Study of the Letter of Jude Part 3 - Verses 4-7

Last week, we heard Jude asking the people to whom he was writing to be ready to “contend,” to “fight” for the Christian faith which had been delivered to them (Jude, v.3). The danger was from “certain people who had crept unnoticed” into the church and were “ungodly people” who were “perverting the grace of our God into sensuality.” The word “sensuality” means some kind of “excess,” a “lack of restraint,” “indecency,” usually of a sexual nature, though not necessarily limited just to that. Sometimes the word is translated as “lasciviousness” or “wantonness,” some sort of “shameless conduct” that is immoral and goes beyond the bounds of public decency (Jude, v.4).

The fact that Jude calls this behavior a “perversion of the grace of God” seems to mean that these people were taking for granted the mercy and forgiveness of God, in Christ, and felt that they could now do whatever they wanted to do, as if God did not care about their behavior anymore. Jesus had said, “If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed” (John 8:36). These people seemed to be interpreting statements like that to mean that they now had a license from God, a freedom through Jesus, to do whatever they chose.

It was the same sort of problem that Paul spoke of in Romans 6:1-4, when he wrote, “Are we to continue in sin so that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” Rather, we were baptized and connected to Christ, so that we “might walk in newness of life” - not to follow our old sinful nature and desires, without concern. (Remember Paul’s warning in Galatians 5:19-24 not to live in “the works of the flesh,” but to live by the Holy Spirit, in His good fruit.)

Jude had earlier (at the beginning of Jude v.4,) called these “ungodly people” those who “long ago were designated for this condemnation.” Jude went on (in v.5-7) to give three examples of people in the Old Testament who had gone away from God and His Word and will and were clearly condemned.

Jude first wrote about the children of Israel who were saved from slavery in Egypt and brought out and led toward the Promised Land. Sadly, many of them soon grumbled and complained and rebelled against God, and while Moses was with God on Mt. Sinai, they did what they wanted and broke commandment after commandment and worshipped a golden calf they had made and were involved in other immoral behavior. As a result, many died, and over time, almost all of that generation died and never made it into the Promised Land. (See Exodus 32 and Scripture warning such as Deuteronomy 28:15ff.)

Jude also clearly said that God “afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” Unbelief is the most serious problem, that leads to condemnation if people are not brought back to Christ. Jude also said that the churches had been taught these warning and he was reminding them again of these, so that they might repent before being destroyed themselves (Jude, v.5). (By the way, some manuscripts have Jesus, the Lord, or the Christ or a combination of these names for God, mentioned here as “saving” the people from the Egyptians. God the Son was there in the Old Testament, too, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, doing the work of the Triune God, long before He came and took on human flesh as a true man, as well as being God, for our salvation.)      

The second example of judgment given by Jude, in verse 6, was that of the angels who were created perfect, as special servants of the Lord, but then were not satisfied with their “position of authority” and rebelled against God and are now condemned, to some degree “bound,” and are now just awaiting the final judgment. (See Revelation 12:7-12 and 20:1-3, 7-10 and 2 Peter 2:4 and Hebrews 2:14-15 and Luke 10:17-20, etc. Jesus has already made certain the final defeat of Satan and all his evil angels.)

The third example that Jude gave, in verse 7, was of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and their destruction, because of rejecting God’s will and “indulging in sexual immorality, and pursuing unnatural desire” (literally, pursuing “other flesh”). This is a reference to homosexuality and other perversions, some of which I don’t want even to mention. (See Genesis 19, Deuteronomy 27:20-23 and 29:23-26 and Leviticus 18:23, and 20:13,15-16, etc.)

The fact that this example is used might give us an idea of the widespread kind of immoral perversions going on among some people in the churches to whom Jude wrote, too. Such following of their own desires was a clear denial of their Master and the Lord Jesus and His will; and such perversions were not acceptable and needed to be fought against, especially when they were happening with people in churches. (Another example of this was in 1 Corinthians 5:1-2.)

Remember again that the Greek/Roman world was very immoral and corrupt, with hardly any sexual standards or standards of other kinds. Christians tried to be an influence on the culture, but sometimes the culture and philosophy of that time influenced Christian people too much. This might be a good time to remember that Peter was dealing with some of the same issues in his second letter, too. Some think Peter wrote first and was predicting some of what Jude was seeing a few years later - or vice versa. Look especially at 2 Peter 2:1-19 and how similar this is to what Jude writes about.

We don’t have time in this study to compare the two letters very much, but will keep focusing in Jude. Keep thinking about similarities to our own day. More next week!

We are still in the “bad news” portion of the letter, with much law and warnings and past examples, to wake people up to the truth and make it clear that God still does care about what Christians do in His Name. We will see how He is calling people back to Christ and His forgiveness and new life above all, as we go on.