Summary: Bible - Book of Jude

The GIST

Jude is the next to last book of the Bible and one of its shortest: a single chapter of twenty-five verses. It is a letter written in a hurry and in alarm. The author had meant to write about something else, the salvation he and his readers share, but news has reached him that changes his plans. People have slipped into the Christian community who treat God's grace as permission to do as they please. So he writes instead to urge his readers to fight for the faith they were given, to show them from history what becomes of such people, and to tell them how to stand firm and how to rescue those who are wavering.

The letter is fierce, crowded with examples and images, and steeped in Jewish tradition, including writings that never became part of the Bible. It closes with a doxology that is probably the only part of it most churchgoers know, and which has been called grand and soul-stirring. The author introduces himself as "Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James," which has traditionally been taken to mean a brother of James of Jerusalem and so a member of Jesus's own family.

What It Says

Greeting (verses 1 and 2). The readers are described in three ways: "sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called." That note of being preserved, or kept, will return at the very end. He wishes them mercy, peace and love in abundance.

The reason for writing (verses 3 and 4). Jude explains the change of plan. He was eager to write about their common salvation, but found it necessary to write and appeal to them "that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." The faith is pictured as something handed over, complete, to be guarded. The danger comes from inside: "For there are certain men crept in unawares," ungodly people, "turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ." Two charges are packed in here. They use grace as an excuse for immorality, and in doing so they deny, in practice, the master they claim.

Three warnings from the past (verses 5 to 7). Jude reminds his readers of things they already know. Each example shows that privilege is no protection. The Lord saved a people out of Egypt and afterward destroyed those who did not believe. Angels who did not keep their proper place but left their own dwelling are held in chains in darkness for the day of judgment. And Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns, which gave themselves up to sexual immorality, stand as an example of punishment by fire. Rescued people, heavenly beings and prosperous cities all came under judgment.

The intruders described (verses 8 to 13). "Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities." This is the most specific thing the letter says about them: they appeal to dreams or visions, they are immoral, they reject authority, and they speak abusively of glorious beings. To show how outrageous the last of these is, Jude tells a story not found in the Old Testament. When the archangel Michael disputed with the devil over the body of Moses, even he did not dare pronounce a reviling judgment, but said only, "The Lord rebuke thee." These people, by contrast, abuse whatever they do not understand, and are destroyed by the things they know by instinct, like animals.

A cry of woe follows, with three more figures from Israel's story, each a type of the false teacher. They have taken the road of Cain. They have rushed for profit into the error of Balaam. They have perished in the rebellion of Korah. Then comes a burst of images from the natural world, each one something that promises and does not deliver, or is wild and out of control. They are blemishes on the community's love feasts, feasting without fear and looking after themselves. In his words, "clouds they are without water, carried about of winds." They are trees whose fruit withers, twice dead, torn up by the roots. They are "Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame." They are wandering stars, for whom the deepest darkness is reserved.

Enoch's prophecy (verses 14 to 16). Jude now quotes a prophecy. "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints." He comes to execute judgment on all and to convict the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds and of all the harsh things they have said against him; the word ungodly tolls four times in a single verse. The quotation comes from the Book of Enoch, a Jewish work that most churches do not count as Scripture. Jude adds his own description: these are grumblers and faultfinders, following their own desires, loud in their boasting and flattering people when it is to their advantage.

Remember what you were told (verses 17 to 19). None of this should surprise the readers. "But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ." The apostles said that in the last time there would be scoffers following their own ungodly passions. These are the ones who cause divisions, "sensual, having not the Spirit."

How to stand (verses 20 to 23). After so much denunciation the letter turns, with real tenderness, to what the faithful should do, and the instructions are positive. There are four of them. Build yourselves up on your most holy faith. Pray in the Holy Spirit. "Keep yourselves in the love of God." And wait for the mercy of Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

Then comes a striking instruction about other people. Believers are not told to shun everyone who has been affected. They are told to discriminate and to show mercy. On some, those who waver, have compassion. Others are to be saved by snatching them out of the fire. With others still, mercy is to be mixed with fear, with a hatred even for clothing stained by corruption. Contending for the faith, on Jude's account, includes rescuing people.

The doxology (verses 24 and 25). The letter that began by calling its readers kept ends by praising the one who keeps them. "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy," it begins, and it ascribes to God "glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever." The danger is real, and Jude has not softened it. But the last word is confidence. Those who are told to keep themselves in God's love are themselves being kept.

Why It Matters

Jude is a reminder that the earliest Christian communities were not only threatened from outside. Its concern is with people who belong to the church, share its meals, and empty its message of moral content. The phrase about the faith once delivered has been important wherever Christians have thought about tradition; Catholic teaching at the Second Vatican Council drew on it in describing what the apostles handed on.

Who the opponents were is not known. The description is too general to identify them. The commonest view is that they rejected the guidance of the church's leaders. Others have suggested early Gnostics, though the signature Gnostic doctrines do not appear, or even followers of a version of Paul's teaching that seemed to Jude insufficiently respectful of angels and of the law. Most scholars accept that we may never know.

The letter's use of sources outside the Bible has always attracted attention. It quotes the Book of Enoch directly, and the story of Michael and the body of Moses was attributed by early writers to a work called the Assumption of Moses, in a portion now lost. This was one reason the letter was slow to be accepted. Origen knew of doubts about it, Eusebius listed it among the disputed writings, and Jerome reported that many rejected it because it quotes Enoch. It was nevertheless received by most churches by the end of the second century and was firmly in the canon by the late fourth.

Jude is also closely related to 2 Peter, whose second chapter covers much of the same ground in similar words. Most scholars think 2 Peter drew on Jude, though some argue the reverse.

On authorship, the letter claims Jude, brother of James, and tradition identifies him as one of the brothers of Jesus. Some scholars find this plausible. Others doubt that a Galilean villager could have written such accomplished Greek and regard the name as a later attribution. Proposed dates run from the 50s to the early second century, with the end of the first century often preferred.

Who Should Read It

Read Jude in two minutes and then again with a pencil. It is for readers who want to see how seriously the first Christians took the link between belief and conduct, and for anyone interested in the wider world of Jewish writings that surrounded the New Testament. Its closing blessing is worth knowing by heart.