The Epistle of Jude 1-3

I am feeling sort of like Jude as I begin this: I started off focusing on just two verses from Jude, but as I read over the epistle, I realized I needed to cover it all. I don’t mean a full-fledged commentary, but the part I wanted to emphasize has context, and that context provides a depth of meaning that is helpful in understanding those verses.

Just what are the verses I began with? 20 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. As for the plan, as I said this isn’t intended to be an in-depth commentary, I will simply work through the verses with light commentary, just enough to set the table for v 20-21.

A couple of years ago our Pastor went through Jude. I was impressed because I’m not aware of hearing anyone else teach Jude. I don’t remember teaching it myself (even though I recently found notes that sure look like I did); I did present highlights of it in the church newsletter. I also often referred to a Bible study method I once used for Jude that I learned in Bible College. I recommended it, but I never heard if anybody ever took me up on it. It’s really simple and gets you into the text. You take a blank sheet of paper, turn it to landscape and, well, here’s photo:

I thought it was a pretty good method, even though it did take a lot of paper!

Brief Introduction

The Epistle of Jude is also known as the Catholic Epistle of Jude, meaning it is a letter intended for a general Christian audience rather than a specific church.¹ Jude and 2 Peter are very similar, both deal with false teachers sneaking into the church. I believe the author is the apostle Jude, who was also known as Lebbaeus and Thaddaeus (Jerome called Jude "Trinomious" which means "a man with three names" ²). Now onto the epistle itself.  (See how brief the introduction was?)

1 Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, [and] called:

My Bible (KJV) says “the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James”; most others have “a servant”. There is no article (the) before servant in the Greek. He is not saying he is “the” servant, the one and only servant of Christ, he is speaking of his identity, “servant of Jesus Christ.” He is also “brother of James.” I think this means he was the brother of Jesus.³ 

Jude is fond of triplets, and he begins that way: to them who are sanctified, preserved, called.

Sanctified by God the Father – This is salvation sanctification. The Father has separated us from the world and made us his own; once we were known and identified by our color, ethnicity, income, education, country, now we are children of God; once we were in Adam, sinners, condemned and dying, now we are in Christ, justified and reigning in life!

Preserved in Jesus Christ – “Preserved” means carefully attend to, take care of, guard, keep. He uses this word 5 times in this short letter (1,6,13,21). What a comfort - the Lord Jesus Christ himself is keeping us, taking care of us, guarding us!

Called – God took the initiative for our salvation: it was His plan; He sent His Son to die for us; He sent His Spirit to search for us; He called us by the gospel. What was our part? Respond. That’s it. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Salvation belongs to the Lord!

2 Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.

Another Jude triplet: mercy, peace, love be multiplied to you. Amen. I receive it!

3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort [you] that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

Jude declares he had every intention of writing to them regarding what he calls “the common salvation”, that is, the salvation enjoyed by all believers in Christ; but something had come up, a problem that made it necessary for him to exhort [you] that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. I can remember when I began to realize that “the faith”, here and many other times in the NT, is not the act of believing, or our personal faith, it is rather The Faith, a body of truth that states what we are to believe, the Christian faith. He says this Faith was once delivered unto the saints. Delivered by who? By the apostles. "The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith…"⁴ This Faith is captured and expressed in the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed. We are to hold the faith, promote the faith, teach the faith, defend the faith, and earnestly contend for the faith. We are in a war and the devil, the flesh, and the world are constantly trying to get us soft-peddle, back-peddle, compromise, and deny this precious deposit of faith.

 

NEXT: The Epistle of Jude  4

 

1 "These epistles (James, Peter, John, and Jude) are called catholic, universal, or circular, because they were not written to one nation or city, but to believers everywhere." (Adam Clarke, click to here read).

2 https://www.gotquestions.org/Thaddeus-in-the-Bible.html

3 “Jude…did not say that he himself was His [the Lord’s] brother. But what said he? "Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ,"—of Him as Lord; but "the brother of James." For this is true; he was His brother, (the son) of Joseph.” (Clement of Alexandria, Comments on the Epistle of Jude; https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0211.htm)

4 Irenaeus. In February and March of 2020 I wrote 9 articles about this: Apostolic Tradition, The Rule of Faith, The Apostle’s Creed, The Nicene Creed et al You can go here for the first and here for the second and rest