Condemnation was written about long ago –means ‘foretold in writing’. 

 

• God would judge them.

• This condemnation, refers forward to verses 5-19 where Jude will both describe them and their sins from various prophetic examples, and will also point out the judgment that will be allotted for them. 

 

They are godless men

 

• Asebeis, godless

• It refers to their attitude of irreverence to God.

• Shameless Deeds

• Illicit desires

• Furthermore, they are treating the fact that God graciously accepts sinners as an excuse for flagrant, shameless sin, hence, a licensed to commit immorality.

• Unrestrained vice

• Galatians 5:19, “19The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;”

• Libertinism was found in both the Apostle Paul’s and Apostle Peter’s churches. A libertine is one devoid of most moral restraints, which are seen as unnecessary or undesirable, especially one who ignores or even spurns accepted morals and forms of behavior sanctified by the larger society.

• The word "Libertine" was originally coined by John Calvin to negatively describe opponents of his policies in Geneva, Switzerland. This group, led by Ami Perrin, argued against Calvin's "insistence that church discipline should be enforced uniformly against all members of Genevan society.

• Romans 13:13, “13Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.”

• 2 Corinthians 12:21, “21I am afraid that when I come again my God will humble me before you, and I will be grieved over many who have sinned earlier and have not repented of the impurity, sexual sin and debauchery in which they have indulged.

• 1 Peter 4:3, “3For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry.”

 

• These men forgot the imperative of holiness.

• Free grace runs an inherent risk of living unholy; hence, many preachers have drawn away from preaching about free grace and instead started attacking lasciviousness, while at the same time preached the grace of God who accepts the unacceptable.

• By such unrestrained wickedness these men were denying Jesus Christ and His Father.

• They claimed to know God, but by their actions they denied Him. (Titus 1:16)

• How do we deny Christ?

  • Apostasy – turning away from the faith.

  • Practical denial by the way we live.

  • Theoretical denial – meaning they began to turn away from the theory of Christ’s deity and Lordship by practicing Gnosticism.

  • Thus, like later Gnostics, they may began to believe that the creator God was not the only, or indeed, the highest, God, and that Jesus was a mere man on whom the Holy Spirit descended at His baptism but left before the crucifixion.

 

Verse 4b, The phrase, deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord 

 

• 2 Peter 2:1, “1But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.”

• 1 John 2:22, “22Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son.”

• Rejection of the Sonship of Jesus also involves the denial of the Father who sent Him, and who, apart from Jesus, would remain as the unknown God. 

• Jude goes to great lengths to show that prophetic predictions of false teachers constitute a serious danger in the church and that they must be earnestly resisted and that they should contend for the purity of the apostolic gospel.

• “Faith” is at stake; hence, Jude writes with a passion and urgency.

 

 

 

 

Three Warning Reminders 

 

Jude will use five Jewish exegesis by using a midrashic technique to make 5 citations. Vv. 5-7, 9, 11, 14, and 18.

 

Midrash is a method of interpreting biblical stories that goes beyond simple distillation of religious, legal, or moral teachings. It fills in gaps left in the biblical narrative regarding events and personalities that are only hinted at.

 

Jude uses this to show that the prophecies of old are now being fulfilled. Not all five citations are from the Old Testament, for there are two apocryphal quotations (vv. 9, 14-15) (meaning early Christian writings not included in the New Testament) and an apostolic prophecy  (v. 18) together with another prophecy (v. 11), but the prophecy—fulfillment theme is clear.

 

After Jude introduces his opponents, Jude will now proceed to state in no uncertain terms what will happen to them.

 

• He does this by drawing upon three instances of divine judgments with which they had once been familiar but which they had apparently forgotten.

• Judgment was measured out first to Israel, second to the angels, which sinned, and third to the cities of the plain.

• His purpose for mentioning this is Jude’s way of saying, “I want to remind you.”

• “Reminders” are a crucial part of maintaining our walk with God.

 

Though you already know all this, I want to remind you…

 

Verse 5 – Israel

Verse 6 – Angels

Verse 7 – The Plains – Sodom

 

Jude’s emphasis is that it is God that will judge the false teachers.

 

Who were the opponents? It is obvious that they were orthodox Christians who had gone willfully astray into heresy. 

 

• They had experienced the redeeming hand of God!

• They had experienced the release!

• They had experienced new life!

• But in their hearts they returned back to Egypt.

 

Some teachings write that the sin of the false teachers was in collaboration with unrighteous heathen powers and at the center of their sin were idolatry, immorality, of which ushered in unbelief, tempting God, and finally apostasy and then judgment. {This is where our nation is right now! We are witnessing a collaboration with unrighteous heathen powers that is ushering in unbelief that tempts God and finally judgment.} We are just a few steps from reaping judgment unless our nation repents!

 

Hebrews 3:12-19, “12See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. 15As has just been said:

“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.” 16Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? 18And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? 19So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

 

Verse 5…Here Jude seems to reference Numbers, where the people failed to take their opportunity of entering the land of promise because of the difficulties that seemed so large before them. 

 

Numbers 14:2, “2All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this wilderness!”

 

Numbers 32:10-13, “10The Lord’s anger was aroused that day and he swore this oath: 11‘Because they have not followed me wholeheartedly, not one of those who were twenty years old or more when they came up out of Egypt will see the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob— 12not one except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, for they followed the Lord wholeheartedly.’ 13The Lord’s anger burned against Israel and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the whole generation of those who had done evil in his sight was gone.

In this example, Jude gives us terrible warning of what can happen to the people of God when we choose to follow along this path—even the redeemed can backslide.

 

• The good news is that even when there is an apostate Israel or an apostate church, God always has a remnant!

 

• The bad news is that if God pronounced judgment upon an apostate Israel, he will also pronounce judgment upon an apostate church.

 

• What we must understand is that Christ has first come to save and secondly to judge (destroy). 

 

• Salvation always comes first.

 

In other words, there is always a way of escape; however, you have to accept the way of escape. Hence, no one can ever say that they’ve not had the opportunity to turn away from their evil in order not to receive judgment that destroys evil.

 

Christ’s first coming is to save and His second coming is to judge apostasy and unbelief. 

 

Hebrews 9:28, “28so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.”

 

Verse 6….Jude’s second example concerns the angels.

 

• They too, were intended to be a creation for God’s own possession. 

• They too, had privileges on which they might have relied.

• In both aspects the angels were like the false teachers to whom Jude addresses himself.

• Jude in this scripture refers to the sin and fate of the fallen angels.

• For it was lust and pride that led to the downfall of these angels.

• Pride, because they were not content to keep their positions of authority given them by God. 

• Pride, in the angels caused civil war in heaven, and the evil angels were cast out and sentenced by God to everlasting doom.

• These angels are to be bound with great chains until the day of their judgment. 

Isaiah 14:12, “12How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!”

 

Pride, then, was one cause of their fall. But lust was another. 

 

That is the implication of the story in Genesis 6:1-4.  1And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 2That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. 3And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. 4There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

 

One-commentator states that the angels who transgressed their command mingled with women, and thus fell.

 

The fallen angels were consigned to nether (located toward the bottom or more distant part of something) darkness, and bound in eternal chains and their fate will be sealed in Gehenna [Hell, a place of extreme torment or suffering at the Day of Judgment.] 

 

Were the false teachers arrogant? Let them remember that arrogance had ruined the angels. 

 

Were they consumed by lust? This, too, caused the downfall of the angels. 

 

Privileged position and full knowledge had not saved the angels whose faith had grown dim, and whose selfishness had waxed hot; let the readers; therefore, not presume! 

 

The evil angels had been too arrogant to keep their position – so God has kept them in punishment. 

 

Verse 7….The third paradigm of judgment, which Jude takes is the destruction of the cities of the plain. 

 

 

The same two characteristics of lust and pride are found here, as in the two earlier examples that have been given—in addition the unnaturalness of their conduct is stressed. 

 

The men of Sodom and Gomorrah engaged in homosexuality: that was unnatural. But Jude may mean that just as the angels fell because of their lust for women, so the Sodomites fell because of their lust for angels.

 

The two cases were shockingly unnatural. Hence, it was unnatural for the Israelites to rebel against the Lord who had redeemed them.

 

• Jude uses unnaturalness, as well as heinousness, of rebellion against God to urge his readers not to follow in the train of false teachers. 

 

• Sin, rejection of the commands of God, is a violation of the divinely established order of things: it must be punished.

 

The destruction of these cities is meant to leave the us an example that sin cost something. 

 

Thus Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities round them, Admah and Zeboim, (Deuteronomy 29:23) paid the penalty in eternal fire. 

 

Deuteronomy 29:23, “23The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, which the Lord overthrew in fierce anger.”

 

Eternal fire means hell fire; so the meaning probably is that their fiery destruction was a foretaste of that eternal fire which awaits the devil and all his accomplices. It represents a lasting warning to all future generations as a reminder that the triumph of evil is not final. God’s judgment though it delay, will surely come!

 

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