The Final Assurance (Jude 1:24-25).
Jude closes his letter with an assurance to all true believers that they need not fear what the future may hold, because in the face of all that they are dealing with, the one and only God their Saviour is able to bring them through safely into His presence free from all blemish. For salvation is of the Lord.
‘Now to him who is able to guard you from stumbling, and to set you before the presence of his glory without blemish in exceeding joy, to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and power, before all time, and now, and for evermore. Amen.'
In these magnificent words regularly cited throughout the world Jude assures his readers that their salvation is safe in the hands of God, the only Saviour. And this is because:
· ‘He is able' - what can be more certain than that, the ability of an Almighty, Sovereign God? Here is a guarantee indeed, of the certainty of what will be, a certainty beyond all certainties, for it depends solely on the might and power of God (compare 1 Corinthians 1:8-9).
‘To guard them from stumbling' - For like a shepherd He can protect them in all their ways and ensure by the use of His rod and staff that nothing can cause them to stumble and fall.
· ‘And to set them before the presence of His glory' - and they can be sure that once the journey is safely over He will set them before the presence of His glory. There they will see Him face to face, and will behold His fully manifested splendour and beauty in all its glory.
· ‘Without blemish' - while they themselves will be presented as spotless and without blemish, holy, unblameable and unreproveable in His sight (Colossians 1:22; Ephesians 5:27).
· In exceeding joy - and there they will know joy unspeakable and full of glory (1 Peter 1:8).
And Who is this Who can do all this for us? It is the One and only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our one and only Lord.
No wonder then that Jude prays ‘And so may there be to Him glory, majesty, dominion and power, before all time, and now, and for evermore. Amen.'
In other words God is everything, and does everything through His Son. He is thus the One to Whom all glory, all majesty, all dominion and all power have belonged, do now belong, and will for ever belong, from before all time, through the present, into the eternal future. It is God Who is all in all. And all this ‘through Jesus Christ our Lord'. For Father and Son work together with the Holy Spirit in bringing home to Himself the heirs of salvation.
Here is Jude's final answer to the godless persons. There is only one God, and there is only one Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. All that the only and eternal God was, and is, and will be, is His ‘through Jesus Christ our Lord'. So He also is all in all. In the words of John, ‘all that the Father has is Mine -- for I and My Father are One (in every way)' (John 16:15; John 10:30).