Dec. 04, 2024

Dear Friends,

I hope you can attend our Bible study tonight. We will begin a two-part study of Jude. Notes are attached.

LIVING THE CHRISTLIFE

WAYNE BARRETT

HILLTOP LAKES CHAPEL

DECEMBER 4, 2024

Jude 1:1-9

1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,

To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:

2 May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to

write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain

people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people,

who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

5 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the

land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not stay within

their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy

darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities,

which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by

undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

8 Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and

blaspheme the glorious ones. 9 But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was

disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said,

“The Lord rebuke you.” 10 But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are

destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. 11 Woe to them! For they

walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished

in Korah's rebellion. 12 These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear,

shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn,

twice dead, uprooted; 13 wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars,

for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

_______________________

v 1 – “Jude, a servant …”

more lit. “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, moreover a brother of James…”

moreover – de (cf. kai) – often translated “and” or “but”— but the sense of de is moreover, on

top of that, in addition to that, etc.

There is much discussion about Jude’s identity, particularly regarding “brother of James”

It could have been that he was a (half)-brother of Jesus, who out of reverence and recognition of

who Jesus is, referred to himself as the brother of James (the more well-known (half)-brother

of Jesus)

“Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers

James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?”—Matthew 13:55

(The Gk name Ioudas, usually translated “Judas,” is the same name translated as

“Jude”)

2

“To those who are called…”

There is a beauty in the original Gk that gets lost in translation

More lit. “To those in God the Father having been loved, and by [or for] Jesus Christ having

been kept: called.

It highlights what it means to be called by God—which every Christian is.

v 2 is also more beautiful in the Greek:

“Mercy to you—and peace and love be multiplied.”

This is a loving and reassuring salutation.

v 3 – “Beloved, although I was very eager…”

“Beloved, using all diligence to write to you concerning our shared [koinos] salvation, by

necessity I had to write to you, exhorting you…”

The sense here is that Jude was already doing something, and in so doing found it necessary to

focus on a certain thing—contending for the true faith.

“to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”

“Contend for” doesn’t quite capture it

Epagónizomai – from epi [above, over] + agónizomai [from a root, agon, referring to athletic

contests]—over-compete, give it all you’ve got, and more!

Again, the writer’s word order in Gk sets up the important word by leading up to it

“the once for all, having been delivered to the saints, faith.”

This is as needed a word as ever.

Are we appreciating what is being taught? Epagónizomai is strong, active, engaged, competing,

opposing, effort-exerting activity!

We—Christians—are to live in this way regarding the “once for all, having been delivered to the

saints, faith.”

It is the polar opposite of a do little, say little, oppose nothing, compete with nothing, engage

nothing, take it easy, go with the flow, to each his own approach to life regarding the

Christian faith.

v 4 – “For certain people…”

The devil is crafty and those he uses are crafty. We need to be open-eyed about this.

“designated” – prographó – written about beforehand, marked out, announced before

more lit. “who long ago having been written about into this judgment [krima]”

who

• turn the grace of God into aselgeia – shameless, lewd behavior

• deny Christ – meaning, denying that he is the Christ. They probably did not acknowledge

that they were “denying” him.

vv 5-6 – “Now I want to remind you…”

“although you once fully knew it” — This reminder has now become necessary—although

previously they did not seem to need such a reminder

A sober reminder that there were and are those who, one must presume, were in a harmonious

state with Goda—but who chose to abandon that state and have suffered judgment because of

that act.

“that Jesus, a people out of the land of Egypt having saved [sózó]…”

a This is the point of the warning

3

Jude reminds us that Jesus, as the Son of God, was delivering the Israelites from Egypt

More lit. “afterward, those not having believed, he destroyed.”

Destroyed – apóllymi, a cognate of the same word used in John 3:16, “should not perish”

“not having believed” – aorist tense, completed action

See Hebrews 3:12-19

v 6 – “Also the angels…”

A sobering passage, and one giving some teaching about the fall of the angels

They “did not stay within their own position of authority”

more lit. “they did not keep their own rule [arché]

then, more lit. “but having left their own dwelling…”

Whatever this meant in its entirely, this is a choice made by these angels

“he has kept”

“he” – Jesus

“has kept” – something Jesus has done (and is continuing to do), as in “I have kept your

valuables in my safe”

“in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day”

A grim reality—and it is meant for our instruction

This is a reality that we do not know much about. It may be that demons, operative on this earth,

are at the same time in this condition

v 7 – “Just as Sodom and Gomorrah…”

“which likewise indulged” – this is referring back to the description of the false teachers who had

changed God’s grace to sensuality

Sexual sin is identified as such in the NT and is condemned—and is warned against—in the

strongest of terms. This was not subject to the approval of ancients cultures, and it is not

subject to the approval of contemporary cultures.

The example is one of punishment and the punishment being eternal fire.

v 8 – “Yet in like manner…”

more lit. “Yet likewise, these dreaming ones indeed defile the flesh and moreover [de] reject the

authority of the glorious [ones] and moreover [de] blaspheme.”

People who lived immorally according to their own dreaming (literal or figurative)—and who

disrespect angels [we do not know the exact context] and who blaspheme.

And they were, apparently, in the church.

v 9 – “But when the archangel Michael…”

There is much discussion, but we don’t really know what this was

The point is that even Michael, who is the archangel, would not dare to pronounce a

blasphemous judgment against Satan himself

blaspheme – blasphémeó, to speak evil of, to despise, scorn

He would only say “The Lord rebuke you