Reflections on the Epistle of Jude

We now come to consider one of the principal means by which the saint is maintained in the conscious enjoyment of the divine favor “building up yourselves on your most holy faith.”
No christian duty, or rather, no distinctive christian privilege, is more nourishing, more strengthening to the heart, than this holy building. It evidently implies progress in the knowledge of the truth and that by the believer’s diligent study of the word. We are not called to rest merely on the true foundation but to build upon it. “The faith once delivered to the saints,” finds a place not only in the sacred writings, but in the heart of the growing Christian. The word “faith” here means, not the Christian’s act of faith, but the truths which he believes—it is the object, not the act of faith. This also is the way, the sure way, of keeping ourselves in the love of God, in communion with Him.
Bui why is it called not only “faith,” but “our most holy faith?” Because they are the words of the thrice Holy One who reveals them, and the heart is purified by faith. When we are built up by this faith we must be made holy. “As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” (1 Pet. 1:15, 16.) It is also holy faith, inasmuch as it separates the believer from the overspreading evil which may be more or less developed in his day. “Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world: looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” Titus 2:12, 13, 14.
The apostle Peter in the commencement of his second Epistle introduces a line of truth, which, while exceedingly valuable in itself, forms the best commentary we can have on the exhortations of the apostle Jude. “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue; whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” Here the Christian is said to be “called,” as in our kindred Epistle, but not to keep himself in the love of God, or to build himself up on his most holy faith; but to that which will accomplish precisely the same objects. He is “called to glory and virtue;” glory as an object, and virtue, or moral courage, by which difficulties are overcome, the old nature kept in check, victory gained over the enemies of our faith, and communion with God maintained.
This expression, so important to be understood, “Is really not to glory and virtue,” says one, “but by his own glory and by virtue” What serves to make it plain is this:—“Adam was not called” when in paradise. When innocent, he was not called by God’s own glory and by virtue. What Adam was bound to do was just to stay where he was. That is, he was responsible to do the will of God, or rather, not to do what God prohibited in his case.... Our calling is by God’s own glory. The whole principle of Christianity is just this. It takes the believer out of the place in which he naturally is; and therefore it is spoken of as a calling.
The christian “calling” supposes that the gospel, when received, deals with the soul by the power of the Spirit of God; and that he who receives it is called out of the condition in which man is plunged by sin; not put back again into the position of Adam, but taken into another position altogether. It is no longer a question of man on earth; he is called by God’s own glory and by virtue. It is by God’s own glory, because if God saves, He calls to stand in nothing less than that glory.
And observes another, “Thus we have the call of God, to pursue glory as our object, gaining the victory by virtue—spiritual courage. It is not a law given to a people already gathered together, but glory proposed, in order to be reached by spiritual energy. Moreover, we have divine power acting according to its own efficacy, for the life of God in us, and for godliness. Now in connection with these two things—namely, with glory and with the energy of life, very great and precious promises are given to us; for all the promises in short are developed either in the glory or in the life which leads to it. By means of these promises we are made morally partakers of the divine nature. Precious truth! Privilege so exalted, and which renders us capable of enjoying God Himself as well as all good.”
Such is the call of divine grace; and here, all is strictly individual. Each believer is called to walk according to this new standard, the glory of God, and this new energy, moral courage. The effect of sin is to rob God of His glory, as it is written, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” But the effect of the call of grace by the gospel of Christ, who glorified God on the earth, is to place the believer in the unclouded beams of the divine glory, in all the moral fullness of Christ Himself, and there to find his home and rest forever. What a prospect! What a future! And for such feeble failing ones as we now are! Need we wonder at the apostle saying, in view of this, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord?” 2 Cor. 5:8.
But blessed beyond expression as all this is, it is not enough practically for the believer. Jude says, “Build,” build an edifice as it were for the service of the Lord and the glory of His name. Peter says, “add,” add to all this, to what? These exceeding great and precious promises, whereby ye are partakers of the divine nature, with all its privileges and blessings. “And besides this,” as he says, “ giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue.” This is the most important addition and gives reality to all the rest. Without this difficulties are not overcome, and communion with God is interrupted. “And to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Pet. 1:3-8.
Reflections on the Epistle of Jude
When the sinner first receives the message of the gospel, and bows by faith to the name of Jesus, under a sense of his sin and guilt before God, the Holy Spirit, we know, is at work in that soul. There is repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is a child of God, though, for a time, there may be great feebleness of faith as to the completeness of the work of redemption, and as to his forgiveness and acceptance, in virtue of that finished work. But when he has learned these further truths by divine teaching, he rests in that work, he has peace with God, he knows he has eternal life, and joy fills his heart. Now he is not only quickened as a sinner, but scaled as a believer.
There must at least be a moment of time between quickening and scaling. The one follows the other; as saith the apostle, “In whom also after that ye believed, ye were scaled with that Holy Spirit of promise,” And again he says, “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” The Christian is now indwelt by God the Holy Ghost, in whose power he prays, subject in heart and conscience to the word of God, and by whoso indwelling he is united to the exalted Lord in glory.
This is the distinctive truth of the present dispensation, the believer’s practical security against the evils that surround him, and most subservient to the one grand exhortation of the apostle, “Keep yourselves in the love of God.”
The Mercy of Our Lord Jesus.
The coming of the Lord Jesus is the grand future of the faithful. Though they may be endeavoring to keep themselves in the love of God; to build themselves up on their most holy faith, and to pray in communion with God through the power of the Holy Spirit, the end of all is, looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus unto eternal life—for a life of eternal, unmingled blessedness, with our God and Father in the presence of His glory. The coming of the Lord to take us up to be with Himself, is here viewed, not as His love and faithfulness—though unchangeable in both—but rather as a mercy, for surely it will be a great mercy to be taken away from the presence of such mere formalism and abounding wickedness. The apostle Paul, in referring to the kindness of Onesiphorus, speaks of the Lord showing mercy to those who had been faithful in a time of trial. “The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day; and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou knowest very well” (2 Tim. 1:16-18.) The special truth here is, the coming of the Lord for His saints, which is looked at as a mercy. The ungodly will be dealt with, and the unrighteous judged with all the workers of iniquity at the appearing of the Lord with His saints in full manifested glory.
Discipline.
Grace and wisdom are especially needed, in such times as the apostle speaks of, to distinguish between those who may be drawn aside. The “difference” here spoken of is no doubt a divine principle, but great spiritual discrimination is necessary in dealing with such cases. A more manifest judgment must be expressed against a leader in evil, than against some who may have been led away. But these are matters for local investigation, and for the spiritual judgment of the humble, who wait on God for His divinely given wisdom and grace. Many have mistaken what may be called a human opinion of a case in question, for a spiritual judgment, and thereby widened the breach in place of healing it. The opinion oft repeated, may so prejudice many minds that a happy settlement of the question can never be attained. It is the spiritual judgment of the saints—of the lowly—not the opinion of an influential brother, which will tend to heal, to humble, to restore communion, and to receive the sanction of the Lord. “And of some have compassion, making a difference; and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.”
The Doxology.
The heart of the apostle, as he turns to God and thinks of the blessed portion of the faithful, overflows with praise. This is characteristic of all the apostolic doxologies. God having so revealed Himself in His grace and goodness to the spiritual understanding of the sacred writers, they usually wind up their communications with a burst of intelligent praise.
We see this beautifully exemplified in the case of the apostle Paul, especially in his epistles to the Romans and the Ephesians. At the close of the eleventh chapter of his epistle to the Romans, after glancing rapidly at Israel’s past history, their present blindness, their future restoration, the thought of the Deliverer coming out of Zion to turn away ungodliness from Jacob, his heart overflows with adoring wonder, which finds its expression in language so rapturous and sublime, that everything is lost sight of but God Himself. “O, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counselor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him and through him, and to him, are all things; to whom be glory forever. Amen.”
In his other doxology at the close of the sixteenth chapter, we have an entirely different order of thought. There the apostle speaks as if the welfare of the saints was everything, though it is in view of the power of God, who only is able to do all for them. His heart deeply and tenderly anxious for their stability in the faith, he commends them to God according to the gospel with which he had been entrusted. The inspired salutations may have awakened in his heart the deep sympathies of fellowship, and brought the saints before him in a special way. “Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith. To God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ forever. Amen.”
in the epistle to the Ephesians, the great object of the apostle, or, rather of the Spirit of God by the apostle, is to make known the heavenly relations and blessings of the church in Christ—its position in heavenly places in Him; and with this agrees his brief but magnificent doxology at the close of the third chapter. “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above ail that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” It is evident that the soul of the apostle was greatly curried away, indeed lost in adoring wonder as he was made the intelligent channel of such rich communications to the church at Ephesus, and through the same epistle to the church in all ages. Unlike the prophets of old who had no personal interest in their revelations, he tasted, he drank deeply, of the sweetness of those living waters which proceed from the throne of God and the Lamb—the eternal counsels of God in Christ, according to which the church is blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Hence the apostle could say, “According to the power that worketh in us.” It was thus the language of a heart that felt deeply what it uttered, and the intelligence of a mind that beamed with heavenly light. This is the immense advantage which the Christian has over the prophets of old with reference to divine communications. Thus we read with reference to the latter, “Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.” 1 Pet. 1:11.
This is the true principle of all the doxologies: “According to the power that worketh in us;” not merely by us, but in us. And as Paul says, in writing to the Galatians, “When it pleased God.... to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen not even to me or by me, but in me.” It is the effect of the Holy Ghost in us, making good to the soul the divine revelations of the person and work of Christ, together with His present position in glory and the bright hope of His return. “Howbeit when he the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth; for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak; and he shall show you things to come. He shall glorify me; for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you.... At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” John 14; 15; 16
It is from this great principle—distinctive and characteristic of the present period—that we expect to find great fervency and earnestness in teachers and preachers of the word of God. It is their privilege to enter by the power of the Holy Ghost into the nature and character of their message. This gives true spiritual feeling, which ought to rise to the height or descend to the depth of their discoveries of the truth of God. Surely nothing can be more inconsistent, more unseemly, than for those who have the Holy Ghost in them, to minister the word or preach the gospel as if they did not feel the weight and reality of their message, or enjoy its sweetness. Can such be in communion with God as to their subject? Can we discover or feel the unction and power of the Holy Ghost, as we listen to a clear but cold didactic manner of address? Was not the soul of the apostle rapt in admiring love when inspired to communicate to the children of God the previously hidden mystery? He prays that they may be rooted and grounded in love: that they may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; but he does not say of what; he found himself at a center of blessing, which has no circumference; but though overwhelmed with the vastness of the divine communications, he falls back on the well-known love of his Savior and Lord. “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.” What a filling, what an overflowing of the vessel must this be! “With all the fullness of God.” Such is the happy privilege of those to whom the Holy Ghost reveals the mystery, not Christ merely, not the church merely, but Christ and the church. “This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” Eph. 5:32.
Again, we find the same apostle in 2 Cor. 5 often speaking of the judgment seat of Christ, and thinking of unconverted men who must stand before that tribunal under a responsibility entirely their own, in a state of mind bordering on the most desperate earnestness. “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” It would appear that his appeals, his warnings, his entreaties, founded on the terrors of the judgment seat, were of such a character as to expose him to the rude and uncharitable remarks of others, as he says, “For whether we be beside ourselves, it is to God; or whether we be sober, it is for your cause.” But he cared little for this, as everything was so real, so present, to him. The words of his testimony burned in his heart, and on his lips, and he earnestly desired that they might burn in the hearts of others, whether by tongue or by pen.
Reflections on the Epistle of Jude
We now return to the doxology in our epistle. The apostle, as we have seen, is not occupied in this epistle with the great outlines of truth, or with the work and efficacy of redemption, as Paul in the Epistle to the Romans; or with the nature and unity of the church of God, as in Ephesians. Nevertheless, he finds that in his communications which fills his heart with the most sweet and comely praise. It is really the manifestation of what God is Himself, and in His marvelous and gracious dealings with man, that fills the Christian’s heart with wonder and adoration. The Christian is expected to sing praises with the heart and with the understanding, and that continually. “By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks unto his name.” Heb. 13:15.
Having traced, in the most energetic style, the crafty devices of the enemy, the corruption of the church, the apostasy and judgment of false professors; and having also pointed out the narrow path for the faithful, and the plain duty of every individual believer, our apostle now turns to God, in whom all his confidence is placed, and his heart rises in gratitude and praise as he contemplates His faithful love and tender care. “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy; to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.”
While it is quite true that the people of God in all ages will be surely brought to heaven, and dwell in the presence of His glory forever, we believe there is a special promise of blessing in this passage to those who are waiting for Christ to come and take them up to be with Him where He is. The christian character can never be fully formed without this hope. Hence the mighty difference, both as to inward blessedness and outward development of christian character, when this hope rules in all things. “Every man,” says John, “that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure.” Not that he is pure as Christ is pure, but Christ is his standard, and he purifies himself as He is pure. What is to govern the affections, what is to subdue the will, what is to wither up the glory of this world, if the Person and return of Christ are not before the believer as the very sum and substance of his Christianity? The believer that thinks the coming of the Lord means nothing more than His coming for us at death, can scarcely rise above the hope of being saved at last, and is often afflicted with doubts and fears. Besides, the scriptures speak of Christ coming “a second time,” whereas, if He came for believers at their death, He must have come millions of times.
When Christ, risen and glorified, is before the soul as its all-governing object, the Holy Ghost feeds and nourishes that soul as with the marrow and fatness of the truth of God. By the teaching of the Holy Spirit he sees that blessed One in the glory as his life and righteousness in the presence of God. And if Christ be his righteousness there, absolute perfection is his; he must be presented without blame before God. And if Christ be his life, he has a divine capacity to enjoy those things which are above, where Christ sitteth, and not only with joy, but with exceeding joy. Conscious union with the Head will also be a present result of the Holy Ghost in us, and a desire to walk consistently therewith.
“It is important to observe,” says one, “the way in which the Spirit of God speaks, in the epistles, of a power that can keep us from every fall, and unblameable; so that a thought only of sin is never excusable. It is not that the flesh is not in us, but that, with the Holy Ghost acting in the new man, it is never necessary that the flesh should act or influence our life. (Compare 1 Thess. 5:22.) We are united to Christ, He represents us before God, He is our righteousness. But at the same time, He who, in His perfection, is our righteousness is also our life; so that the Spirit aims at the manifestation of this same perfection, practical perfection, in the daily life. “He who says, I abide in him, ought to walk as he walked.” The Lord also says, “Be ye therefore perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”
Thus Jude winds up his brief epistle by bringing before us our present position of security and blessing, and our future of joy and glory, in full conformity to the image of the blessed Lord Himself. “We know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” Oh, that these precious words, with which Jude closes his epistle, may challenge every heart that reads them! Am I thus waiting for Christ? Am I rejoicing in the hope of being presented faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy? Am I keeping myself in the love of God? Am I building up myself on my most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, and looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life?
May the Lord bless His own word to our souls, keep us from every kind of failure, enabling us to glorify Him in our walk and conversation, so shall we ascribe unto Him the glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.