Sermon Tone Analysis

Jude 19 These people are divisive, who are worldly by nature because they do not possess within themselves the Spirit.

20 However, each and every one of you beloved by making it your habit of building yourselves up by means of your most holy faith, by making it your habit of occupying yourselves with praying by means of the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit, 21 make it your top priority of keeping yourselves in the state of loving God because of God’s love for you and continue doing so by anticipating for the benefit of yourselves the manifestation of the compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ for the purpose of experiencing eternal life.

22 Consequently, on the one hand, each one of you begin to make it your habit of exercising compassion with those who are uncertain within themselves and continue making it your habit of doing so.

23 On the other hand, each one of you continue to make it your habit of saving others by making it your habit of snatching them out from the fire.

However, each one of you continue to make it your habit of exercising compassion with reverence by hating even their garments, which are defiled because of their flesh.

(Lecturer’s translation)

Jude 22 and 23 form a correlative clause.

Jude 22 contains one command while on other hand, Jude 23 contains two commands.

Therefore, the command in Jude 22 is united with the two commands in Jude 23.

The command in Jude 22 required that the recipients of the epistle of Jude begin to make it their habit of exercising compassion with those who are uncertain within themselves and continue making it their habit of doing so.

Those who are uncertain within themselves are those members of the Christian community in Judaea who are uncertain with regards to the Christian faith.

Specifically, they were uncertain as to how they should respond to the unregenerate Jewish Zealots who were infiltrating their meetings in order to persuade them to join them in their revolt against Rome in order to establish the kingdom of God on earth.

They were uncertain because they did not have the conviction that Jesus Christ would establish the kingdom of God on the earth Himself at His Second Advent and that they were to obey the Roman and Jewish governmental authorities.

They did not have this conviction because they were new or immature believers who were not indoctrinated as of yet with regards to the Spirit inspired apostolic teaching regarding the Second Advent of Christ and the proper conduct with regards to the governmental authorities.

Therefore, this command in Jude 22 is addressed to those members of the Christian community in Judaea who were spiritually mature because they were strong with regards to the Christian faith.

They were strong in the sense that they were of the conviction that it was against the will of God to join these Zealots in their rebellion against Rome.

They had this conviction because they exercised faith in the Spirit’s teaching in the Word of God which taught that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself would establish the kingdom of God on earth by Himself at His Second Advent.

They were also strong because they were of the conviction that they must obey the Roman and Jewish governmental authorities.

They had this conviction because they had exercised faith in the Spirit’s teaching in the Word of God that the children of God must obey these governmental authorities unless there is biblical justification.

Therefore, this command in Jude 22 is addressed to those who were certain as to how to deal with these Zealots because they were strong with regards to the Christian faith.

Specifically, they were strong with regards to the Christian faith because they were of the conviction that Jesus Christ will establish the kingdom of God on earth by Himself at His Second Advent, which these Jewish Zealots rejected.

They also were strong with regards to the Christian faith because they were of the conviction that they were to obey the Roman and Jewish governmental authorities in Judaea, which these Zealots were rebelling against.

Therefore, this command in Jude 22 required that the spiritually mature make it their habit of exercising compassion with regards to the spiritually immature in their community who were uncertain with regards to the Christian faith and thus uncertain as to how they should respond to these Zealots.

The first command in Jude 23 required that these spiritually mature individuals in the Christian community in Judaea save those in the non-Christian community by snatching them out of the fire of eternal condemnation.

They would execute this command by communicating the gospel to the non-Christian community so that they might trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior and escape eternal condemnation in the lake of fire.

Therefore, this correlative clause in Jude 22-23 is uniting the command in Jude 22 and the two commands in Jude 23.

Thus, it is uniting the concepts of the spiritually mature believers exercising compassion to those in their community who are uncertain and saving those in the non-Christian community by communicating the gospel to them so that they avoid experiencing eternal condemnation.

These verses also present a contrast between how the spiritually mature members of the Christian community in Judaea were to treat the spiritually immature in their community who were uncertain as to whether or not the Zealots were right to rebel against Rome and how they were to treat those in the non-Christian community.

The three commands in Jude 22-23 present the result of obeying the command in Jude 21, which we noted required that the recipients of the epistle of Jude make it their top priority of keeping themselves in the state of loving God because of God’s love for them.

Therefore, a comparison of the commands in Jude 22-23 with this command in Jude 21 indicates that the recipients of the epistle of Jude keeping themselves in the state of loving God because of God’s love for them will “result” in them manifesting compassion to those in their community who are uncertain with regards to the Christian faith.

It also indicates that keeping themselves in the state of loving God because of God’s love for them will “result” in them communicating the gospel to those in the non-Christian community which will result in saving them from eternal condemnation in the lake of fire.

In other words, obedience to these three commands in Jude 22 and 23 is the direct result of obedience to the previous command in Jude 21.