Foundation:
Biblical Authority. Jude 1, 2, 3
Mercy is the application of
grace, and that particularly fits the context of Jude because whereas 2 Peter
is foreshadowing and predicting a coming time when false teachers would come
disrupt the church Jude’s basic mention is that they are here, contend for the
faith. So the congregation that he is addressing here are already in the battle
and they need mercy, which is grace in action, and mercy carries an overtone of
compassion for those who are in difficult circumstances.
This first word here that is
translated “mercy” is an interesting one. It is the Greek word eleos [e)leoj], and if you were Jewish the word that you would
associate this with from the Old Testament is the word chesed.
Most of the time it is eleos that
is the Greek translation from the LXX for the word chesed,
and chesed has to do with God’s faithful,
loyal love and it is more than grace, which is a different word in the Hebrew.
Although chesed relates to grace it has to do
with God’s constancy to the objects of His love, even when they don’t deserve
it, so it is more application oriented than the word “grace.” Grace refers to
the basic principle whereas mercy refers to its application, and it brings into
focus the fact that those who are the recipients don’t deserve it; they are
desperately in need of that grace because of their circumstances. So the idea
of mercy tells us something about the negative circumstances of someone in need
of this.
The concept of grace in Greek
usage as it developed over the years is a word that implied a favour that was
freely done, motivated out of a person’s own character.
It is not done in return for something, it is not done to gain something; it is
done without claim or any expectation of any kind of return; it is a free gift.
Mercy emphasises the freeness of that gift to man but it emphasises that they
are already in desperate need of that grace.
The word “peace” eirene [e)irhnh] is a word that indicates a couple of different
things. It indicates theologically our peace with God, the fact that we are at
one with God because of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. But in this
context it is a word that is used addressing believers who already have that
peace with God because they are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, that aspect
of hostility between the unbeliever and God has been completely removed and
they are one, in harmony. But the verb here that is used is the word plethuno [plhqunw] in the optative mood—which is a mood we don’t often
talk about because there are only seventy verbs in the New Testament in the
optative mood. The optative mood is similar to the subjunctive mood; it is a
sort of mood of possibility or a mood expressing a desire or wish. In the Greek
language it has been taken over by the subjunctive more and more, so it is
fading out. But when we find it, it expresses a wish.
So what James is really
saying here is, “May mercy, peace and love be
multiplied.” It is passive, which means that it is something that they are
receiving. The one who is performing the action is not stated but that would be
God. This is the expression of a prayer. It expresses his desire that God would
be working in their life to experientially sanctify them. Remember, peace is
mentioned in Galatians 5:22 as a fruit of the Spirit, so this is not simply the
aspect of reconciliation here but is related also to the ongoing stability in
the believer’s life, his state of mind where he has peace that is calm and tranquil
because he is resting in the provision and power of God. It sets the context
again in terms of experiential sanctification.
We are talking about
principles in this epistle related to the believer’s growth. May we grow on the
basis of God’s mercy because we live in the devil’s world and we are in dire circumstances. May we grow in peace, that despite the
struggles that are around us and the conflicts and chaos around us we may
remain relaxed and calm, trusting in God and seeking His power to survive and
to deal with circumstances around us. And then love: understanding God’s love
growing in our love for Him which is based on the Word of God, 2 Peter 3:18 NASB
“but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” So it, too, is a progressive or experiential
concept here, not one that is related to phase one sanctification or
justification, and tells us that what the focus of this letter foreshadows and
that it is going to be on that ongoing sanctification aspect. Peter uses this
same word in his salutation in 1 Peter 1:2. In 2 Peter 1:2 he says “Grace and
peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.” Again,
the emphasis seen for Peter is that grace and peace only grow and mature on the
basis of knowledge, not on the basis of experience, not on the basis of
emotion, not on the basis of singing hymns and choruses and having feel-good
experiences at church; it is on the basis of learning about God and about Jesus
Christ, and then converting that knowledge into transformed thinking and
living.
In Jude 3 we come into the main body of
the epistle with an introduction to the reason that he is writing. He explains
that he really wanted to write about something else but there was a compulsion,
something that was happening internally within his own mind, and as he came to
understand the circumstances of his readers he wrote instead about something
different. He was originally going to write to them about their “common
salvation,” a phrase that is only used here in this epistle. Them idea seems to
be that he wanted to write initially about all that is involved in their
salvation—justification, etc. He doesn’t do that because God the Holy Spirit is
overshadowing him, and in this ministry of the Holy Spirit in the life of a
writer he is being compelled to write in a different direction.
Jude 1:3 NASB “Beloved, while I
was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the
necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith
which was once for all handed down to the saints.”
He begins with the word “beloved,” which
is an unusual word that is applied to believers in the Scriptures. It is rare
but it is not that it is never used, it is just unusual. And so it would be
doubly unusual for this to be used twice in this text which is why we emphasise
the fact of sanctification by God the Father as the most likely reading of
verse one rather than “beloved.” He uses it simply as a title of endearment to
his audience, emphasising his own care for them. This is an expression of
pastoral care, pastoral love emphasising what we believe, how we believe it and
why it makes a difference in the way we live.
Then he uses a combination of words, the
key word being spoude [spoudh]
which means haste, speed, diligence, perseverance, willingness, zeal. It is the
word that the KJV originally translated when we read, “Study
to show thyself approved unto God.” “Study” there is spoudazo [spoudazw]
which is the verb form, and it means to be diligent. The focus in that passage
is on the object of the diligence, the Word of God. So the way in which one
would be diligent towards the Word of God would be by studying, so that is why
it is translated in that particular way. Here we have the noun form which means
that we are to make or to do all diligence. We have a present participle of poieo [poiew] which
simply means to do or to make. It is a temporal participle here which has the
idea of “when”—“when I was making all diligence to write to you.” The idea here
is not that he has already started to write but he is thinking about it,
forming it in his thoughts in preparation to write an epistle to these readers.
While he is making that preparation God the Holy Spirit impresses something
else upon his mind.
He then says, “I felt the necessity to
write to you.” So he changes course before he writes about their common
salvation. He uses a combination of words here. He uses the verb echo [e)xw]
which means to have something, to hold on to something. We could translate it
idiomatically as “I found,” but literally it would be translated, “I had” or “I
have a necessity” or “I am under compulsion.” All that
communicates the same idea. There is this overwhelming compulsion or
necessary, he doesn’t say, “The Holy Spirit spoke to me,” or “I felt a rumbling
on the inside” or “a quiver in my liver.” He just has this compulsion. The more
he thinks about it the more the Holy Spirit directs his thinking on a
particular course of action. This word ananke
[a)nagkh] indicates
discipline in the verb, self-discipline. So there is a compulsion, a discipline
behind this that is being emphasised.
Next, “appealing
[exhorting] that you contend earnestly for the faith.”
The word “appealing” is parakaleo
[parakalew]
in a participial form. The sense of this participle is to challenge with
something. The word “exhortation” is a word that kind of loses its sense here
today, we don’t use it a lot, but it actually means to challenge someone to a
specific course of action. It is action oriented. But before we get to the
action part there has to be an understanding of why the action is necessary,
and Jude spends much of the epistle on why the action is necessary. The
challenge is to do something specific, and that is expressed in the present
active infinitive here of the verb epagonizomai
[e)pagwnizomai]. This
emphasises putting everything you have into the effort. It emphasises
discipline, it brings into focus time management, time discipline, making
something a priority that is more important than anything else in life. It
brings into focus the fact that it is going to be tough. There are going to be
challenges to be overcome, times when you feel defeated and that you shouldn’t
go forward. There are times when you feel you just can’t get it all together
but you are going to stick with it, and you go through the trial and contend or
fight vigorously for something. The epi
that is added as a preposition to the main word agonizo
indicates that you are struggling for something specific,
and that is expressed as “the faith.”
One commentator writes regarding epagonizomai: “It was used more
generally of any conflict, contest or debate, or law suit…” So it has to do
with competition. “… Involved is the thought of expenditure of all of one’s
energy in order to prevail.” So the challenge for us is: how much energy are we
putting into contending for the faith.
Three areas in which we contend for the
faith:
In life today we face different kinds of
challenges. We face challenges from our own sin nature; we face challenges perhaps
from family members and friends who think perhaps we are a little bit strange
because of our interesting the Bible. We face a challenge from our culture
which is growing increasingly hostile to biblical Christianity and to those who
believe in biblical Christianity. We are consistently marginalised, no matter
how accurate our scholarship is, no matter how in-depth our teaching is, we are just ignored because, “Well you people believe God
actually spoke to us or that there actually is a God, that’s not very
intellectual, so why spend any time thinking regarding anything you people, you
fundamentalists, you evangelicals believe? You are going to believe it, you are
just superstitious, you have no mind. So we have to be
able to answer those arguments—not necessarily publicly but we have to answer
them in our own mind because our old sin nature is going to grab hold of those
things in moments of struggle and doubt as a rationalisation foundation for not
obeying God. So we have to come to understand the struggle in our own soul and
decide where our priorities are. If our priorities are the Word of God then
that means more than just saying that, that means changing how we structure our
day, how we structure our week. It means sometimes changing where we live so
that we can be in a place where God the Holy Spirit can teach and train us
under a pastor-teacher in a congregation.
Now that is not always possible for people
to change their geographical location. We live in an age where it is harder and
harder for people to find a local change that they can go to just to be a part
of a local body of believers and then use various media formats to just teach them
and train them while they are still in an acceptable congregation. The Word of
God teaches that the normative pattern for the believer is to be assembled with
other believers, and so it is not normative to be a lone ranger believer and
doing it on your own. But unfortunately that becomes a reality in a society
that is becoming increasingly hostile and negative to the Word of God.
The reason that Jude is writing this is
because of verse 4 NASB “For certain persons have crept in unnoticed,
those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation …” There are
false teachers amongst us. Even evangelical churches or so-called
fundamentalist churches, are falling by the wayside because of the influence of
postmodernism, because of the influence of our culture—moral relativism, and so
it is harder and harder to find a church that is sticking to the foundations of
the faith, as Jude puts it, “which was once for all handed down to the saints.”
So we have to recognise that it is a struggle.
We are to “contend.” This is a word
indicating a struggle but we are not to contend contentiously. We are to have
the fruit of the Spirit exhibited in how we address things when it comes to the
culture or the local church. We do not want to say things in a way that is dishonourable
and reflects poorly upon ourselves, upon what we believe, and upon the Lord.
We are contending, James says, for the
faith. When we have terminology like this in the Scripture and there is the
emphasis in contending for the faith, faith is a term that not only means
believing in something where the noun is noun of action that expresses the action
of believing something, trusting in something, saying that something is true;
we also have the word used to refer to the body or the content of what we
believe. So it comes to mean the faith. That is how the word is used
here in this verse. In the English it is translated with an article because
that takes up the sense in the Greek; it is a qualitative distinction. The
article indicates that this is a specific set of beliefs, and it is a set of
beliefs that is “once for all handed down to the saints.” The word “once” is
the Greek word hapax [a(pac] used
also of the atonement. It is once-for-all, it has already been given; it is a
set body of beliefs, not something that is evolving.
Sometimes theologians talk about the
development of doctrine. They are not talking about how what we believed
changed or evolved form, say, apples to oranges, but how our understanding of
what the Bible taught became more and more refined and clear over time. There
is a development of our doctrinal understanding of what the Bible teaches,
which is not the same as saying that the doctrine, the body of faith changes.
This gives us an interesting little window
into the process of inspiration and how the human writer of Scripture is
brought to a point of writing Scripture. Jude talks about it from his own
experience. His experience was as he heard about some of the things that were
going on in this congregation that he was addressing he thought that he would
write to them about their common salvation. He had one idea in mind, and then
as he was thinking that through God the Holy Spirit began to work on him and he
began to realise that as he thought about it and as the Holy Spirit was moving
him (2 Peter 1:20, 21) and influencing his thinking. This helps us to understand
something about the process of how Scripture was communicated. This is extremely
important because it is the foundational doctrine. As Jude tells us, we have to
contend earnestly for the faith. So when we think of the faith, what are the essentials
of the faith?
Where does truth come from? How do we know
something is true? How do we know something is accurate? How do we know
something is absolute? This relates to the study of the Bible, the origin and
the study of the text. This is what is referred to in theology as bibliology, i.e. the study of the Bible. In bibliology we ask about the Bible. For example, we ask: how
was the Bible revealed? How does the Bible tell us that Moses or Joshua or
Daniel, Matthew, John, Luke or Paul receive the information that they then
communicate in a written form to their generation and subsequent generations?
Is it a dictation? Is it something like we find in the cults of Islam or
Mormonism where somebody is just taken aside into a cave or some place like
that and somebody dictates or gives it to them? Everything in Islam and
Mormonism is given to one person over one time. In contrast, what we have in
the Bible is that God reveals the truth of His Word to over forty different authors
over a period of 1500 years, maybe longer. These forty plus writers came from
many different walks of life and cultures and they don’t disagree on any of the
subjects they address which are the most controversial subjects spoken to man. In
contrast, these other “holy” books like the Book of Mormon and the Koran are
given in toto to one individual. That should raise
our suspicions to begin with. The question is: how was the Bible revealed?
Another question: Are there errors in the
Bible? Is the Bible myth and legend? We hear that a lot. We have these
questions. Can we have a conviction that this is true? How was the Bible revealed?
Are there errors in the Bible? When we ask the question of errors, there are
two kinds of errors. One is authorship where the author wrote down false
information: his historical facts are wrong; his scientific facts are wrong;
his geographical facts are wrong; his ethical facts are wrong; something like
that. The second kind of error is the error of transmission. The original
author wrote everything down and it was accurate and perfect without error, but
then when it was copied two or three centuries down the road a word got left
out or an additional word or phrase got entered in by a scribe in the margin as
an explanation, and then some scribe later on inserted that into the text.
These are called errors of transmission.
We need to ask questions, like what was
the means of inspiration? Did God dictate Scriptures? It is something that was
purely an act of the human author so that the Bible would then only contain the
Word of God? Or is there dual authorship? And the bottom line of all of this is
the issue of biblical authority. Really, for the last 200 years of church
history in the West this has been the major battleground. This started in the
early 19th century. Actually elements can be traced back into the 17th
century where some pastors began to question doctrines in Scripture during the
Enlightenment because it didn’t fit their reason. Their rational processes
questioned, how could God become a man? I don’t understand. How can God heal a
leper? I don’t understand? So because they couldn’t understand or give a
rational explanation they began to doubt. How can there be three in one? So we’ll
just throw out the deity of Christ. So they began to erode Scripture. By the 19th
century this type of thinking, the rationalism from the Enlightenment, began to
bear its evil fruit in what became known as 19th century liberal
theology, also known as higher criticism, also known as German rationalism,
also known as modernism. This was the big phrase at the beginning of the 20th
century known as the modernist-fundamentalist controversy.
One of the words used to describe
conservative Biblicists who believe that the Bible is the infallible, inerrant
Word of God is the term “fundamentalism.” The term did not come into use until
the 1920s, but the facts of what we call Christian fundamentalism were there
going back all the way to the first century and beyond. But within the history
of American Christianity, as this battle came and the struggle and the
contending for the faith developed in the 19th century against these
assaults from higher criticism and German rationalism and liberalism there was
a response from the conservative Christian community. That was really led by
the theologians of Princeton Theological Seminary which sort of became the
bastion of orthodoxy in the area of understanding the inerrancy and
infallibility of Scripture. The great theologians that wrote and addressed this
topic were there at
Another stream that influenced
fundamentalism—although it was not restricted to it but was a heavy part of it—was
the pre-millennialism that came from a consistent literal interpretation of
Scripture in the 19th century, various conservative groups, and this
crystallised into new dispensational theology. There were various Bible
conferences at the end of the 19th century where these conservative
thinkers and pastors and theologians got together and would stimulate one
another by their preaching, teaching and relation ship. This is part of the
background to why we have Bible conferences like we do. The Pre-Trib Rapture Study Group was a consciously developed conference
to imitate what went on in the late 19th century. The Chafer
Seminary Pastor’s Conference and others are designed to focus on the issues of
the day, and to give pastors and theologians and those who are specialists in
particular areas the opportunity to focus on those and to stimulate other pastors
so that we become better prepared to contend for the faith. This
pre-millennialism and dispensationalism was very much
a part of this stream that leads into fundamentalism.
Then there was a third strand which was
just good solid conservative theology that developed out of a set of books written
early in the 1900s. Some had been commissioned to write articles and publish
them in twelve volumes—scholarly articles at the highest level of scholarship
addressing the challenges that came from 19th century liberalism.
This set of books was called The Fundamentals of Christianity. After
that, and on the basis of that, another man by the name of Curtis Lee Laws coined
the term “fundamentalists.” Fundamentalists were those who believed the
fundamentals.
In the process at the same time there was
a group of Presbyterian conservatives in the northern Presbyterian denomination—most
denominations split at the time of the American civil war and the northern
denominations were the ones who came under the assault from liberalism most at
the beginning, and so they began to identify what were the fundamentals—and in
their view there were five fundamentals in the faith. The inerrancy of the
Bible is the first, because that is the foundation, the authority of Scripture.
Second, the literal nature of the biblical accounts, especially regarding
Christ’s miracles and the creation account in Genesis. These first two are so
important. One understands the basis for authority is an inerrant Scripture,
and then we have the literal hermeneutic, the literal nature of the biblical
accounts, especially with regard to the miracles and creation. Third, the virgin birth of Christ. Fourth, the bodily
resurrection and the literal physical return of Christ. And fifth, the
substitutionary atonement of Christ on the cross.