Letters That Burn
Jude
Part 18
“A Faith Worth Fighting For”
Jude was written to counter apostasy (abandonment of the faith). In the time of Jude, the specter of apostasy had already raised its ugly head in the church. False teachers were everywhere, and one of the most damning teachings of all was called Gnosticism. Gnosticism was a teaching based on the idea of gnosis (a Greek word meaning “knowledge”).
But the gnostics claimed to have a “secret” knowledge!
They taught that salvation was attained, not by the shed blood of Jesus, but by this “secret knowledge” one could only attain by joining the Gnostics—a sure sign of cultism.
Gnostics further believed that matter, whether it be the physical universe or the humanly body, was evil.
They also taught that God did not create the material universe but it was instead created by an evil or lesser God.
In spite of all of this, Gnostics considered themselves Christians! So you can be WAY out there and still claim to be Christian.
They saw Jesus as a heavenly messenger, yet they rejected the Christian message of God becoming incarnate (God becoming a man), dying and rising bodily.
Crazy as it was, by the time of the 2nd century, Gnosticism was everywhere in the civilized world. It had, tragically, penetrated parts of the church and was making strong headway.
It goes without saying that these teachings, when accepted, destroyed the foundations of Christianity. And it was false teachings like this that were red hot on Jude’s mind when he wrote his little one chapter letter—the smallest letter of all the Epistles.
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Many feel that Jude’s letter is meant by God to be the precursor to the Book of Revelation, hence it is placed just before it.
In Jude and the Revelation we witness the approach of end-times judgments. The rapture is near. The darkness is deepening. The signs of the times are rapidly unfolding.
Jude’s letter will hold our focus on one particular sign of the end times—the apostasy we’ve already mentioned!
There is no question that he was alarmed over the success and scope of apostasy in his day, and wrote with intense earnestness as the Spirit of God moved him to warn of these false teachers.
Though brief, his letter covers much territory, including:
Sobering judgment (v.5)
Satanic invasion (v. 6)
Sexual perversion (v.7)
Social upheaval (v. 8-10)
Spiritual distortion (v.11a)
Semitic persecution (v.11b)
Self-expression (v.11c)
Strong delusion (vv.12-13)
Secular humanism (vv.14-15)
Subversive criticism (v.16)
We don’t know exactly who Jude’s target audience was—like we do Peter’s and James from their letters—but we DO know that it pertains to every true child of God!
So, let’s begin our journey through Jude!
1:1 “Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James,”
Jude is without question the Jude mentioned in the Gospels in verses like Matthew 13:55, “Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas?”
We see “Judas” here, not Jude. Following the infamy of Judas, the Lord’s betrayer, it’s possible that the author of the letter, Jude, shortened his name—as in Jeff for Jeffery, John for Johnathan, and so on.
In fact, the author of Jude was the Lord’s half-brother. He is mentioned last in every listing which likely points to his being the youngest of the four half-brothers of Jesus.
Jude was almost certainly a married man as 1 Cor. 9:5 implies. Paul asks, “Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas?”
It is a powerful thing to note that Jude refers to himself as “the servant of the Lord Jesus Christ” without making any reference to being Jesus’ half brother. Jesus had become infinitely more than that to him by now.
If you recall, there was a day when Jude, along with his other brothers and sisters, and Mary herself had stood outside a place where Jesus was teaching and asked to see him based on their family relationship. Jesus responded by saying, “Who is my mother? And who are my brethren? For whoever does the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Matt. 12:46-50 KJV).
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He next says three crucially important things about our salvation:
1:1b “To those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ”
The three wonderful words he uses to describe our salvation are:
CALLED—meaning “invited, summoned by God to an office or to salvation.”
SANCTIFIED—means to be set apart or separated from the evils of the world for a special purpose.
PRESERVED—means to be spiritually guarded and kept intact.
This last word, “preserved” is worth a longer look. Jude says we are “preserved in Jesus Christ.”
The phrase “in Christ” is one of the greatest truths of the New Testament. For instance, we’re told in Romans 8:1, “There is therefore no more condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”
In 2 Cor. 5:17 Paul writes, “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.”
All of the blessings of salvation become ours the moment we are “in Christ.”
Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 1:30, “It is because of Him (God) that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God–that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.”
Everything changes for us the moment we place our faith in Christ. To place your faith “in Christ” is to be placed immediately “in Christ” and into the “body of Christ” by the Holy Spirit.
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One major difference between the OT and the NT is that in the OT you had to be in a PLACE—the Promised Land. In the NT we have to be in a Person—the Lord Jesus. In the OT they were called to be in CANAAN; in the NT we are called to be IN CHRIST!
The perfect picture of what it means to be “in Christ” is Noah’s ark. When he and his family got “in the ark,” they were preserved from God’s wrath. The storms of judgment fell on the ark, not on them. Likewise, God’s wrath fell on Jesus, not on us!
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Next, Jude blesses us with one of the Bible’s favorite trilogy of words:
1:2 “Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.”
Think of it like this—MERCY is the upward look, PEACE is the inward look, and LOVE is the outward look.
So God’s mercy precedes His peace, and His peace precedes His love!
But get ready: These first two verses are like fresh water before burning fire.
They precede a declaration of war against apostasy and false teachers. Starting in verse 3 we are presented with a mighty clash between good and evil, right and wrong.
We are made very aware of the desperate plea of Jude to take a stand against godless, false, destructive, and erroneous teaching—do we hold that same passion in today’s church?
Jude is unafraid of the repercussions from his powerful, confrontational letter.
He knows that some who sided with the false teachers would be genuinely deceived and would need a jolt of truth to bring them to their senses. He loves them enough to tell the truth!
First, he addresses himself to the genuine believers in the church, who he calls “beloved.” Then he informs them that when he first sat down to write, it was going to be about “the common salvation.”
1:3a “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation,”
That’s how it was going to begin, that is, until the Holy Spirit changed his direction. What changed his course? He tells us…
1:3b “I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.”
Based on some things he’d personally observed and heard, Jude was constrained to turn their attention toward the battle at hand. “The faith” was under attack. Not just any faith. THE faith!
The true believers here are called to battle, as are we. The phrase “earnestly contend” is strong. The Living Bible puts it “stoutly defend the truth.” The NLV says, “fight hard for the faith.” The Message puts it, “fight with everything you have in you.” The Amplified, “Fight strenuously.”
Clearly, Jude is calling for a “down to the mat” fight for THE faith!
The word “contend” means to contend about an issue as a combatant. The word “earnestly” is added to relay the intensity needed for the fight.
Now, watch this:
Included in those two words “the faith” that we’re to fight for is the complete truth of the NT, the entire body of belief. The truth of the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. The truth that all the apostles taught. The truth that all the gospels tell. The truth of God’s plan of salvation from Genesis to Revelation.
Notice that he says “the faith” was delivered “once for all.” Nothing needs to be added to it, or subtracted from it. It is complete.
Jude’s burden is that when the great truths of Christianity are attacked, true believers must stand up and say, “This falsehood stops here!”
Is this conviction and resolve in today’s church?
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Next, Jude describes the tactics of the false teachers, how they approach, their modus operandi. First, it is a stealth approach:
1:4a “For certain men have crept in unnoticed,”
“Crept” means to “slip in secretly.” Creeps creep in. That’s what Jude is saying.
And using the word “creep” to describe their method of infiltration is not new to NT teaching. Paul talked about how, “false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves” (Gal. 2:4).
Peter warned of men who would “secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them–bringing swift destruction on themselves” (2 Pet 2:1).
These people don’t come in through the front door, openly announcing their true beliefs. They use Christian vocabulary, Christianease, Christian buzzwords and phrases, Christian speak familiar to true believers.
But if you listen closely, they are masters at redefining the terms. They redefine words like God (God is nature, He is in everything), sin, homosexuality (only temple prostitutes), faith (what it is), salvation (mixed with works), justification, and so on.
Their teachings always contain truth mixed with heresy to help it go down easier.
Their aim is to be accepted into the fold. Once they are accepted they bring in others just like them and infiltrate the church. Soon they gain positions of authority as teachers, administrators, pastors, and so on. By the time the church at large wakes up the damage has already been done.
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After describing their technique, Jude describes their character. He says they are ungodly:
1:4b “who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men,”
Ungodly here does not mean “backslidden,” or “irreligious,” but means they deliberately do things that God has forbidden. They have zero reverence for the sacred things of God, and are devoid of the fear of God. They have deliberately rejected the truth.
He goes further to point out they are not only ungodly, but also unholy:
1:4c “who turn the grace of our God into lewdness“
“Lewdness” means excess, lack of moderation, absence of restraint. Peter uses the very same word to point to the filthy lifestyles of the people of Sodom (2 Peter 2:7).
These false teachers use God’s grace as a license to sin (not just morally, but in many other ways). They literally “turn” God’s grace into something entirely different. They pervert the gospel of grace that should lead believers into holy living into an excuse for indulging the flesh. “Since we’re now forgiven by grace,” they say, “we can live how we want.”
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One of these kinds of false teachings prevalent today is called UNIVERSALISM.
Universalism teaches that Jesus died for the whole world on the Cross, hence the whole world is saved, no matter how you’re living. No one will go to hell. No one will be judged. Christ’s blood covers all.
As crazy as that sounds, some once powerful preachers, pastors, and Christians have swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
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Finally, Jude says these false teachers are not only ungodly and unholy, they are also unruly:
1:4d “and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.”
These apostates deny the authority of the living God and openly deny, if not by word, by their lifestyle, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior of the world.
They may verbally say they believe, but in their lifestyles they totally deny Jesus and His Lordship. They talk a good talk, but walk a terrible walk. And these types of imposters are everywhere today!
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Next time: Sober examples of God’s judgment!