Introduction to Jude

Solomon’s admonition “Buy truth, and do not sell it” (Prov. 23:23) reflects the fact that truth is a precious commodity in Scripture. After all, God is the “God of truth” (Ps. 31:5; Isa. 65:16), having magnified His word which is truth (Ps. 119:160; 138:2; John 17:17). The Lord Jesus Christ, God in human flesh, is “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14; cf. v. 17), being Himself “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6; cf. Eph. 4:21). The Holy Spirit is the “Spirit of truth” (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; 1 John 5:6), sealing the salvation of those who embrace “the message of truth” (Eph. 1:13). And the church is the “pillar and support of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15), protecting and proclaiming the truth of the gospel (cf. Col. 1:5). In fact, it is by believing the truth that people are set free from sin and death (John 8:32).

Although God’s people sometimes forget the importance of the truth, Satan never does. Ever since the fall, the father of lies (cf. John 8:44) has done everything in his power to destroy, hide, and twist the truth—constantly attempting to replace it with falsehood and deception. Ironically, his deadliest attacks do not come from those who openly reject the truth, but rather from those who profess to know and believe it, but lie. Satan’s most effective agents, like spiritual terrorists, secretly infiltrate the church where they pass themselves off as genuine shepherds and leaders. In reality, however, they are imposters and defectors, apostates who claim to know Christ, but in fact reject Him. They verbally affirm their knowledge of His Word, but their actions indicate that they are actually enemies of the truth.

Like Simon Magus (Acts 8:9–24), Hymenaeus (1 Tim. 1:20; 2 Tim. 2:17), Alexander (1 Tim. 1:20; cf. 2 Tim. 4:14), and Diotrephes (3 John 9), these spiritual Benedict Arnolds “are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting” (Rom. 16:18). “Such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ” (2 Cor. 11:13), “men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth” (1 Tim. 6:5). They must be vigorously opposed and rooted out, lest they entice unstable souls and lead them to destruction (cf. 2 Peter 2:14).

The New Testament repeatedly warns of the danger that apostate false teachers pose to the church. Both Jesus (Matt. 7:15) and Paul (Acts 20:29) likened their deceptive savagery to the attacks of vicious wolves. “Many false prophets will arise,” Jesus warned, “and will mislead many” (Matt. 24:11). Paul cautioned Timothy, “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1). Peter and John also warned of these spiritual pretenders (2 Peter 2, 3; 1 John 4:1–3; 2 John 7; Rev. 2:14–15, 20–24), as did Jude in his brief one-chapter epistle.

Jude’s concise letter is a forceful condemnation of the false teachers who were infiltrating the church in his day, and, by extension, all who were yet to come. In our postmodern culture, in which truth is considered relative and tolerance is prized above all else, Jude’s eloquent plea for doctrinal purity is particularly applicable. As Thomas R. Schreiner notes:

In the end, failure to heed Jude’s message results in compromising the very “faith which was once for all handed down to the saints” (v. 3).

EXTERNAL ATTESTATION

The external evidence for the existence and authenticity of Jude is more complete than it is for 2 Peter. There are even possible allusions to it in the Apostolic Fathers (The Didache, Clement’s Epistle to the Corinthians, The Epistle of Barnabas, The Shepherd of Hermas, and Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians), but they are too vague to be conclusive. By the late second century however, the evidence is undeniable. For example, the Muratorian Canon (a late second-century list of New Testament books) includes Jude as canonical. At about that same time, the Christian philosopher Athenagoras reflected an awareness of Jude’s epistle in his defense of Christianity (which he addressed to Emperor Marcus Aurelius). Theophilus of Antioch, a contemporary of Athenagoras, was also familiar with the letter.

Later in the second century or early in the third, Tertullian referred to the epistle as Scripture and Jude as its author. At about that same time, Clement of Alexandria wrote a commentary on the Scriptures, including Jude (cf. the discussion in the Introduction to 2 Peter in this volume). Clement’s student, Origen, acknowledged that some in his day had doubts about Jude’s authenticity. Origen, however, did not share those doubts. Instead, he quoted Jude frequently. The third-century Bodmer papyrus P⁷² also contains Jude, indicating that the third-century church affirmed it to be part of the canon.

In the fourth century, Eusebius included Jude among the books whose authenticity was questioned by some (he did the same with 2 Peter). He did not, however, list it as one of the spurious books. Eusebius also acknowledged that Jude was accepted by many in the church. Later in the fourth century, Didymus the Blind (who headed the Christian training school at Alexandria) defended Jude’s authenticity against its detractors. Those who questioned the epistle primarily did so because it quotes from the Jewish apocrypha. Nonetheless, the book was commonly accepted by the fourth-century church—as evidenced by the testimonies of Athanasius, the Council of Laodicea, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nazianzus, Epiphanius, and Jerome (each of whom regarded Jude as canonical).

AUTHOR

The New Testament lists eight men named Judas (“Jude” is an English form of the Greek word “Judas,” which translates the Hebrew name “Judah”). The name was extremely popular, both because of Judah, the founder of the tribe of Judah, and because of Judas, the hero of the Maccabean revolt against the Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes in the second century B.C. Of the eight mentioned in the New Testament, only two are associated with a man named James (v. 1) and hence plausible candidates to have written this epistle: the apostle Jude, and Jude the half brother of the Lord. The apostle Jude can be ruled out, since he was the son, not the brother of a man named James (Luke 6:16; Acts 1:13; the KJV translation “Judas the brother of James” in those two verses is incorrect [the NASB correctly renders the same Greek construction “James the son of Alphaeus” in keeping with normal Greek usage]). Further, if Judas the son of James were the author, he would have identified himself as an apostle, since he was one. The writer of Jude, however, distinguished himself from the apostles (v. 17).

The James with whom Jude identified himself was the Lord’s brother (Gal. 1:19), the head of the Jerusalem church and author of the epistle of James. After the martyrdom of the apostle James (Acts 12:2) there was no other James in the early church who could be referred to simply by name without further qualification. Thus Jude, like James, was one of the half brothers of Jesus (Matt. 13:55). Jude is the only New Testament writer who identifies himself by family relationship.

Ironically, the man who penned the sharpest condemnation of apostates in Scripture shares the same name as the most notorious of all apostates, Judas Iscariot. That may help explain why nearly all modern English translations use “Jude” instead of “Judas” in this epistle.

Jude’s deep humility is reflected in the fact that he, like his brother James (James 1:1), referred to himself as a “bond-servant of Jesus Christ” (v. 1) rather than “the brother of Jesus.” Like his other brothers (including James), Jude did not believe in the deity and messiahship of Jesus until after the Resurrection (John 7:5; Acts 1:14; cf. 1 Cor. 15:7, where “James” may be the Lord’s half brother). After the resurrection, Jesus’ relationships with His siblings changed from brother to Lord and Messiah (cf. Mark 3:32–35; John 2:4).

Little is known about Jude apart from this epistle. According to 1 Corinthians 9:5 he was married and had an itinerant ministry as an evangelist. Church history relates the story (possibly legendary) of how Jude’s grandsons were brought before the Roman emperor Domitian. The emperor questioned their loyalty because they were descendants of the Davidic royal line. But upon learning that they were simple farmers, the emperor contemptuously dismissed them (Eusebius Ecclesiastical History, 3.19–20). Apart from that account, tradition is silent regarding Jude.

Some critics deny that Jude the brother of James wrote this epistle, claiming there is internal evidence that the book dates from after his lifetime. But that is not the case (see the discussion under “Date and Place of Writing” below). It is highly unlikely that a forger would write a book impersonating a relatively unknown figure such as Jude; pseudepigraphic works were attributed to well-known apostles, such as Peter or Paul. Nor would a forger pretending to be Jude have failed to identify himself as the Lord’s brother.

Other unbelieving critics insist that the Greek of the epistle is too good for a simple Galilean peasant to have composed it. But as noted in the Introduction to 2 Peter, Galilee was near the predominantly Gentile region known as the Decapolis, which was east and south of the Sea of Galilee. There is also evidence that Greek was commonly spoken throughout Palestine in the first century (cf. Robert L. Thomas and Stanley N. Gundry, “The Languages Jesus Spoke,” in A Harmony of the Gospels [Chicago: Moody 1978], 309–12). Thus, dogmatic presumptions regarding Jude’s competency in Greek (or lack thereof) are simply unwarranted. It is also possible that Jude worked with an amanuensis, as Peter did when he wrote 1 Peter (1 Peter 5:12).

Still others, especially in the early church, questioned Jude’s use of apocryphal material (1 Enoch and possibly the Assumption of Moses). But the mere fact that Jude cited those works does not imply that he endorsed everything in them. Paul quoted Greek poets (Acts 17:28; 1 Cor. 15:33; Titus 1:12) and alluded to extrabiblical Jewish tradition (1 Cor. 10:4; 2 Tim. 3:8). Yet he obviously did not endorse everything in those works; neither did he consider them to be inspired Scripture. Jude, like Paul, cited the familiar apocryphal works by way of illustration. There is no indication that he regarded them as divinely inspired.

DATE AND PLACE OF WRITING

There is nothing in the epistle itself that indicates when it was written. Those who deny that Jude wrote it usually date it in the second century. In support of that late date, they argue that Jude 17 speaks of the apostolic age as long past. They also argue that the false teachers described in the epistle were second-century Gnostics. But Jude 17 merely suggests that most of the apostles (perhaps all except John) were dead; it says nothing about how long ago they had died. In fact, verse 18 implies that Jude’s readers had heard some of the apostles preach, so they could not have been dead very long. Nor were the false teachers of Jude’s day second-century Gnostics (see the discussion under “Occasion” below). A second-century date is also difficult to harmonize with the early attestation to Jude in the writings of the church fathers (see “External Attestation” above).

Others place Jude in the apostolic age (i.e., before the deaths of Peter and Paul), possibly as early as the midfifties of the first century. But since Jude was probably written after 2 Peter (see “The Relation of Jude to 2 Peter” below), it was not likely to have been written before Peter’s death (see “Date, Place of Writing, and Destination” in the Introduction to 2 Peter in this volume). Since Jude does not use the destruction of Jerusalem (A.D. 70) as an illustration of God’s judgment of the ungodly, he probably wrote his epistle before that event. The most likely date for Jude, then, is the period between Peter’s death and the destruction of Jerusalem (c. A.D. 68–70).

It is not known where Jude was when he penned this epistle. Since his brother James headed the Jerusalem church, it is possible that though Jude traveled in his ministry, Jerusalem was his home base. If that were the case, he may have written his epistle from there.

RECIPIENTS

The specific church or churches to which Jude addressed his epistle are not known. In light of his choice of illustrations from the Old Testament and the Jewish apocrypha, his readers likely were predominantly Jewish believers.

OCCASION

Jude had originally planned to write a positive letter, celebrating the great truths of the “common salvation” that he shared with his readers (v. 3). But the alarming news that false teachers had invaded the congregations to which he wrote, threatening that salvation truth (v. 4), compelled him to change his plans. Thus he wrote a strong denunciation of the false teachers and their godless lifestyle—warning his readers and calling them to “contend earnestly for the faith” so as to protect the one common gospel (v. 3). The magnificent doxology with which the letter concludes (vv. 24–25) reveals Jude’s confidence that his readers would stand firm by God’s grace.

The exact identity of the false teachers is unknown. That they were not second-century Gnostics is clear, since there is no evidence of the distinctive teachings of Gnosticism (such as a cosmological dualism with the transcendent good God opposed to the evil emanation who created the material world; the evil of the material world; salvation through a secret or hidden knowledge, etc.) in Jude’s description of them.

In fact, Jude did not focus on the nuances of their false doctrine. Instead he denounced their godless lifestyle—condemning them as “ungodly” a total of six times (vv. 4, 15, 18). That alone marked them as false teachers, since as Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:16, 20). Having exposed their corrupt lives, there was no need for Jude to refute their specific heretical teachings, since “by revealing their character Jude stripped them of any authority in the congregation. No thinking Christian would follow people who are fundamentally selfish. Jude did not merely revile them. He unveiled who they truly were, removing any grounds for their influence in the church” (Schreiner, 1, 2 Peter, Jude, 415).

The picture Jude paints of the false teachers reveals the shocking depths of their depravity. Like stealthy beasts of prey they “crept in unnoticed” (v. 4) among God’s people. They perverted “the grace of our God into licentiousness” (v. 4), turning the very grace that instructs believers “to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly righteously and godly” lives (Titus 2:11–12) into a license to sin. They were so corrupt that Jude compared them to such notorious sinners as the fallen angels, the men of Sodom and Gomorrah, Cain, Balaam, and the rebels under Korah (vv. 6, 7, 11). Put simply, they were like “unreasoning animals” (v. 10). In their brazen audacity, they “reject[ed] authority, and revile[d] angelic majesties” (v. 8)—something even the powerful archangel Michael did not do (v. 9). Because of their arrogant pride “these men revile[d] the things which they [did] not understand” (v. 10).

Jude described their deceitful hypocrisy using vivid metaphors:

In short, although they were in the church, they were not part of it; they were “devoid of the Spirit” (v. 19) and hence unredeemed (Rom. 8:9). The reality of their wicked hypocrisy and the consequent danger they posed for the church summoned Jude’s strongest possible condemnation and warning.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF JUDE TO 2 PETER

Even a cursory reading of Jude and 2 Peter reveals the striking parallels between them. In fact, nineteen of Jude’s twenty-five verses find parallels in 2 Peter. Scholars are divided about which author used the other as a source. (There is a third possibility, that both Peter and Jude drew from a common source. However, there is no evidence that such a source existed.) Many of the arguments for the priority of either epistle are subjective and tend to cancel each other out. There are two objective arguments, however, that favor the chronological priority of 2 Peter. First, Peter predicts that the false teachers will come in the future (e.g., 2:1, 2; 3:3), while Jude describes them as already present (e.g., vv. 4, 10, 11, 12, 16). That strongly implies that 2 Peter was written before Jude. That Peter refers a few times to the false teachers using the present tense does not nullify the force of that argument, since “the present tense is used consistently [by Peter] to describe the character of the false teachers, while the future tense is used to describe their coming” (Daniel B. Wallace, “Jude: Introduction, Argument, and Outline” [Biblical Studies Press: www.bible.org, 2000], emphasis in original). If Peter was familiar with Jude’s epistle, which describes the false teachers as already present in the church, his use of the future tense would not make sense.

Second, the wording of verses 17–18 is almost identical to 2 Peter 3:3. It appears that Jude is citing Peter’s prophecy (that false teachers would come) and noting its fulfillment in his day. There is no other similarly-worded prophecy in Scripture to which Jude could be referring. Further, the word translated “mockers” (empaiktēs) appears in the New Testament only in Jude 18 and 2 Peter 3:3. Jude used the plural “apostles” in verse 17, even though he quoted only Peter, because the other apostles had made similar predictions (cf. 1 Tim. 4:1; 2 Tim. 3:1–5; 4:3).

OUTLINE

The Salutation (1–2)
I. The Danger of Apostates (3–4)
II. The Doom of Apostates (5–7)
III. The Description of Apostates (8–16)
IV The Defense Against Apostates (17–23)
The Concluding Doxology (24–25)