Lookahead:  But what if the seemingly restored backslider has actually been a hypocrite with excellent communication skills—from the get-go?  In giving someone a second chance, we can’t let our guards down.  The Spirit must always be the judge. (1 John 4:1) And whatever they are teaching or preaching must line up with Word of God. 

I’ve noticed that the different translations on Bible Hub add attention-grabber Section Headings in each chapter.  The heading for NIV’s Jude 1:3,4 reads, “The Sin and Doom of Ungodly People,” and is a great summary of the following text. 

Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

So addressing the “doom” aspect of the heading first—

The specified doom is “condemnation (Greek word means judgement or damnation) which was written about long ago.”  Written where?  In the Old Testament?  And was it pre-ordained millennia ago that certain individuals would be condemned?  A survey of Bible Hub Commentators indicated that Jude wasn’t referring to specific individuals like Tom, Dick, or Harry or Larry.  This was a reference to the type and character of individuals who were “cruising for damnation.”  It was pre-ordained, foretold, or prophesied long ago that this type of person would eventually be damned.¹ 

So, next addressing the “sin” aspect of the heading—What sins was this damnable type of person committing?

….ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

The sins were being ungodly, perverting the grace of God, and denying Jesus. 

But these are more-so the actions of a New Testament sinner versus Old Testament.  So where was it foretold or written about in the Old Testament that closet agnostics with the spirit of the anti-Christ—who were embracing greasy grace—would be damned?

Later on in the Book of Jude, the author refers to a non-canonical source called The Book of Enoch.  We will plumb the depths of Enoch/his book in a subsequent posting.  At present it’s sufficient to say that Enoch was an ancient prophet who enjoyed a very close relationship with God—to the extent of by-passing the whole death thing (Gen 5:24).  One Bible Hub commentator (Pulpit Commentary) postulates that Enoch was on Jude’s mind when the latter wrote Jude 1:4.  So Enoch’s frame of reference would have been the heathens in the pre-flood era. Genesis 6:5-11 describes what the people were like at time:

The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time…Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them.”

This type of person was wired for evil—and they wanted to destroy anyone who wasn’t inherently evil themselves, as an act of vengeance and rebellion against God.  Fast forwarding to 100 A.D., the tactic that they used was destroying people’s faith by sneaking into a Christian community and telling a bunch of lies—which taken in concert amounted to:  it’s OK to sin and be immoral/perverted. 

Jude’s implied enjoinment of not using grace as an excuse to sin is so much like Paul’s scripture (e.g., Romans 6:2), as well as future references to praying in the spirit that we will cover (1 Corinthians 14:18).  And yet it is quite possible that their paths never crossed.  Jude did eventually wind up in Edessa, which was in the region of Cappadocia mentioned in Acts.  However, “…the Acts record does not clearly link Paul to churches in all the provinces named, anyway at least not to Pontus, Cappadocia, or Bithynia…there is good reason to doubt that Paul ever ministered north of the southern part of Galatia.”²

But there’s an incredible amount of correlation between Jude’s epistle and 2 Peter (I’m sure their paths frequently crossed) and we could even allow the latter to fill in some blanks in the former’s.  The wording is similar in ~10 separate verses in the two epistles, though it’s not a direct lift.  Peter focused more on the backslider brand of false teacher.  Jude focused on the wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing variety; and it appears that they both caught, in addition to taught, the concepts of grace, salvation through faith v. works, and walking in the Spirit—that Jesus had revealed to Paul post-ascension. 

Right out of the gate in verse 1, Jude gives us a key tactic for handling this wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing type of heathen:  Contend for the faith.  This guideline is extremely potent in its brevity.  It basically says, don’t be fooled—this is a faith attack—and we’ll need to do something about it ASAP: Don’t underestimate the threat, and go into an offensive mode pronto. 

Opening up a new thread which will dovetail in: In the last ten years or so, we’ve seen something in Christian Media that didn’t happen years ago, i.e., fallen public figures whose ministries are restored to their previous popularity.  In the past, once someone crossed the line of propriety, they lost their following super pronto.  But now people’s perspective is that God Himself has extended grace and forgiveness, so how can we do less?   

Just the other day, I decided not to flip the channel past a TV pastor whom I had avoided watching since the 90’s because something just didn’t gel in my spirit.  In the first decade of Y2K, he admitted to having anger issues and submitted to counseling.  As I watched him in 2020, I learned that he had bounced back from cancer in the second new-millennial decade.  Now I found myself looking at a changed man.  So restoration decisions are really God’s business, and basically NOMB. 🙂

But what if the seemingly restored backslider has actually been a hypocrite with excellent communication skills—from the get-go?  In giving someone a second chance, we can’t let our guard down.  The Spirit must always be the judge. (1 John 4:1) And whatever they are teaching or preaching must line up with Word of God. 

Jude’s “contend” word connotes a sense of intensity and on-going struggle.  The lengthy Greek version is ἐπαγωνίζομαι, made up of two smaller pieces:  ἐπί meaning through, and αγωνίζομαι which means struggle against the opposition.  It’s a constant struggle to keep the faith, when you’re dealing with a heathenish person who’s trying to wreck it.  But Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith!  So rather than contending against these individuals, the key to success is contending to keep Jesus LORD.  The effort lies in continuously circling back to what God and His Word say.  He is the way, the truth, and the life.  And little alarms will be going off in our spirits if the truth is being compromised.  We may be called on to speak the truth in love to this type of difficult person, but God might just as well have us love/pray without speaking.   Regardless, Jesus is the way and the way maker, Who will give us the revelation and staying power for the struggle at hand—as well as the very words of life to say and the opportunity to say them. 

In sum, all we have to do is contend to keep Him at the head of our daily lives.  Problem solved.

++++++++++++

¹Bible Hub Website:  /commentaries/jude/1-4.htm

²The Random House Bible Commentary, Paul V. Harrison, Robert E. Picirilli, 1992, Random House Publications, 94.