PT-5 “Introduction to Jude”

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/29/2025 7:55 PM

 

Focus:  PT-5 “Introduction to Jude”

 

“Occasion”

 

            It is my desire to finish this introduction by John MacArthur this evening, as there are two more sub-points that we have to look at this evening.

 

            “Jude had originally planned to write a positive letter, celebrating the great truths of the ‘common salvation’ that he shared with his readers (v. 3).  But the alarming news that false teachers had invaded the congregations to which he wrote, threatening that salvation truth (v. 4), compelled him to change his plans.  Thus he wrote a strong denunciation of the false teachers and their godless lifestyle—warning his readers and calling them to ‘contend earnestly for the faith’ so as to protect the one common gospel (v. 3).  The magnificent doxology with which the letter concludes (vv. 24-25) reveals Jude’s confidence that his readers would stand firm by God’s grace.

 

            “The exact identity of the false teachers is unknown.  That they were not second-century Gnostics is clear, since there is no evidence of the distinctive teachings of Gnosticism (such as a cosmological dualism with the transcendent good God opposed to the evil emanation who created the material world; the evil of the material world; salvation through a secret or hidden knowledge, etc.) in Jude’s description of them.

 

            “In fact, Jude did not focus on the nuances of their false doctrine.  Instead he denounced their godless lifestyle—condemning them as ‘ungodly’ a total of six times (vv. 4, 15, 18).  That alone marked them as false teachers, since as Jesus said, ‘You will know them by their fruits’ (Matt. 7:16, 20).  Having exposed their corrupt lives, there was no need for Jude to refute their specific heretical teachings, since ‘by revealing their character Jude stripped them of any authority in the congregation. No thinking Christian would follow people who are fundamentally selfish.  Jude did not merely revile them.  He unveiled who they truly were, removing any grounds for their influence in the church’ (Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, 415).

 

            “The picture Jude paints of the false teachers reveals the shocking depths of their depravity.  Like stealthy beasts of prey, they ‘crept in unnoticed’ (v. 4) among God’s people.  They perverted ‘the grace of our God into licentiousness’ (v. 4), turning the very grace that instructs believers ‘to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly’ lives (Titus 2:11-12) into a license to sin.  They were so corrupt that Jude compared them to such notorious sinners as the fallen angels, the men of Sodom and Gomorrah, Cain, Balaam, and the rebels under Korah (vv. 6, 7, 11).  Put simply, they were like ‘unreasoning animals’ (v. 10).  In their brazen audacity, they ‘reject[ed] authority, and revile [d] angelic majesties’ (v. 8)—something even the powerful archangel Michael did not do (v. 9).  Because of their arrogant pride ‘these men revile[d] the things which they [did] not understand’ (v. 10).

 

            “Jude described their deceitful hypocrisy using vivid metaphors:

 

These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever. (vv.12-13)

 

In short, although they were in the church, they were not part of it; they were ‘devoid of the Spirit (v. 19) and hence unredeemed (Rom. 8:9).  The reality of their wicked hypocrisy and the consequent danger they posed for the church summoned Jude’s strongest possible condemnation and warning.”

 

THE RELATIONSHIP OF JUDE TO 2 PETER

 

            “Even a cursory reading of Jude and 2 Peter reveals the striking parallels between them.  In fact, nineteen of Jude’s twenty-five verses find parallels in 2 Peter.  Scholars are divided about which author used the other as a source. (There is a third possibility that both Peter and Jude drew from a common source.  However, there is no evidence that such a source existed.)  Many of the arguments for the priority of either epistle are subjective and tend to cancel each other out.  There are two objective arguments, however, that favor the chronological priority of 2 Peter.  First, Peter predicts that the false teachers will come in the future (e.g., 2:1, 2; 16).  That strongly implies that 2 Peter was written before Jude.  That Peter refers a few times to the false teachers using the present tense does not nullify the force of that argument, since ‘the present tense is used consistently [by Peter] to describe the character of the false teachers, while the future tense is used to describe their coming’ [Biblical Studies Press: www.bible.org, 2000], emphasis in original).  If Peter was familiar with Jude’s epistle, which describes the false teachers as already present in the church, his use of the future tense would not make sense.

 

            “Second, the wording of verses 17-18 is almost identical to 2 Peter 3:3.  It appears that Jude is citing Peter’s prophecy (that false teachers would come) and noting its fulfillment in his day.  There is no other similarly-worded prophecy in Scripture to which Jude could be referring.  Further, the word translated ‘mockers’ (empiktes) appears in the New Testament only in Jude 18 and 2 Peter 3:3.  Jude used the plural ‘apostles’ in verse 17, even though he quoted only Peter, because the other apostles had made similar predictions (cf. 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:1-5; 4:3).

 

OUTLINE

 

The Salutation (1-2)

I.                    The Danger of Apostates (3-4)

II.                 The doom of Apostates (5-7

III.               The Description of Apostates (8-16)

IV.              The Defense Against Apostates (17-23)

The Concluding Doxology (24-25)

 

            That is the end of John MacArthur’s introduction to Jude’s epistle and it is my prayer that all who read it will be helped as we go through this rather short epistle, but will have many pages in my Spiritual Diaries to write about this wonderful little letter.  6/29/2025 8:44 PM