Jude

     1-2.  The writer is almost certainly Judas, the Lord’s brother (Mt. 13:55; Mark 6:3; cf. 1 Cor. 9:5), and brother of the James who was the leading elder of the church at Jerusalem (see notes at the intro. to James).

     3-23.  Cf. 2 Pet. 2, and notes, a closely related passage.

     3-4.  From the context, Jude appears to be writing to those called ones coming into the common faith from Gentile backgrounds.  His original purpose apparently was simply to confirm and assure them that the salvation of both Jews and Gentiles was in fact a common sharing of the same grace of God.  But upon considering the assault their faith was under, apparently from an early variety of Gnosticism (see notes at 2 Pet. 1:2-3), he wrote to warn them, and expose these false teachers.  They were serious enemies of the one true gospel.  Those who turn God’s grace into a license to sin deny Christ.  Such men were long beforehand marked out for condemnation: i.e., marked out by God’s sovereign decree.  (See 1 Peter 2:8 notes on reprobation, and other passages cited there.)

     5-7.  Though the saints have received the true faith once for all (3), they need to be reminded by sacred history what has happened to those who received the grace of God in vain and fell under God’s judgment because of their unbelief.  God is not one to judge with partiality.  Those who defy his authority in unbelief and gross acts such as fornication (KJV) will be judged, whether they be the children of Israel saved out of Egypt, or angels who did not keep their God given place, or the cities of Gentiles who indulged in gross perversions of the created order and violated natural law (7; cf. Gen. 19:1-29).  In doing such things (as attempting to “sodomize” the holy angels of God who came to rescue Lot), these cities became an example of the eternal fire with which God will punish the wicked.  (Other cities that were destroyed with Sodom and Gomorrah were Admah and Zeboiim; Deut. 29:23; Hos. 11:8.)

     7.  In the same way as these; it seems unlikely to me that the antecedent of these is the angels of v.6.  It could mean Admah and Zeboiim acted like Sodom and Gomorrah, or that the ungodly persons of v.4 acted like these cities.  The latter seems more likely (cf.8, these men).  If it does refer to the angels of v.5, how do they do this while bound in eternal bonds?  It also causes unseemly speculation about the capabilities of spiritual creatures such as angels to engage in carnal sins.  But they do enter men enticed by the activities of idol temples (cf. 1 Cor. 10:19-20).

     8-10.  See 2 Pet. 2:10-12 and notes there.  As I noted there, the angelic majesties (8) that these men reviled could be Satan and his fallen angels, as Jude 9 might suggest.  But I think the root problem is these men’s rejection of authority, and in particular rejecting the faith once for all delivered to the saints by Christ and his apostles (3),  whose message was backed up by works of power, and by the OT Scriptures, the word of God which was delivered by holy angels (cf. Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19; Heb. 2:2).  It is these angels and their message that were being reviled (remember that in the original languages, angel and messenger are the same word).

     V 9 is one of the most interesting puzzles in all of Scripture.  One line of speculation has a connection to the Transfiguration (see notes at Mark 9:2-8).  When Jesus met Elijah and Moses on the mountain, they both had a glorified body.  Elijah was bodily translated to heaven (2 Kings 2:11), but the Lord buried Moses’ body in a secret place in Moab (Deut. 34:6).  Jude 9 might hint that the body of Moses was later also translated to heaven and glorified, and that Satan objected, and was confronted by the archangel Michael. Whatever grain of truth might lie in such speculation, there is an apocryphal story detailing some such confrontation that many authorities believe Jude was alluding to.  Perhaps so, but this is unnecessary.  I prefer to think that Jude is referring to Zech. 3:2, and that the apocryphal author got the inspiration for his embellishments from the same place.  Therefore, to understand Jude 9, we first need to read and understand Zech. 3.  It will shed light on both Jude 9 and 23.

     Zech. 3:1-10.  Zechariah was prophesying to those returning from the captivity in Babylon.  This vision pertains to the high priest, Joshua (a Hebrew linguistic form of the NT name Jesus).  Joshua is on trial, being accused by Satan (1).  V.3:2 reads, “the LORD said to Satan, ‘The LORD rebuke you, Satan!  Indeed, the LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you!  Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?’ ” (cf. Amos 4:11).  Joshua, like chosen Israel whom he represents, has been plucked from the furnace of Babylon.

     Zech. 3:3-5 describes the angel of the LORD ordering the removal of Joshua’s filthy garments, and that he be clothed head to foot in clean festal robes.  This, of course, represents the removal of his own (and Israel’s) filthy unrighteousness, and being covered by a righteousness that is graciously given by faith (cf. Is. 64:6 and 61:10; Job 29:14).

     Zech. 3:6-10.  The angel of the LORD tells Joshua that he and his fellow priests are merely symbols.  They represent all the people before God, and God to the people, but are only types of the true priestly (and kingly) mediator, “My servant the Branch” (8), who will “remove the iniquity of that land in one day” (9).  He will usher in the age of true peace (10).  Calvin says, “…the prophet implies that believers will not enjoy true peace until they have obtained forgiveness of sins” (Inst. 3:13:4).

     I hope this makes the connection of Zech. 3:2 to Jude 9, but two problems beg to be explained.  In Jude 9, the defense attorney is not the LORD, but Michael the archangel.  And he is not defending Joshua the high priest, but the body of Moses.  In his Bible Notes, at Jude 9, Jonathan Edwards says, “The church of the Jews is called the body of Moses, as the Christian church is called the body of Christ.  Moses was herein a type of Christ.”  We have sought to show above that as high priest, Joshua represented all the people.  1 Cor. 10:2 tells us that all who fled Egypt were “baptized into Moses” (i.e., into his body), just as Gal. 3:27 tells us we are “baptized into Christ”.  Thus the judicial argument over the body of Moses was in fact over God’s chosen people.

     But why does Jude say Michael rather than the angel of the LORD?  Are they one and the same?  Archangel means chief angel, and though tradition says there are others, Scripture calls only Michael by that title.  In Zech. 3, the LORD who brings the LORD’s message is the angel of the LORD (Zech. 3:2, 6-7).  This One who is the LORD and at the same time another Person is usually identified as the second person of the trinity.  So, in view of Jude 9, must we so identify Michael, as many do?  I rather think that Michael is not the Lord, but the bearer of the Lord’s message.  As an angel, a message bearer, when he speaks the Lord speaks, as Zech. 3:2 says.  But the angel is not himself the second person of the trinity, but a created being bearing his message.  Michael is the great (angelic) prince who guards God’s people (Dan. 12:1), but he is distinct from the person who seems to be the true pre-incarnate Christ (Dan. 10:5-6).  Michael is described as merely one of the chief princes (Dan. 10:13, 21), but a singularly faithful helper of this glorious one who is “as a likeness of sons of man” (Dan. 10:16, Lit., margin).  I cannot reconcile Dan. 10 with the opinion that Michael is identical to the angel of the LORD who is so often in the OT clearly the Lord himself.  I am left with the thought that Zech 3:2 does not identify Michael the message bearer, but mentions only the one for whom he speaks, who is the Lord, the true word of God.  Michael deals with the devil when and how the word of God commands him (cf. Rev. 12:7).

     Jude 10.  But these men revile things beyond their understanding, acting instead with the animal instinct of their own fallen nature, to their own destruction (cf. Ro. 8:7; 2 Tim. 3:6f.; Titus 3:3).

     11.  The way of Cain; rather than bring a blood sacrifice as a burnt offering to cover his sin, as Abel did, Cain offered God the fruit of the ground brought forth by his own labor.  Briefly, the symbolism here as it applies to these men is that they do not come according to the word of God with their sins covered by the only acceptable sacrifice, but instead they come with their own works brought forth like themselves from the cursed ground of the world.  See Gen. 3:17, 21; Lev. 7:8; and cf. Gen. 4:3-5.

     The error of Balaam; seeking to corrupt God’s people for pay (Num. 22-23; 31:16; 2 Pet. 2:15 f.; Rev. 2:14).  

     The rebellion of Korah; cf. Num. 16:1-3, 31-35; see Jude 16 and note. 

     12.  Caring for themselves; NIV is good here, “shepherds who feed only themselves” (cf. Ezek. 34:1-10).  

     Clouds without water; promise much, deliver nothing.

     Carried along by winds; cf. Eph. 4:14.

     Autumn trees without fruit; cf. Mic. 7:1; Mark 11:12-14, 20; Luke 13:6-9.

     Twice dead (margin); cf. Eph. 2:1 ff.  These men were dead in their sins, and twice dead because they have rejected the gospel offer of life (also cf. Mt. 10:28; Rev. 20:14.  The first death is of the body.  The second death is of both soul and body in hell).

     Uprooted; “Every plant which My heavenly Father did not plant shall be rooted up” (Mt. 15:13).

     13.  Wandering stars (cf.6); an ancient name for the planets, as set apart from the stars with fixed orbits safe to navigate by.

     14-15.  Jonathan Edwards says that Enoch’s prophecy probably most directly applied to the wicked judged in the flood of Noah’s day, but that it also applies to all who are like them.

     16.  Like those of Korah’s rebellion (11: Num. 16:11, 41; 1 Cor. 10:10), these men grumble and rebel against God and the authority of his word, and seek to exalt themselves.

     17-21.  None of this should come as a surprise to us.  The last days, which began with Christ and will end when he returns in judgment, have always been a time of warfare and enmity by the ungodly against Christ, and against his people who anxiously await his coming for the vindication of their faith in the risen Lord.

     20.  Praying in the Holy Spirit; this builds up the body “on your most holy faith” (which speaking in an unintelligible tongue does not do).  This is praying according to God’s will as revealed in his holy word, and in faith through him even beyond what we know how to ask (cf. Ro. 8:26-27).

     21.  Perseverance in the love of God; see the connection with obedience in 2 John 6.

     22-23.  (Cf. Amos 4:11; Zech. 3:2-4; 1 Cor. 3:15; Rev. 3:4.)  Three groups are here,  listed in increasing degrees of sin.  The last group I believe are unresponsive to church discipline.  These we show mercy by warning, then leaving their punishment to God (9; “The Lord rebuke you”).  God may yet save, but we are to fear even to associate with them while they are in their present pollution (cf. 1 Cor. 5:5, 9-13).

     24-25.  Jude ends with this most beautiful benediction, confessing that it is God’s sovereign power and mercy toward us through his eternal Son Jesus Christ that both saves and preserves us, and makes us able to stand blameless before his holy presence.