‘And angels who kept not their own original status (or ‘principle rank'), but left their proper habitation, he has kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.'
The second incident involves the angels who sinned in the times of Noah. ‘The sons of God (or ‘of the elohim') saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and took for themselves wives of whom they chose.' In other words those angels left their proper sphere and sought to possess mankind. They deserted their true habitation and environment. They left behind the heavenlies and their heavenly status and dignity, and came to earth to mingle with men. And this intermingling of the heavenly with the earthly was against God's ordinance. They were blatantly disobeying God.
‘Who kept not their own ‘principle rank' (or ‘original status and position').' The word originally meant, ‘beginning, commencement'. And then it came to mean what surpasses other things, that which is ‘first' in point of rank and honour, or pre-eminence. That which has priority and precedence, due to superiority, e.g. a princedom. Here it refers to the rank, dignity and status which the angels had had in heaven.
(We need not see Genesis 6:1-2 as necessarily indicating that angels actually cohabited with women. The way in which they ‘took them as wives' was probably by demon intercourse and by demon possession of the men with whom the women cohabited. It was this wholesale invasion of mankind by demons, which were gladly received by men and women, that caused God to determine to destroy mankind at that time. It was not just ‘ordinary' sin. It was sin of the deepest kind. Mankind's current and growing obsession with the occult will no doubt again produce a similar judgement).
This sin of intermingling the heavenly and the earthly (although in reverse order) was precisely what these godless people that Jude was talking about were trying to do. They were trying to mix the earthly with the heavenly and leave their proper sphere by renouncing the body of flesh as irredeemable, and seeking to attain life as spirit beings by occult means. They were like many sects, who try to reach out into the spirit world. Furthermore we indulge in similar sins today when we seek to become involved with the occult. And the danger with some modern literature is that it can make such things appear harmless. Indeed some Christians see such literature as Satan's way of preparing the way for the future.
And what happened to the angels who behaved in this way? He kept them in everlasting bonds under darkness to await their final judgment. And the same will apply to these godless men. They too will face the final Judgment.
Note On The Angels Who Sinned.
Some cavil at this interpretation and see this as referring to angels who sinned before the creation of man. But there is in fact no Scriptural evidence that any angels, apart from Satan, did fall before the creation of man. No indication of date is ever given to the few accounts of when the angels fell.
On the other hand we do have grounds in the very literature which Jude will later cite (the book of Enoch), for the idea that the first angelic fall took place in the days of Noah. Thus in the Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) we have the following description of the fall of these angels, who are called the Watchers, because they were watching over mankind:
“And it came about, when the children of men had multiplied, that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children (6:1-3) --- And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in to them and to defile themselves with them (7:1). ---And again the Lord said to Raphael: 'Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness (10:4) --- bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgment and of their consummation, till the judgment that is for ever and ever is consummated. In those days they shall be led off to the abyss of fire: and to the torment and the prison in which they will be confined for ever. And whoever shall be condemned and destroyed will from thenceforth be bound together with them to the end of all generations. And destroy all the spirits of the reprobate and the children of the Watchers, because they have wronged mankind. (10:12-15) --- And then will the whole earth be tilled in righteousness, and will all be planted with trees and be full of blessing (10:18-19) ---. 'Enoch, you scribe of righteousness, go, declare to the Watchers of the heaven who have left the high heaven, the holy eternal place, and have defiled themselves with women, and have done as the children of earth do, and have taken to themselves wives: "You have wrought great destruction on the earth, and you will have no peace nor forgiveness of sin, and inasmuch as they delight themselves in their children, the murder of their beloved ones shall they see, and over the destruction of their children shall they lament, and will make supplication unto eternity, but mercy and peace shall you not attain.” (12:4-6).
It will be noted that if we compare these words with Peter we have the ‘spirits in prison' (1 Peter 3:19), the ‘committing to pits of darkness to be reserved to judgment' (2 Peter 2:5) and ‘the new earth in which dwells righteousness' (2 Peter 3:13), and in comparison with Jude here we have ‘the angels who left their first principality' (they ‘left the high heaven, the eternal holy place') and their resulting ‘everlasting bonds' (Jude 1:6), and the fact that they dwelt in darkness. Furthermore in 1 Enoch 60:8 we have mention of ‘the seventh from Adam' (Jude 1:14).
The same incidents are described more briefly in Jubilees 4:15; 5:1ff.; Testament of Reuben 5:6-7; Testament of Naphtali 3:5; 2 Enoch 18; etc.
We have selected a few extracts from the text, but the full text makes quite clear that we undoubtedly have reference here to the events described in Genesis 6:1-2.
This is confirmed in 2 Peter. There Peter selects three incidents in Scriptural order, the fall of the angels, the Flood and Sodom and Gomorrah. But the only fall of angels even hinted at in Scripture prior to the Flood, apart from that of Satan himself as hinted at in Genesis 3, is that found in Genesis 6:1-2.
End of note.