Jude 14-16

Read Jude 8-16 - 8-25

Verses 14 through 16 wrap up the main portion of Jude’s description and condemnation of those that he is warning against before calling on us to persevere in our faith and leaning on the Holy Spirit to help us. Verses 14 and 15, like verse 9 that we went over a few weeks ago, are taken from a non-canon source, verse 9 the Assumption of Moses, and here 1 Enoch. But the discussion we had in talking about verse 9 also applies here. We feel that the inclusion of a quote or reference to a particular section of a non-inspired work, one does not automatically make that whole work an inspired text. A “secular” source can contain true and accurate information but that does not make it all true. I thought of this analogy, recently there have been several “bio pic” movies about famous people, Freddie Mercury, Elton John, and Elvis and maybe some others, there is some factual information in these so called biographical movies but they are probably, by and large mostly fictional, or at the very least greatly exaggerated when it comes to the actual events in these people’s lives. Just because they contain a few actual facts does not make them all true. Secondly just because Jude quotes from a non-inspired work does not automatically disqualify this letter from being inspired, Paul quotes from and uses secular and non-canon material in his epistles a few times as well. Douglass Moo presented a good point in talking about this section, what these two verses are saying is not controversial and it does not go against what the Bible in other places says about judgment, but there is so much noise surrounding these verses, like radio static or other conversations in a crowded room, that we cannot pay attention and really hear what is being said. If we remove this noise and focus on what the text is saying there is no issue.

14

Jude 14 “It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied,”

This is where the “noise” comes from, and I don’t think we need to rehash all the arguments from before but just give a few details on this. Jude is using and quoting from the extrabiblical, pseudepigraphal book, pseudepigraphal meaning a work, biography, that falsely claims to be written by the subject of the biography, in this case 1 Enoch. The counting of Enoch being the seventh from Adam includes Adam as the 1st generation, Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, and Enoch, this is in listing of Adam’s descendants from Adam to Noah in Genesis 5:1-24, this is also how Enoch is called in 1 Enoch. There is not much known from the Bible about Enoch except that he was the seventh from Adam and that God took him to be with God without him dying. Genesis 5:23–24 “Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” and Hebrews 11:5 “By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God.” This made him a very interesting and admired person to the Jew and Jude was very confident that whom he was writing this letter to knew from what he was quoting without using the name of the source. The last bit of noise to mention is the use of the word “prophesied”, in using this word Jude is not confirming that 1 Enoch is inspired, even if he believed that this prophecy did come from Enoch himself, there are several examples of people making prophecies and prophesying that, in some cases, are not even believers. Caiaphas the high priest that was trying to murder Jesus spoke a prophecy in John 11:49–51 “But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people, not that the whole nation should perish.” He did not say this of his own accord, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation,” So if we can remove all of that noise surrounding this passage we can really hear what Jude is saying.

Jude 14 “saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones,”

The text in 1 Enoch is actually “Behold, He will come” Jude substitutes “the Lord”, kyrios, for “He”, again highlighting the divineness of Christ and the oneness of the Trinity like he did in verse 5 saying that Jesus was the one who saved the people out of the land of Egypt. What Jude is saying is that Jesus will come again with a host of angels. While the phrase his holy ones, could be interpreted as the saved saints of God, who will be present at the second coming and judgement, Revelation 19:14 “And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.” Angels would be the more consistent and appropriate interpretation as it is also in line with what the bible says in many other places about Jesus’ second coming.

Matthew 25:31 ““When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.”

Mark 8:38 “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.””

2 Thessalonians 1:7 “and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels”

15

Jude 15 “to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.””

This is the main point of the quotation and what Jude wants us to know, that there will be a judgement coming for all those that do not repent and have put their faith in Christ as their savior, and they will be convicted by Christ.

This verse uses the word ungodly four times used in three different ways. First, and last use is that they are ungodly, they are not repentant and have not put their faith in Christ and if they remain unrepentant then they will be convicted of this judgement and their eternity will be in Hell. Second, what they are doing is ungodly, their actions and works are evil, deeds of ungodliness. The third different use of ungodly is how they were committing their deeds of ungodliness, this may seem redundant and you could remove this part and the statement still makes sense, “convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness, and of all the harsh things...” ect., but including it adds another level of how they were sinning was especially ungodly. Their sinning was not only between them and God, they were false teachers trying to deceive faithful believers. This reminds me of what is said, that those who have more, more will be required, like Jesus telling the people of the area around Galilee that it will be worse for them than Sodom, as they had Jesus with them, performing miracles and teaching them for three years but still rejected him. Matthew 11:23–24 “And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”” Not only are they ungodly, doing ungodly deeds, they were doing them in an especially ungodly way. The fourth ungodly near the end of 15 is used like the first in calling then unrepentant sinners, but this section is calling them out for a specific sin, they were speaking harsh things about Christ.

Remind of our deserved judgement and what Christ has done for us. Remind of the great commission and our urgency for spreading the gospel. God is a just God and no-one gets away without punishment of sin, ours was taken by Christ.

Judgement is the deadline, and we should take is the deadline is imminent, we should work all the more hard in sharing the gospel to everyone whom we can.

We do not need to take vengeance on anyone, either they will come to Christ and their sins will have been paid for, or they will get God’s vengeance for all eternity.

Romans 12:19 “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.””

We all need help with how to witness to people so does anyone have any tips on how you bring up or talk about the judgment with a non-believer?

16

Jude 16 “These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.”

The word grumblers that Jude uses is only seen here in the New Testament and is the same Greek word that the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament uses when talking about the Jews grumbling against God in their exodus from Egypt. It also calls back to verse 5 when Jude compared these who have crept in to the Jews that did not trust God and thus wandered for 40 years until that generation died. These people cause strife and problems, and do all that their sinful flesh desires. Loud-mouthed boasters can also be translated as bombastic speech, they were arrogant in their rebellion against God and His commandments. Showing favoritism to gain advantage, they were doing all their false teaching and false prophesying for money and were probably tailoring what they were saying to the rich in order to gain more monetary reward.