Jude 1:22

“But, beloved” marks the turn in the letter. Up to this point Jude has described the intruders from his opening lines (Jude 1:1–4), set them beside Israel in the wilderness and Sodom and Gomorrah (Jude 1:5–7) and beside Korah’s rebellion, and said that they “defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities” (Jude 1:8). They are “spots in your feasts of charity”, clouds without water and trees whose fruit withers (Jude 1:12), grumblers who flatter people for their own advantage (Jude 1:16). Now he speaks to the faithful, and his warning becomes instruction for standing firm.

The small word dé, “but”, sets what follows against all of that. The address agapētós means “beloved” or “dear”, one who is loved, and Jude uses it again at the start of verse 20. His severe warnings come from love, and the readers are dear to him while he gives them.

The command is “remember”, mnáomai, to bear something in mind and call it back. What they are to recall are the “words”, rhēma, the things the apostles said. These words were “spoken before”, proeréō, a verb made of “before” and “say”, meaning to say already or to say ahead of time. The apostles had told the churches in advance what was now happening, so the readers could meet it prepared. Jude is calling them back to teaching they already had, the faith he urged them to “earnestly contend for”, “which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3). Its core truths belong to every generation as they were given.

The apostles, apóstolos, are the men the Lord sent as his own messengers and witnesses (Acts 1:8), to preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15). They were the Twelve, with Matthias chosen in the place of Judas (Acts 1:26), and Paul, who was made an apostle by Jesus Christ and God the Father (Galatians 1:1). Their testimony and teaching laid the foundation of the church, which is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets” (Ephesians 2:20).

Jude calls them apostles “of our Lord Jesus Christ”, and the three words kýrios, Iēsoûs and Christós tie their authority to him. Jesus promised that the Spirit of truth would guide them into all truth and glorify him (John 16:13–14), so to remember their words is to remember the word of Christ. Those words came to the church first as preaching and then in the writings that are now our New Testament, part of the Scripture that is given by inspiration of God (2 Timothy 3:16–17).

“How that they told you” gives the content of the warning, and Jude’s wording is very close to Peter’s. Peter asks his readers to be mindful of the words spoken before (2 Peter 3:2), and goes on, “there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts” (2 Peter 3:3). Paul wrote that some would depart from the faith (1 Timothy 4:1), and he warned the elders of Ephesus that false teachers would rise and draw disciples after them (Acts 20:29–30). Jesus himself had warned of false prophets who come in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15), and John writes that many deceivers have gone out into the world (2 John 1:7). The apostles’ warnings rest on the Lord’s own.

The word for mockers, empaíktēs, means one who mocks or derides, and it is the word behind Peter’s “scoffers”. Strong’s adds that such a derider is, by implication, a false teacher, and in Jude the mockery and the false teaching go together. What they scorn is God’s truth, his authority and godly living.

“The last time” uses éschatos, last or farthest, the final thing in place or time. The last time is the age that began when Christ came and runs until he comes again. God has spoken to us by his Son in these last days (Hebrews 1:2), and Christ was revealed in these last times for our sake (1 Peter 1:20). So Jude’s readers were already living in it, and so are we. It may be long, and it is the closing age of God’s saving plan, which the apostles said would bring deception and opposition to God. When mockers appear, God’s word is being proved true, and his people are ready for them.

The mockers “walk after their own ungodly lusts”. To walk is to live, and their whole manner of life follows their own desires. Epithymía is desire or longing, especially for what is forbidden, and it takes its bad sense from what is desired. Here the desires are marked by asébeia, ungodliness, a want of reverence and worship toward God. Jude shows that their scoffing and their error grow out of the way they want to live. A heart already given to sinful desires turns against the truth that would rule it. Their self-pleasing stands against Christ, of whom Paul says, “even Christ pleased not himself” (Romans 15:3).

The verb epoikodoméō is made of “upon” and “build”, and means to build upon, to raise up. Believers are adding to a foundation already laid. The foundation is “your most holy faith”, hymōn (“your”), hágios (“holy”) in its superlative form, and pístis, faith. Pístis can mean trust and conviction, and by extension the whole body of gospel truth, which is its sense here: the faith once delivered to the saints, the content of what is believed. It is most holy because it comes from a holy God, it is pure, and it makes holy those who receive it.

Christ is at the centre of this faith. He is “the author and finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), and the chief corner stone of the building God is raising on the apostles’ foundation (Ephesians 2:20–22). “Yourselves” is again heautoû, the pronoun of “separate themselves” in verse 19, and it can also mean “one another”. The dividers wall themselves off, while the beloved build together on the faith they share.

Proseúchomai is the ordinary word for praying to God. “In the Holy Ghost”, en with hágios and pneûma, describes prayer offered in the Spirit’s power and under his guidance, prayer that agrees with God’s will. The Spirit helps our weakness when we do not know what to pray for, and makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:26–27). Through Christ we have access by one Spirit to the Father (Ephesians 2:18), and it was Christ who promised the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, to dwell with his people (John 14:16–17). Prayer like this keeps the beloved discerning and strong while false teaching presses on them.

Praying in the Holy Ghost covers all prayer that the Spirit leads and empowers, and believers differ on whether Jude has praying in tongues especially in mind. Some hold that it includes it, since Paul says that the one who speaks in an unknown tongue edifies himself (1 Corinthians 14:4), and Jude joins prayer in the Spirit to the believer’s building up. Others hold that Jude means Spirit-led prayer of every kind, with tongues as one way the Spirit may work among others. On either reading, the prayer Jude commends depends on the Spirit and asks according to God’s will.

Tēréō means to guard, to keep watch over something so that it suffers no loss or harm. “The love of God”, agápē, is first God’s love for his people, the love in which they already stand, and it also includes their answering love for him. To keep yourselves in it is to stay where that love has placed you, guarding against everything that would draw you away. Jesus said the same: “continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love” (John 15:9–10). He also said, “Abide in me, and I in you” (John 15:4–5), and obedience is the fruit of that abiding.

God showed this love in giving his only begotten Son (John 3:16), and “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Through Christ we are brought into God’s love, and by abiding in Christ we keep ourselves there.

Prosdéchomai means to accept or welcome, and to wait for something with confidence and patience. The believer is looking forward to the return of Christ, when his mercy will be shown in full in the resurrection of his people. Final salvation rests on that mercy alone, for “according to his mercy he saved us” (Titus 3:5). The grace of God teaches us to live godly lives now, “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:11–13). God has begotten us to a lively hope and an inheritance kept in heaven, and we are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” (1 Peter 1:3–5).

The mercy leads “unto eternal life”, which is endless life and also full fellowship with God, begun now and complete when Christ comes. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection, and the life” (John 11:25), and he gives that life to his people.

Jude gives this command to people God himself is keeping. He closes the letter with praise “unto him that is able to keep you from falling” (Jude 1:24–25). Salvation is by grace through faith, the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8–9), and the God who began a good work in his people will finish it (Philippians 1:6). Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38–39). So keeping ourselves in God’s love is the response of faith to a love already given, and the way we hold to it.

Believers differ on whether a true believer can finally fall away. Some hold that everyone truly born again will persevere, so that keeping oneself in God’s love is the way his preserving grace shows itself, and those who leave, like the men of verse 19, never had the Spirit at all. Others hold that the command is a real warning, and that one who stops keeping himself in God’s love can fall away, while God’s keeping power stays sure for all who remain in him. On both views the command is for today, the strength to obey it comes from God, and the hope rests on Christ’s mercy.

Eleéō means to have compassion, to show mercy by word or by deed, as God shows mercy in his grace. “Of some” points to a particular group, those who are wavering, confused or struggling with doubt. Mercy toward them is active: patient teaching and support that aim to bring them back and keep them.

“Making a difference” translates diakrínō, which means to separate thoroughly, to tell apart and judge, and, when said of oneself, to hesitate or waver. The verb can be read two ways here. The KJV takes it of the believers: they are to make distinctions, because those touched by error are in different conditions, some doubting, some deceived and some in open rebellion, and each needs the right response. Read the other way, it describes the people in need, and the verse means “have mercy on those who doubt”. Both readings call for discernment that serves mercy, with the firmer, urgent help of verse 23 kept for those in greater danger.

The Lord Jesus showed this discerning mercy. He said, “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matthew 9:13). He knew what was in every man (John 2:24–25), and he dealt with Nicodemus, who came seeking, in another way from the hardened hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees (John 3, Matthew 23). Paul tells spiritual believers to restore one overtaken in a fault in the spirit of meekness, considering themselves (Galatians 6:1), and James says that the one who turns a sinner from the error of his way saves a soul from death (James 5:19–20). All of this reflects the Lord who is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

Sṓzō means to save, deliver or protect. Some are in such danger that they must be rescued at once. “With fear”, phóbos, is a word for alarm or fright that can also mean deep reverence. Here it is a sober awareness of the danger the person is in, reverence for God’s holiness and judgment, and care lest the rescuer be defiled in the rescue. This fear moves people to act, and to act carefully.

“Pulling” is harpázō, to seize or snatch by force. The fire stands for the judgment and destruction that sin brings, and the person is already caught in it. The picture comes from the prophets. God told Israel they had been “as a firebrand plucked out of the burning” (Amos 4:11), and of Joshua the high priest he said, “is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” (Zechariah 3:2). God “will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4), and the rescuers share the work of Christ, who came “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

The rescuer must also keep himself pure. To hate, miséō, is to detest. The garment, chitṓn, is the tunic worn next to the skin, and “spotted” is spilóō, to stain or soil. “Flesh”, sárx, is the body and also human nature with its weakness and passions, fallen and drawn to sin. The picture is of clothing soiled by a sinful body. The believer reaches out to the person while hating everything stained by that person’s sin, down to the clothes he wears.

Readers who knew the law of Moses would hear the language of uncleanness here. Under the law, touching unclean things, such as certain bodily discharges or a dead body, made a person unclean until he washed or was set apart for a time. Jude uses that picture for the defiling power of sin and false teaching. God’s call to his people has always been, “ye shall be holy; for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44), and Peter repeats it: “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16). Pure religion includes keeping oneself “unspotted from the world” (James 1:27), and Paul told the Corinthians to keep apart from anyone called a brother who lives in open immorality (1 Corinthians 5:9–11).

Christ is the pattern here as well. He came into our defiled world and was among sinners, and he was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). He gave himself for his church so that he might present it to himself without spot (Ephesians 5:27). God made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). Those he has pulled from the fire and clothed in his righteousness are the ones he sends to pull others out.