(Jude 1-161Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called: 2Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied. 3Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. 4For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. 5I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. 6And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. 7Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. 8Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. 9Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. 10But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves. 11Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. 12These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; 13Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. 14And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, 15To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. 16These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage. (Jude 1‑16))
It has been surmised that the Epistle of Jude was the last of the inspired epistles. In any case it is very appropriately placed, in our arrangement of the Scriptures, immediately before the book of Revelation; for while Jude speaks of the corruption and apostasy of the Christian profession, the Revelation foretells the judgment that must follow in all its terrible detail.
Jude having taken his pen in hand purposed to write with all diligence concerning the common salvation, but, led by the Spirit of God, he is constrained to write concerning a special evil which made it of all moment that he should exhort the saints to contend earnestly for the faith.
There are common evils—the world, the flesh, and the devil—to which all who enjoy the common salvation are exposed at all times and in all places, Jude, however, writes neither of the common salvation nor of the common evils. He has before him a special and very terrible form of evil—the corruption of Christianity by ungodly men inside the Christian circle.
To obtain a clear conception of this appalling evil, let us remember that the apostle John had already written of those who “went out from us, but they were not of us” (1 John 2:1919They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. (1 John 2:19)). Jude likewise traces the evil of which he speaks to those who are not “of us” for he says in verse 4 they are “ungodly men.” There is, however, this important difference, the ungodly men of whom John speaks “went out,” whereas the ungodly of whom Jude writes “crept in.” In result, the difference is very great. If ungodly men “go out,” they will become opposers to the truth outside the Christian circle. If the ungodly creep in, they will become corrupters of the truth inside the Christian circle. To oppose the truth is indeed solemn, to corrupt it is far worse. It is of this special and terrible evil that Jude writes. He lays bare its insidious commencement in the days of the apostles; he exposes its deadly character; he traces its evil course through the succeeding ages, and foretells its overwhelming judgment at the coming of the Lord. Its continuance through the dispensation clearly proves that corruption inside the Christian circle is an evil that no accession of light can arrest, no revival can check, and no reformation can remove. The Lord alone can deal with it at His coming. First then Jude presents before us: