Chapter 20
Jude
The History:
Written by Judas (Jude) brother of James, forth-youngest brother of Jesus273. Not to be confused with other people of the same name in the New-Testament: Judas Iscariot274: Judas, Son of James (Thaddeus) 275: Judas, Paul’s host in Damascus276: Judas, called Barsabbas277 or Judas the revolutionary278
As half-brother to Jesus, and alongside his other brothers, he did not believe Jesus was Messiah at first. You will remember the occasion the family went together and while he was preaching tried to take him home, on another occasion his brothers said:
So his brothers said to him, ‘You should leave here and go to the festival in Judea. Then your followers there can see the miracles you do. If you want to be well known, you must not hide what you do. So, if you can do such amazing things, let the whole world see you do them.’ Jesus' brothers said this because even they did not believe in him. Jesus said to them, ‘The right time for me has not yet come for me, but any time is right for you’.279
All this changed, after his resurrection. After Jesus appeared to them,280 James, eldest half brother, became the first pastor of the Church at Jerusalem, generally believed to be followed by brother Jude. Jude had a family, his great-Grandson is known to be Bishop Judah Kyriakos from one-fifty AD 281. Jude appears to have written this letter as a pastoral letter while he was leader of the Jerusalem church around sixty-five AD.
With Paul, supposedly out of action in prison, care for the Galatian province became the concern of the Jerusalem church and its leaders once again. The Judaizers and the Gnostics saw it as an opportunity to gain control over the synagogues in Galatia, so there was a concerted push to influence them.
The Letter:
Probably hearing of Paul’s imprisonment, Jude, as part of the Jerusalem Council, (which still held the loyalty of synagogues in the area), started out wanting to write a general letter of encouragement to the synagogue assemblies282. But, hearing of the plot to propagate false doctrine, he had to change the tone to a warning. The change is about the consequences of abandoning the message they had received from the missionary team of four under Paul. There were four main groups trying to corrupt the Church, The ‘Gospel-Plus’ groups, these were the Judaizers who said Christians must keep the law as well as believe in Jesus. The Greeks were pushing in the form of Gnostics, who proclaimed faith in Jesus must be accompanied by their ‘special understandings’ of the scripture, (this was hidden from all the others). In the ‘Gospel-Minus’ groups were: some groups denying the Jesus was the son of God. These said Jesus was only a son and created like all other creation. Also. Under Greek influence, another group were saying the soul was safe once you had said ‘Jesus is Lord’, It was like going to the temple on Lordy-Day283, you could say ‘Caesar is lord’, take a pinch of incense and go out to worship any other god afterward284. Once said, you are free to live as you fancy. The book of Jude is important for today as all these four variations are trying, once again, to take over the Church.
In his first argument, Jude takes his severe warning arguments from Scripture, and directs them at the Churches:
First remember Israel in the Wilderness. They were saved from Pharaoh but when they became disobedient and wanted to add a golden calf to their salvation God killed the lot in one day.
Second: Remember the Angels who thought they were in heaven for ever, no matter how they behaved. God kicked them out of heaven to await eternal torment. Quoting from the Book of Enoch,285 he reminds them of the sticky-end of the two-hundred angels that misbehaved seducing women to produce Nephilim. This led to occultism, violence and finally the great flood.286
Third: remember Sodom and Gomorrah. There were four cities in the Dead Sea area, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim. When they syncretized their towns, tolerating bad behaviour, God sent the angels to cause an earthquake, set light to the pitch in the sand and destroyed all the people except Lot.
Jude then turns his attention to the perpetrator seeking to lead the people away from the truth:
First, Cain was rejected by God and became a murderer when he neglected to take God’s warning of sin crouching at the door of his heart. God is not tolerant of the selfish leader.
Second, Balaam’s love of money and power challenged God. He sold his soul to four kings. God was merciful in allowing the donkey to warn him but when he refused to repent God allowed the same four kings to kill him. 287 God is not tolerant of the ambitious leader.
Third, Jude uses the story of Korah as an example of false teachers in his day. Addressing the issue of ‘wolves in sheep's clothing’, he warns against the particularly harsh judgement on those that compromise the truth, in this case the Nicolaitans and Gnostics.288 The earth opened up and swallowed Korah and his group,289 God is not tolerant of the false preacher.
Finally, Jude turns to the congregation. He reminds them they have been warned about these people by Old-Testament prophets, starting at Enoch. They can check out the apostles who introduced them to salvation and taught them, by reading the scriptures for themselves. He tells them, one way to know is by the fruit the Church produces:
Listen among the Church for: grumblers, continuously dissatisfied members, boasters or flatterers.
Look for those who behave badly: Those that grab the best seats or food, Those that leave the weaker to fend for themselves. Any that go around pompously rebuking the Devil, (even the angel Michael did not do that).
Observe any that show little respect for the lower classes, not treating all as equal. And any who are not looking out for the vulnerable by their behaviour. These are just signs and symptoms of the wrong spirit being spread by false doctrines in the Church.
This very severe letter by Jude can be summed as:
Legalism in the Church says: ‘You are not free to sin, and we will make sure you don’t’.
Licence in the Church says: ‘You are free to sin and it is OK because you are in the family’.
Liberalism in the Church says: ‘You can accept any behaviour in the Church because God is tolerant.’
Syncretism in the Church says: ‘We can get along with any view of Jesus even if it devalues him from his rightful place as the only-begotten son of God’.
Jude says the right way is :
Liberty in the Church which means, ‘We are free not sin by the Grace of God’.
273 Matt 13 : 5
274 Matt 10: 4
275 Luke 6 : 16.
276 Acts 9: 11
277 Acts 15: 22
278 Acts 5: 37
279 John 7: 3 ff
280 He appeared to His brother James (1 Corinthians 15 :7).
281 Richard Bauckham : Jude and the relatives of Jesus in the Early Church,
282 Jude v3
283 Lordy-day was a local annual Roman holiday when people were expected to declare Caesar is Lord at his temple
284 This where the saying, ‘Take it with a pinch of salt’, came from
285 Found in the Hebrew Apocryphal books
286 Genesis 6
287 Numbers 32: 8.
288 Numbers 16
289 Numbers 16: 41-50