The true gospel was misrepresented by false teachers preaching and living a counterfeit gospel. Jude says Christians should wage war on error in all its forms and fight ferociously for truth, like soldiers protecting a sacred treasure.
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New Testament: Jude 1:1-25
Summary: Judgment on False Teachers and A Call to Persevere
Contend for the Faith
Jude, like James, was a half-brother of the Lord Jesus. His letter focuses on false teachers and echoes Peter’s warnings in 2 Peter, chapter 2, we’ll read about who they are.
Jude was going to write about salvation, but the Lord directed him to write about invasion instead. False teachers were creeping into the church and going undetected. These are unsaved people, ungodly people and unprincipled people who use grace as an excuse for sin. We’ll read about what they do.
Like the Jews in the wilderness, the fallen angels, and the evil cities of the plain, they reject the authority of God. Their words are defiant and defiling. Like Cain, they have no saving faith, but they do have religion, like Balaam, they use religion as a way to make money.
And like Korah, (Korah led a revolt against Moses; he died, along with all his co-conspirators, when God caused “the earth to open her mouth and swallow him and all that had to do with him” (Numbers 16:31-33), they defy the word of God and the authority of God’s chosen servants. We’ll read about what they are, false teachers promise much, but produce little, like rainless clouds and fruitless trees. Enoch had the best word for them ungodly. And we’ll read about what we must do.
Remember the word and know it, and build yourself up in your Christian faith. True believers are preserved in Jesus Christ, and they prove this by keeping themselves in God’s love. Therefore, God will keep them from falling.
Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings. But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct—as irrational animals do—will destroy them. Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion. These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever. Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” These people are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage. ~ Jude 1:3-16
What is the meaning of immorality in the Bible? In the New Testament, the word most often translated “sexual immorality” is porneia. This word is also translated as “whoredom,” “fornication,” and “idolatry.” It means “a surrendering of sexual purity,” and it is primarily used of premarital sexual relations.
