Jude

Outline

Verses 1-3 .. Introduction.

Verses 4-7 .. warning regarding false teachers.

Verses 8-13 .. a panorama of apostasy.

Verses 14-16 .. a judgement of false teachers.

Verses 17-23 .. a defense against false teachers.

Introduction

Verse 1 — the human author. The name is Jude. He is one of the four half-brothers of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is mentioned along with his brothers in Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3. When we say “half-brother” we are talking about the humanity of Christ. And it is interesting to know that several of the half-brothers of Jesus Christ became authors of scripture. For example, James and Jude. But they write practical rather than doctrinal epistles, although of course their epistles contain doctrine and are based on doctrine. James talks about the production of the faith-rest technique, Jude talks about warning against apostasy. There is a possible explanation for all of this: they were unbelievers until after the resurrection. Therefore they didn’t function under GAP during the three years of our Lord’s earthly ministry as did John and Peter. Therefore John and Peter seemed to write with greater emphasis on doctrine; they write with emphasis on application.

This particular book is not only a book on doctrine but a book which emphasises application in the field of apostasy, and in the field of apostasy we have something that is so pertinent to the time in which we live that it is almost as if Jude wrote last month! We have never been in such bad shape in this country from the standpoint of our national life, our personal life, or any type of life you want to name - church life, the impact of Christianity. We are in a maximum apostate period and Jude has written from that standpoint. Jude writes from apostasy after it occurred; 2 Peter chapter 2 writes from apostasy in anticipation. In Jude we are looking back at the first great apostasy of the Church Age; in 2 Peter it was anticipated.

Rank is mentioned next. Jude is the “servant,” or literally the slave of Jesus Christ. He does not stand on human relationship with his half-brother, the Lord Jesus. As a matter of fact both James and Jude use the same word — douloj, for slave, instead of brother. Neither one of them are name-droppers. The principle involved here: Physical birth gave Jude no advantage. He was born of Mary and Joseph and even so he does not make any issue out of this, he does not in any way cater to the assets of physical birth. There are no assets in physical birth whereby mankind can gain the approbation of God. Grace excludes all human merit, ability and assets, inherent or acquired. Here we are dealing with inherent possibilities. Whatever you have by way of inherent ability or whatever you receive from God at the point of physical birth, whatever assets were acquired by way of great ability, you didn’t earn them, deserve them, you didn’t work for them, and immediately you notice that Jude is grace oriented. Neither Jude nor his mother Mary were saved on the basis of family relationship with Jesus. Everyone is saved in exactly the same way: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.” Human relationship must always be subordinate to spiritual relationship and that is the principle here.

There is no way you can compensate for the inequalities of birth, God provided for that billions and billions of years ago. Which brings us to the principle of divine decrees. In eternity past God knew that there was no such thing as equality through human birth. Therefore whatever you have by way of physical birth you have no right to pride. Everything we are, everything we have we have not earned or deserved even though we like to think so at times. Jude illustrates the principle of grace orientation as he declares his relationship with Jesus Christ, which is the same as all believers, he is said to be a servant or a slave.

“brother of James” — he calls himself not the brother of Jesus Christ, but the brother of James. James is his older brother but like Jude he is the Lord’s half-brother — Matthew 13:55. The author of the book of James, just as the author of the book of Jude, had a birth relationship with Jesus Christ, they had the same mother. Jesus Christ was virgin born and they were born through natural procreation. Like Jude, James was not a believer during the public ministry of Jesus Christ — John 7:5. He became a believer after the resurrection — Acts 1:14; 1 Corinthians 15:7; James 1:1. James became the leader of the Jerusalem church and that is why he is mentioned at this point. As the leader of the Jerusalem church he is well known. Jude is not as well known as his brother.

“to them” — this is addressed to someone. Dative of advantage. The recipients of this epistle are believers and those members of the human race who have the advantage of being born again. They have been saved by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to their advantage, as it is to our advantage today.

“sanctified” is not sanctified at all. We have a perfect passive participle of the verb a)gapaw. It means to love; it refers to mental attitude love. Of course it is a love which comes from God the Father — “to them that have been sanctified by God the Father.” The dative case of this participle indicates advantage; the perfect tense means the love is perfect; the passive voice means we are the beneficiaries of the love; and the participle indicates that God has a plan for us, always had it from eternity past.

“by God the Father” — preposition en plus the instrumental case which means “by means of God the Father.” As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, as recipients of this epistle and all epistles, we are the beneficiaries of God’s love. Now the basic way in which we become the beneficiaries of God’s love is through the doctrine of divine decrees. And at the very beginning of this great epistle dealing with apostasy we need to understand what is counter, what is the antithesis of apostasy. The antithesis of apostasy is God’s plan for you and for me in eternity past.

The doctrine of divine decrees

1. Definition: It is the sum total of the Father’s plan designed in eternity past.

2. The plan which the Father designed for us centres around the person of Jesus Christ — 1 John 3:23; Ephesians 1:4-6.

3. Entrance into the plan is based on the principle of grace. That means the sovereignty of God and the freewill of man meet at the cross. Under the grace principle the work is accomplished by God and while man gains and enjoys the benefits apart from his own merit and apart from his own ability.

4. God’s plan was so designed in eternity past so as to include all events and actions related to their causes and conditions as a part of an indivisible system, every link being a part of the integrity of the whole.

5. Without interfering with human volition in any way God has designed a plan so perfect that it includes cause and effect, directive, provision, preservation and function for all believers.

6. Under His plan God has decreed to do some things directly, and some through agencies like Israel and the Church, and some through individuals. The individuals are part of the universal Church.

7. Therefore, under the plan of God there are primary, secondary and tertiary functions within the plan of God. But all these functions constitute one great all-comprehensive plan, perfect, eternal, unchangeable, without loss of integrity.

8. The plan of God is consistent with human freedom. God does not limit or coerce human freedom. However, distinction should be made between what God causes, like the cross, and what God permits, like sin. God created man with a free will, therefore He permits that free will or human volition to function. This is how Adam sinned. Man’s volition is the source of sin in the human race. God permits human volition to run its course as an extension of the angelic conflict.

9. This principle demonstrates that man has free will. God never condones or causes sin in the human race, this is incompatible with His essence and His character. In the perfect environment of innocence God even warned man against sin and its consequences. So God can warn but God will not stop the volition of man. The fact that people die as unbelievers indicates that free will exists.

10. Distinction should be made between the divine decrees which are related to the plan of God in both design and action, and divine laws which regulate human conduct and function in the universe. The divine decrees is the plan of God for you, the will of God for homo sapien. And there is a difference between divine decrees and divine laws. Divine laws regulate function of mankind in the universe, they also regulate the function of the universe itself.

11. From this comes a principle of logic which comes from the foreknowledge of God. The foreknowledge of God perceives the things that are certain. In eternity past God knew everything that was going to happen. There was no way that God couldn’t know what was going to happen. But the foreknowledge of God makes nothing certain, it is the plan of God, the foreordination of God that makes everything certain. In other words, God’s decrees do not arise from His foreknowledge, they arise from His foreordination activity from the plan itself.

12. It is the decree of God which makes things certain. Hence foreordination or the divine decrees establish certainty, while foreknowledge merely anticipates but does not establish. Nothing can be known until it is decreed is the principle of the plan, not of God’s function. This is taught in Acts 2:23; Romans 8:29; 1 Peter 1:2.

13. Therefore, the elect are foreknown and the foreknown are elect — Jude 1, “and called.” In other words, God knew ahead of time which way every free will would decide at a given point in history. So God knew all of this and knowing how everything would go He had a plan. He worked out the plan and then of course He set it up under another system of knowing, which is revelation.

This does not imply divine coercion. God’s plan anticipates every decision in history. As free will decides, God decrees — John 3:36; 1 John 3:23. In other words, as your free will decided to believe in Jesus Christ God already had decreed a plan for you. When you accepted Christ as saviour you entered into a plan that existed in eternity past because God knew in what moment you would enter into His plan. He knew at what moment you would believe in Jesus Christ. He also knew that after you believed in Jesus Christ you were going to have fantastic needs, you were going to have moxy, so He provided the whole system of GAP, He provided the filling of the Spirit, He provided the existence of the human spirit, He provided certain other things to preserve and to keep you. He provided certain security measures so that you could never get out of His plan. He provide for you so that when you failed in phase two through sin that you could rebound and get back in fellowship. He provided for you orientation to every situation. He knew that you would have certain frustrations, certain heartaches, certain pressures. He provided for them. He provided all this in eternity past. You have no need in your life for which God has not made perfect provision.

The idea that at the point of salvation you know God well is ludicrous. Why do you think that God commands you to know, to study, and provide a constant series of phrases in the scripture which demand that you learn doctrine? The reason is that you don’t know God at all at the point of salvation. And getting to know God is a wonderful thing; it is your happiness; it is your blessing. Getting to know His character and how He operates and how He thinks is a part of knowing the Word of God. And your blessing and your orientation to life comes from knowing how God thinks and not how you think. Knowing the divine viewpoint comes from the function of GAP. So God in His plan has decreed that everything we can ever know or should know or would want to know, and everything that contributes to our happiness and our blessing will come through doctrine. And therefore the greatest function of the Christian life is to be listening to the Word of God.

14. Since God cannot contradict His own essence He plans the best for the believer. You must remember that behind His planning is His loving. He loves us the best. If God has this perfect love how can he do it for us when we are sinners? How can He do it when we are carnal? How can He do it when we are such failures? How can He do it when we become opinionated and full of human viewpoint? How on earth can God ever love us? Well the answer is found in the work of the cross in the doctrine of propitiation. God’s character remains intact while He loves us. He found a way to do it at the point of salvation. God the Father is satisfied with the work of God the Son and His righteousness remains intact, His justice remains intact, His holiness is not violated, and once we pass the point of propitiation He can pour out His love for us no matter what we are or who we are; it all depends on Him. That is grace. We don’t earn it and we don’t deserve it. And the name of the plan, this doctrine of divine decrees? The title of the whole plan is operation grace, and under operation grace He keeps our free will intact.

15. The cross was decreed in eternity past but the human volition of Christ decided for the cross at Gethsemane — Matthew 26:39, 42. God has provided salvation through the cross but it must be your free will choice of faith — John 3:36. This illustrates the principle that no decree in itself opposes human freedom. Once a choice is made from your free will then the function of decrees provides boundaries for your function. And the more you know about doctrine the more you will know about God’s plan for your life.

“preserved in Jesus Christ” — the word “preserved” is also a perfect passive participle, terew. It means to keep what belongs to self, it means to guard something that belongs to you. You have something that is perfect, you have God’s grace, you have God’s plan, you are in it you will never get out of it. So you are “guarded in Christ Jesus.” Therefore you must understand, before a dissertation on apostasy, that you have eternal security.

The doctrine of eternal security — once saved, always saved.

1. The positional approach: Every believer is in union with Christ — Romans 8:38,39.

2. The logical approach: In Romans 8:32 and Romans chapter 5, again it is impossible to lose your salvation, because of the work of the cross. He did the most for us at the cross and now that we are saved and His children He can only do much more than the most.

3. The anthropomorphical approach: It has to do with an anthropomorphism, God’s hand — Psalm 37:24; John 10:28. Once you are in the hand of God you can’t get out of the hand of God. When you believe in Jesus Christ you are in His hand, He holds on to you and He never lets go.

4. The experiential approach — 2 Timothy 2:12,13: In this approach a person can believe in Christ, then turn around and say, I no longer believe. It doesn’t cut any ice with God. We can deny Him but He will not deny us, He cannot deny Himself. He cannot deny the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit or the indwelling presence of Jesus Christ. So experientially you could do the one thing that you would assume would cause you to lose your salvation - deny Jesus Christ. The reason you could assume this is because when you believed in Jesus Christ you said, “I believe in Christ.” Now you turn around and say, “I don’t believe in Christ, I deny Him.” You haven’t changed a thing, you haven’t cancelled out the fact that you believed in Christ.

5. The family approach — Galatians 3:26; John 1:12. Under the family approach we are said to be born into the family of God, we are born again, we have a spiritual birth. Once you are born into a family you are always in that family, you can’t get out of the family because of birth. The same thing is true when you believe in Jesus Christ. You are born again, you become a child of God. You may be a good child, you may be a bad child but you are a child of God and you can’t change it.

6. The inheritance approach — 1 Peter 1:4,5: Under this particular approach God has preserved for us an inheritance in heaven. We can’t lose it. All we can do is die and get it or be there at the Rapture and get it. But there is no way we cannot get it, we are going to have a permanent eternal inheritance.

7. The sovereignty approach — 2 Peter 3:9; Jude 24: Under this approach God wills that no one perish but that all come to a change of attitude. Once we do: Jude 24, “Now unto him that is able to keep us from falling.” He makes a decision from His sovereignty at the point of our salvation that we will never lose it. He keeps us from falling.

8. The body approach — 1 Corinthians 12: Believers represented as members of the body. Christ is said to be the head of the body — Colossians 1:18. In 1 Corinthians 12:21 the head [Jesus Christ] cannot say to the foot, “I don’t need you.”

9. The Holy Spirit does five things for the believer at salvation. One of them is sealing. This seal is a guarantee to be delivered for eternity. It is mentioned in 2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13; 4:30.

10. The Greek tense approach where we have, for example, the perfect tense for the verb to be saved as we do in Ephesians 2:8 — “For by grace you have been saved in the past with the result that you go on being saved forever.”

“called” — this is the doctrine of election. Because you are in the plan of God, God knew it billions of years ago. And the word “called” simply relates the plan of God under election to the doctrine of divine decrees. In eternity past God knew that you would accept Christ as saviour. Therefore, God provided security for you and God provided a plan for you. Learning about that plan is merely a matter of the daily function of GAP.

Verse 2 — “Mercy.” Notice the omission of the word “grace” and the substitution for that word by the word e)leoj, which means grace in action. E)leoj actually stands for grace orientation and it gives us some idea as to how the epistle is going to go. There is a great deal of doctrine to which he alludes but the emphasis of the epistle is on the application of doctrine. The application of doctrine makes it possible to discern in the area of apostasy, the subject of this particular book. We live in a day when apostasy is upon us. The day in which we live is a day in which the Word of God is not regarded in its proper place. We live in a day when people give lip service to the Word of God but do not teach it verse by verse. We must have superimposed upon us, What does the Bible teach line by line? It teaches as a salutation “mercy.” Why? Why is e)leoj, used here instead of xarij for grace? Because we are dealing with an application book. There is going to be a lot of doctrine in this book but there must be the application toward apostasy.

“peace” — peace means two things. In Ephesians 2:14-17 it means reconciliation, here it has to do with a peace of mind. Tranquillity is the concept of peace here. And the Greek word which is used for peace is e)irhnh, and it has the concept of tranquillity of mind which is based upon a knowledge of Bible doctrine. The process of GAP produces tranquillity and objectivity to face every situation that can exist in life. Therefore the word “peace” here is that tranquillity which leads to objectivity (function of GAP) which results in being able to discern or to face a situation in life from the divine viewpoint.

“love” — obviously, if you are going to have tranquillity you are going to have to possess a relaxed mental attitude. So this third word is a)gaph for that great enemy to objectivity. Mental attitude sins are the enemy to objectivity, they destroy the function of the right lobe. It is the function of the right lobe that provides the impetus for doctrine located in the human spirit. Doctrine is stored in the spirit; doctrine is thought in the right lobe. That is why we have a memory centre. In your frame of reference is what you learn academically, the doctrine that you learn. All this can be pulled in together and out comes your application.

You do not think with the human spirit, you think with the mind. The spirit is simply the storage of the information and it is cycled up. But there is an enemy to thinking and applying doctrine. Over in the right lobe you have frame of reference, norms and standards, divine viewpoint, but mental attitude sins wipe out the function of right lobe. Therefore mental attitude sins have to be removed and agape is used technically for the removal of mental attitude sins. A)gaph means love but it means freedom from hatred, from bitterness, from pride, vindictiveness, jealousy, and all of the other mental attitude sins. This word also indicates the filling of the Spirit — Romans 5:5. It is also a part of the ECS, it is the relaxed mental attitude, the third floor of the ECS — 1 John 2:5.

“be multiplied” — plequnw. Plequnw actually means to cause to increase, to increase not by adding but to increase on a remarkable basis. That’s why it finally came to mean to multiply. The aorist tense refers to the point of time when the believer is functioning under GAP. This is where increase has its source. Things are not added but multiplied through doctrine coming into the perceptive lobe and then being cycled through into the right lobe. This is the basis for multiplication in the Christian life. The passive voice: the believer receives these items under the function of GAP. And this is in the optative mood which expresses the wish or the desire of the writer, and in expressing his wish he begins now to develop the purpose of this epistle.

Verse 3 — “Beloved.” This means “beloved ones” literally. It is in the plural and the plural indicates that he is addressing this to believers with emphasis on positional truth. Jesus Christ is called “Beloved.” When we accept Christ as saviour we enter into union with Christ and we become beloved ones. Beloved is a title for the Father in His relationship to the Son. Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father and the Father loves the Son with an infinite love. The Father also loves every believer with the same infinite love. And so this is addressed to believers who are on the same footing as far as position is concerned. God did something in one second that all of humanity cannot accomplish in its history. At the point of salvation He makes every believer equal and this is to remind us of our emphasis. Our emphasis is not operation bootstrap to pull the rest of the human race up to our standards or to make everyone equal. Our responsibility is to start with God’s equality — point of salvation — and to move into the angelic conflict into something that is really great — the ECS.

The unbeliever in all of his panaceas is trying to establish equality and understanding in the human race. Man generally is always pushing toward equality, pushing toward giving everyone the same thing. But the Bible says that people are to be free, that is important to evangelism, but equality does not exist until people respond to evangelism and personally respond to the Lord Jesus Christ. Once an individual believes in the Lord Jesus Christ then he is on an equal footing with everyone else. It is the equality which comes from the new birth, it is the equality that comes from positional sanctification.

At the point of salvation each one of us was entered into union with Christ. We received His life which is eternal life, we received His righteousness which is perfect righteousness, we have the same sonship, we have the same ambassadorship, we have the same destiny, we are in the same plan. The only differences which exist are differences of spiritual gifts, and then from there, differences of growth.

Now the objective of the Christian life is to develop an ECS because it is the ECS that reflects the glory of God. The reflected glory is the edification complex of the soul. Our objective begins with equality, we begin with equality at the point of salvation and from their we go to glory — the ECS. Whereas man takes away the glory of man in order to make all people equal. There is where you get socialism, among other types of panaceas. So you end up with less than you had before. But with God’s plan you start out with everything and wind up with more than everything — Romans 8:32. That’s why Jude is going to state a purpose. He starts with a phrase, “Beloved ones” because if you are going to start with God’s plan for your life you start with equality, perfect equality, and from there you move to glory.

“when I gave diligence” — the word to give is not really “give” at all. It is the verb for doing, the word poiew. A correct and literal translation is: “I do diligence.” It is a present middle participle. The present tense is linear aktionsart, the middle voice is reflexive, the writer himself is dealing with his own problems in communication, and the participle goes with the present tense to be sure you understand linear aktionsart.

The word for “diligence” is spoudh, which means both diligence and haste. Here it means that he hastens to get on with his job. In other words he is saying, I am driving toward a goal” — an idiom.

“to write unto you” — the word for “write” is a present active infinitive for grafw. And grafw in the present tense, when used for the scripture, means the process of writing for the canon of scripture.

Jude had a perceptive lobe and the doctrine which God was going to use came into his perceptive lobe. And there under the ministry of the Holy Spirit Jude understood. He responded to that by faith and he transferred that information as e)pignwsij. He cycled it up into his right lobe and he was really going to start on salvation but he is going to switch to the subject of apostasy.

“of the common salvation” — this introduces the principle of the doctrine of inspiration. The recipients of this epistle of course are a matter of conjecture. Due to the warnings against gnosticism this epistle was probably written to believers in the Roman province of Asia. Some date can be established on the basis that 2 Peter warns of this apostasy as still future, while Jude recognises that it has arrived. Therefore, it is likely that the date is somewhere between 68 and 80 AD.

Now he started out to write concerning “the common salvation” so obviously this is written to believers. This verse records the writer’s changes of plan. He intended to write a dissertation on salvation and now he writes on apostasy.

So literally, “Beloved ones, making all haste to write to you concerning our common salvation.”

Now he changes, and he tells us of the change. “It was needful.” This is not what it says at all. We have the word e)xw, which means to have — aorist active indicative. Literally, “I have a need” — a)nagkh, the word for “need.” A)nagkh means necessity or a need. When you put these words together, “ I have a need,” it is an idiom. It means “I was constrained.” So it isn’t that he had a need, he didn’t have a need at all. He had all the information put together and under the ministry of God the Holy Spirit Jude, who had taken in information, was now going to shoot it out from his right lobe. He didn’t need anything at all. He was getting ready to fire salvation but apostasy was also in his memory centre, so he was constrained. God the Holy Spirit made him switch from salvation to apostasy and here is where idiom comes in. It should be translated: “I was constrained to write unto you.”

The doctrine of inspiration

1. The principle of inspiration is found in a Greek noun of 2 Timothy 3:16 — qeopneustoj. Neustoj means to breath, qeoj means God. In the translation of 2 Timothy 3:16 — “All scripture is given by inspiration of God,” the word “given” isn’t there. It should read: “All scripture is qeopneustoj [God-breathed].” Now why isn’t “inspiration” correct? Because inspiration assumes that the Holy Spirit put the information in someone like Jude and that was the end of it. But in inspiration through the original text of the scripture the very words are the ministry of God the Holy Spirit. God’s Word is accurate, it communicates exactly what God wanted it to communicate. The very words of the original are the concept of inhale, exhale. Qeopneustoj in the original recognises this.

The inhale: The Holy Spirit communicated to human authors, like Jude, complete and coherent message. Jude receive information; the Holy Spirit is the communicator. This goes in as gnwsij and then goes down into his human spirit as e)pignwsij. Then it cycles up into his frame of reference and from there it is going to go out. The inhale is taught in 2 Samuel 23:2,3; Isaiah 59-21; Jeremiah 1:9; Matthew 22:42,43; Mark 12:36; Acts 4:24,25; 28:25.

The exhale: The human writers of scripture so wrote that without waiving their human intelligence, their vocabulary, their personalities or individuality, their personal feelings, God’s complete message to man was permanently recorded with perfect accuracy in the original languages of scripture.

2. The origin of scripture is not human viewpoint, the origin of scripture then is the Holy Spirit — 2 Peter 1:20-21.

3. The Bible is the mind of Christ, therefore the absolute criterion for believers — 1 Corinthians 2:7, 16; Psalm 138:2.

4. Consequently the Bible as the mind of Christ existed in eternity past, prior to being reduced to written form — Proverbs chapter eight.

5. The pre-canon revelation from God occurred through the Holy Spirit — 2 Samuel 23:2; Ezekiel 2:2; 8:3; 11:1,24; Micah 3:8; Hebrews 3:7.

6. There are four categories of Old Testament revelation. a. God communicated verbally — “Thus saith the Lord.” Cf.. Isaiah 6:9,10 with Acts 28:25; b. God spoke through dreams — Numbers 12:6; Genesis 15:12; 31:10-13; Daniel 10:9; c. Visions [Ecstatic experiences] — Isaiah 1:1; 6:1; 1 Kings 22:19. In a dream you go to sleep and get the information, in a vision you go into ecstatics and get the information. Remember the Holy Spirit provides the information. d. Angelic teaching, as in Deuteronomy 33:2; Psalm 68:17; Acts 7:53; Galatians 3:19. Most of these have to do with Moses.

7. The extent of inspiration. a. The unknown past. The Bible portrays historical details unknown to man, unconfirmed by human records, as the material in Genesis 1-11. Inspiration guarantees the accuracy of the historical facts that are used; b. Ancient history is involved as another area of the Bible. The Bible is not a history textbook but all historical citations are accurate and form the background for communicating certain doctrines; c. Objective-type law. The Old Testament contains many laws. These are laws for individuals, for groups of people and for national life. These laws perfectly express the mind of God for the people to whom they are given. Repetition of these laws and the recording of these laws demonstrate application to other generations as well. These laws under inspiration are free from error and perfectly demonstrate God’s will and God’s commands to the recipients; d. Dictation. Certain portions of the scripture contain direct quotations from God. The doctrine of inspiration guarantees that such commands and quotations are properly and accurately recorded in the original languages and they express God’s will to those who are the recipients; e. Devotional literature. God used the pressures, the emotions, the problems, the triumphs, of certain believers to declare His plan and His grace. And we have, therefore, a segment of the Word of God which can be described as devotional literature. This would be, for example, the Psalms, Job, Esther and Proverbs. They all express certain things that God wants us to know; f. We have the recording of falsehoods in the scripture. The record of Satanic lies will be found periodically and human lies as well. This does not imply that falsehood is true but in such cases inspiration guarantees the accuracy of the lie.

“exhort” — the present active participle of parakalew, which means to comfort and it also means the chew out. Why did the Greeks use the same word to chew someone out and to comfort them? Because both are the expression of someone’s love. When you love someone there are times when you seek to comfort them; when you love someone there are times when you chew them out.

“that you should earnestly contend for the faith” — just one word in the Greek for “that you should earnestly contend.” This is not so much of a translation as a description of a present active infinitive from a compound verb e)pagonizomai. This means to contend all right. First of all we have a)gonizomai which means to be in a real fight and to stay in there. E)p means that if you’re thrown out of the fight you jump up and you get right back in there again. It means to get clobbered and go down and to get up and go back. This is war; this is a part of the angelic conflict. It was true then; it is true today. And sometimes we are not oriented because of ignorance of doctrine. So “earnestly contend for the faith” is not too much. It is intense fighting for doctrine. The word “faith” is technical here for the whole body of doctrine. “For the faith” is instrumental. “So that you should be in an intense fight by means of doctrine.”

“which was delivered” — aorist passive participle of paradidomi. This is the function of GAP again. Paradidomi means to deliver, but para means that there is a source of delivery. Para is the preposition of immediate source and the immediate source is the pastor-teacher who communicates. So the aorist tense of the verb is the daily function of GAP or any point of time when you do function under GAP. The passive voice: the believer receives doctrine through a grace principle. The participle: this is an aorist participle, so the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb, and the main verb is to fight. The greatest apologetics for Christianity is doctrine. You don’t have to have debater’s technique, meet argument with argument, what you need is Bible doctrine stored in the human spirit in the frame of reference. You cannot even recognise error until you know doctrine. Doctrine must be in the right lobe so that you have the basis for detecting apostasy and many believers are led into apostasy because they do not have that doctrine. You are in a battle with apostasy and you do not even know until you have enough doctrine. That is why Jude wrote Jude.

In Jude verses 4-7 we have a warning with regard to false teachers. In this section we have the first great warning as to something which would occur during the Church Age at periodic times, and that is the infiltration of apostasy.

“For there are” — these words are not found in the original. The phrase actually begins with the phrase “certain men"— tinej a)nthropoi. Tinej emphasises the personality or the character of those who are about to be discussed. Apostates have five general characteristics as far as the New Testament is concerned. They do teach false doctrine — 1 Timothy 4:1,6,7; 1 Timothy 3:5-7. At the beginning of the Church Age they always passed themselves off as apostles and they perpetuate that by declaring highest authority from God for themselves. This is consistent with the teaching of 2 Corinthians 11:13-15. They are motivated by demons and they have in their minds the constant memory of demons — 1 Corinthians 10:20-21, the devil’s communion table. They have pleasing but deceptive personalities — 2 Timothy 3:1-7. They also have form of hypocrisy which was first declared in Matthew 23:27-28 by our Lord.

These people are detrimental in certain areas of life. First of all they are detrimental to the individual believer who is taken in by them. Secondly, they are detrimental to unbelievers who are under the sound of their teaching. Thirdly, they are detrimental to divine institutions which regulate certain phases of the angelic conflict. Fourthly, they are detrimental to a national entity and if apostasy is perpetuated long enough it triggers one of two systems of destruction of a national entity — a. It triggers a self-destruction; b. It results in an outside (military) destruction.

“Certain men” — emphasises their personalities. It also is placed in emphasis in this sentence which means it must be understood that these men are going to be sincere, pleasant, appealing to people, motivated by Satan, filled with Satanic doctrine, and obviously then, filled with scar tissue.

“crept in unawares” — all one word in the Greek, pareisduw. It is found in the aorist passive indicative form here. It means to infiltrate with secrecy and dishonesty. The verb connotes the dishonest approach, it includes the concept of intellectual dishonesty, deception. And the aorist tense means in any point of time when there are suckers available. That means any period of time when people are negative toward doctrine. The passive voice means that they are almost sucked in. It is like an apostate teacher is walking by and he is invited in. Why? Because of the infidelity of thinking, the lack of Bible doctrine in frame of reference (minus doctrine) means that the vacuum has opened and false concepts have come in and an apostate teacher will agree with these false concepts and he is acceptable.

“who were before of old ordained” — this is incorrect. There is no ordination for false teachers. The word is prografw, and prografw actually says, “before discussed in writing.” This is in the perfect tense which means that those things which were written about apostates in the past have stood in the Word of God all of thee years.

“to this condemnation” is a prepositional phrase. It begins with the preposition e)ij which can be translated in a number of ways, and it winds up with the word krima which is a word for judgement or condemnation. It refers to the execution of the bona fide judicial sentence and the judgement of these apostates who serve on Satan’s side which was declared even before their activities. For example, their judgement is found in Matthew 25:31 where they are consigned to the lake of fire. Obviously then we have only a certain category of apostates and we must keep in mind as we go through this book that apostates are going to fall into three groups: unbelievers, fallen angels, believers.

“ungodly men” is simply a noun in the nominative plural a)sebeij, and it indicates that we are discussing at this point unbelievers. The word a)sebeij means impious or phased out of the plan of God. While all apostates are not unbelievers the ones involved in this verse are. The point of having unbelievers in this verse is to show that when unbelievers communicate false doctrine there are always believers ready to accept it. They have previously rejected Bible doctrine as the norm and standard.

Every phase of apostasy distorts grace. The one which is mentioned here is the one which historically faced the early church at the time that Jude wrote.

“turning the grace of our Lord into lasciviousness.” The word “turning” is metatiqhmi and it means perverting. It means to substitute in a bad sense. The substituting in a bad sense means that everything that these people teach ignores the concept of grace, they ignore the cross where all grace begins.

The historical illustration goes back to the apostasy of the first century. They had a form of gnosticism called the Ophites who taught that salvation was not through the cross but was by liberating an aeon [comparable to the soul] in your body. This aeon must be liberated into the world of plhrwma. How are you going to get the aeon into plhrwma? All of the other branches of gnosticism had some for of asceticism whereby this was accomplished. But the Ophites said, “No .We are going back to Plato.” And the Platonic idea was to live it up, to do everything you wanted to do. This meant an unrestrained sex life in every area in anything you wanted, any perversions in sex, any normal sex activities. And as a result the Ophites became a revival of the phallic cult but with a Christian vocabulary. They said that by following the principles of the phallic cult you were going to liberate this aeon into the world of plhrwma, and that if you really want to be saved you must practice not simply normal sex but every perversion. This was the way of salvation and they didn’t lack for converts!

They didn’t start out like this, they started out with some concepts — like all men are equal. Well, if all men are equal there should be no distinction as to the object of your sex activity. They started out here with love and brotherhood and as they taught that God is the Father of all, and that all men are equal, then would say to a woman who came into the organisation: “Why is your husband any different to us? You should have a relationship with all of us. We are all equal.” This was the way the Ophites operated. They turned the grace of God into lasciviousness. The love concept in grace is a bona fide concept but they distorted love. There is no such thing as brotherhood of man.

The Ophites have a counterpart today. They went in for the whole concept of communal living; today we have the hippies, a neo-gypsy movement. They all start out with no authority, or concepts of authority as far as divine institutions are concerned. The idea of love and brotherhood distorted into lasciviousness. So it happens in history that whenever there is great apostasy there is also a new attitude toward sex. This is what is meant by turning the grace of God into aselgeia, which means the whole realm of activity that involves scar tissue. The phallic cult has never ceased to exist and often the springboard for it is a distortion of grace.

“denying” — present active participle of a)rneomai, which means to renounce. They have renounced two things: “the only Lord” — despothj, which refers to God the Father who was the author of the plan called grace; “our Lord Jesus Christ” — kurioj, with emphasis on His deity.

This verse is introductory to the three illustrations of apostasy which are found in verses 5-7. Each verse illustrates an aspect of apostasy. So notice three generalities:

a. Each generation illustrated had a segment of its population destroyed because of its apostasy. In verse 5 we have the Exodus generation: believers were destroyed because of negative volition toward doctrine. I verse 6 we have Noah’s generation — both fallen angels judged and the human race destroyed because of rejection of the gospel, and its accompanying demon influence. Then in verse 7 we have Abraham’s generation — Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of immorality and degeneracy caused by apostasy.

b. Each generation illustrated was the recipient of maximum grace from God. For example, the Exodus generation which was delivered from Egypt and had every provision for every situation in life, yet there was apostasy. The second is Noah’s generation, the preaching of the gospel for 120 years before the flood began, a maximum grace effort on the part of God. The third was Abraham’s generation, warning from Chedorlaomer’s military disaster (4th cycle) plus the intercession of Abraham, plus the visit of angels to warn, all of these things indicate the grace of God toward that apostasy.

c. Apostasy illustrates three categories of creatures who can be apostate. In the Exodus generation apostate believers, in Noah’s generation apostate angels, in Abraham’s generation apostate unbelievers.

So we have three illustrations now and each illustration takes up a different aspect.

Verse 5 — “I will” is a present active indicative of boulomai, a decision of the will after previous and careful deliberation. It is often a wish or an act of volition which comes from the mind. And Jude is saying: I have considered this carefully, I started to write as in verse 3 about our common salvation, but the Holy Spirit has caused me to change to the subject of apostasy. Therefore I have made a very strong decision to “put you in remembrance” — aorist active infinitive of u(pomimnhskw. U(pw means it must be done with authority. This is authoritative type teaching. Mimnhskw has to do with the right lobe and with the frame of reference. It means that memory centre must be filled up with proper information. The information is going to come into the perceptive lobe, down to the human spirit, and will be cycled up into the frame of reference, and then will come into the memory centre for an actual identification of the apostates in the first century. That is the objective of u(pomimnhskw. The objective of this particular epistle is bring into their memory centre information so that the individual believer priest can identify apostasy in his day just as apostasy in other days has existed, and that by being spiritually self-sustaining he can recognise and avoid this thing.

“I will” is a present active indicative. It means I have made this decision with the result that I keep on presenting this information. “To put you in remembrance” is an aorist active infinitive and it means “in this point of time as I communicate this.” The active voice: Jude is going to do it; the infinitive: it is God’s purpose for them to have this information.

“though ye once knew this” — the fact that they once knew this — a(pax, an adverb which means once and for all. Here is the tragedy. There is a blind spot with the original recipients of this information because they had doctrine in the frame of reference, they had been under GAP before. Jude is saying, “You once and for all knew these things but you never brought them into memory centre.” It is possible therefore to understand doctrine, to have it stored in the human spirit, to have cycled it into the right lobe where it is in the frame of reference, but not be able to get it out unless other doctrines stimulate it. In other words, Jude is a catalyst and the book of Jude is short for this reason, it is a catalytic agent to actually bring out information that they understand but have not been able to properly apply. They have actually in their frame of reference the right information but they have not been able to properly apply it.

This is why Jude is a short book. Jude isn’t going to go over the same doctrine that Paul covered in Ephesians or that John covered in 1 John, or that Peter covered in 1 & 2 Peter. His job is to reach into your right lobe and through u(pomimnhskw bring out into memory centre certain doctrines that are pertinent. In this case to bring them outside so that you can be spiritually self-sustaining, so that you can take doctrine resident in your right lobe and actually identify apostasy. Therefore he begins with the traditional concept of apostasy in Israel, the Exodus generation.

“you knew” — perfect active participle of o)ida, which is the link between the human spirit and the right lobe in GAP. He doesn’t say, “You knew this once,” he says, You knew it once and for all.” The information is still there.

The importance of Bible doctrine

1. Bible doctrine is the only way to know and to love Jesus Christ — cf.. Philippians 3:10 with 1 Corinthians 2:16. No one loves Jesus Christ because they say they do. Your capacity to love Him is based upon the amount of Bible doctrine stored in the human spirit, cycled into the frame of reference, and brought into memory centre. Memory centre is the overt conscious response of doctrine to God’s love for you and your response and occupation with Christ. The amount of doctrine you have in your right lobe determines your love for Jesus Christ. The communion table is a catalyst designed to stimulate doctrine in your right lobe and to bring it into centre.

2. Bible doctrine in the right lobe - in the norm and standard lobe - leads to occupation with Christ — Hebrews 12:2,3.

3. Bible doctrine perceived under GAP produces confidence in phase two — 2 Corinthians 5:6-8.

4. Bible doctrine, then, is the source of divine viewpoint in the right lobe — 2 Corinthians 10:5.

5. Bible doctrine is the basis for orientation to God’s plan in time — Jude 5; Romans 8:28; Isaiah 26:3,4.

6. Therefore, Bible doctrine produces stability of soul — James 1:8 cf. Jude 5. Lack of doctrine produces instability of soul, as in the Exodus generation.

7. Bible doctrine is also the basis for divine guidance as in Romans 12:2-4. It is the basis, therefore, of becoming spiritually self-sustaining.

8. Without Bible doctrine Satan corrupts the minds of believers — 2 Corinthians 11:3.

“this” — refers to doctrine pertaining to the Exodus generation, doctrine which is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 10:1-12; Hebrews chapters 3 and 4.

“how that the Lord having delivered the people out of the land” — kurioj here is used for the Lord Jesus Christ who was their deliverer. It has been translated “having saved” — swzw, aorist active participle. Swzw has two concepts: spiritual salvation of the individual and, in this case, it has the collective connotation of collective deliverance. Swzw is used here for deliverance from slavery.

And the action of the aorist participle precedes the action of the main verb, the main verb is to be destroyed. They were first of all delivered, that is an act of grace, but they did not have the capacity to appreciate their freedom. Capacity for appreciation of freedom would come through Bible doctrine, and Moses and the priests were faithful in proclaiming to them Bible doctrine, but generally they were negative toward it and negative volition toward doctrine destroys many things. First of all you are destroyed in your soul. Your capacity for life is destroyed, your capacity for living is destroyed. Everything in life to which you are enslaved you cannot enjoy, and if you are a slave to life, you are a slave to money, you are slave to success, you are a slave to social life, then you’ve had it. But through doctrine you have the capacity to enjoy life, to appreciate life. The Jews rejected doctrine and they had no capacity for life. Apostasy, then, has no capacity for life, it accepts cheap substitutes and therefore turning the grace of God into lasciviousness is a logical principle for apostasy.

“destroyed” — a)pollumi, means physical death. The word has two concepts: first of all there is destruction in the soul and eventually it reaches into the body. If this had been “destroy” in the sense of just killing these people it would have been a)poqnhskw, which means to destroy the body, death. But the word we have emphasises the soul in the body. In other words, God didn’t haul the Jews right out of the land as soon as they came out of Egypt. It took 40 years for this thing to really work its way out. At the end of one year all the apostates were manifest. At Kadesh-Barnea it became obvious who was apostate and who wasn’t .The adult congregation of Israel were cry babies all one night and that was an overt manifestation of what was going on in their minds. They had rejected Bible doctrine, they were negative toward doctrine, and during that year of testing they were the murmurers, the complainers, they were building up scar tissue and taking in false concepts. You cannot enjoy life and be negative on doctrine.

Apostasy is something you think; idolatry is merely an overt expression of what you are thinking. That is why idolatry is called spiritual adultery. Idolatry is building an idol but long before they made idols they were thinking it. And how do you think something like that? You have to have scar tissue; you have to have a soul being destroyed. “them that believed not” — aorist active participle from pisteuw, the basis for the function of GAP in the Old Testament. When they had an ICE presentation — isagogics, categories and exegesis — by Moses, by one of the priests they rejected it.

In verse 6 we have come to our second illustration of apostasy. The first illustration of apostasy was the Exodus generation — verse 5. This illustrates the believer in apostasy. The second is Noah’s generation in verse 6 and this indicates angels in apostasy. And the third illustration in verse 7 is the Abrahamic generation in which we have the unbeliever as an apostate. Each generation had a segment of its population destroyed. No apostate generation can exist very long without a population decimation. In the Exodus generation believers were apostate; believers were destroyed. In Noah’s generation fallen angels were apostate; fallen angels were incarcerated. In Abraham’s generation unbelievers were apostate; unbelievers were destroyed.

As we move into verse 6 there is not easy way to do it. To suddenly shift from believers to fallen angels requires a great deal of background. The question may be asked, What application can be derived from angelic apostasy. After all, the angels involved can no longer cohabit with the human race or anyone else. Jesus made that very clear when He said: “ With the angels in heaven there is neither marriage nor giving in marriage.” So obviously something happened to the fallen angels to destroy this kind if apostasy. You might ask the question: “How and under what circumstances did fallen angels enter into an apostasy which would be pertinent today?” How did they cohabit with the daughters of men? The answer to it is very simple by going into the principle. Apostasy always has one characteristic: negative volition leading to a superficiality of life called love everybody. You can always tell when apostasy exists because immediately people begin to talk about love. They distort it into something that is almost ludicrous. Today the hippies talk about love but when they talk about love they are talking about communal living and cohabitation. That is their idea of love. And it means that there are no barriers of any kind, no lines to be drawn, and so obviously they like the idea of “love everybody” — and they mean “bodies” too!

Now the hippies are apostate. But they aren’t the only ones. The liberals talk about loving everyone and people in general say today: If a church doesn’t talk about universal love and about loving everyone, there is something wrong with that church.

We can see from two illustrations in our society just exactly what is meant by love. a. We can take the hippies. b. We can take the new love expression which is called sensitivity training - or how to have an orgy by psychology. Both of these are involved groups and both of them demand that you be indiscriminate in your love. Sensitivity training is group fondling, that is what it amounts to.

Now, what is wrong with this brotherly love bit? What is wrong with this “love everyone”? What is wrong with this idea that we should love our fellow man? Well, biblically the command to love is there. But biblically and within the framework and context of a passage and its exegetical approach love demands capacity. And man does not have the capacity to love, he was not born with it. He doesn’t have it through anything he acquires in life — except that the unbeliever has the capacity for category two love because of divine design, and because category two love involves sex and not soul only. Category one love involves the soul only; category three love involves the soul only. As soon as you talk about what the world needs is love you have a distortion immediately because of the old sin nature. And just as soon as you think that you love someone the old sin nature pops into the picture. Mental attitude sins neutralize love. People talk about love but they are all talking about something which they cannot attain for they do not have the capacity. Love becomes a front for apostasy in every liberal church where the theology is anti-biblical.

Love talk did not originate with the human race. Love talk as a cover for apostasy, love talk which means talk without capacity, originated in the angelic realm. And the angels who were apostate toward God got together and they took a look at the beautiful women who lived before the flood. Satan’s strategy was, “Love everyone.” It was the concept of being indiscriminate in love. We should understand something: if you really love someone it is the maximum representation of your discernment, and you will truly love — humanly speaking — very few people. The smarter you are the more difficult it is to love a large number of people because you are too discerning. The smarter you are the greater the potentiality of your human capacity but the greater the limitation of the object of love. The issue here is that in apostasy there is a veneer, there is a facade, and the facade is always love. And people use love to gain objectives.

This “love everybody” front is the phoniest thing in the world. In a society where never before have we had so much emphasis on love we are going downhill in every way. And the violence is greater under the facade of “love everybody” than it was when people were honest. When society was honest there wasn’t all that love stuff but now that society is dishonest — which is a part of apostasy — and subjective we have more violence in the country than we have ever had before. Love doesn’t solve anything, love is merely a facade for apostasy. In Jeremiah’s day they were saying “love everybody” but long before that Satan gave a briefing before the “sons of god” cohabited with the daughters of men. And the briefing was, “Use the love facade. And when the daughters of men resist talk about love and how you should love everyone.” And the same thing is true today. Never have we had so much crime and violence and rape and violation of privacy; yet we are talking about love all the time. The human race must have structure and social anarchy leads to every other type of anarchy. Internationalism is simply “love everyone” in other parts of the world — “love the communists,” for example. Apostasy, anti-Christianity, is to take the word “love” and use it as a cover for every type of expression of the old sin nature. But it is an old, old story. Why do you think God wiped out the human race, minus eight? The whole human race was wiped out by God, and yet God is love! And because God loved you and me right now He wiped out the human race after the angels got through with their love thrust. This is the principle of apostasy we are discussing, and pseudo-love as a cover for apostasy.

Verse 6 — “And the angels.” These are the “sons of god” of Genesis chapter 6:1-9. They are also mentioned in 2 Peter 2:4 because 2 Peter also is an apostasy chapter. These fallen angels were involved in an ingenious Satanic plot to frustrate the incarnation of Jesus Christ. And God’s plan was to be frustrated by a “love everybody “ sensitivity thing which occurred in Genesis 6 before the flood.

“which kept not” — aorist active participle of terew, which means to guard something that belonged to them inherently. Inherently they belonged to another race of super creatures. The aorist tense is the point of time — Genesis 6. The active voice: their volition was involved and they infiltrated the human race for procreation. The participle indicates that there is a main verb — “he hath reserved in judgement.” The main verb indicates the emphasis here. The participles are used to declare the historical evidence. The main verb is where they are now. As a result of apostasy they are in Tartarus, which is the word translated “hell” in 2 Peter 2:4. So the emphasis here is on what happened to them in their apostasy.

“their first estate” — literally, “their own beginning.” The Greek says thn heauton arxhn, and that means their own beginning. They began for angels and angels only. And they violated that principle. How do we know? …

“they left their own habitation” — and the word left is an aorist active participle of a)poleipw which means to desert or to forsake. They literally forsook their own kind for homo sapien, female type. In other words, women. “Their own habitation” — o)ikhthrion, which means “place of habitation.” It means the place where the angels lived. And it means more than that — their own angelic relationship. So the word “habitation” means relationship in a place, not just a place.

Now we have the emphasis in this passage. What was the emphasis in verse 5? People died from apostasy. In fact more people die from apostasy than any physical disease. And here we have millions of the fallen angels who are incarcerated because of their apostasy.

“he hath reserved” — this means again terew, but it is a perfect active indicative. We had terew before as an aorist active participle. Terew means to guard in a very own place, and they are now guarded in their very own place. Fallen angels who did not guard their first estate are now guarded by God in Tartarus, their special prison.

“under darkness” — u(po zofoj, this means under the authority of darkness. U(po is a preposition of authority. The word for darkness is zofoj. The ordinary word for darkness is skotia, but skotia is not found here. Instead we have zofoj which refers to a darkness in which there is no light. Why is zofoj used here? The bodies of angels are constructed of light. Now angels cannot be killed like the Exodus generation, like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah who died physically, so how does God judge the apostasy of fallen angels? He puts them in a place of complete darkness in which there is no light. Zofoj is used to indicate that they are completely immobilised, they have no physical activity of any kind. Skotia actually is a Greek word for darkness in which there is light. But these angels are shut down completely as far as their body function is concerned. Their body is composed of light and their light as shut down, they are under the authority of darkness. So Tartarus is a place of darkness, absence of light.

“unto the judgement” — e)ij plus krisij “for the purpose of judgement.” They are judged under blackness because they cannot function in their bodily function. And that isn’t death, angels do not die as we know it. But certain angels are restricted, they are totally immobilised. This is exactly what apostasy does for them. It means that until the judgement of all fallen angels at the end of time that they will be immobilised, they will not be able to function. So there are two phases to apostasy judgement. Apostasy has an eternal phase for the unbeliever and for the fallen angel. For the believer it has temporary misery.

What does this mean to you? If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ it means that you cannot function without Bible doctrine. It means that Bible doctrine is your daily portion. Your capacity for life, your capacity for happiness, your capacity for love, your orientation to life, your service to the Lord, everything that is important in life depends on Bible doctrine.

In verse 7 we have a third type of apostasy: the apostasy among unbelievers, or the story of Sodom and Gomorrha. In this particular verse we have a commentary all in itself as to what happens when apostasy reaches the believer — verse 5. It also has effect in the angelic conflict but eventually the one who suffers the most from the apostasy is the unbeliever. He suffers in eternity because he has rejected Christ as saviour and he lives in a very poor environment, an environment which is made for him. When there is apostasy among believers it spreads to the unbeliever and the environment is bad. So he gets it in both ways. In eternity he gets the lake of fire which can hardly be construed as a good environment. He also gets it in time because he lives in a time when things are not pleasant on the earth.

“Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them.” This refers to five cities located in one of the most beautiful spots that the world has ever known outside the garden of Eden. This is a reference of course to the inhabitants of the Jordan valley. The five cities were all very great cities with a population that was quite extensive. In addition to the two cities mentioned there were three other cities which are mentioned in the scriptures — Hosea 11:8; Lamentations 4:6; Jeremiah 49:18; Amos 4:11. All three of those prophets, Hosea, Jeremiah and Amos, were talking about apostasy, and when they wanted to make an illustration of apostasy they mentioned a city was known to their generation. These cities were very famous in the year 2065 BC. The geographical location of these cities is now established as the southern end of the Dead Sea which is now covered with water.

Out of the population of these cities, as far as we know, only three people were believers — Lot and his two unmarried daughters. And the population, of course, had been famous for homosexuality and for lesbianism. This is also very clearly taught in the scripture and substantiated from areas like Romans 9:29 and Revelation 11:8. However, what is going to be mentioned here is even more extensive as far as the results of apostasy. The area was destroyed in the middle of the 21st century BC. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha is not only taught clearly in Genesis 19 but is referred to specifically under doctrinal concepts in Matthew 10:15 and 2 Peter 2:6.

The doctrine of Sodom and Gomorrha

1. Sodom represented the attractiveness of the details of life — Genesis 13:10,11.

2. Sodom represents the degeneracy of apostasy and sinfulness. Sinfulness always reaches a degenerate peak under periods of apostasy — Genesis 13:13; 19:4,5; 1 Kings 14:24; Jude 7.

3. This degeneracy is related to mental attitude sins. Mental attitude sins are always behind everything, you just don’t jump into degeneracy, you work into it slowly — Isaiah 3:9.

4. Saturation of such sins results in destruction of a nation. In other words, these sins can exist but when it becomes an optimum situation we have the destruction of a nation (self-destruction really) — Lamentations 4:6; Jeremiah 49:18; 2 Peter 2:6; Amos 4:11; Jude 7.

5. Destruction of the right lobe is associated with such judgement. Mental attitude sins destroy the function of the right lobe. It is the function of the right lobe that keeps society straight — Hosea 11:8.

6. God delivers the believer from such a divine judgement on degeneracy — Luke 17:29.

7. But such divine judgement is total to unbelievers - Romans 9:29. Why? When a population, or a segment of a population, or a group of people reach total saturation degeneracy God has laws to destroy them. This was the destruction of the Canaanites as well as the people of Sodom and Gomorrha. So total saturation degeneracy has to be destroyed and often the destruction must come from God because people are too stupid to realise what is happening.

8. The whole principle is that these things are used for religionism and legalism — Romans 11:8.

9. Sodom is used to describe the unfaithfulness of Judah — Ezekiel 16:46-58.

“in like manner” — refers to the fallen angels. Fallen angels could not be killed because the angelic conflict does not call for their death at this time. In like manner, when the human race becomes degenerate as certain fallen angels became degenerate, then the human race is no longer interested in normal sexual relationship. It has to be abnormal sexual relationship, and that is what we have coming up in this verse.

“giving themselves over to fornication” — which is simply one verb in the Greek. It is an aorist active participle of e)kporneuw. Porneuw means to fornicate; e)k means outside of the proper area. This could imply homosexuality or lesbianism but it doesn’t because the next phrase indicates the saturation of degeneracy among the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrha. It says, “giving themselves over to outside fornication …”

“and going after” — the word “after” is a)perxomai, which means to pursue vigorously and it is used for the chase in fornication.

“strange flesh” — the Greek word for “strange” is e(teroj, and e(teroj means of a different species and it is a reference to bestiality. It was specifically forbidden in Leviticus 18:23; 20:15,16. And the reason that it is even necessary to mention “Thou shalt not” in this connection is because sooner or later someone was going to. So the very reference to the negatives indicates that God anticipated that society would degenerate at certain points and the warnings against it are posted.

Jude emphasises bestiality over homosexuality. Why? Because of the direct analogy to fallen angels in Genesis 6 which he mentioned in the previous verse. Both groups involved in the analogy — the fallen angels and the unbelievers of verse 7 — are all going to wind up in the same place in eternity. That is the application of the rest of the verse. So the frustration of the Sodomites, which is well documented by scripture, also has to be the frustration of the fallen angels, and frustration then must be recognised as a basic principle of being negative somewhere toward God. Why bestiality? Because frustration and insatiability are not satisfied. Why all of these other things? Why did the angels become involved? There has to be a frustration principle behind it all and frustration, then, is one of the great signs of degeneracy, and maximum frustration means maximum potentiality for degeneracy for frustration in its expression always goes in the opposite extreme from God. And the further it goes in the opposite extreme the greater becomes the frustration. In other words, frustration builds on frustration. When society becomes degenerate then bestiality, like everything else, is the order of the day.

“are set forth” — prokeimei. This is a present middle indicative. The present tense means this will always stand in history as an illustration. The middle voice: God has set it up and they have set it up by their action. This is a reflexive middle in which they have set it up by their action and God records it historically in the Word of God. The indicative mood is to show that we have finally arrived at the main verb. The middle voice of the main verb is to show that they have acted upon themselves to set up the principle of degeneracy, that degeneracy is not sponsored by God, that degeneracy is not sponsored by divine institution, degeneracy is not actually set up by good government, degeneracy is set up by their own negative volition. The indicative mood means that this became an example after they lived in this degeneracy in Sodom and Gomorrha.

Now what does prokeimei actually mean? Pro means before, keimei means to lie, and the word actually means to expose to public view. It was used in two ways in the Greek. First of all it was used for food exposed on the table. Food on the table connotes, by the way, the fallen angels of Genesis 6 who are now on the table of Tartarus waiting for their eternal judgement which is mentioned in 2 Peter 2:4. It also was used for putting a corpse on a bier lying in state. It connotes the unbelievers of Sodom and Gomorrha who are now in Hades waiting for the last judgement.

“for an example” — deigma, which means a specimen. The word “specimen” is used rather than example because the human race continues. At certain points in the human race a specimen is removed for examination to warn the human race. This specimen is historically recorded for us in the Word of God as a warning. So the fallen angels of Tartarus and the unbelievers of Sodom are examples used of warnings against apostasy and the importance of divine institutions. But not only does it have temporal repercussions, but in the closing out of this verse, eternal repercussions.

“suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” The word for suffering is u(pexw. U(pexw actually has the connotation of being held under something. U(po is under, preposition of authority; e)xw means to have or to hold. Here it means to be held under pressure. Sometimes it means to be held under judgement and here it really means to suffer judgement. Since the verb connotes restraint in suffering it describes the unbelieving apostates of Sodom as they are in restraint today. They are in Hades.

The word “vengeance” does not mean vengeance at all, in fact that is a very poor translation. The word is dike, and dike means justice, not vengeance. They are going to be under the justice of eternal fire, their final status. The fallen angels are going to be in the lake of fire forever — Matthew 25:41; the unbelievers are going to be in the lake of fire forever — be, no matter how it affects society, how it affects a segment of the population, it is not the basis for going to hell. For what they did in time they suffered in time, but they are in the eternal fire because of dikh — justice, and the justice is that they rejected eternal salvation. Those who are in the lake of fire forever are those who rejected what Jesus Christ did on the cross.

The first word in the sentence in the Greek language often determines a transition, the development of a principle, the application of an experience or by whatever is trying to be communicated by way of a transition. Beginning in verse 8 of our passage we have the words “likewise also these dreamers.” The word “filthy” is in italics because it simply does not exist in the original. Ordinarily Greek sentences which have changes or transitions have various types of particles. These are particles which are used to declare principles of doctrine and how they are stated, and when you depart from a principle to an actual experience. We now have an adverb used as a particle for a change of transition in our particular passage.

“Likewise” — the adverb o(moioj, which means in a similar manner. We have studied three categories of apostasy. Now we have the adverb, “in a similar manner” — in a similar manner to the citizens of Sodom and Gomorrha, in a similar manner to the fallen angels, in a similar manner to the Exodus generation where we have believer apostates. The adverb, then, describes some principles dealing with the believer as an apostate [verse 5], the fallen angel as an apostate [verse 6], the unbeliever as an apostate [verse 7]. Having presented three categories of apostasy and how they fall apart in history, and how they are destroyed by their apostasy, it now becomes necessary to get an overall view of apostate conditions. So we begin in verse 8 with three characteristics of the apostate. These characteristics can apply to a believer, a fallen angel, or an unbeliever.

The first of the three characteristics is psychosomatic defilement. Psycho is the Greek word yuxh, for soul; swma is the Greek word for body. What you think or what goes on in the soul influences the body. Generally it is used in medicine for adverse effects.

“dreamers” — present middle participle, the verb form is e)nupniazw. The word meant originally to dream of sensual things. However, you can be dreaming of sensual things and not have them filthy at all, so the translator who inserted “filthy” missed the boat — typical of sheltered clergy! This means also to have dreams and visions like a false prophet. Here it actually means to have delusion of dream or delusion of thought. So, “Likewise also these delusion-dreamers.” Present tense: it has become a habit of soul; middle voice: they do it to themselves; participle: it is a law that exists among apostates. The delusion is apostasy, not pornography. They are dreaming false doctrine; they are thinking false doctrine; they are simply thinking human viewpoint. So the word “likewise” here is applied to apostates of the human race, and these apostates of the human race have a problem of psychosomatic defilement. In other words, in their soul they have certain types of information which are transferred over to the right lobe and become human viewpoint, and which in their frame of reference is cluttered up with human viewpoint, and which in the memory centre they also can only bring human viewpoint out and transfer it over to the perceptive lobe.

Once we get all of this information as human viewpoint it doesn’t make any difference whether we are talking about a believer or an unbeliever, they are going to think in terms of social action, economic panaceas, solutions to problems in the devil’s world which are entirely apart from God’s plan and from God’s grace. Obviously then an unbeliever can think this way; obviously a believer can think this way. It is obvious, too, that when you think this way it has an effect upon your body. If you are all gung ho for socialism and things begin to fall apart under that system, if you are all for social action and helping the dear Black Panthers with money so that they can buy more guns, you have a psychosomatic problem — it doesn’t jibe with “brotherhood.” That goes down into the central nervous system and kicks up a fuss. That can cause a lot of trouble in the actual function of the human body. It also causes disillusion and disillusion defiles the whole person.

“defile” — present middle participle followed by a present active indicative. You think all of these goofy things and you do it yourself, that’s the middle voice. So by the time you get to the word “defile” you now have the result of all of this goofy thinking. “Defile” is the present active indicative of miainw, which means to have your clothes stained with excrement and occasionally garbage. In the ancient world they did not have inside sewage or garbage disposal. They had chamber pots which they dumped with their garbage over the balcony, and people passing by — miainw!

“defile the flesh” — this is used here for defilement of the soul. It says “flesh” which refers to the human body and that’s why we call it psychosomatic. But it is a boomerang when something in your soul is miainw, you think this way. We think things that are defiling — communism is an illustration — and this goes into the body and is why we have psychotics, why we have neurotics, dope addicts, alcoholics, etc. — because of what people think. Then this thing boomerangs and it comes back up and destroys the soul, fills it up with scar tissue, and so on. First there is the problem of psychosomatics in which the problems of the soul overflow into the body. When they do the first result is also the second characteristic. The individual rejects human authority; he rejects divine authority. And apostasy is defined in this verse as the rejection of authority whether it is human or divine. Human authority is set up under divine institutions; divine authority — God, the Word of God, the pastor-teacher in the operation local church.

“despise dominion” — the word for “despise” is a)qetew, present active indicative. A)qetew means to set aside or to reject. The word for “dominion” is kuriothj, a derivative of kurioj. Kuriothj means authority, proper authority, duly constituted authority. So it means constantly rejecting duly authorised authority.

The doctrine of authority

1. We have the Greek noun here, kuriothj, which is used for authority which jibes with God’s plan for the universe. It is used for authority in the human race, rather than certain other types of divine laws that operate in nature. There are also two verbs which are used for authority — u(pakouw [kuriothj is a noun] — Matthew 8:27; Luke 8:25; Romans 6:16; Ephesians 6:1; Colossians 3:20,22; 1 Peter 3:6. The second word is u(potassw, which was originally a military word for authority. It is also used in other ways, like Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18; James 4:17; 1 Peter 5:5 for pastor-teachers; Romans 8:20; 1 Corinthians 14:32. All of these words are words of authority. The Bible teaches the importance of authority.

2. This means there are areas in which authority must exist and in which authority must be fulfilled. Kuriothj implies this. Some of these areas of authority are like the Bible; that’s constituted authority. In a local church there is the pastor-teacher. Under the divine institutions you have authority - volition is your authority under divine institution number 1, the husband under divine institution number 2, the parents under divine institution number 3, local law, leadership national and local, is the authority in number 4. There is authority in academics, athletics, business, military, etc. In a period of apostasy these authorities are always under great attack.

3. God has a set of commands for every believer to obey and the concept and the principle of obedience to the plan of God is found in Deuteronomy 11:27; 1 Samuel 15:22; Jeremiah 7:23; 11:4,7; Zechariah 6:15. Obedience to these commands is only possible through the function of GAP.

4. Nature is designed to obey God, and nature can be a very great stimulus under those conditions — Matthew 8:27; Mark 4:41; Luke 8:25.

5. Parental authority is established by the Word of God. Whether your parents are right or wrong they are and they represent authority in your youth — Ephesians 6:1; Colossians 3:20.

6. Authority in business. Business has to have authority in order to be successful and to fulfil its purpose. And when labour wipes out the authority in business it is cutting its own throat. Authority in business is taught in Colossians 3:22; Ephesians 6:5.

7. The authority of the pastor-teacher in the local church. The pastor is the highest authority in a local church — Hebrews 13:7,17; 1 Thessalonians 5:12; 1 Corinthians 16:15,16.

8. The authority of the right man is established in Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18.

9. Angels are subject to God’s authority - Mark 1:27; 1 Peter 3:22.

Corrected translation of verse 8: “In a similar manner also those apostates who are delusive dreamers pollute the flesh, reject duly constituted authority, and they malign glories [the members of the Godhead]. ”

“and speak evil of dignities” — this means that when you start having delusive dreaming — i.e. you are disassociated with reality, you reject authority. A delusive dreamer is an apostate and once he becomes disassociated with reality the very first thing he rejects is authority, any kind of authority. And when any kind of authority is rejected inevitably you are going back and rejecting God because authority is designed by God to keep the human race alive in one piece during the angelic conflict. So it is going to be obvious that anyone who is a delusive dreamer and anyone who rejects duly constituted authority is also going to malign God.

“speak evil” is a present active indicative of blasfhmew which means to malign. They constantly do this.

“dignities” — an accusative plural. The Greek word is doca and it should be translated glories. It is in the plural because “glories” refers to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. In other words, they are blaspheming the members of the Godhead. Doca also means pre-eminence. And, one way or another, all apostasy blasphemes either all three persons in the Trinity or one person in the Trinity. The answer to all of this is found in the utilisation of Bible doctrine.

Verse 9 — This is one of the few passages on record where we have individual combat between two angels. We have an elect angel and a fallen angel. The fallen angel was Satan; the elect angel is said to be Michael. The word “Michael” is originally a name for an angel and not for people, we have just picked it up along the way. “Michael” is a Hebrew word for “Who is like God?”

Three things about Michael the archangel

1. He is the chief prince or the highest ruler among ruling angels — Daniel 10:13.

2. Michael has an additional title. He is called the prince of Israel, which would indicate that he is the guardian angel of the nation Israel — Daniel 10:21.

3. He is the leader of the elect angels in the angelic conflict and therefore is always squared off with Satan — Revelation 12:7. And he is the special protector of Israel during the Tribulation — Daniel 12:1.

“when contending with the devil” — the word for “contending” is diakrinw. It is a present middle participle and means to have mental combat. In this battle Michael has certain restraints on him. He cannot go beyond the restraints that the Lord has set upon him, and these restraints are compatible with the angelic conflict.

“he disputed about the body of Moses” — the second time the word “dispute” is dialegw, and it means strong contention. It is an imperfect tense which means the argument went on for perhaps several days. The middle voice: both of them were deeply involved in a dispute — “concerning the body of Moses,” literally. The story is found in Deuteronomy 34:6.

In this battle over the body of Moses the body of Moses was very important because Moses, along with the apostle Paul, are two men who have exploited the grace of God beyond anyone on record. Both of them were Jews — Moses from the tribe of Levi and Paul from the tribe of Benjamin. Levi was the priestly tribe and Benjamin was the fighting tribe. Both Moses and Paul had natural genius. Moses was a genius in every way and yet he didn’t allow his ability to cut out the grace of God. The same thing is true of Saul of Tarsus who became the apostle Paul.

This means that as far as the Old Testament was concerned Satan wanted to use the body of Moses. He wanted to use it in an anti-grace campaign. Therefore, when God told Moses to go up on the mountain and die, immediately the devil was following. Michael went along too and when the soul of Moses left his body, Satan and Michael went into action and they began to contend for the body of Moses. It was a verbal dispute. But Michael had some restrictions on him — found in two words …

“durst not” — aorist active indicative of the verb tolmaw. Tolmaw means to presume or to dare. There is a strong negative here so we have “did not presume.” At the time of the struggle for the body of Moses — Deuteronomy 34:6 — Michael did not dare to bring a charge against Satan. He had to commit the battle from his standpoint into the Lord’s hands and he had to use the Word of God. So he had to go on a grace operation. Michael the archangel had to operate on grace, and Michael the archangel had to depend on Bible doctrine. God would not permit Michael to use, as it were, his angelic muscles. He would not permit Michael to do anything that would destroy the principle of the angelic conflict.

“railing” — maligning.

“but said” — then he has to use doctrine, Zechariah 3:2 — “the Lord rebuke you.” In other words, here is someone who has greater power than we will ever know on this earth, Michael the archangel, and he couldn’t use it. There was the power and the ability of Michael but in the battle with Satan he uses grace and he uses doctrine. The same thing is true of you and of me. We have certain abilities and all of our lives these abilities are going to be fine provide they are kept within the realm of grace. But if you depend on human ability you will have had it all of your life and you will never know anything of the happiness that God wants you to have. You will never have the opportunity of exploiting the grace of God for the exploitation of the grace of God depends on grace all the way.

Corrected translation of verse 9: “Yet Michael the archangel, when verbally contending with the devil kept on arguing concerning the body of Moses, did not presume to bring a maligning act of judgement against him, but said, may the Lord reprimand you.”

The maligning act of judgement on the part of Michael would impugn the dignity of Satan. It would also get Michael away from grace.

Verses 10 -11. After the parenthesis of verse 9 we have two verses which describe attitudes of apostasy and their lust motivation.

Verse 10 — “But these” refers to those in apostasy. The first attitude of an apostate is to malign, and this maligning is based on ignorance. There is some maligning which is accomplished as a mental attitude sin and expresses itself as a sin of the tongue, which is deliberate — malice of forethought — and which has as its content known facts, or the fact that one does not know but it still willing out of hatred or bitterness or jealousy to assassinate the character of another. The maligning here is described under the words …

“speak evil” — present active indicative of blasfhmew, which means to malign. It is a sin of the tongue and, as this category indicates, it is maligning based on ignorance, lack of knowledge of the facts. Apostasy is in the business of “no facts” but saying a great deal about which they know nothing. Present tense: they do it as a habit; active voice: this is their modus operandi; the indicative mood is the reality of speaking in maligning in ignorance.

“which they know not” — the word for knowing not is o)ida which in form is a perfect tense used as a present tense to indicate something that is stated dogmatically, emphatically. Here with the negative it is to speak with dogmatic ignorance. Again, there are two kinds of ignorance: the ignorance of the apostate unbeliever — 1 Corinthians 2:14; ignorance of the apostate believer — 1 Timothy 4:1. The apostate believer is ignorant because of the malfunction of GAP, because of his own negative volition toward Bible doctrine. So first of all we have an attitude on the part of apostates: they are maligners, they are gossipers, they judge but they are totally ignorant of the facts.

The second part of verse 10 deals with the distortion based on subjectivity. This is the second mental attitude.

“but what they know naturally.” The word “what” is the Greek word o(soj, and this particular relative means “as much as.” So, “For as much as they know by natural instinct.” This is a reference to human phenomena in the case of the unbeliever apostate or the believer apostate. In this case they have learned human viewpoint.

“what they know” — e)pistamai, which means knowledge gained by contact, or knowledge gained by practice. It used here for human perception, of human phenomena resulting in human viewpoint. The word “naturally” or the adverb describes this as human viewpoint — fusikwj, which means by natural instinct.

“as brute beasts” — what we have here is a decadent civilisation covered with a veneer of culture. Wherever you have apostasy you always have a veneer and you always have decadence behind the veneer. The veneer is the cultural aspect of decadence. The word “brute” here isn’t brute at all. It is a noun, a)logoj — a is negative logoj means thought, sometimes translated “word” but word is based upon thought in the soul. The word means “not thinking,” but that isn’t its true meaning but its beginning. Its derivation is “unreasonable,” or sometimes it means “absurd.” It is actually a technical noun, however, and the real connotation of a)logoj is subjectivity of thinking. Inevitably human viewpoint leads to subjectivity of thinking. The whole system of liberalism is based upon subjectivity of thinking. The word “beast” is not really a beast. The Greek noun is zwon which means a creature: “unreasonable creatures.” A living thing which is neither human or animal is the meaning of zwon. In this context the word is used for someone who is human but is so distorted in the soul that whatever knowledge is there cannot be observed objectively. It is converted to subjectivity which leads to distortion of application. So the living creatures that are unreasonable here are really those people who, through subjectivity, are unable to see life from the standpoint of the establishment, to see life from the standpoint of any system of divine laws.

“in those things” is the prepositional phrase en plus the instrumental. And it means literally, “by means of these things.” It is in the plural which refers to the distortion of human knowledge through subjectivity. Subjectivity is a distorter. It can be developed in many ways; all of them are mental attitude sins.

So literally, “But these apostates on the one hand malign what they do not know: on the other hand as much as they know by natural instinct, as unreasonable creatures, by these things they receive corruption, depravity and ruin.”

“they corrupt themselves” — present passive indicative of fqeirw, which means to corrupt or to be depraved or to spoil or to ruin. In the passive voice it means to receive corruption or ruin. It also means to receive depravity. Apostasy ruins, corrupts, and leads to depravity.

Verse 11 is designed to show how an apostate can be ruined.

“Woe unto them!” — “Woe” is an onomatopoeic word in the Greek — o)uai, an interjection of unhappiness, of total misery. These people have received their own ruin as apostates; “unto them” is a dative of advantage, and the first thing that leads them astray is approbation lust. We are going to see three kinds of lust in this verse. The first is called …

“they have gone in the way of Cain.” “They have gone” is an aorist passive indicative of poreuomai. Poreuomai actually means to go from one place to another. The verb indicates that apostasy is a defection from grace and that this emotional revolt on the part of even the first one who is an unbeliever is a defection from grace. In the case of Cain, Cain rejected grace at the point of salvation. In the case of the next two — Balaam and Core — they rejected grace after salvation.

The first is the illustration of approbation lust. Cain illustrates this. And as a matter of fact we have two brothers. One brother is full of platitudes — Am I my brother’s keeper? — but Abel lived his life as unto the Lord and he had privacy of his own function. But his brother who was jealous came along and stuck his nose into it and he saw that he wasn’t getting attention from the Lord the way his saved brother, Abel, was. Therefore he didn’t like that at all. Imagine his brother getting all of this attention while he would bring all of those beautiful vegetables to the Lord! So, in effect, he says: “Hey Lord, what do I have to do to get some attention?” And he found a way to do it. He cut his brother’s throat and got all the attention he wanted. He wouldn’t take an animal sacrifice that represented the death of Christ, he had to commit murder.

“way” — o(doj, which means way of life, a systematic course of action.

The doctrine of Cain

1. The first baby in the human race was Cain; he was born once. He was never born again and therefore he is the unbeliever type apostate — Genesis 4:1; Hebrews 11:4.

2. Like many unbelievers with a religious trend Cain was a legalist. He attempted to be saved by what he did. He is the first case of salvation by works never arriving. He believed in salvation by works and he never made it of course - Genesis 4:3,5. God rejected Cain’s works, which caused Cain to have mental attitude sins --- Genesis 4:6.

3. Approbation lust cannot stand rejection. Approbation lust is found in the English word “desire” of Genesis 4:7, and the rejection of approbation lust is found in Hebrews 11:4.

4. Because of Cain’s frustrated approbation lust he committed the first murder — Genesis 4:8; 1 John 3:12 (In the Greek). The first death in the human race was a believer who was murdered by the first apostate in the human race. That is why this is used as the first illustration: apostasy doesn’t like you. And this is including the believer too because when we get down to Core, Core didn’t like Moses — both were believers.

5. The acceptability of Abel’s offering plus the rejection of Cain’s aroused jealousy in Cain — 1 John 3:12. Cain was jealous before he found a way to remove his brother. Jealousy is a mental attitude sin. 6. Cain desired the approbation of God on the basis of his own works. This is totally incompatible with God’s grace — Ephesians 2:8,9; Titus 3:5. He wanted God to give him approbation but he wanted to do it his way. God only gives approbation on the basis of God’s own character. Cain set up for God rules by which God was supposed to give him approbation. Legalism always does that. The way of God is grace; the way of Cain is legalism.

Principle: Don’t try to lay down the laws by which people accept you. That’s what Cain did.

7. Therefore, the road of Cain is the long road of misery, the misery of self-induced, self-inflicted unhappiness. Self-inflicted unhappiness - mental attitude sins: jealousy, anger, pride, bitterness, vindictiveness. The misery of approbation lust: he tried to get God’s attention.

Verse 11b — “and ran greedily after the error of Balaam.” That is not exactly what the Greek says. “Ran greedily” is an aorist passive indicative of e)kxew. E)kxew means four things: it means to pour out like the shedding of blood. It is used in that way for the shedding of blood. It also means to gush out or to spill. It means to rush headlong into something, and from that it comes to mean to abandon one’s self to something. And it means to abandon yourself, not in the good sense of response, but in the bad sense here of lust.

This is the second area where apostasy manifests itself — materialism lust. Actually apostasy is always accompanied by emotional revolt of the soul. Approbation lust is the first one, the way of Cain; the error of Balaam is materialism lust. And the verb e)kxew means to abandon one’s self to materialism lust. The aorist tense refers to a pattern of life — materialism lust controls the soul. When a person is apostate they have approbation lust, and it controls. There is no doctrine, no character, no common sense, no power in the emotion. When the emotion starts responding to lust there is, first of all, approbation lust and then there is secondly, materialism lust. And this controls the soul as it did in the case of Balaam who was a believer. The aorist tense means that this is true as a pattern. The passive voice indicates the fourth meaning — to abandon one’s self to something, and to give one’s self to something with reckless abandon is the meaning of the word in the passive voice. The indicative mood is the reality of the fact that Balaam was a believer under emotional revolt of the soul. We have seen “the way of Cain” but this time we have “the error of Balaam.”

The word for “error” is the Greek word for deceit, planh. Planh means deceit or delusion.

“for reward” is literally, “for wages.” Misqoj is the noun here. Putting this together as it is in the word order of the Greek, we have: “And to the deceit of Balaam abandoning themselves to money,” which is the manifestation of materialism lust.

The doctrine of money

1. Money is designed as a medium of exchange. In this sense money is bona fide.

2. Monetary transaction are also legitimate — from Genesis 23:9 to Jeremiah 32:44 we have records of transactions. And this was before coinage. Money is of absolute necessity for the function of an economy, therefore it is not wrong or sinful to possess money.

3. The giving of money is an expression of the believer’s priesthood as described in 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9.

4. Money as a god is a part of materialism lust and slavery to the details of life — Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:9, 11, 13. Money is a helpful and useful servant but a cruel and harsh taskmaster.

5. The danger of money to the unbeliever can be stated under four sub-points: a. Salvation cannot be purchased with money — Mark 8:36,37. Salvation is paid for by Jesus Christ on the cross — 1 Peter 1:18,19; b. Money causes the rich man to put his faith in the wrong thing — Mark 10:23-25; c. Money hinders the unbeliever from seeking salvation — Luke 16:19-31; d. Money has no credit with God — Proverbs 11:4, 28; 13:7,11.

6. The danger of money to the believer is stated here under the delusion of Balaam. Money is a part of the slavery to the details of life; money destroys grace orientation, growth happiness; and love of money is an expression of the emotional revolt of the soul.

7. Five passages where money is described as a danger to believers: Ecclesiastes 5:10-6:2 - the story of Solomon’s problem; Acts 5:1-10; 1 Timothy 6:3-12, 17-19 - the problem of money where the believer has it or does not have it; James 4:13-5:6.

8. Planh means delusion or deceit, and there are three delusions with regard to money: a. Money means happiness. There is no happiness in the details of life. With +H the believer can enjoy money; b. Money means security. Grace and God’s plan of grace provides security for which there is no substitute — Matthew 6:24-33; c. Money can buy anything. It cannot buy salvation, true love, peace of mind, happiness, stability, etc.

There is a third type of lust — power lust. “Core.” Note the Greek does not have an “ah” suffix, hence the “e.” The Hebrew is “Korah.”

“and perished in the gainsaying of Core” — the word “perished.” a)pollumi, aorist middle indicative. It means to be utterly destroyed, and in the aorist middle it means to be put to death. But utterly destroyed is the concept. It should be translated: “put to death.” But you have to remember that not only is the revolutionist removed but the power which they wield is removed with them. “in the gainsaying” — a)ntilogia does not mean gainsaying. A)ntilogia means revolution.

Translation: “And were put to death in the revolution of Korah.”

Korah was a Levite who joined Dathan and Abiram in a revolution against Moses [cf. Psalm 106:17]. Dathan and Abiram were from the tribe of Reuben, the firstborn and they thought they should be in control. They were trying to assert the rights of the firstborn and a cousin was trying to take over the priesthood. Korah was from the tribe of Levi. They were jealous and vindictive, and there was a Levite by the name of Korah who was very jealous of Moses personally. He was a first cousin to Moses and Aaron but that wasn’t close enough. Moses was the civil leader and Aaron was the high priest. So Korah comes into it because he wants the priesthood — the spiritual rulership. Dathan and Abiram wanted to take over the civil rulership of Moses.

This is a power grab and those who are in revolt against Moses are first of all in emotional revolt. Emotion controls their soul. We also know that Korah was jealous of Moses and, to some extent, Aaron because these two brothers had the monopoly on the priesthood. In addition to this we have other people who had some kind of an axe to grind. So this is a conspiracy and we start out with a plot. There were three men in the plot: Dathan, Abiram, and Korah. But we also have on the intrigue end 250 of the princes of the aristocrats of Israel who joined the revolt because for one way or another they had an axe to grind.

So Korah is used in Jude as a picture of power lust in apostasy. There are two things about power lust that you must recognise: a. Power lust, along with certain others, rejects duly constituted authority; b. Revolution — it seeks to overthrow authority.

The doctrine of revolution

1. The Word of God does not justify revolution — Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2:13,14; Numbers 16.

2. Revolution involves lawless mobs which can neither think nor achieve anything compatible with the divine institutions.

3. Revolution means both apostasy and lack of Bible doctrine — Isaiah 1:3-5; 59:13.

4. Revolution is anti-God — Isaiah 31:6.

5. Revolution is caused by failure of the right lobe — Jeremiah 5:23. Therefore the revolutionist always suffers from an emotional revolt of the soul.

6. Jealousy is a primary motivator in revolution (along with the power lust) — Isaiah 11:13 cf. 1 Kings 12:19; 2 Chronicles 10:19.

7. The communication of doctrine is designed to stop revolution — Ezekiel 22:3-10.

8. Heathenism is the result of revolution - Romans 1:19-26. The result of such revolution is degeneration — Romans 1:27-32.

9. Summary of the principle of revolution: Approbation and power lust seek to gain power by the destruction of freedom, rights, privacy and property of others. Jealousy is also a mental attitude motivator and especially in the field of emotional revolt. Therefore, revolution is a Satanic device in the angelic conflict to establish his cosmic kingdom and superimpose the devil’s will over homo sapien.

Verses 12 and 13 give five analogies to apostasy. We often think of apostasy in terms of negative volition toward Bible doctrine, ignorance of doctrine, distortion of doctrine. That, of course, is very true. We often think of apostasy as referring to unbelievers only. That is only partially true, 2 Peter chapter two does discuss the apostate unbeliever. But the bulk of apostasy is always found among those who are born again, those who are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the history of the human race in every dispensation there are those who are believers but who have gone negative toward doctrine. These are the most miserable people in the world.

If as a believer you are negative toward doctrine it is inevitable that you will have the emotional revolt of the soul, it is inevitable that you will have misery as long as you live — unless, of course, you switch over to doctrine.

Verse 12 — the first analogy. “These are” — present active indicative of e)imi. Present tense is linear aktionsart, they keep on being what they are at the time he writes. And they will continue to be that unless there is a change toward positive volition toward doctrine. Hebrews 6 is a parallel chapter to this. In Hebrews chapter 6 we have believer apostates losing their ECS. Here we have believer apostates and the word “these” actually refers to apostate believers previously described.

“spots” — a nominative plural, spilaj. “Spots” are not spots but shoals. These are shoals or rocks in the sea covered by water. A shoal as a human being is a hypocrite because this shoal is really an apostate, but there is a little bit of covering at the top so that you do not see that the shoal is there. The shoal is, in effect, emotional revolt of the soul but the water that covers it is the phoney hypocrisy, the pseudo-happiness, the pseudo-love, while underneath they are miserable but motivated for some reason to put on the phoney front. They put on such a phoney front that they pull other believers in; they shipwreck other believers.

“your feasts of charity” — e)n plus a)gaph. A)gaph is a relaxed mental attitude, mental attitude love. So the word “love” is correct. However, the word “love” is translated in the English Bible as in the singular and this is a locative plural. So it should be “loves” .And the locative goes with en and it should be “sphere of loves.” So it should be translated: “These [apostates] are shoals in the sphere of your loves.” Notice immediately: no “feasts.” A)gaph, again, is a relaxed mental attitude, it is only mental love, it is free from mental attitude sins. The point is that mental attitude sins destroy love in all areas of life, so the shoals refer to emotional revolt of the soul and this emotional revolt is based upon category one love — mental attitude sins. And this shoal always puts on a phoney front of loving. Shoals are hidden rocks. “Love” here is in the plural for one reason: category 1 love, toward God; category 2 love, right man-right woman; category 3, friendship.

“when they feast with you” — here, finally, is the word “feast.” In the Greek we have one word: suneuoxeomai. Sun means with someone, eu means good, okeomai means to feast. In other words it means partying together, not feasting. It means those with whom you have a regular social life. It is really a reference to any kind of a life where you are thrown together with other people. So feasting with you means being with you, socialising with you.

“feeding themselves” — there is no phrase “feeding themselves,” it is “shepherding themselves — poimainw. It is a present active participle, “shepherding themselves.” Suneuoxeomai to believers is the love feast and the church service, it means to get together in a local church. In this local church is an apostate who calls himself a “teaching elder.” He stands up to give a message; he does not have the gift of pastor-teacher or the preparation or anything else. But he acts as a shepherd and yet he is not a shepherd and he shepherds apostates in the congregation who also are being led astray. He feeds them what they want to hear. So they are shepherding themselves, they do not have a shepherd. Apostates always shepherd themselves; apostates always believe in plurality of elders, they believe there is more than one person who can cut it in a local church. They are anti-authoritarian.

Translation: “These apostates are shoals in the sphere of your loves, assembling with you impudently ["without fear” means impudently or shamelessly], shepherding themselves” .In other words they are not a local church. They do not have a pastor-teacher, they do not have the authority of Bible teaching, there is no ICE-type communication, there is no authority.

What is a New Testament church with regard to its membership?

1. As far as the New testament is concerned membership depends upon recognising the authority of the pastor. A New Testament church is a church where a group of people are gathered together in one spot, wherever they happen to be, a cave, a field, a mountain top. But they recognise the authority of one person in their midst as the pastor-teacher — Hebrews 13:7, 17.

2. In this context apostasy is defined as rejection of the authority of a bona fide pastor, and the rejection comes through the emotional revolt of the soul, category one.

3. These apostates are hidden shoals or reefs covered by the waters of legalism, religionism, pseudo-love, a veneer of hypocrisy. But then beneath the veneer is the emotional revolt of the soul.

4. Principle: The whole purpose of the local church is worship but you have to understand what worship is. Worship is kissing face to face; it means to kiss the Lord. This is only accomplished through the communication of doctrine. Bible doctrine is the basis for the capacity of loving God and if you do not take in Bible doctrine you cannot love God and you cannot worship.

So, a very simple principle: if you are in a church where you have one who has the bona fide gift of pastor-teacher, if you cannot accept the teaching and the authority of that pastor then you ought to get out. The true basis of membership of a local church is the recognition of the authority of the one who teaches.

5. The apostate, recognised here by a shoal or a reef, enters into the functions of a local church without accepting the pastor’s authority. Such a person may become active as a Sunday school teacher, as a deacon, as an usher, as a committee member, or in other areas of activity and function. And under the guise of this hypocrisy they make qualified statements which attack the authority of the pastor. This is brought out by the fact that in effect they shepherd themselves.

Doctrine does not unite believers; doctrine separates believers. All believers are united by positional truth. At the moment of salvation every believer is entered into union with Christ. But once we are saved there are those who are positive toward doctrine and those who are negative, sometimes in the same family. You have every type of separation; Bible doctrine divides believers. And inevitably the believers who stay with doctrine will wind up with an ECS and the believers who are negative will wind up with an emotional revolt of the soul. You cannot mix an ECS with and emotional revolt any more than you can mix oil and water.

The second analogy has to do with clouds. This is another emotional revolt — “clouds without water.” The word for “clouds” is plural — nefelh. The apostates are analogous to clouds. They are there, they give the promise of rain. Water is the key here. We also have the nominative plural of a)nudroj, which means to be without water.

Water is used five ways in the Bible

a. It is used for H²O.

b. Water is used as an analogy, it is used to represent something else. For example, in this passage water is used as a veneer of hypocrisy, a veneer of pseudo-love.

c. Water is used for salvation — Isaiah 55:1; Revelation 22:17.

d. Water is used for the Holy Spirit — John 7:38,39; Titus 3:5.

e. Water is used for Bible doctrine, for the functioning of GAP. The drinking of water portrays taking in Bible doctrine — Ephesians 5:26; Jude 12.

Remember that apostate believers are negative toward Bible doctrine, and being negative toward doctrine they do not have water, the water of doctrine. This is why they are said to shepherd themselves in the previous analogy.

Clouds without water: a believer without doctrine

1. These believers are so negative toward Bible doctrine that they have moved into emotional revolt of the soul.

2. This emotional revolt cuts off any doctrine they have previously learned.

“carried about of winds.” The word “carried about” is paraferw, which means to be misled. Para means around and around, and ferw means to be carried. A cloud without water is misled or seduced or swept along. “Seduced by winds” — “of” is u(po and it is a preposition of authority, and you accept the authority of winds. A cloud without water accepts its authority from winds. So people who revolt accept someone’s authority — their own, they shepherd themselves. But the word “winds” means false doctrine — Ephesians 4:14 uses winds as false doctrine.

The third analogy in this verse deals with production. “Trees without fruit withereth.” The Greek says literally, “Autumn trees without fruit.” The word “trees” refers to the believer as a producer. Without fruit means that he does not produce divine good. The word “withereth” is not a verb but an adjective — fqorinopwrinoj, which actually means autumn. Here we have a problem: what is an autumn tree without fruit. Well, in Palestine they had trees that only produced in autumn and made for wonderful winter fruit. Therefore these were especially cherished.

“twice dead” — an aorist active participle of a)pothnhskw, plus dij for twice. And it should be translated “having died twice.” Since the tree should have born fruit and did not it died once; the second death is described in the next verse “plucked up by the roots.” When a tree that was supposed to produce in the autumn didn’t produce in the autumn they always tore it up. So the first time they produced human good, no divine good. Second death: rooted up, and that is the sin unto death — maximum discipline. Eventually the believer who remains in apostasy of emotional revolt dies the sin unto death. So “plucked up by the roots” is an aorist passive participle — “having been rooted up” — e)krizow. In the passive voice they received rooting up.

Corrected translation: “These [apostates] are the shoals in the sphere of your loves, assembling with you impudently, shepherding themselves: clouds without water, being seduced under the authority of the winds [false doctrine]; autumn trees without fruit having died twice, having been rooted up.”

In verse 13 we have, first of all, the instability of the believer type apostate under the analogy to waves. We also have under the analogy of stars the unbeliever type apostate. Both are recorded in one verse. The apostate unbeliever is a person who runs contrary to the establishment which is recorded in the Word of God under the divine institutions. Therefore he is a revolutionary, he is a criminal, he is opposed to law and order, he has rejected authority in society. He is also, of course, anti-God. Secondly, we have the believer apostate presented first in this passage, and the believer who is apostate has eternal life, cannot lose his salvation, received the same 40 things at the point of salvation which all other believers have received. But by going negative toward doctrine he builds scar tissue on the soul and finally comes to the point of emotional revolt. All apostates whether believer or unbeliever are unstable. This does not mean that all instability is apostasy but it does mean that all apostasy is instability.

Verse 13 — First of all the analogy presents the instability of the believer type apostasy under waves. The word “raging” is actually a noun, nominative plural, a)grioj, which means fierce, wild, savage, untamed. It refers to a person who can seem to be normal one moment and screaming the next moment. This is of course the waves of the sea which are very gentle swells all the way to great high waves. This is typical of the instability of the apostate believer. Anyone who is suffering from the emotional revolt of the soul is going to be one thing one moment and one thing the next. He does not have capacity for love, so one moment he loves you, the next moment he hates you. One moment you are a friend, the next moment you are an enemy and you never know from moment to moment what the weather is going to be. This is always true of anyone under emotional revolt. So the word “raging” refers to the sea in a storm.

“waves” — kuma, which with a)grioj, describes everything that destroys or neutralises doctrine in the right lobe, everything that puts scar tissue on the soul, and everything that causes one to move into emotional revolt of the soul. This can be mental attitude sins, promiscuity, drug addiction, or many other things. So it describes, in effect, the instability of life that comes to the believer who rejects Bible doctrine. Not only is the believer who rejects doctrine very unhappy but his life is very unstable.

“foaming out” — e)pafrizw, which means to pour out like foam or to foam out. The waves of the sea constantly surge and foam against a shore somewhere and they destroy their own power. And so it is with those who are unstable under emotional revolt of the soul. They lose the power of grace, they lose the power of the Word of God and they even lose the capacity for life.

“their own shame” — the word for shame is an accusative plural, a)isxunh, and it should be translated “shames.” There are various types of shames that accompany the emotional revolt of the soul and they can run the gamut all of the way from mental attitude sins to things like drug addiction, and so on.

“wandering stars” — the second analogy, which presents the instability of the unbeliever. The word for “wandering,” planhthj, means roaming. The word for “stars” is a)sthr, which is really a comet which shines for awhile and then passes into darkness. They do not follow the normal planetary laws, they come and they go. First they are there making a beautiful streak across the sky and then they disappear completely. That is actually what we have here.

“to whom” — relative pronoun referring to the unbeliever type apostate under the analogy of a comet.

“is reserved” — perfect passive indicative of terew means guarded. The perfect tense means that the future of the unbeliever is guarded and is definite and will be there for him and will be there forever. Passive voice: he receives the preservation of his future; the indicative mood is the reality of the judgement of the unbeliever.

“the blackness of darkness.” The word “blackness” is the noun zofoj. Zofoj is used in 2 Peter 2:4 and in Jude 6 for darkness of the nether region, a darkness in which there is no light. It means a gloomy and depressing darkness. This is followed by another noun, “darkness.” When you have two nouns together one of them is usually in the nominative or the accusative, the other is in the genitive. So “blackness of darkness,” the two nouns are brought together. The word for “darkness” — skotoj, which is used for darkness of soul in contrast to darkness of the underworld. A believer can have darkness of soul or an unbeliever can have darkness of soul. The believer can have darkness of soul in life — Ephesians 4:18 — but never in eternity. The unbeliever has darkness of soul both in time and in eternity and this is the darkness of soul which comes to the unbeliever at the point at which he rejects the gospel, rejects Bible doctrine.

This blackness of darkness is amplified in verses 14 through 16 where we have the judgement of apostates. And for the judgement of apostates we have a correlation between Jude and Revelation. One reason why Jude was placed next to Revelation is because of this section right here. In this particular section we are going to see apostasy judged and the illustration will be apostates in the Tribulation. Enoch is going to be the prophet. Enoch prophesied, not in the Church Age apostasy, but he prophesied about apostasy in the Tribulation. But he prophesied specifically about unbelievers and specifically the baptism of fire.

Verse 14 — “Enoch also, the seventh from Adam” .Enoch was the son of Jared — Genesis 5:18. He is the father of a very famous person for age — Methuselah, the oldest person on record. Enoch and Methuselah were both alive just prior to the flood. Just before the flood Enoch was translated and Methuselah died. Enoch had a successful life as a believer on the earth — Genesis 5:24. He died apart from physical death — Genesis 5:24; Hebrews 11:5. Jude 14 adds something about Enoch. Enoch was not only a great believer but he was a communicator of doctrine, he was a prophet. He is called “the seventh from Adam,” therefore he is the Enoch of Genesis 5:18-24.

“prophesied” — aorist active indicative of profhteuw, the communication gift that was so great before the Church Age. A person who functioned as a prophet in the Old testament times communicated Bible doctrine but a prophet was different from a pastor-teacher. The source of their material is the basic difference between the two. The source of the prophet’s material was conversations with God, dreams, visions, sometimes angelic teaching as in the case of Daniel and Zechariah. They also, as the Bible developed, studied the Bible, e.g. Jeremiah, Daniel. But the pastor-teacher has one source and that is the completed canon of scripture. Both have the same job really but the source was different. In the Old Testament there were also special communicators. Moses and Jeremiah had both the gift and the office of prophet, and at the beginning of the Church Age we have apostles like Paul and Peter.

“of these” — dative plural refers to the apostates of the Tribulation. The Church Age is a mystery. He did not prophesy about apostasy in the Church Age. Why? Because Enoch lived in Old Testament times. The Church dispensation was a mystery not known to Old Testament prophets. This is taught in Ephesians 3:1-6; Roman 16:25,26; Colossians 1:25,26. So the prophecies of Enoch deal with apostasy in the Tribulation, beyond the Church Age.

“saying” — here is the area in which he dealt with apostasy; “the Lord cometh” — second advent. The Lord comes at the end of the Tribulation. It is the end of the Jewish Age when there is so much apostasy, especially among unbelievers. There is relatively little believer apostasy in the Tribulation. The apostasy of unbelievers is terminated by the second advent of Christ. So Enoch, living way back in his day, looks to the period of the Tribulation and with emphasis on the second advent of Christ where we have one of the greatest judgements against apostasy.

“the Lord cometh” — aorist active indicative of e)rchomai. The aorist tense refers to the point of time when Jesus Christ returns to the earth. The active voice: Jesus Christ comes back as per the Father’s plan; the indicative mood is the reality of the second advent, accompanied by the Church.

“with” — a preposition used here as accompaniment. So it should be translated: “the Lord cometh [second advent] accompanied by ten thousand of his saints.” This actually says in the Greek, “ten thousands of his saints” which is used for an unknown number but a large number. This is, of course, believers of the Church Age returning with Jesus Christ. The purpose which Enoch prophesied is given in verse 15. Remember that the time in which Enoch lived was a time of great apostasy and it was because of the great apostasy that he told the future of apostasy. Remember also that no man ever prophesied about the future without relating the future to the present. Future events as prophesied in the Old Testament were used to warn people of something that they were doing at the time. Enoch warned the apostates early in history; he was only the seventh generation from Adam and he looked into the future to illustrate the judgement of apostasy.

Verse 15 — the future judgement on apostasy. Notice immediately that the word “ungodly” appears quite a few times. The Greek word for ungodly is a)sebhj, and it is one of those words very difficult to pin down because it has a number of meanings. Actually, the word meant failure to render your dues to the Greek gods. This was the way it was used in Attic Greek. Eventually it was brought into the New Testament Greek to indicate an attitude toward the God, God the Father and sometimes God the Son. But this is a technical word here for rejection of God the Son. “Ungodly” is used four times in this verse and is a technical word for Tribulational unbelievers who are apostate.

“To execute” — an aorist active infinitive of poiew, which is the ordinary word for doing. The aorist tense here is different from most of them, it is a point of time in which something occurs by way of the passing of a sentence and the execution of a sentence. Here is the execution of a sentence and the execution of the sentence is the baptism of fire. The active voice: the Lord Jesus Christ is the judge. All judgement is committed to Him — John 5. The infinitive: it is God’s purpose for Jesus Christ to judge apostasy since inevitably Jesus Christ is the revealed member of the Godhead and all apostasy is against Jesus Christ. Apostasy of the unbeliever: rejection of Christ; apostasy of the believer: rejection of the Word of God which is the mind of Christ. So all judgement of apostasy is administered by Jesus Christ.

“judgement” — the act of judging, the Greek word krisij.

“upon all” — not “upon all” at all, it is kata and kata means here “against.” Then we have paj which is translated for “all” — all persons of a category. So it should be translated “against all.” This again refers to apostate unbelievers of the Tribulation.

“to convince all that are ungodly” — again we have the aorist active infinitive, but this time e)legxw, and this is the trial. First there is a trial and the passing of a sentence and then there is the execution of judgement. Notice that both are included because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, He is perfect righteousness and He is also justice. With perfect justice there must be a trial. All apostates have a fair trial, a fair trial “to convince all that are ungodly” — “to execute judgement against all that are ungodly.

Now why do we reverse it around and have the execution first? Because in verse 14 the Lord Jesus Christ comes with ten thousand saints. What is the ultimate objective? The ultimate objective is the judgement of apostasy, therefore the execution of judgement is mentioned first. Not because it is chronological but because it states the ultimate purpose of the second advent of Christ. You cannot have perfect environment and have apostasy, and therefore apostasy is removed at the beginning of the Millennium. But it is removed with a fair trial. “to convince” or literally, “to give trial all that are ungodly. “ungodly deeds” —Notice: since they have rejected Christ as saviour their deeds are mentioned, just as at the last judgement. This phrase refers to all of the human good of these apostates, and their trial includes the fact that the accumulation of their human good is not satisfactory and is not the basis of a relationship with God.

Corrected translation: “To execute justice against all [Tribulational unbelievers], and to convince by trial all the impious [Tribulational unbelievers] concerning all of their impious deeds [human good] which they have impiously committed, concerning all of the harsh things which impious sinners have spoken against him.

Impious sinners are Tribulational unbelievers. “Spoken against him” —refers to Jesus Christ. The greatest religious system of all time will exist in the Tribulation and it will include speaking against Him.

The baptism of fire: the judgement to which Enoch and Jude allude

1. General understanding of the seven baptisms of scripture. The Greek verb baptizw means to take something and identify it with something [or someone] else. That is all the word means. It means to take something like a piece of hot iron and temper it by putting it in water — an illustration from Homer. Herodotus took the point of a spear and plunged it into the blood of a pig which had been sacrificed to the god of war. When the Spartans went to war they always took an oath to kill the enemy and they took the point of their spear and plunged it into the pigs blood. That is called the baptism of the spear. It is now a warrior’s spear, it has touched blood. So the point of the spear, which is something, goes into something else (which is pig’s blood) which has been offered as a sacrifice to the god of war. Euripides used baptizw in another way. For Euripides the “something else” was the bottom of the sea. And he was describing a ship that had been sunk. He didn’t say that the ship had gone to Davey Jones’ locker, he said the ship was baptised in the bottom of the sea — which means it sank. So you have something identified with something else, and that is what baptizw means. It doesn’t mean to immerse, it just means to put something into something else, and that’s all.

How do we know that? Because there are seven baptisms found in the scripture. Four of them are dry and three of them are wet. But in each one of these baptisms something or someone is identified with something else. That is what baptizw really means. The trouble with baptizw in our English Bibles is that it has been transliterated — with the word baptize. Baptize is not an English word. The only way to translate this word is to give it its proper meaning, to identify, to identify something with something else. Wherever baptism is found in the New testament it means to identify — something in the context with something else that is mentioned in the context.

Four dry baptisms: no water involved

a. The baptism of Moses — 1 Corinthians 10:2. In this particular baptism Moses was identified with a path through the sea. Moses was identified with Christ [the cloud] going through a dry path in the sea. So Moses didn’t get wet, and this is called baptism. The only people who were immersed were the Egyptians.

b. The baptism of the cross — Matthew 20:22. Jesus said: “The baptism wherewith I am baptized ...” There was no water at the cross. Jesus was discussing the fact that the sins of the world would be poured on Him. Now here is what baptism means: something identified with something else. Your sins and my sins were identified with Jesus Christ on the cross. They were poured out upon Him and judged. So again we have a dry baptism.

c. The baptism of the Spirit — 1 Corinthians 12:13; Acts 1:5. Again, something is identified with something. At the moment of faith in Christ God the Holy Spirit enters the believer into union with Jesus Christ. That is the baptism of the Spirit. It is a dry baptism. Union with Christ is the Church.

d. The baptism of fire — Matthew 3:11,12: Luke 3:16,17. All unbelievers at the end of the Tribulation are cast into fire. They are identified with fire. All unbelievers are taken off the earth and the Millennium begins with believers only. That is the baptism of fire, identification with fire.

We might call these four baptisms “real” identifications, something is actually, literally identified with something else.

2. The citation of the baptism of fire from the scripture — 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9; Matthew 3:11,12; Luke 3:16,17.

3. We have an analogy in scripture and this analogy is found in Matthew chapter 24:36ff. This is where apostasy comes to a screeching halt. The problem with this passage is that it is often connected with the Rapture of the Church. Such is not the case. We have left on the earth after the Rapture of the Church to go into the Tribulation, unbelievers. The believers are removed from the earth at that particular time and there will be a period when there will not be left upon the earth in a second of time any believers. The Tribulation will then begin with unbelievers only. This is just the antithesis of the second advent where we find Jesus Christ returning and as the Millennium begins there will be believers only and the unbelievers will be cast out. This particular passage in Matthew is dealing with this subject and not with the Rapture.

The word “church” is mentioned twice in Matthew. One time it is a prophecy concerning the future and the fact that there would be a Church Age - Matthew 16. In Matthew 18 the word “church,” e)kklhsia, does not even refer to the Church, it refers to the assembly of Israel. So in the book of Matthew we do not find the Church, we do not find Church Age doctrine, we are dealing with a previous dispensation and most of the prophecy which is found in Matthew deals with that which is beyond the Church Age, either the Tribulation or the Millennium.

In Matthew 24:38 - “eating and drinking and giving in marriage” simply describes a lot of social life and activity in which there is no interest in Bible doctrine or the gospel. Eating and drinking are bona fide functions here, as is marrying and giving in marriage. The problem is that people are just so busy with life that they have no interest in Bible doctrine or the gospel — living without interest Godward, living without interest in the gospel, living without interest in anything pertaining to doctrine. They are just busy living. This is simply the principle that apostasy in concentrated form is so busy with life because of negative volition toward doctrine that they are just simply doing what they can to gain some happiness in life. This was true until the day that Noah entered the ark which was the judgement of the antediluvian civilisation. The flood came and took all of the unbelievers off the earth. There is a parallel to this: “So shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”

4. There are many parallels dealing with this particular subject. The parable of the wheat and the tares: the wheat are the believers who remain on the earth and go into the Millennium. The tares are the unbelievers who are taken off and gathered for burning — Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43. In the same passage, Matthew 13:47-50, we have the good and bad fish. Again, the good fish are believers going into the Millennium and the bad fish are unbelievers who are taken off the earth. Then there is Matthew 25:1-13, the parable of the ten virgins. The five virgins with oil are believers going into the Millennium, five of the virgins were caught minus their oil and they are the five foolish virgins, unbelievers cast into fire.

5. A specific description of the baptism of fire as it pertains to Jews at the end of the Tribulation - Ezekiel 20:34-38.

6. The Gentile baptism of fire is found in Matthew 25:31-46, where the word nations is an incorrect word — ta e)qnh there refers to Gentiles. It is the Gentiles who are the sheep and goats — sheep, believers who go into the Millennium, and the goats are the unbelievers who are cast of the earth.

Jude 16 — a fivefold application of the things we have been studying with regard to apostates.

“These” — refers to apostates; “are” — present active indicative of e)imi — “These keep on being.”

“murmurers” —goggusthj, which means grumblers. Actually the noun expresses someone who is malcontent and it refers to that characteristic of apostasy which is negative volition toward doctrine. When people are negative toward doctrine they are not only critical of the doctrine, they are critical of those who communicate doctrine, they are critical of principles of doctrine as they occur in life. Their attitude is one of being malcontent and expressing their malcontent. “Grumblers” is a good translation.

“complainers” — whereas grumblers is the expression of malcontent, complainers is really entirely different. And the only way we can really bring it out in the English is to use the word discontent. The difference between malcontent and discontent is found in the Greek noun in the nominative plural, mempsimoroj, which means faultfinding. It is different in that the critical attitude advances to the point of faultfinding. So the word actually means to be a nit-picker, to be highly critical and look for things.

“walking after their own lusts.” The word “walking” is a present active participle from poreuomai, which describes a person who always thinks that by changing his circumstances, changing his environment, he can somehow find happiness. Poreuomai means to go from one place to another and here it portrays instability; “after” is kata, which sets up the preposition of norm and standard. And the norm or standard by which they jump from one place to another is their lust pattern. E)piqumia is the noun which portrays the word “lusts.” E)piqumia refers to at least four different types of lust found in the old sin nature — approbation lust, power lust, materialism lust, lasciviousness, and there is also wanderlust. Translation: “Walking according to the norm or standard of their own lust pattern” or “going from one place to another seeking to gratify their lust pattern.” The idea is really instability.

“their mouth speaketh great swelling words.” The word for “mouth” really is more than the mouth here. It is the Greek word stoma, which means the faculty of speech. It means the words uttered.

“speaketh” — present active indicative of lalew, and lalew does not mean to speak, it means to communicate, to communicate ideas. Apostasy communicates something that appeals to pride. That is the idea here. The present active indicative indicates that we are dealing with apostates doing something habitually.

“great swelling words” — u(perogkoj, a compound noun. U(per means over or above, a)gkoj means bulk, weight or swelling. And this word means swelling. It comes to mean literally, over-swollen, boastful, excessive, haughty, puffed up. In other words, the apostate communicates ideas that appeal to human pride — helping the downtrodden, socialism, the whole social gospel concept, etc.

“having men’s persons in admiration.” In the Greek this is a very interesting phrase: “catering to personalities for the sake of advantage,” literally.

The word for “catering” is a present active participle from qaumazw, which means to flatter, to cater, or to astound. Here it means to cater or to flatter; “personalities” here is proswpon, used for the faces of individuals. Here it is used as a noun for individuals or personalities; “for the sake of” is o)feleia, which was built originally on an adverb and eventually became a preposition. The word “advantage” is xarij, which is grace which also means favour or advantage.

Literal translation: “These apostates are grumblers, faultfinding, going from one place to another on the basis of assuaging their lust pattern; their speech communicates that which appeals to pride, flattering individuals for the sake of advantage.”

— a defence against this apostasy [verses 17-21]. This is where the defence begins. There is a short passage that covers the same concept of defence - Colossians 1:9, 10 which is the Christian life in perfect summary. Jude says in verse 17: “remember the words that were spoken by the apostles.”

Col. 1:9 — “For this cause.” We have dia plus the accusative [touto dia] and it should be translated, “Because of this.” Because of the importance of Bible doctrine to stop apostasy. The Colossians were faced with apostasy in the form of gnosticism. There was an attempt on the part of gnosticism to infiltrate the Colossian church.

“we also, since the day we heard it” — since we heard a report of the Colossian church; “do not cease to pray on behalf of you.”

“to desire” — present middle participle of a)itew, which does not mean to desire, it means to ask. And as a present participle it means to keep on asking.

“that” — with the result that; “ye might be filled,” aorist passive subjunctive of that famous verb plerow. The verb means to fill up that which is deficient. The aorist tense means the point of time when the believer is on earth. Between the point of salvation and the point at which the believer departs from this earth the believer is located in time. And the objective in time is to fill up a deficiency. We are born again at the point of salvation but there is an experiential deficiency that must be filled so that plerow is dealing with the most important thing in the Christian life. That is to fill up a deficiency, and this is done through the daily function of GAP. The passive voice means that the believer receives a knowledge of doctrine, he doesn’t earn it or deserve it, he does not take it in through human perspicacity, he takes it in through a grace system of perception. The subjunctive mood indicates that whether the believer ever fills this deficiency or not depends upon his attitude toward doctrine. And the implication here is positive volition toward doctrine, whereas the implication in Jude is negative volition toward doctrine. In one word, the most important thing in the Christian life is epignwsij.

“with the knowledge” — epignwsij.The deficiency in the life of the believer is e)pignwsij or Bible doctrine inside of the believer. It is e)pignwsij that is actually usable, it is the basis for erecting the ECS which is the ultimate objective of phase two — edification. Bible doctrine must be absorbed categorically, exegetically, and isagogically. It must be converted from gnwsij to e)pignwsij. Bible doctrine, as located on the page of the Word, is logoj. Logoj communicated under the ministry of the Holy Spirit becomes gnwsij. Gnwsij means to comprehend it objectively but it doesn’t mean that you accept it or reject it. Gnwsij is what you understand as being communicated. Gnwsij must become e)pignwsij before it is acceptable and usable. This is the function of GAP whereby the human IQ factor is eliminated. There must be the transfer of gnwsij into e)pignwsij. That is why plhrow is in the subjunctive mood, because the subjunctive is potential. Whether gnwsij ever becomes e)pignwsij is potential in your life. An apostate believer is a believer who is negative and who never gets past the gnosis stage. He may be exposed to a lot of truth and a lot of doctrine but he never accepts it. Paul said to believers: “Gnwsij is not the answer; e)pignwsij is the answer.”

We are born with a deficiency. Our deficiency is a deficiency of Bible doctrine. The key to the Christian life is the absorption of Bible doctrine under the daily function of GAP. Plhrow also means to fully possess. Once we have taken in Bible doctrine it fully possesses us.

There is another concept and that is that plhrow means to fully influence. E)pignwsij must fully influence your life and that is the operation of the frame of reference, Bible doctrine in the right lobe. And, as we have seen many times, Bible doctrine is the basis for comprehending more advanced doctrine, it establishes the new conscience, it provides the divine viewpoint for life, it handles problems of the subconscious, including operation guilt complex. It provides accuracy in witnessing, it provides discernment, it provides proper content for prayer, it provides everything that is necessary to function in the Christian life. So e)pignwsij must fully influence. And when e)pignwsij fully influences you are then filled in the soul with a certain quality and then the soul which has already been saved at the point of salvation, the point of believing in Christ, is now fulfilled. So plhrow means to fill up with a certain quality and the certain quality is the fulfilment of the soul with the ECS.

“knowledge of his will” — the e)pignwsij of his will. The word for will is qelhma, which means His purpose, His plan, His design. And if you are going to understand the purpose of God for your life, if you are going to understand the plan of God for your life, if you are going to understand operation grace which is His plan, then you must be filled with e)pignwsij. The more e)pignwsij the greater becomes your understanding of His plan, His purpose, His design for your life in phase two. This must be accomplished …

“in all wisdom” — the preposition e)n plus the instrumental of sofia. Sofia is a synonym for e)pignwsij in the right lobe. This is accomplished “by means of all sofia,” literally.

“and spiritual understanding.” The word “understanding” is the instrumental of a noun sunesij. Sunesij is a synonym, again, for Bible doctrine in the right lobe. Sophia is simply the Bible doctrine in the right lobe forming a viewpoint, but spiritual understanding or spiritual sunesij is the application of that doctrine, the actual use of that doctrine for life.

Verse 10 — the purpose then of GAP: “that ye might walk worthy of the Lord.”

The only way that you can walk worthy of the Lord is to have e)pignwsij. All the things that we have to know are based upon e)pignwsij. The only way that you can avoid failure in the Christian life is to take in Bible doctrine on a daily basis, the daily function of GAP, resulting in e)pignwsij in the human spirit, resulting in e)pignwsij in the heart or the right lobe. And then “that you might walk worthy of the Lord” — “that” is a purpose clause.

“walk” — peripatew means your way of life. Walking here means way of life, one day at a time.

“unto all pleasing” is literally, with a view toward pleasing. This is pleasing God in all things. And the only way God is pleased is, first of all, by the content of e)pignwsij. That is you capacity to love God, that is you capacity to respond to His grace, to His love.

“being fruitful” has to do with the production of divine good “in all good works” — literally.

And then, when you have got through all this, what should you be doing? “Increasing in the knowledge of God.” The word for “increasing” is a)uzanw, which means to keep on growing. It is a present passive participle; constantly receiving growth.

“in the knowledge of God” — the preposition e)n plus the instrumental of e)pignwsij. By means of e)pignwsij.

“of God” — genitive of source, “from God.” E)pignwsij is from God, He wants you to have it to use, without it you are going to fall into the field of apostasy. This is the teaching of the apostles.

Verse 17 begins with a particle which is used as a conjunction of contrast — de, and the purpose of this particle is to show that in contrast to apostasy, in contrast to cosmic thinking and cosmic doctrine, there is an answer, an antidote, a protection provided by God in eternity past. “Beloved” is a vocative in the nominative plural and it is designed to be addressed to all believers. The word in the Greek is a)gaphtoj. “Beloved” is first of all used as a title for the Lord Jesus Christ as God the Father loves Him with a perfect love. When we believe in Jesus Christ we enter into union with Christ and therefore we are said to be “accepted in the beloved” — Ephesians 1:6. So this is a title which originally applied to the Lord Jesus Christ, and now it applies to us because we are related to Him. “Beloved” here is designed to remind us that we have an eternal relationship with Jesus Christ, and that this eternal relationship is also with the Father and therefore if Jesus Christ is called beloved so are we beloved because we are in union with Him. Because of our relationship with God we are therefore provided by the Father against apostasy.

“remember” — the aorist passive imperative of mimnhskw. The imperative mood means an order, and this is an aorist which means to recall in a point of time. The passive voice means that we receive recollection because of something we possess. And therefore at this point we have the whole concept of GAP brought out by this verb. The verb actually means to recall to mind and refers to the memory centre. Mimnhskw means to bring doctrine out of the frame of reference into the memory centre which brings it into the right lobe. Now with doctrine in the right lobe we have application, utilisation.

The aorist tense means in some point of time when this information is going to be necessary. The aorist tense recognises there will be a point of time, some circumstance, that will call for using Bible doctrine. Therefore, it must be brought out of the frame of reference. But the passive voice indicates the fact that this information has been stored under the concept of GAP. The imperative mood: this is a command. If we are going to meet the false doctrines, the false concepts, the apostasy which exists at the present time or any period of the Church Age, then there must be, first of all, inculcation of Bible doctrine followed by the utilisation of that doctrine in the right lobe. So the believer, therefore, must know doctrine to detect error.

“the words which were spoken before” — the word for “words” is r(hma, not logoj. Logoj is doctrine in the Bible, but we have here r(hma which means doctrine being communicated. Words have to do with actually analysing the text of the canon of scripture and communicating that information under the gift of pastor-teacher.

“which were spoken before” — is a perfect passive participle of prolegw, which means the communication of doctrine by a pastor-teacher. Legw means to communicate categorically, pro means before this particular moment. Should be translated: “have been spoken before.” This doctrine must be in your right lobe; the only doctrine you can use. The passive voice indicates a principle of grace. The apostles are the communicators in this case. All of your life as a believer priest on this earth you are going to have to receive Bible doctrine from someone who has the gift and the information.

“of the apostles” — is incorrect because the word “of” is the preposition u(po, and it means under the authority of. It recognises the principle of authority in communicating doctrine.

So, “But, beloved ones, recall to mind the words [teachings] which have been previously communicated under the authority of the apostles.”

The doctrine of the apostles

1. The apostles were sovereignly chosen by the Holy Spirit — 1 Corinthians 12:11, 28; Ephesians 4:11. No apostle ever earned the right to be an apostle.

2. Absolute authority type of spiritual gift was designed to carry the Church until the completion of the canon of scripture.

3. Only the spiritual gift is authorised to exercise spiritual leadership over the entire church. God the Holy Spirit commissions certain people to be in authority and He does it on the basis of grace. He does not do it on the basis of human merit.

4. Apostles were not appointed until after the resurrection — Ephesians 4:8,11. This is to distinguish the apostles to the Church from the apostles to Israel. There were twelve apostles sent out to Israel by Jesus Christ. The apostles to the Church are the eleven plus a few others.

5. Therefore, do not confuse the apostles to the Church with the apostles to Israel. The apostles to Israel are mentioned in Matthew 10:2-10. They are not the apostles to the Church. There is an overlap in that eleven of the apostles to Israel became apostles to the Church.

6. Apostles had to be an eyewitness to the resurrection. Paul is therefore qualified on the basis of seeing the resurrected Christ on the Damascus road, as per Acts 1:22; 1 Corinthians 9:1; 15:8,9. The apostles to Israel saw Jesus Christ in incarnation; the apostles to the Church had to see the resurrected Christ.

7. The authority of the apostles was backed by supernatural gifts. All of the supernatural gifts existed in the apostleship. For example, Paul spoke in tongues, he had the gift of miracles, he had the gift of healing. So in the days of the apostles the canon of scripture was not completed; today we have it in writing. The pastor-teacher’s authority is contained in the scripture — his authority for function and operation. But the apostle did not have the completed canon of scripture. God gave them certain supernatural gifts and this was the attestation of their spiritual gift to others. This is the way they established their authority — Acts 5:15; 16:16-18; 28:8,9.

8. A roster of the apostles: a. The eleven original apostles to Israel [Judas Iscariot being excluded]; b. The replacement for Judas Iscariot. The twelfth apostle is Paul. In Acts 1 there was an election — the people elected the apostle but, as we have seen, apostleship is a spiritual gift and God the Holy Spirit sovereignly appoints the apostles. The election was a farce in Acts 1. Paul was the twelfth apostle — 1 Timothy 1:12-16; 1 Corinthians 15:7-10; c. There is biblical evidence that Barnabus was also an apostle — Acts 14:14; Galatians 2:19; d. The fourteenth apostle is James, the Lord’s half-brother — 1 Corinthians 15:7; Galatians 1:19; e. There are possibly two more. One of these is Apollos — 1 Cor. 4:6,9; Timothy — 1 Thess. 1:1; 2:6.

In verses 18 and 19 we have the right lobe defence.

Verse 18 — “How that” is a conjunction, o(ti. This word introduces the fact that Jude is going to summarise the teaching of the apostles; at least one phase of it, not all of it.

“they told you” — “they told” is an imperfect active indicative of legw, he doesn’t use prolegw this time. Legw here means to communicate categorically. The imperfect tense means the doctrine has to be repeated time and time and time again — linear aktionsart in past time. Active voice: the apostles all taught this doctrine in verbal form to their own generation, and in written form to other generations, the written form being the canon of scripture. The indicative mood is the reality of the doctrinal teaching of the apostles, which is comparable to us today to the New Testament scriptures; “how that they communicated to you” — a dative plural and a dative of advantage.

“that there should be” — future active indicative of e)imi, the absolute status quo verb, and it means that there will always be, in every generation some, in other generations maximum, mockers. In some cases the mockers dominate. That is the period of apostasy. In some cases discernment puts them down and therefore no apostasy.

“mockers” — a nominative plural of a noun, e)mpaikthj, which actually means someone who rejects authority. It means anarchy and it means to express anarchy, to deride.

“in the last time” — this sounds like either the last times of the Church or the end of the world, or something. But that isn’t what it means at all. These people who are negative toward doctrine: they shall be, not in the last time, but in the lowest time — e)p esxatou tou xronou. E)p means “at”; e)sxatou means lowest; xronou means time. In other words, a low time, a time of apostasy — “at the lowest time.” This refers to any point of apostasy, therefore, in the Church Age, any time when a maximum number of believers are negative toward doctrine. That is a low time in Church history.

“who should walk” — the word for “walk” is a present active participle of poreuomai to indicate jumping from one place to another. They are restless, unstable, they go from one place to another. The apostate believer is characterised by instability.

“after” is the preposition kata, the preposition of norm and standard. So we have a norm and standard that makes them jump from one place to another — not God’s will but …

“their own lusts” — we have a reflexive pronoun e(autou, which indicates that often they jump in a spontaneous way — “on the basis of their own lust pattern.” The word for “lust” is e)piqumia, which is one part of the old sin nature.

“ungodly lusts” — literally, “lusts of ungodliness.” Ungodliness means that they are not related to the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Verse 19 — Who are these people? “These are those causing divisions”.

“These be” — e)imi, they are not only jumping around but they are troublemakers.

“separating themselves” — the Greek says: “these are they causing divisions” — present active participle of a)podiorizw, which means to cause a division, to cause trouble, to be troublemakers. The present tense is linear aktionsart; the active voice: as they jump from one place to another they never leave without leaving trouble behind them and without starting up trouble. The participle indicates that this is a principle and an offshoot of this form of apostasy. When anyone rejects the teaching of Bible doctrine from the pulpit, inevitably they become a troublemaker, and as a troublemaker if the pastor is strong enough they are eventually forced to move. So these apostates are those causing division.

“sensual” — yuxikoj, means soulish. This noun is used in 1 Corinthians 2:14 to describe an unbeliever. It is used in James 3:15 to describe the unbeliever’s wisdom. It is also used to describe a believer under emotional revolt of the soul. It can be used for unbeliever or believer; it is generally used for the unbeliever. Here it is a picture of the unbeliever. Soulish means dichotomy, body and soul in contrast to body and soul and spirit.

“having not the Spirit” — literally, “not having a [human] spirit.” “Not having” — present active participle of exw. They never have had a human spirit, they were born without it.

Verse 19 — “These be” — o(utoi e)isin, these are. Referring to the apostates we have been studying up to this point. The same phrase occurs in verses 12,16, as well as 19, having the same concept. The word “to be” is a present active indicative of e)imi, an absolute status quo verb and it refers to the status of those who are apostate.

“separate themselves” — present active participle of a)podiorizw, which means here causing divisions, constantly causing divisions. Those who have deviated from the truth cause divisions.

“sensual” — not sensual at all but the Greek word yuxikoj, which means soulish rather than sensual. This simply describes the unbeliever and the unbeliever’s wisdom.

“having not” — a present active participle from e)xw, they neither have nor hold nor possess. It means here, they do not possess.

“the spirit” — a reference to the human spirit.

Literally: “These apostates are those causing divisions, soulish, not having spirit [human spirit].”

The doctrine of the soul

1. In category homo sapien the real person is located in the soul — taught in the Hebrew of Genesis 2:7. The human body which you possess at the present time is a temporary house for the residency of the soul — 2 Corinthians 5:1-4.

2. The essence of the soul:

a. Self-consciousness, which is awareness of your own existence.

b. Mentality. Every soul in both male and female has male and female parts. The left lobe in the Greek is called nouj [translated mind]. All of the things that you learn enter the staging area which is nouj. They are then transferred to the right lobe which in the Greek is called kardia [heart]. So that you have mind [left lobe], heart [right lobe].

You learn vocabulary on the left side. You transfer it over into the frame of reference. You use a vocabulary to learn other things. So that you not only have knowledge in the right lobe but you have vocabulary with which to think. Your ability to think is enhanced by the increase of your vocabulary. The mentality of the soul is designed not only to develop a vocabulary but also to develop categories and concepts. This is the mind which is only a staging area in the frontal lobes; it is the heart that does the thinking. The real you is the right lobe or the heart.

c. Conscience — norms and standards. They come from your vocabulary being developed in the concepts. Vocabulary plus concept equals norm or standard or the conscience. The conscience is simply the total acquired norms and standards of your life at any given point.

d. Viewpoint, which is the total of your knowledge in your frame of reference plus your norms and standards. Knowledge plus conscience results in a viewpoint of life and your viewpoint extends over every facet of life as you develop from vocabulary various things in life.

e. Volition — with a positive and a negative pole. This is, of course, the one thing we have in common with angels — our free will. This is your area to make decisions in life.

f. Emotion. The emotion is made up of two empty areas, one for spiritual phenomena response and one for human phenomena response. But this is an empty vessel, it is designed to respond and is equivalent to the right woman. And it responds to what is in the right lobe. In apostasy the emotion takes over, like a woman taking over and running a man and she is an empty vessel. When an empty vessel takes over you have emptiness, but when the fulfiller takes over then you have fulfilment. So in the case of the whole hippie movement it is a case of emotion ruling the mind and shutting down the mind. Therefore emotion rules the soul. The emotion does not have character, mentality or discernment of any kind. And when the emotion rules the soul you have the tongues movement, you have hippies, you have degeneracy. The emotion was designed to respond and to enhance capacity. So the emotion is made up of the empty vessel designed to respond to the right lobe, and specifically the heart.

3. The soul also breathes in an analogy to physical breathing; the soul has lungs. It has right and left lungs. The left bank is designed for relationship with God; it is designed to take in from God and to exhale toward God category one love. (Incomplete description).

4. The Bible distinguished between the human soul and the human spirit. The original man was trichotomous - three parts: body, soul and spirit. In Genesis 2:7 the Hebrew says: God breathed into man the breath of lives (plural) — soul and spirit. That was man in innocence. The human spirit is designed for spiritual phenomena and in the original man [Adam] Jesus Christ came every day and talked to him in the garden - He taught him doctrine, and the doctrine went in and came down to the human spirit, and the doctrine was cycled up into the right lobe or the heart. But here is where doctrine is stored in man, so the human spirit is always related to spiritual phenomena.

When man sinned and went negative toward God he died spiritually — the wages of sin is (spiritual) death — and he lost his human spirit immediately and picked up an old sin nature. So the unsaved man is dichotomous, he has a body and a soul. We are today born this way, spiritually dead and physically alive. When Adam and his wife believed in Jesus Christ, as they did eventually before the third chapter of Genesis, they again acquired a human spirit and became trichotomous. So the Bible distinguished between the believer and the unbeliever in this manner — Cf.. 1 Corinthians 2:14, the “natural” [soulish] man who doesn’t have a human spirit. The believer, on the other hand, is said to be trichotomous — 1 Thessalonians 5:23.

5. Only the soul, not the body, was made in the image of God. It is the immaterial part of man that is in the image of God.

6. Only the soul, not the body, is saved at the point of regeneration — Psalm 19:7; 34:22; Mark 8:36,37; Hebrews 10:39; 1 Peter 1:9.

7. Since the soul contains knowledge — Proverbs 19:2; it is the subject of Satanic attack — Matthew 10:28; Ephesians 4:17-19.

8. The soul is the battleground for phase two — Psalm 143.

9. The soul is the area for the worst type of sinning — mental attitude sins. The sins of the tongue are a manifestation of a mental attitude. Cf. Job 21:25; Zechariah 11:8.

10. Because of scar tissue accumulated the soul becomes the seat of misery — Psalm 6:3; 106:15; 119:25,28, 81.

11. The soul is the area of capacity for love, so it is also an area for great happiness — 1 Samuel 18:1; 1 Peter 1:22. It is also the area for capacity for life. Your capacity for life doesn’t depend on what you are doing.

12. Physical death is the departure of the soul from the physical body Job 27:8; Psalm 16:10; 2 Corinthians 5:8.

The doctrine of the human spirit

1. The human spirit is distinguished from the human soul — Hebrews 4:12. The soul and the spirit are not synonymous.

2. In the original creation of mankind the human spirit was received along with the human soul — Genesis 2:7, the breath of lives.

3. The unbeliever does not have a human spirit — 1 Corinthians 2:14; Jude 19.

4. Since the unbeliever does not possess a human spirit, God the Holy Spirit must act as the human spirit in the presentation of the gospel: doctrine of common grace — John 16:8-11; Genesis 6:3; 1 Corinthians 2:14-16.

5. The believer, however, is trichotomous — 1 Thessalonians 5:23.

6. The human spirit is both a target and storage for doctrine under the concept of the Greek word e)pignwsij.

7. The spiritual IQ of the believer is determined by the amount of Bible doctrine in the human spirit — Job 32:8; Romans 8:16. [This includes vocabulary as well as doctrinal concepts]

8. GAP only functions when the believer is filled with the Spirit — 1 Corinthians 2:13; 1 John 2:27.

9. Because doctrine resides in the human spirit and is the basis for spiritual IQ, as per Ephesians 3:16-19, the human spirit, then, becomes the area of refreshment, in contrast to the soul which is the area for happiness and unhappiness — 2 Corinthians 7:13.

10. Doctrine stored in the human spirit constitutes the basis for grace orientation — Philemon 25.

Verse 20 — “But ye beloved” is the same construction as found in verse 17. This is a way of expressing the importance of combating apostasy, resistance to false ideas, the protection of the soul from things that are destructive to the soul. As you know, the Word of God says: “To those who know, more will be given; to those who have not it shall be taken away.” You are either advancing or retrogressing as far as your Christian life is concerned. Whether you are growing or whether you are failing depends upon the intake of the Word of God. You do not take in the Word and then stop taking it in and keep moving. And you never stay in the one place, you go forward or you go backward but you never remain in the same place. You can have an ECS after a few years of Bible study and you can lose that ECS in time. No one can afford to neglect Bible teaching any more than they can afford to neglect breathing. If you stop taking in the Word of God what you have already learned will be taken away from you. But you can keep moving forward at all times and this is dependant upon your attitude toward the Word and your constant intake of Bible doctrine.

The word “beloved” is a reference to the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ as the object of God the Father’s perfect love. The Father loves each believer because at the point of salvation, among the 40 things he received, is union with Christ - which is the mechanics of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit enters every believer into union with Christ. Therefore, Christianity is a relationship, not a religion. Religion is Satanic counterfeit; religion is the devil’s ace trump, and religion is the worst thing that ever happened to this world.

The Greek word for “beloved” is a)gaphtoj, and it means to be the object of love. God the Father loves Jesus Christ; you are in union with Christ and you share His love. In Ephesians 1:6 we, as believers, are “accepted in the beloved.” In 1 John 2:2 we are therefore called “beloved” or objects of the Father’s love. Inasmuch as this is true God has provided everything for us as the objects of His love. This is found in the concept of doctrine.

“building up yourselves” — a present active participle of e)poikodomew. E)p is upon, o)ikodomew is to build, and it means to build upon. This compound verb refers to the edification complex in the soul. It means to build upon as a part of the spiritual structure of Ephesians 2:20; it means to build up in its spiritual advancement as found in Acts 20:32. And with this accusative here of reflexive pronoun, e(autou, it means “building upon yourselves,” it refers to something that you do for yourself, the daily function of GAP resulting in the ECS.

“on your most holy faith.” The word for “holy” is a(gioj, which means something that is separated unto God. Then we have the word for “faith” which is pistij, and pistij does not refer to faith here but the entire body of Bible doctrine.

So it should be translated: “But ye, beloved, building upon yourselves by means of the separated unto God body of doctrine, praying by means of the Holy Spirit.” In other words, the basis for the ECS is the intake of doctrine.

The next phrase describes the result of the erection of an ECS — effectiveness in prayer. “Praying” is proseuxomai, also a present active participle. It means praying face to face; it means to get through.

“in the Holy Ghost” — literally, Holy Spirit. The phrase should be translated “by means of” because it is e)n plus the instrumental — “by means of the Holy Spirit.” All effective prayer is offered by means of the Spirit. This means that to be effective in prayer you must be filled with the Spirit. Why is prayer not answered? Because the believer who is offering the prayer is carnal, out of fellowship, not controlled by the Holy Spirit.

If prayer is offered out of fellowship it is not heard. There are nine ways that is described in the Word: a. Matthew 21:22 cf. Matthew 11:24, lack of the faith-rest technique. When a believer is out of fellowship he cannot offer prayer by faith. b. Mental attitude sins hinder prayer — Psalm 66:18. c. Selfishness — James 4:2,3. d. Lack of grace orientation or compassion — Proverbs 21:13. e. Lack of domestic tranquillity — 1 Peter 3:7. f. Self-righteousness and pride — Job 35:12,13. g. Lack of obedience to the Word of God — 1 John 3:22. h. Failure to comply to the Word of God and therefore failure in the plan of God on your part — 1 John 5:14. i. Failure to be filled with the Spirit at the point of prayer — Ephesians 6:18, Jude 20.

Verse 21 — the grace orientation defence. “Keep yourselves” — aorist active imperative of terew, which means to guard. The aorist tense refers to any point of time when doctrine is used and applied. The active voice: the believer priest accomplishes this; the imperative mood: this is an order. “Guard what belongs to yourselves,” literally. That’s doctrine.

“in” — e)n, the locative case, “in the sphere of.” “The love of God” refers to God’s love for you, category one. The love of God is the provision which God has provide for you in the Christian way of life.

“looking for” — this means, as a result of occupation with Christ, as a result of category one love, you begin to anticipate something, a present middle participle of prosdexomai. Proj means face to face, dexomai means to receive. It means to receive something face to face and comes to mean anticipation. To wait for something with keen anticipation, to wait for something beneficial. This same morphology is used in Titus 2:13 where the Rapture of the Church is anticipated. Here the anticipation has to do with mercy.

“for mercy” eleoj, means mercy or grace in action. This mercy is said to belong to our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the source of it and the benefit then is eternal life; “unto eternal life” — anticipating eternal life. Eternal life is used in the technical sense of life after death going on forever. Jesus Christ is the source of it because He is the only saviour.

In verses 22-23 we have what is called the best defence: an offence.

Verse 22 — the Greek says: “And some [apostate believers] keep on refuting when they dispute you.”

“have compassion” — present active imperative from e)legxw, and so it should be translated “refute.” Literally, “keep refuting.”

“making a difference” — it is diakrinw, which means to dispute. So it should be translated: “And some keep refuting when they dispute with you.” The ability to refute apostasy, of course, depends upon your knowledge of doctrine. If you keep taking it in it is no problem.

Verse 23 — “others save” is the way it begins. There is no “with fear” in the Greek.

“snatching them out of the fire.” The next phrase is, “on others having compassion with fear.” Then you have, “hating even the garments defiled by the flesh.”

Corrected translation of verses 22, 23: “And some keep refuting when they dispute with you. Others deliver, snatching them out of the fire; on others have compassion through fear, hating even the garments defiled by the flesh.”

Verse 23 — “Others” refers to some apostates who would be positive to doctrine of they had a chance to hear it. These apostates are different from verse 22. In verse 22 you have negative apostates. Negative apostates never will be interested, so what do you do? You refute them. But what do you do with people who are positive and are apostates? You “save” — a present active imperative of swzw, which means deliver, deliverance from apostasy. In this case if it is an unbeliever obviously he is delivered by hearing the gospel. If it is a believer he is delivered by hearing doctrinal truth.

“with fear” — not found in this phrase at all. It is in the passage but not here.

“pulling” — a)rpazw, means to snatch away from the fire before you get burned too badly. In fact is says “out from the fire” in the Greek. So we have two kinds of people who get involved in the fire of apostasy. The unbeliever who is snatched, not only from the danger of fire now, but from the eternal lake of fire, and from the believer apostate who is snatched from the burning of wood, hay, and stubble by his negative attitude toward doctrine. So this can apply either way and the word “save” means deliver, and includes salvation for the unbeliever and getting on to doctrine for the believer.

Now we have a phrase which is found in the Greek but was never brought into the English: “on others have compassion through fear.” We have the present active imperative of e)leew, which means to have compassion. And the word “in fear” is “through fear” which means occupation with Jesus Christ. In other words, you are occupied with the person of Christ and you are occupied with Christ because you have been positive toward doctrine.

Now you are going to find an apostate who is positive but ignorant, so when you give him information have compassion. Be patient in teaching, provide information for him because you are occupied with Christ he will come to the same place. “Fear” here is occupation with Christ. You don’t hate the person but you hate the apostasy.

“hating” — present active participle of misew, keep on hating his dirty clothes. The dirty clothes here are apostasy in its various systems.

“garment” — xiton, really an outer garment. It refers to a tunic or a vest which goes over the inner garment. In other words, they are still alive and they are people who can be delivered from their own apostasy. And what is on fire is their xitwn, that is, they have accepted false doctrine but if they hear the truth once or twice they will respond to it and they will go the other way. So you do not like their garments but your attitude toward the person who is apostate is one of love and, therefore when he shows positive signs you just keep on giving him the information and he will remove his xitwn “spotted by the flesh.”

“spotted” — e)spilow, which means to be defiled. It means something which has been spotted, defiled, contaminated, to be soiled.

“by the flesh” refers to the old sin nature. “despising even the garments having been defiled from the ultimate source of the flesh.” The word for “spotted” is a perfect tense. It means they have been defiled in the past with the result that they are wearing defiled garments. You don’t like their garments but there is a person inside who is positive. Therefore you patiently stay with the person.

“by the flesh” — a)po, which means ultimate source of sarc, which is technical for the old sin nature.

Verse 24 — “Now unto him,” God the Father, the author of the divine plan.

“who is able” — present active participle of dunamai. God the Father has ability — His omnipotence, His unlimited power.

“to keep” — aorist active infinitive of qulassw, which means to guard, to guard property, to guard something valuable. You are something valuable to Him. The aorist tense: once and for all to guard you; the active voice: God guards you; the infinitive: it is God’s purpose to guard you. And He guards you from falling.

“falling” — a)ptaiostoj, a negative [a] and then ptaiw, which means to stumble. So it is actually: “Unto him who has the power to once and for all preserve you from stumbling.” This is the doctrine of eternal security.

The doctrine of eternal security: once saved, always saved

1. The positional approach — Romans 8:38,39. Once you believe in Christ you are entered into union with Christ, you never get out of union with Christ.

2. The logical approach — Romans 5 under the phrase “much more.” Also taught under the principle of Romans 8:32. In other words, at the point of salvation God saved the person who was a sinner and if God can do the most — salvation — for a person who is a sinner, what will He do for the same person who is now His son? If He did the most for the sinner at the point of salvation He can only do much more than the most.

3. The anthropomorphical approach. An anthropomorphism is ascribing to God some human feature which He really does not have but is necessary for us to understand some point of doctrine, e.g. John 10:28 — “I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone pluck them out of my hands.” Cf.. Psalm 37:24. This approach recognises the fact that when you believe in Christ God takes a hold of you and He never lets go.

4. The experiential approach. This can be summarised very quickly. A person who is a believer comes along and says: I no longer believe in Christ. He thinks that cancels it but it doesn’t .God cannot deny Himself and therefore he doesn’t lose his salvation. God provided it; God maintains it; God keeps it.

5. The family approach — Galatians 3:26; John 1:12. You are in the family of God at the point of salvation — once a son, always a son.

6. The inheritance approach — 1 Peter 1:4,5.

7. The sovereignty approach — 2 Peter 3:9. He is not willing that any should perish, and therefore when someone is saved He is not willing that they should even lose out, and they do not.

8. The body approach — Cf.. 1 Corinthians 12:21 with Colossians 1:18. Christ is the head, we are the members of the body.

9. The sealing ministry of the Holy Spirit — 2 Corinthians 1:22; Ephesians 1:13; 4:30.

10. The Greek tense approach. There is one Greek tense, the perfect tense, which means something that happens in the past with results that go on forever. This is found in the verb to save — swzw — in Ephesians 2:8. It should be translated: “For by grace you have been saved with the result that you are always saved through faith.”

“and to present you” — the word “present” is stronger than that. It is the aorist active infinitive of a word that is very strong — i(sthmi, which means to establish. He is not only able to preserve you from stumbling but He is able to establish you”.

“faultless” — a)mwmoj, which means blameless; “before the presence of” is literally, “in the presence of” his glory; “with” — e)n plus the locative, which is “in the sphere of.”

“exceeding joy” — a)galliasij, which actually means extreme joy. We have in this life xara,

which is translated “joy,” but in the future we are going to have something that is greater than any happiness we will ever know in this life. So we are going to have in the future “extreme” joy, maximum joy, a perfect happiness which is impossible for us to understand at the present time.

Verse 25 — “To the only wise God.” The word “only” has the concept of the planner — monoj. It doesn’t mean the only one in existence but the only one that did the planning. The word “wise” is not found.

“and saviour” — Monoj means unique; it means uniqueness in the sense that something is accomplished by this member of the Godhead that is not accomplished by anyone else. God the Father is the planner, God the Son is the executor, God the Holy Spirit is the revealer. It is God the Son who is in view here and He is called “only” because He is different from the Father, He is different from the Holy Spirit. He has the same essence of deity; He is God. He is different in that He has humanity; He is different in that in His humanity He executed the plan of the Father. He is different from the Father and the Holy Spirit in that He is the saviour; He is the only saviour. Literal translation: “To the unique God saviour.”

There are four categories in the victory of Christ in the angelic conflict:

“to him be glory” — doca. Since Jesus Christ is unique His glory is unique. His doca came from being seated at the right hand of the Father. Jesus Christ is the only person ever seated at the right hand of the Father, He is there as the God-Saviour, as the God-Man. So He is going to receive a unique type of glory.

“majesty” — megalosunh, which means greatness, majesty, or greatness and majesty combined in a person who is both a king and great.

“dominion” — kratoj, which means rulership, ruling power. It refers to the fact that Jesus Christ as the God-Man will rule forever.

“power” — e)cousia, which means authority. He has the absolute and final authority. So not only is He saviour, humiliation is the connotation of saviour. Christ had to go to the cross and bear our sins, that is humiliation, but after humiliation comes glory, majesty dominion and power — glory, majestic greatness, ruling power, and authority.

The Greek text adds here: pro pantoj tou a)iwnaj — “from before all the ages” — in eternity past. Then you have, “both now and forever more.” So the Greek text adds: “in eternity past and now and forever.” “And now” — kai nun. Nun means now; Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father; “and forever” — in the eternal future.

So we have, then, the very answer to all apostasy — the majestic uniqueness of the person of the God-Saviour.