Jude 2-4
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Jude 2
"Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance."
The Greek term for mercy is eleos, and refers to grace in action; this in
turn sustains the practicality of the epistle. This, then, is Jude stating
that the recipients of his epistle both need grace from God and need to
apply grace to others. 'Peace' is the Gk. eirene, which is that peace or
tranquillity of mind resulting from an understanding of the grace plan of
God. Agape is defined as 'love;' a love which is supported by integrity
and is thus a virtue. This type of love is devotional in the sense that
it is a power to be effectively disposed to others; i.e., it is to be applied
to all without regard to merit or desert. And implicit in agape love is
a lack of arrogance or hatred on the part of the one disposing the power
-- and this sort of love is dependent upon the Filling of the Spirit, Rom.
5:5. "And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his
love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us."
And I John 2:5 says, "But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly
made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him."
Jude desires that these three, mercy, peace and love might "be yours
in abundance." The verb for 'abundance' is the Gk. plethuno, and it
is in the optative mood which expresses a wish or desire. The word means
to cause to increase remarkably, and thus is not adding something, but multiplying.
Jude, then, wishes that these virtues might be multiplied in the souls and
lives of his readers.
Jude 3
"Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about
the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for
the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints."
The Gk. for 'dear friends' is agapetos, and refers to the concept of Positional
Sanctification, that is, the saints' sharing of Christ's sonship, heirship,
etc.
Then Jude states that his original purpose in writing the epistle was to
expound on the subject of salvation; however, Jude "felt" a need
or felt constrained to write about apostasy. This need was the outworking
of God the Holy Spirit as He inspired Jude in writing the epistle. The doctrinal
concept of inspiration is found in II Timothy 3:16; the Gk. term is theopneustos,
'God-breathed.'
So the subject matter has altered from salvation to "urging them to
contend for the faith."
'To urge' is the Gk. parakaleo, 'to admonish or to comfort.' And from what
source do both admonishment and comfort come? From love. Thus because Jude
loves them as fellow saints, he is about to admonish them 'to contend' for
the faith. The word 'contend' connotes a boxing concept -- that of being
repeatedly knocked down yet always getting back up to continue the fight.
And the word for faith is pistis; and here it functions as the metonymy
of the adjunct, which is some part of the subject being put for the subject
itself, such as the contents for the container; i.e., the milk for the milk
carton. Here we have the application of the concept being put for the theory
of the concept. In other words, 'contending for the faith': that is, the
true doctrine of Christ (stop fooling around with Gnosticism which says
that Christ did not exist, and get back to the true doctrine of Christ,
which is salvation through the Cross, resurrection, ascension, session).
Hapax is the Gr.. particle for 'once.' And John Albert Bengel says of it,
"the particle is cogent: and no other faith will be given." [1]
In other words, once is sufficient; no other is needed.
And this faith or true doctrine of Christ "was entrusted to the saints."
To 'entrust' is 'to give over verbally from the ultimate source of God.'
In other words, the doctrine of Christ, the faith, was given to believers
by means of God the Holy Spirit filling the apostles and writers of Scripture.
Whereas the doctrines being taught by the Gnostics are delivered by false
teachers who are not filled with the Spirit. And to whom was the doctrine
of Christ given? To the saints, the holy ones. And why may believers be
described as 'holy?' Because at the point of salvation the perfect Righteousness
of Christ was credited to the believer. And the Righteousness of Christ
is holy.
Jude 4
"For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago
have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the
grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our
only Sovereign and Lord."
The designation 'certain men', tines anthropoi in the Gr.., refers to the
characteristics of the false teachers, the teachers of Gnosticism. These
characteristics include:
o the teaching of false doctrine, I Tim. 4:1, 3:5-7;
o the misrepresentation of themselves as apostles, II Cor. 11:13-15;
o they are energized by demons, I Cor. 10:20-21;
o they have charming personalities which they use to deceive,
II Tim. 3:1-7; \\o they are hypocrites, Matthew 23:27-28.
Their "condemnation was written about long ago" refers to the
writings of the Old Testament prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah. Both Jeremiah
and Ezekiel prophesied concerning apostate, unbelieving, false teachers.
And their judgment was recorded in the past, and in Matthew 25:31-41, which
says in verse 41, "Then he will say to those on his left (the goats),
'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for
the devil and his angels."
These false teachers are said to have "secretly slipped in among you."
This refers to their method of approach, which is 'dishonest infiltration.'
And they are designated asebes in the Gr.., "ungodly." They are
unbelievers. After infiltrating, they "change" or pervert the
grace of God. These Gnostics substitute their false doctrines for the true
doctrines of Christ. The Gr.. aselgeia describes that which they change
grace into: "lasciviousness," a reference to the phallic cult,
homosexuality, lesbianism, free-love, etc. And by perverting the grace doctrines
of God, they "deny" (Gr.. arneomai) the only God: that is, God
the Father and the kurios, our Lord Jesus Christ.
The question arises, how does substituting sexual perversities renounce
or deny the grace of God? Illustration: one sect of Gnostics was called
the Ophites, or serpent worshippers. They held that the Lord in the Garden
of Eden was the all-good and all-wise Deity (not God or Yahweh), who took
compassion on Adam and Eve and sent the serpent, Satan, to induce them to
eat of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil; thus, they would escape
the ignorance in which Yahweh, the demi-urge, tried to hold them.
The Ophites taught that salvation could not be achieved through the Cross.
But was accomplished by liberating the aeon (soul) which resided in the
physical body into the pleroma (fullness). This liberation was attained
through lascivious sexual practices. And thus, this liberation was salvation.
Three Pictures of Apostasy
In verses, 5, 6, and 7, three pictures of apostasy are provided by Jude.
Each picture denotes a different historical group which had a segment of
its group destroyed because of apostasy. The first picture provided is the
Jews of the Exodus assembly, verse 5. Here believers are destroyed because
of apostasy. The second picture is found in verse 6, and is that of Noah's
day. Here both fallen angels and mankind are destroyed for rejection of
salvation by the grace of Jesus Christ. The third picture, in verse 7, depicts
the people in Sodom and Gomorrah, or Abraham's day, as destroyed by apostate
degeneracy.
In each picture, the parties involved received both grace warning from God
and a protracted grace period during which judgment was postponed: e.g.,
the Exodus generation was delivered by God from bondage in Egypt. They received
a 40 year grace period during which they chose for apostasy; Noah preached
for 120 years with only a handful of converts; and the citizens of Sodom
and Gomorrah received three grace warnings: 1 - from the expedition of Chedorlaomer
(Genesis 14:4), the Elamite king, 2 - from Abraham, 3 - from the appointed
angels.
Notes:
[1] Bengal, J.A., New Testament Word Studies, Vol. II, page 824.
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