secondly”; in the next instance “destroyed them that believed not,” as contrasted with His in the first instance having saved them.

Verse 6

( :-.)

kept not their first estate — Vulgate translates, “their own principality,” which the fact of angels being elsewhere called “principalities,” favors: “their own” implies that, instead of being content with the dignity once for all assigned to them under the Son of God, they aspired higher. Alford thinks the narrative in :- is alluded to, not the fall of the devil and his angels, as he thinks “giving themselves over to fornication” ( :-) proves; compare Greek, “in like manner to these,” namely, to the angels ( :-). It seems to me more natural to take “sons of God” ( :-) of the Sethites, than of angels, who, as “spirits,” do not seem capable of carnal connection. The parallel, :-, plainly refers to the fall of the apostate angels. And “in like manner to these,” :-, refers to the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, “the cities about them” sinning “in like manner” as “they” did [Estius and Calvin]. Even if Greek “these,” :-, refer to the angels, the sense of “in like manner as these” will be, not that the angels carnally fornicated with the daughters of men, but that their ambition, whereby their affections went away from God and they fell, is in God’s view a sin of like kind spiritually as Sodom’s going away from God’s order of nature after strange flesh; the sin of the apostate angels after their kind is analogous to that of the human Sodomites after their kind. Compare the somewhat similar spiritual connection of whoremongers and covetousness. The apocryphal book of Enoch interprets :- as Alford. But though Jude accords with it in some particulars, it does not follow that he accords with it in all. The Hebrews name the fallen angels Aza and Azael.

left — on their own accord.

their own — Greek, “their proper.”

habitation — heaven, all bright and glorious, as opposed to the “darkness” to which they now are doomed. Their ambitious designs seem to have had a peculiar connection with this earth, of which Satan before his fall may have been God’s vicegerent, whence arises his subsequent connection with it as first the Tempter, then “the prince of this world.”

reserved — As the Greek is the same, and there is an evident reference to their having “kept not their first estate,” translate, “He hath kept.” Probably what is meant is, He hath kept them in His purpose; that is their sure doom; moreover, as yet, Satan and his demons roam at large on the earth. An earnest of their doom is their having been cast out of heaven, being already restricted to “the darkness of this present world,” the “air” that surrounds the earth, their peculiar element now. They lurk in places of gloom and death, looking forward with agonizing fear to their final torment in the bottomless pit. He means not literal chains and darkness, but figurative in this present world where, with restricted powers and liberties, shut out from heaven, they, like condemned prisoners, await their doom.

Verse 7

Even as — Alford translates, “I wish to remind you ( :-) that.”

Sodom, etc. — ( :-).

giving themselves over to fornication — following fornication extraordinarily, that is, out of the order of nature. On “in like manner to them” (Greek), compare Note, see on :-. Compare on spiritual fornication, “go a whoring from thee,” :-.

going after strange flesh — departing from the course of nature, and going after that which is unnatural. In later times the most enlightened heathen nations indulged in the sin of Sodom without compunction or shame.

are set forth — before our eyes.

suffering — undergoing to this present time; alluding to the marks of volcanic fire about the Dead Sea.

the vengeance — Greek, “righteous retribution.”

eternal fire — The lasting marks of the fire that consumed the cities irreparably, is a type of the eternal fire to which the inhabitants have been consigned. Bengel translates as the Greek will admit, “Suffering (the) punishment (which they endure) as an example or sample of eternal fire (namely, that which shall consume the wicked).” :- shows that Sodom’s punishment, as a nation, is not eternal. Compare also :-.

Verse 8

also — rather, “In like manner nevertheless” (notwithstanding these warning examples) [Alford].

these ... dreamers — The Greek has not “filthy” of English Version. The clause, “these men dreaming” (that is, in their dreams), belongs to all the verbs, “defile,” “despise,” and “speak evil.” All sinners are spiritually asleep, and their carnal activity is as it were a dream ( :-, :-). Their speaking evil of dignities is because they are dreaming, and know not what they are speaking evil of ( :-). “As a man dreaming seems to himself to be seeing and nearing many things, so the natural man’s lusts are agitated by joy, distress, fear, and the other passions. But he is a stranger to self-command. Hence, though he bring into play all the powers of reason, he cannot conceive the true liberty which the sons of light, who are awake and in the daylight; enjoy” [Bengel].

defile the flesh — ( :-).

dominion — “lordship.”

dignities — literally, “glories.” Earthly and heavenly dignities.