Thought for Today

False teachers in the church: that urgent issue was why God had Jude change the main subject of his letter.

Jude 1:4 gives the reason: “For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (NAU).

That’s a chilling statement, isn’t it? First, they’ve crept in, unnoticed. If someone is creeping around, that’s a rather clear sign they don’t want to be seen. They don’t want to draw attention to themselves, to what they’re going about doing. Why not? Underneath, they’re ungodly, marked for condemnation. Such a person isn’t going to shout out, “I’m condemned, I’m ungodly!”

They’ll keep that hidden, won’t they? Rather, they want others to think they’re engaging relevant speakers, bringing new, exciting truth; something that if one listens closely, is different from the “faith once handed down.”

But, what were they actually doing? The “certain persons” were turning the grace of God into a license to sin—licentiousness ties in directly to lewd, lascivious, sensual behavior; to sexual sin—and a direct denial of Jesus Christ. We see a lot of that in churches today, don’t we? How many teachers insist that Jesus isn’t needed for salvation or that He isn’t really God, and that we’re sexually free to do whatever we please with whomever we please? They supposedly give us free license, but condemnation—eternal death—is what they truly bring.

Who can we compare these individuals to? Jude reminds his readers of things that they already knew: three examples of God’s past judgment. Jude 1:5–7:

“Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire” (NAU).

First, although the entire nation of Israel was delivered out of Egypt from slavery under Pharaoh, that initial generation was judged by God, and died off in the desert due to their persistent unbelief. Second, God judged the angels that rebelled against Him, holding them in bonds, in darkness, awaiting sentence on the Day of Judgment. Third, Sodom, Gomorrah, and the cities around them, gave themselves over to all kinds of sexual immorality. All three cases demonstrate God’s judgment of flagrant sin.

The “certain persons” are no different. Jude 1:8:

“Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties” (NAU).

First, they’re behaving in the same way. That is dangerous, isn’t it? If one behaves in the same way, one will get the same results. Second, they’re dreamers. What they’re thinking, how they’re acting, has no connection to God’s eternal reality. They’re living in their own little disconnected world.

What is the result? First, as did those in Sodom, they defile the flesh, in other words, their bodies. Numerous Scriptures speak about how sexual sin physically defiles, as does 1 Corinthians 6:18. Second, as did the Israelites, they reject God’s authority. In their case, what God declares to be sin, they declare is good. Third, they “revile angelic majesties.” This is less clear. I’d infer that it most likely is a reference to those angelic beings who saw God face to face, rebelled anyway, and thereby reviled Him.

Is it wise to listen to these false teachers? No. Many teach, what are in terms of biblical reality, outright lies. As we’ll see in the next post, those who teach what they teach, do so to their own destruction.