Jude
The book of Jude is notoriously difficult to date, primarily because the Bible and tradition reveal so little about the personal details of its author while the book itself refrains from naming any particular individuals or places. The one clue available to present-day readers is the striking similarity between the books of Jude and 2 Peter. Assuming Peter wrote his letter first (AD 64–66), Jude probably wrote his epistle sometime between AD 67 and 80. [SOURCE: Charles R Swindoll: Jude]
The Book of Jude is an important book for us today because it is written for the end times, for the end of the church age. The church age began at the Day of Pentecost. Jude is the only book given entirely to the great apostasy. Jude writes that evil works are the evidence of apostasy. He admonishes us to contend for the faith, for there are tares among the wheat. False prophets are in the church and the saints are in danger. Jude is a small but important book worthy of study, written for the Christian of today. [SOURCE: Got Questons? Book of Jude]
Major themes contained in Jude include:
- False Teachers - Jude warns against false teachers and leaders who reject the lordship of Christ, undermine the faith of others, and lead them astray. These leaders and any who follow them will be punished. We must staunchly defend Christian truth. Make sure that you avoid leaders and teachers who distort the Bible to suit their own purposes. Genuine servants of God will faithfully portray Christ in their words and conduct.
- Apostasy - Jude also warns against apostasy, the turning away from Christ. We are to remember that God punishes rebellion against him. We must be careful not to drift away from a faithfull commitment to Christ. Those who do seek to know the truth in God's Word are susceptible to apostasy. Christians must guard against any false teachings that would distract them from the truth preached by the apostles and written in God's Word. [SOURCE: Theopedia: Epistle of Jude]
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Jude 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. |
It is the duty of every Christian to be an apologist. Some Christians immediately balk at this, not even aware of the meaning of the word. Simply, an apologist is not someone who “apologizes” for his faith, but rather, is someone who defends the faith once for all entrusted to the saints (Jude 1:3). It is commanded by God that all Christians follow 1 Peter 3:15, “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear…” A ready defense is required of the Christian. That does not mean he must be a “professional theologian” in order to have an answer for the gainsayer. However, the Christian should at least be well prepared, or ready to give a defense. Every Christian is a theologian to some degree. It just depends on whether you think rightly about what you believe, and thus, successfully. -APM
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Jude 1:5:
I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. |
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Jude 6-7:
"And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." |
God has established a proper relationship of marriage between men and women. Homosexuality establishes a relationship contrary to the roles that God has given to men and women. Just "as" the angels abandoned their given roles, the men of Sodom and Gommorah left their roles and sought flesh, which was not proper. It was the proper right of someone else; therefore, it was "strange flesh" (Jude 1:7 [Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)] ; II Peter 2:4-6 [Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)] ).
Homosexuality is parallel, or similar in principle to the angels' desertion of their place. The conjunction, "as", ties verse 6 of Jude 1 [Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)] to verse 7, implying that there is some similarity between the two sins. Moreover, the word for "own", or "proper" of verse 6 is the antithesis of the word for "strange" of verse 7, which means "another's", "someone else's". What is the exact similarity? In both verses, God gave a blessing with charge, but the charge was abandoned; consequently, God's wrath fell upon the angels and the men, who similarly sinned by deserting their divinely established place. Homosexuality is just one of the ways we may abandon "our place". Anytime we question God's pattern, whether for the church, salvation, worship, or anything else, we have left our place, or our proper rule. We have assumed the place of the Lawgiver and tried to stand where only God has the right. In essence, all disobedience is a challenge to God's authority to rule in our lives as our Creator. Is that not what all sin is? Is it not an effort to rebel over the rightful rule and establish ourselves as absolute sovereigns of our own lives (Genesis 3:1-6 [Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)] )? It is man's desire to become a god unto himself that drives him to rebel and leave his place. |
The adjective αἰώνιος in the Bible never means “eternal” unless it refers to God, who lends it the very notion of absolute eternity. In reference to life and death, it means “belonging to the future world.” It is remarkable that in the Bible only life in the other world is called ἀΐδιος, that is, “absolutely eternal”; this adjective in the Bible never refers to punishment, death, or fire in the other world, these are only called αἰώνια. (26)
Unlike αἰώνιος, ἀΐδιος belongs to the philosophical lexicon and means “eternal” in the strict sense.
In Jude 7, the fire that consumed Sodom is declared to be an example of the πῦρ αἰώνιον, that is, the fire in the world to come. This cannot mean “eternal fire,” given that the fire that consumed Sodom and Gomorrah did not burn eternally, but it lasted only very little. The point is that it was not the fire of this world; rather, it was that of the other world, sent by God to destroy evil. This seems also to be the specific function of the fire in the next world, the πῦρ αἰώνιον that is announced in many passages of the NT. ---Ilaria L.E. Ramelli The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena
Unlike αἰώνιος, ἀΐδιος belongs to the philosophical lexicon and means “eternal” in the strict sense.
In Jude 7, the fire that consumed Sodom is declared to be an example of the πῦρ αἰώνιον, that is, the fire in the world to come. This cannot mean “eternal fire,” given that the fire that consumed Sodom and Gomorrah did not burn eternally, but it lasted only very little. The point is that it was not the fire of this world; rather, it was that of the other world, sent by God to destroy evil. This seems also to be the specific function of the fire in the next world, the πῦρ αἰώνιον that is announced in many passages of the NT. ---Ilaria L.E. Ramelli The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena
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Jude 8-11:
Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves. Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished oin the rebellion of Korah. |
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Jude 14: Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints
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This would not be possible if the saints are sleeping in their graves. .
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Though Enoch’s account is not canonical, by the Holy Spirit we know that this particular passage of it is given of God. Enoch lived long ago, only seven generations after Adam. But evil was already rampant at that time. Indeed it would only get worse in the future (2 Timothy 3:13). Yet even that long ago the judgment of the evildoers of Jude’s day and of our own is foretold. When Christ returns, his holy ones will be with Him to mete out His judgment upon the ungodly for their ungodly deeds. Everything that every ungodly person ever said against God will be held to their account. The account of the believer is wiped clean, but the account of the ungodly is what will be used to sentence them into the eternal fire. It was true in Enoch’s day, and it is true for our day.[SOURCE: Relevant Bible Teaching: Jude]
There is debate whether or not Jude was actually quoting the apocraphal book of Enoch or something else. This debate aside, if this is a quote from the book of Enoch, it does not affect the doctrine of inspiration nor does it mean that the early church removed the book of Enoch because of its internal inconsistencies. First of all, the book of Enoch was not considered scripture by the Christian Church. There was some discussion on its canonicity by a few people, but the Christian Church did not include it in the Bible. Second, Jude only quoted something that was true in Enoch and it does not mean that Enoch was inspired. In fact, Paul quotes Epimenides in Titus 1:12 but that does not mean that Epimenides was inspired. [SOURCE: CARM: Jude 14 quotes the book of Enoch. Is it scripture?]
Whether his quotation is derived from tradition or from Enoch’s writing is uncertain. Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and others mention the Book of Enoch. “The Apostolic Constitutions, Origen (contra Celsus), Jerome, and Augustine deny its canonicity” (Fausset's Bible Dictionary). [the Early church tradition favored Enoch and Elijah as the identity of the "two witnesses" in Rev. 11:3.]
“The Book of Enoch, which was known to the fathers of the second century, was lost for some centuries with the exception of a few fragments, and was found entire in a copy of the Ethiopic Bible, in 1773, by Bruce. It became known to modern students through a translation from this into English by Dr. Lawrence, in 1821. It was probably written in Hebrew. It consists of revelations purporting to have been given to Enoch and Noah, and its object is to vindicate the ways of divine providence, to set forth the retribution reserved for sinners, angelic or human, and "to repeat in every form the great principle that the world-natural, moral, and spiritual-is under the immediate government of God." (Vincent's Word Studies of the New Testament)
This book was discovered in an AEthiopic version. Bruce the Abyssinian traveler brought home three Ethiopic copies from Alexandria, which Lawrence translated in 1821. The Ethiopic was translated from the Greek, the Greek from the Hebrew. and was published with a translation by Dr. Laurence of Oxford, in 1821, and republished in 1832. A full account of it and its contents may be seen in an article by Prof. Stuart in the Bib. Repository for January 1840, pp. 86-137.
“The Slavonic Enoch. In the year 1892 the attention of Dr. Charles was directed to the fact that a Book of
Enoch was extant in Slavonic. Perusal proved it not to be a version of the book before us, but another and later pseudepigraphic book, taking, as the earlier had done, the name of Enoch. It is totally independent of the Ethiopic Enoch Book, as is seen by the most cursory consideration. It begins by giving an account of Enoch's instruction to his descendants how he had been taken up to the seventh heaven. Another manuscript adds other three heavens. In the third (?) heaven Enoch is shown the place of the punishment of the wicked. In the description of the fourth heaven there is an account of the physical conditions of the universe, in which the year is said to be 365 1/4 days; but the course of the sun is stated as a course of 227 days; which appears to be all that is accounted for.
Here the independence of the Slavonic Enoch is clear, as the Ethiopic Enoch makes the year 364 days. There are many points of resemblance which show that the writer of the Slavonic Enoch had before him the book which has come down to us in Ethiopic, but the relationship is not by any means so close as to be called dependence.” (from International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia)
The true prophecy of Enoch, though unrecorded, could have been handed down by tradition, as the Jews had a meticulous way of keeping both written and oral tradition. Paul mentions Jannes and Jambres the Egyptian magicians, names known in Jewish tradition, not from Scripture (2 Tim. 3:8). For him to do this and be accurate God would have had to confirm the tradition.
Even if Jude cites a passage from this non-canonical book, it does not mean he accepted the whole book as true, only this particular statement. I think it is more likely Jude did not lift this statement from the non-Biblical book of Enoch,. It was either something passed on orally or he received it as a direct revelation from God.[SOURCE: Let Us Reason: Did Jude quote from the book of Enoch, is this a reliable book?]
“The Book of Enoch, which was known to the fathers of the second century, was lost for some centuries with the exception of a few fragments, and was found entire in a copy of the Ethiopic Bible, in 1773, by Bruce. It became known to modern students through a translation from this into English by Dr. Lawrence, in 1821. It was probably written in Hebrew. It consists of revelations purporting to have been given to Enoch and Noah, and its object is to vindicate the ways of divine providence, to set forth the retribution reserved for sinners, angelic or human, and "to repeat in every form the great principle that the world-natural, moral, and spiritual-is under the immediate government of God." (Vincent's Word Studies of the New Testament)
This book was discovered in an AEthiopic version. Bruce the Abyssinian traveler brought home three Ethiopic copies from Alexandria, which Lawrence translated in 1821. The Ethiopic was translated from the Greek, the Greek from the Hebrew. and was published with a translation by Dr. Laurence of Oxford, in 1821, and republished in 1832. A full account of it and its contents may be seen in an article by Prof. Stuart in the Bib. Repository for January 1840, pp. 86-137.
“The Slavonic Enoch. In the year 1892 the attention of Dr. Charles was directed to the fact that a Book of
Enoch was extant in Slavonic. Perusal proved it not to be a version of the book before us, but another and later pseudepigraphic book, taking, as the earlier had done, the name of Enoch. It is totally independent of the Ethiopic Enoch Book, as is seen by the most cursory consideration. It begins by giving an account of Enoch's instruction to his descendants how he had been taken up to the seventh heaven. Another manuscript adds other three heavens. In the third (?) heaven Enoch is shown the place of the punishment of the wicked. In the description of the fourth heaven there is an account of the physical conditions of the universe, in which the year is said to be 365 1/4 days; but the course of the sun is stated as a course of 227 days; which appears to be all that is accounted for.
Here the independence of the Slavonic Enoch is clear, as the Ethiopic Enoch makes the year 364 days. There are many points of resemblance which show that the writer of the Slavonic Enoch had before him the book which has come down to us in Ethiopic, but the relationship is not by any means so close as to be called dependence.” (from International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia)
The true prophecy of Enoch, though unrecorded, could have been handed down by tradition, as the Jews had a meticulous way of keeping both written and oral tradition. Paul mentions Jannes and Jambres the Egyptian magicians, names known in Jewish tradition, not from Scripture (2 Tim. 3:8). For him to do this and be accurate God would have had to confirm the tradition.
Even if Jude cites a passage from this non-canonical book, it does not mean he accepted the whole book as true, only this particular statement. I think it is more likely Jude did not lift this statement from the non-Biblical book of Enoch,. It was either something passed on orally or he received it as a direct revelation from God.[SOURCE: Let Us Reason: Did Jude quote from the book of Enoch, is this a reliable book?]
