CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Jude 1:5. In remembrance.—That which we have in mind is often well and wisely brought up forcibly before our minds.
Jude 1:6. Angels, etc.—There is nothing in the Old Testament to which this can be referred, unless we take “angels” to be a figurative term for the antediluvians. It is most probably a reference to a tradition which is preserved in the book of Enoch, but whether that book was written before or after the epistle of Jude seems to be uncertain. The passages in the book of Enoch, or the traditions which these passages fix, are as follows: Chap. 7.1, 2—“It happened, after the sons of men had multiplied in those days, that daughters were born to them, elegant and beautiful. And when the angels, the sons of heaven, beheld them, they became enamoured of them, saying to each other, Come, let us select for ourselves wives from the progeny of men, and let us beget children.” Chap. 15.7—“Therefore I made not wives for you [angels] because, being spiritual, your dwelling is in heaven.” Chap. 18.16—“Therefore was he offended with them [the angels], and bound them, until the period of the consummation of their crimes in the secret year.” (Compare chap. 21.2, 3—“I beheld … a desolate spot, prepared, and terrific. There, too, I beheld seven stars of heaven [angels], bound in it together. These are those of the stars which have transgressed the commandment of the most high God; and are here bound, until the infinite number of the days of their crime be completed.” Compare chap, 87.2, 3.) Estate.—Principality. The term belongs to the Jewish classification of angels, and refers to their power or rule. Everlasting chains.—An evident figure of speech. “Everlasting” suggests “firm gripping,” “severe” rather than merely “continuous.” For other traditions influencing Jude, see Illustrations.
THE ANGELS AND THEIR FIRST ESTATE
Dean Plumptre’s Note on Jude 1:6.—St. Jude’s language, like that of St. Peter, follows the traditions of the book of Enoch, which speaks of fallen angels as kept in their prison-house until the day of judgment; and also those which are represented in the Midrasch Ruth in the Book of Zohar—“After that the sons of God had begotten sons, God took them and brought them to the mount of darkness, and bound them in chains of darkness which reach to the middle of the great abyss.” A fuller form of the Rabbinic legend relates that the angels Asa and Asael charged God with folly in having created man who so soon provoke Him, and that He answered that if they had been on earth they would have sinned as man had done. “And thereupon He allowed them to descend to earth, and they sinned with the daughters of men. And when they would have returned to heaven they could not, for they were banished from their former habitation, and brought into the dark mountains of the earth.” The resemblance between this tradition and that of the Zoroastrian legend of the fall of Ahriman and his angels, and again of the punishment of the Titans by Zeus in the mythology of Hesiod, shows the widespread currency of the belief referred to.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Jude 1:5-6
Privileges are always Conditional.—St. Jude is concerned for the maintenance of the Christian life in those to whom he writes. They had been highly exalted in being raised to a spiritual life. Their privilege is intimated in the style of his address to them, in Jude 1:1. But their fall from privilege was possible; continuance of privilege depended on continuance of faith, and on persistent effort to meet the obligations of privilege. Yet they were in a very perilous way exposed to temptation. It took form as the attractive teachings of men who claimed for them a liberty which was only rightly called “licence,” and who shook their confidence in the primary Christian truths which they had received from the apostles. The one thing that filled St. Jude with fear was, that they might presume upon their Christian standing and privilege and think themselves secure. There is no more perilous condition in which any man can be placed than that of self-security. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” St. Jude therefore brings some striking and impressive illustrations of the truth that privileges never have been held, and never can be held, apart from conditions. No created being ever yet had absolute possession of any privilege. It can be lost; it can only too easily be lost. In the paragraph before us the illustrations are taken from two sources—history and tradition.
I. The illustration from history.—The salvation of Israel from Egypt was a remarkable sign of Divine favour and interest which lifted the nation of Israel into a high place of dignity and privilege. But that privilege did not keep the rebellious members of that community from suffering the just judgment of God. Their privilege provided no security against their suffering the proper consequences of distrust and disobedience. Even when He had saved them, in such a glorious and gracious way, the “Lord afterward destroyed them that believed [trusted] not.” “St. Jude’s main object is to warn his readers against that party in the Christian community who, by its abuse of Christian liberty, transformed the gospel of purity into a gospel of wantonness, and to give them a safeguard against such. And the safeguard is this: to hold fast the faith once delivered to them, and to remember the consequences of being unbelieving. For this purpose, no warning could be more apposite than the fate of Jude’s own nation in the wilderness” (Plummer).
II. The illustration from tradition—It is quite certain that St. Jude did not get the illustration of the fallen angels from any Scriptures that have come down to our time, or of which we have any intimation. St. Peter indeed refers to the matter (2 Peter 2:4), but he plainly draws his illustration from the same source as St. Jude. A little thought brings home to us the conviction that it is a matter concerning which men may speculate and imagine much, but can know nothing. The nature, estate, possibilities of angels have not been made the subjects of Divine revelation, and we must not attempt to be wise above what is written. Admitting, however, that St. Peter and St. Jude referred to a very familiar tradition of their day, it is important for us to see that their use of it in a way of illustration does not guarantee the historical truth of it. Such as it is, and whatever it is, it can be used to illustrate and enforce truths and principles. These angels were thought of as highly exalted in privilege. But they had no absolute security of the privilege. They went wrong when they presumed on their privilege, and failed to meet the conditions of dependence and obedience on which the retention of privilege depended. In a similar way a modern minister may illustrate, and press home some truth, by the stories in Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, and his using them in no sense implies his belief in their historic verity. The two illustrations effectively enforce the truth, which is true in every age, that “patient continuance in well-doing” alone can guarantee the retention of Christian privilege.
Jude 1:7-11. Denunciation of Moral Mischief-makers.—The reference to Sodom and Gomorrah is suggested by the terrible doom of the fallen angels. The connection of thought seems to be this—Those angels fell through sensual self-indulgence, and their miserable condition is appalling; Sodom and Gomorrah fell through sensual self-indulgence, and the present condition of the Sodomite sinners is appalling. And these false and mischievous teachers are tempting you to just that sensual self-indulgence which must as certainly bring a like appalling ruin round to you. Writing thus, St. Jude rouses himself into a very height of moral indignation which makes him pour forth burning words of denunciation. The danger for Christians lay in the attractiveness, personal fascination, of these mischief-makers, and in the subtlety with which they disguised the real purpose they had in view. To St. Jude they were maskers, “wolves in sheep’s clothing,” and with a rough hand he pulls the sheepskins off, and shows us plainly enough the gaunt and hungry wolves within. He bids us look at them as thus fully exposed, and see three things—they are irreverent, sensual, covetous.
I. The moral mischief-makers were irreverent.—It may be that it was characteristic of these teachers that they tried to undermine the authority of the apostles. We know how St. Paul had to vindicate his claims against them. But it is always a sign of the self-willed teacher, and always a cause for the gravest suspicion, that the tone of a man’s ministry is irreverent, either in regard to God or to His servants. The good, sincere man is not irreverent, and cannot possibly be. The self-contained man is almost sure to reveal himself by the tone in which he speaks of dignities. By this fruit you may always know him. They can be no true leaders of men who themselves cannot obey, who “despise dominion.” (The illustration from Michael is treated in a Suggestive Note.)
II. The moral mischief-makers were sensual.—The character of the teaching could be judged by the character of the teachers. Our Lord taught the same truth in the Sermon on the Mount. St. Jude says, “See how these teachers of liberty, which is licence, themselves act in relation to their sensual, animal natures.” The revelation is an awful one; it reminds of Sodom and its shameful sins. “What they understand naturally, like the creatures without reason, in these things they are destroyed.” The A.V. rendering is altogether more vigorous than the R.V., “What they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.” The teachers of the pure Christianity must themselves be pure. We have a perfect right to refuse any man’s teachings, when he does not match his teaching with his life. Sensual restraint is required by Christianity; sensual licence is the teaching of antichrist. And this truth is as true of the refined sensualities of civilisation as of the coarser and more animal forms that are characteristic of earlier times. “Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.”
III. The moral mischief-makers were covetous.—This almost necessarily follows from their self-centredness and self-sufficiency. Covetousness is getting for self, without consideration for the claims of others. The true teacher gets for those whom he teaches; the false teacher gets for himself. The three illustrations taken from Old Testament Scriptures impress this self-centredness which is sure to make a man covetous and grasping. Cain thought what he could get; Balaam considered what would pay; and Core [Korah] aimed to secure personal credit. We are right in testing all would-be teachers by the spirit which they show in doing their work. The Lord “pleased not Himself.” The apostle said, “We seek not yours, but you.” No man can ever do the work of Christ if he is possessed and ruled by a passion for serving himself.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Jude 1:8. The Course of Sin.—After citing the above examples of impenitence and punishment, the apostle returns to the τινες ἄνθρωποι of Jude 1:4, and proceeds to show an exact parallel between them and both the fallen angels and the inhabitants of the Cities of the Plain. To distinguish them, however, a term is applied—ἐνυπνιαζόμενοι, the exact application of which is open to a diversity of opinions. Beza, Grotius, and a host of other expositors take the word in a figurative sense, meaning idle and delusive fancies, in the same sense as Joseph was called the dreamer by his brethren. Some such idea is attached to the word in the A.V., where it is qualified by the word “filthy.” There is nothing in the original to indicate this except the context. In Acts 2:17, we have καὶ οἱ πρεσβύτεροι ὑμῶν ἐνύπνια ἐνυπνιασθήσονται—“and your elders shall dream dreams.” When Jude calls the false teachers dreamers, it appears to us that the Gnostics of his day claimed supernatural illumination. The apostles claimed inspiration, and to meet this they assumed the same Divine authority. The R.V. has, “in their dreamings”; but this appears a forced translation of the participle, considering the case and the gender. Once more the apostle refers to their sodomy—σάρκα μὲν μιαίνουσι, which is a strong expression to denote an unnatural method of gratifying lust. By κυριότητα we understand apostolic authority; and by δόξας the apostles themselves. Translating according to our view—‘In like manner indeed also these, the dreamers, pollute the flesh, set at nought authority, and blaspheme the excellent.’ The course of sin is much the same in all places and at all times. Its marks are the same on the spirit of the fallen angels, the inhabitants of Sodom, and the false teachers in Asia Minor. The chameleon may change its colours, but not its nature. Whereever sin touches there is a black spot. In the text the course of sin is threefold.
1. The abuse of natural instincts. God has placed in the body appetites and passions. In this respect man is on the same plane as the animal. Singularly enough, the animal is above man in the observance of their requirements. Neither gluttony, intemperance, nor incontinency has invaded the animal creation. Vicar Pritchard, of Llandovery, had a goat, which followed him through the town. At one period he was in the habit of frequenting public-houses. On one occasion some young men forced the goat to drink beer until it was drunk. The next day, when the vicar entered a public-house, the goat remained outside the door, and would on no account enter. The vicar learnt the lesson, and became a reformer of no mean order. The history of sin is read in the perversion of the natural man.
2. The denial of Divine authority. God has spoken in every age and to every man. Nature and Providence, as well as Revelation, have spoken in His name. Inspired men have delivered His commands, but sin has refused every voice, and rejected every message. The denial could not be made effectively without substituting error for truth, and forms of immorality for holiness.
3. The persecution of the excellent of the earth. Every virtue has been assailed in the persons of the virtuous. Every weapon has been used to torture and destroy the godly, in whose life the glory of God shone. If human nature is perverted, if the authority of God is contemned, and if the best characters are destroyed, what must be the consequence? Expulsion from heaven, and an abode with devils in the lake of fire!—W. P.
Jude 1:9. Michael and the Devil.—We can hardly suppose that the interview between Michael and Satan was communicated to St. Jude by the Holy Ghost, because such a novel revelation would have rather startled his readers than illustrated the truth he was setting before them. To treat it as a fable without foundation in fact would have weakened the argument of the apostle. Some think that the reference is to Zechariah 3:1, “And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan,” etc. But there was no reference then made to the burial of Moses, and the similarity in the expression is too slender a foundation to connect the two. Origen mentions an apocryphal book called Ἀνάληψις τοῦ Μωσέως, which was extant in his time. That the apostle quoted from that book is not improbable, although there is nothing in the narrative before us to warrant the belief. Then there is the other supposition, that among the traditions held by the Jews there was one relative to a controversy between the two chiefs of the opposing angels about the burial of Moses. As these traditions were largely taught in those days, it may be that the apostle simply reads a lesson to the false teachers from their own teaching. They brought railing accusations against the apostles, which even an archangel dared not, as the higher and final judgment awaits all. An accusation of blasphemy is the strongest, as blasphemy is a sin of the deepest dye, which, when made against the Holy Ghost, is unpardonable. The apostle therefore conveys but one lesson by his reference to the dispute about the body of Moses, viz. that the final judgment is reserved in God’s own keeping.
1. The text teaches that there are two orders of spirits in conflict concerning matters affecting the human race. Not only angels are ministering to the necessities of the saints, and devils using influence to destroy them; but the corner of the veil is lifted up in the text, that we may mentally see the battle-field on which these powerful spirits meet to contend for their side. The fact administers to the strength of our faith. Satan brings accusations against us, as was the case with Joshua; but the angel defends us, and hands over the accuser to a higher judgment.
2. The text teaches that controversy must be confined to its proper limits. This leads us to reflect on the spirit which has too often animated the controversies which have taken place between the polemics of the Church. Men have assumed so much authority as to consign their opponents to a literal fire and an eternal hell. In this they have assumed the function of judge. Michael was right, but he did not go further than controversy. However certain one may feel that he is contending for the truth, he must not utter imprecations on the head of his adversary.
3. The text teaches that judgment belongs to the Lord alone. The term “rebuke” implies far more than correction or admonition; it means to censure. Here we take it to indicate that God only has the power of final decision, and to Him must the prerogative be ascribed. Omniscience, impartiality, and power belong to Him. Christians must not avenge themselves, for vengeance belongs to the Lord.
4. The text teaches also another valuable lesson, viz. that the strongest side of controversy is an appeal to God. Bring your adversary into the presence of his Maker, and leave him in the Divine balance. He who can refer his matter to Him who is light, and in whom is no darkness, has his cause justified by the fact of his readiness to abide by God’s word.—W. P.
Dispute over the Body of Moses.—St. Jude evidently refers to something that was familiar to his readers. Now the Bible preserves nothing that can conceivably be twisted into the support of such a legend as this. “No tradition, precisely corresponding with this statement, is found in any Rabbinic or apocryphal book now extant, not even in the book of Enoch, from which Jude has drawn so largely in other instances (Jude 1:6; Jude 1:14). Œcumenius, indeed, writing in the tenth century, reports a tradition that Michael was appointed to minister at the burial of Moses, and the devil urged that his murder of the Egyptian (Exodus 2:12) had deprived him of the right of sepulture; and Origen states that the record of the dispute was found in a lost apocryphal book, known as “The Assumption of Moses”; but in both these instances it is possible that the traditions have grown out of the words of St. Jude, instead of being the foundation on which they rested. Rabbinic legends, however, though they do not furnish the precise fact to which St. Jude refers, show that a whole cycle of fantastic stories had gathered round the brief, mysterious report of the death of Moses, in Deuteronomy 34:5-6. It should be carefully noticed that the name Michael, for an angel or archangel, does not appear until Daniel 10:21. And it is in the book of Enoch” that he is prominent, as the “merciful, the patient, the holy Michael.” Perhaps, however, we are wrong in seeing any reference to the material body of Moses. John Bellamy makes a novel suggestion, which may receive some consideration, as he bases it on a careful examination of the original Greek. He says that the word “archangel” is a compound word, and means “the first messenger.” He thinks the reference is to John the Baptist, who was the “first messenger” of the new dispensation. The word “body” refers to the Messiah, as foretold in the shadows, types, and figures of the books of Moses; these shadows, types, and figures being called the “body of Moses,” the whole assemblage of all things that had respect to the manifestation of the Redeemer. The word “devil” should be translated Satan, “an adversary,” and really represents the rulers and Pharisees who resisted John’s teaching and Christ’s. “Thus we find that there was no celestial being called by the term ‘archangel,’ sent down from heaven to dispute with the devil about the fleshly body of Moses—no devil from hell, according to the vulgar opinion hitherto understood, to dispute with an archangel; but that it was the ‘arch-messenger,’ i.e. the first messenger; and that the word diabolo, rendered “the devil,” was applied as a collective noun singular to the assembled body of Pharisees, the adversary of the mission of the Baptist, the declared, interested enemy of the gracious Redeemer.” “Let those who suppose the contention was about the material body of Moses recollect that the material body of Moses had been buried in a valley in the land of Moab about fifteen hundred years, when it was said that Michael and the devil contended about it. A contention for the material body of Moses never took place between these two immaterial beings.” Thus mystically John Bellamy deals with the passage; but probably sober-minded Bible students will regard this spiritualising explanation as extravagant and unreasonable, and will prefer the simpler suggestion of a familiar legend, used by way of illustration.—H. B. D.
Jude 1:10. Presumption.—Dr. Bloomfield renders this verse as follows: “But those fellows, of things such as they have no knowledge of, they speak railingly; and, on the other band, such things as they do know—naturally, or sensually, as the irrational animals—they corrupt themselves therein.” At first sight it would appear that the meaning of the apostle is simply twofold; the holy truths of apostolic teaching, which the false teachers did not comprehend, they treated with scorn; the natural instincts, which they enjoyed in common with the brute creation, they abused. But on looking at the context we are inclined to think that there is a connection between the blasphemy of Divine things and the perversion of natural instincts. The parallel passage in 2 Peter 2:12-13 says: “But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption; and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time.” Dr. Peile develops the brevity of the expression thus: “In those things they first vitiate, then destroy themselves; first vitiate the thing (or doctrine, by abuse), and destroy themselves in that abuse.” St. Peter had before said of them: “And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.” One of the perversions was their covetousness, and through feigned words they made merchandise of the saints. One would infer that they sold indulgences, and pretended to absolve the people from their sins on payment of money. It also appears that there were other practices of such a forbidden nature that no apostle would disgrace his epistle by the mention of the same.
I. The presumption of ignorance.—The virulent opposition of the false teachers to the truths taught by the apostles, and their setting up opinions of their own as the standard of morality, was typical of a course of action from which the Church has in every age suffered. “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” This class of ignorance is to be distinguished from the absence of knowledge. He who has never heard the gospel must be ignorant of it; but in his case there is no assumption against its truths. On the other hand, false teachers were wilfully ignorant of the principles of Christianity because they were opposed to their corrupt practices. It was what Charnock calls practical atheism. In this age, when religious knowledge is so general, much of the opposition to the teaching of the Church starts from the same source. We must wake up to the fact that with the heart man believeth unto righteousness. Faith in the truths of Revelation is impossible without a change of heart. The first step is to convert men, and then educate them.
II. The sin of presumption.—Those who have presumed to teach religion to others, whether their teaching has been a distorted gospel or some opinion of their own, have led people to the committal of sins far more heinous than is found in the heart of a heathen land. The morality of literal ignorance is far better than that of false teaching. This we have seen in the rise of various sects, some of which survive until the present day. Julian the apostate was a very violent opponent of Christianity, whose teaching led many into various immoralities. In the face of the boldness which is abroad, avowing that certain unnatural and immoral courses are lawful and desirable, the duty of the Church is clear. As the darkness flies from the light, so libertinism will not stand the presence of a high moral character. Therefore we think that the first concern of the Church is to utterly forsake all questionable practices, and confront the world with the virtues of the life of Jesus Christ.—Selected.