True and False Teachers: a Contrast

Introduction:

Jude has described the false teachers as those who have “entered surreptitiously.”

Jesus warned of wolves in sheep’s clothing (Mt. 7).

2 Corinthians 11: Ministers of Satan masquerade as ministers of light.

Satan’s methods are rarely overt or direct opposition to God.

Instead, he subtly undermines God’s trustworthiness by calling into question the reliability of his word.

We should understand ourselves to be part of a larger struggle. As believers that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God, we have entered into the oldest struggle that there is.

It is a conflict over the truth.

It is a conflict over the authority of God.

It is a conflict over who should control our lives.

Two characteristics of this struggle are the denial of the authority of God and the claim that the pursuit of human lust amounts to true liberation.

Believers, apparently, are open to both of these claims.

Something appeals, even to believers in Jesus Christ, to us when we assume we can have the best of both worlds.

God’s guarantee of salvation.

God’s recognition that we should get to live our lives how we want to live them.

No one who wants this wants the kind of salvation that God has provided in Christ.

We might consider that what is good about genuine Christianity can become an open door for those who wish to oppose the truth in plain sight.

Our meetings are open.

We consider the best motives in others.

We wish to imitate Christ and forgive.

We want to encourage one another, and those who have yet to profess Christ, in the truth and to spiritual maturity.

We want to demonstrate Christ-like love and often do so without considering any godly limitations on what that might mean. In other words, go beyond God’s demonstration of love and practice a love that accepts everything.

Jude’s Humility.

Jude, most likely the brother of Jesus, wrote this letter.

Mt. 13:55.

He, along with Jesus’ other brothers, had originally rejected him (John 7:2-5).

He understood the highest relationship that we can have with God, namely, slavery.

Romans 1:1

Phil. 1:1

Titus 1:1

2 Tim. 2:24 (A description of Timothy).

James 1:1

2 Peter 1:1

Theologically, this derives from a correct understanding of the liberation from sin that God has provided for us in Christ.

Romans 6

2 Peter 2:16

Jude chose a higher form of self-description than touting his blood relationship with Jesus.

To reject slavery to Christ is to reject his authority and the purpose of his crucifixion and resurrection.

Jude also distinguishes himself from those false teachers who rejected the lordship of Jesus (see: Jude 4).

Jude’s Pastoral Care (Jude 3):

We may interpret his initial statement in one of two ways:

Either Jude had an urgent need to write to his audience while he made every effort to write to them of the common salvation, or he had an urgent need to write to them although he made every effort to write to them of the common salvation.

Jude focuses on his own, personal responsibility toward his audience.

Note that after the necessity statement, he describes himself as “one encouraging...”

What is clear, then, is that Jude understood that he bore personal responsibility for his audience. He recognized that a situation had arise among them that they needed to take seriously.

We do not know the precise nature of Jude’s relationship with his audience.

He, like Paul, models behavior for them (slave of Christ compared to the denial of Christ’s ownership).

He encourages them to something consistent with word of God rather than something that has been changed.

Loved Ones: Jude 3, 17,20

Remember: Jude 5, 17.

False Teachers:

Claim to Special Revelation: Jude 8-10

Jude has already claimed that his audience should contend for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints.

The language of scripture pervades that idea.

Now he describes the false teachers as “dreamers.”

This word refers to someone who claims to have received divine communication from God in the form of a dream or vision.

Jude’s terminology has direct ties to:

Deuteronomy 13

Jeremiah 23

Jeremiah 16:1-13

They could be trying to base their actions and gain currency by claiming new revelation via dreams and visions.

Could a case be made that these false teachers came to believe that only the physical dimension exists? They reject the existence of any supernatural power, and they insult them. These false teachers, so it seems, deny the ownership of Christ because they have a worldview that causes them to reject the authority (or even existence) of the spiritual world.

Jude seems to characterize the false teachers as claimants of special revelation whose logical end makes man his own God.

Behavior

Jude uses specialized terminology to discuss how these false teachers behave.

He employs three verbs in the present tense:

μιαίνωa: to cause someone to be morally tainted or defiled—‘to defile, to contaminate, to cause to be morally filthy.

Reject/Deny

Blaspheme

Jude illustrates their lack of humility with a strange example.

Michael refers to the archangel Michael.

In a dispute with Satan over the body of Moses, he did not overstep his bounds.

He left the judgment and censoring of Satan to the Lord.

Michael remained in his proper place.

God’s people show restraint and humility rather than overstepping their bounds.

Jude describes their actions and character outright.

He compares them to Cain and Balaam.

False Teachers Hiding in Plain Sight: Love Feasts (Jude 12).

“Loves” used in the plural here refers to a communal meal very common among trade associations and other social groups that formed the basis of Roman society especially in the Greek speaking East.

This may be what Paul had in mind in 1 Corinthians 11.

The Corinthians confused this meal with the purpose of the Lord’s Supper.

Jude calls the “rocks,” or “crags” like one would find so dangerous and destructive to ships at sea.

“Hidden reefs” is the actual term.

Jude conveys the idea, here again, of danger hiding in plain sight.

These false teachers had used the benevolence and care of the congregation for one another as their means of exploitation and entry.

We know that some within the churches often tried to take advantage of the hospitality and generosity of their fellow church members.

So, in 1 Timothy 5, Paul taught that family members were to care for the widows in their own families. Unless the widows met a very high, limited standard of behavior, the church at Ephesus was not to be liable for their care.

At Thessalonica, some tried to avoid work relying on the generosity of others for their financial support. (2 Thess. 3).

Appearances Do Not Make Reality (Jude 12-13)

Could “eating together fearlessly” suggest that the group of false teachers peel off to themselves, not surreptitiously but overtly?

Such refusal of interaction with the broader congregation is a blatant disregard for the showing of mutual love for Christ inherent in the occasion.

Jude appears to use two participles that are intended to describe the false teachers in a direct way.

He follows that with three participles that convey significant information about them but that do so indirectly or metaphorically. The direct message he gives is one of arrogance and self-indulgence.

When he writes that they “are feeding themselves,” we may look at this as a commentary on their eating practices, but given the tenor of the letter thus far, it is far more likely in my mind that Jude intends to describe their denial of all teaching authority other than what they’ve apportioned to themselves.

So, denying the true shepherd and all other pastors, they “shepherd themselves.”

They set their own rules and have appointed themselves as teachers of the truth. What is for certain about them is their perceived lack of need for anyone else to teach them.

In light of Ezekiel 34, it is also clear that what Jude has in mind is the failure to show the proper care and concern for God’s people.

Rather than be guided in the truth and to behave accordingly, these individuals only see their position as an occasion to exploit the people of God.

In Ezekiel 34, reference to shepherds occurs 32 times in 16 verses out of a total of 31 verses for the chapter. Most of the time, it is used in reference to the leaders of Israel. The other times it is used of God or of David’s descendant whom the Lord will send to shepherd and feed his people.

A Call to See Them as They Really Are (Jude 12-13)

Clouds, trees, waves, stars are the physical objects Jude then uses for indirect comparison but to make emphatic statements.

Through them, he describes them as the opposite of what they seem to be.

Rather than having a basis for their arrogant and boastful view of themselves, they are, in fact, men of little spiritual foundation and even less spiritual substance.

Waterless clouds - See Prov. 25

The point seems to be that they have nothing to offer.

Note Jude 16 and the direct connection with the Proverbs, perhaps.

It isn’t just that they are blown around by everything.

It is that the Word of God they claim to have by new revelation in reality is nothing. Nothing they promise ever comes to pass.

Their “new revelations” only end in destruction.

Fruitless Trees - these are found in autumn.

The teachers bear no spiritual fruit manifesting their lack of spiritual substance.

Waves spewing nothing but shame.

Isaiah 57:20

Deceived Stars headed for destruction.

Final descriptions: Jude 18-19.

Conclusion:

We should understand ourselves to be part of a larger struggle. As believers that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God, we have entered into the oldest struggle that there is.

It is a conflict over the truth.

It is a conflict over the authority of God.

It is a conflict over who should control our lives.

Two characteristics of this struggle are the denial of the authority of God and the claim that the pursuit of human lust amounts to true liberation.

Believers, apparently, are open to both of these claims.

Something appeals, even to believers in Jesus Christ, to us when we assume we can have the best of both worlds.

God’s guarantee of salvation.

God’s recognition that we should get to live our lives how we want to live them.

No one who wants this wants the kind of salvation that God has provided in Christ.