(Jude 22)
Then Jude seems to say, “You will be able to care for others.” Hence his words are “have compassion” (vs. 22). If your heart is kept in the love of God, your heart will go out to those that God loves. Yet we are not exhorted to have compassion upon all. It is only of “some” we are to have compassion, making a difference. The leaders in apostasy are treated with horror, not compassion. But there are those that are led, not willful, but ignorantly, and for such we are to have compassion. Others are involved more deeply in the evil, the fire seems ready to kindle upon them, but even so we must seek to rescue such, pulling them out of the fire, at the same time hating the evil in which they are found. Unbounded compassion for the people of God must ever be linked with uncompromising separation from the evil with which they are linked. Even as it was with Christ, of whom one has justly said: “In Christ there is a compassion that knows no limit to the sinner combined with infinite separation from his sin.” To show compassion we shall need divine love; to make a difference will call for divine wisdom; to pull any “out of the fire” (vs. 23) will require divine power; and to “hate the garment spotted by the flesh” will demand divine holiness. How great then the need for building ourselves up in our most holy faith, and praying in the Holy Ghost.
Jude has exposed the evil in all its horror, and warned, encouraged, and exhorted the saints; but his final resource is God Himself and all that God is for His people. The magnitude of the evil and the weakness of the saints fades from his view, and God alone remains. Hence, he can close the most solemn epistle ever penned with the most glorious burst of praise. Jude has gazed upon the ruin of that which professes the name of Christ; he has taken a backward glance at the beginning of the corruption; with prophetic gaze he has looked on to its solemn end; but, at last, from the midst of, the wreck and ruin of a corrupted Christendom, he looks up, and at once, in spite of the dark outlook, he breaks into praise “Unto Him that is able to keep us from falling and present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (vs. 24).
Jude seems to say, “I see the corruption that has come in, I see the rising tide of evil, I see the saints may fail in ‘building,’ and ‘praying,’ and ‘keeping themselves;’ but I see there is One in the glory who is able to keep them from stumbling, bring them safely home, and present them faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. I see the judgment day is coming for the ungodly professors— a day of gloom and sorrow; but I see the presentation day is coming for all His saints— a day of glory and exceeding joy.” It is for us in like faith to take up the language of Jude. As we view the ceaseless stream of blasphemies poured out by Christless professors and received with indifference, or even applause, by the great mass of Christian profession; as we see the foundations attacked, truth fallen in the street, and evil men and seducers waxing worse and worse, we may well inquire, “What will the end be?” But, thanks be to God, for the comfort and encouragement of His people, He has left us in no uncertainty as to the end. Jude tells us the end for the corrupters, the end for God’s people, and the end for God Himself. All will end by the apostate corrupters meeting their just judgment, the saints of God being presented faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy, and God Himself will receive “glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever” (vs. 25). The passing sorrows of time will give place to the exceeding joys of eternity. Our joy to be there, His joy to have us there. “He shall see of the fruit of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied” (Isa. 53:11). The One whose soul was once exceeding sorrowful even unto death, will be filled with “exceeding joy” for eternity. Well may we exclaim with Jude, “To the only wise God, our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen” (vs. 25).