Jude Overview
Background Information
While there is much debate surrounding the authorship of the Epistle of Jude, “there is no serious doubt that Jude, the full brother of James and half brother of Jesus, is the author of the book bearing his name.”[1] Jude’s authorship is due to his introduction, “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James (Jude 1),”[2] and this self-attribution as the brother of James clarifies his identity. Jude’s epithet is necessary in identifying himself as the Epistle's author as “James was much better known… but Jude is hardly mentioned elsewhere” except when he is mentioned alongside his brothers (Mark 3:21, 31; 6:3; Matt. 13:55; Acts 1:14; 1 Cor. 9:5).[3] Furthermore, this epithet of Jude does not mention his relationship to Jesus as the “designation may have seemed inappropriate in light of Jesus’s divine sonship. Rather than identifying themselves in terms of their flesh-and-blood relationship with Jesus, both James and Jude call themselves ‘slaves of Jesus Christ’ who did [H]is will” (Jude 1).[4] One objection to Jude as pseudonymous is posited this way: “[T]he obvious question is why anyone would have wanted to attribute a writing to a person as little known as Jude rather than to other disciples known much more widely… it should be unsurprising that the early church has preserved a work produced by one of Jesus’s relatives.”[5]
Jude's provenance is unknown, yet it is determined that Jude is “an expression of apocalyptic Palestinian Christianity,” as he uses both The Assumption of Moses and 1 Enoch in the main body of his letter.[6]
Jude’s date of writing is also obscure. However, because 2 Peter adapts Jude “for his own purposes and circumstance,” and the Apostle Peter was martyred around AD 65-66, a date subsequent to 2 Peter is unlikely, even impossible, if Petrine authorship of 2 Peter is acknowledged.[7] Another clue to Jude’s date is that antinomianism, the heresy spoken of by Jude in his letter, is present within Corinth as early as AD 50.[8] Therefore, it is likely Jude was written around AD 55-62.[9]
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, antinomianism was present in the church/churches to which Jude writes, and Jude’s purpose and occasion in composing the letter is to address this false teaching and behavior. This heresy will be examined in the following section of this essay. For now, it can be briefly stated that “it is difficult to exaggerate the utmost seriousness with which the church, according to Jude, must deal with heretics while acting redemptively toward those who may still be wrenched from the demonic grasp of these wicked, self-seeking [antinomians].”[10]
Message and Structure
Jude begins his letter with the introduction mentioned previously and he goes on to identify his audience: “those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ” (1). After blessing his audience (2), Jude introduces the purpose of his letter in that his audience is to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (3) in the midst of ungodly people (4). Patrick Schreiner, in his lecture on Jude, asks an important question concerning this purpose and provides the answer: “What does contend mean? It means to strive intensely, to persevere in the faith once handed down to all the saints… there is a truth worth dying for, says Jude, and that truth is the truth of the Gospel.”[11] In the midst of ungodliness, Jude encourages believers to contend for the faith, for “Jude is Jesus’ servant, and he will do all he can to support and defend his Lord.”[12]
In the second section of the Epistle (5-16), Jude identifies the ungodly people as false teachers and “gives three historical examples of God’s judgment (5-7), [and] three sins warranting judgment (8-13).”[13] The three judgments are allusions to the Egyptian exiles that God delivered and then allowed to perish in the desert (5), the angels who left heaven and were chained in Tartarus (6), and Sodom and Gomorrah that were destroyed for sexual immorality and unnatural desire (7).[14] The three sins of the false teachers are that they practice sexual laxity and rely on subjective experiences such as dreams (8), they reject authority (8-10), and they are greedy, compared to Cain abandoning himself for the sake of grain (11).[15] Jude concludes this section “with another word of judgment and a fuller description of the false teachers (14-16),”[16] in that the Lord and His hosts, as prophesied by Enoch, come “to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against [H]im” (15). He comes to execute judgment on the false teachers who are “grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage” (16). Through this section, Jude makes a specific characteristic of false teachers apparent. He writes the word “ungodly” with great repetition to teach his audience how to identify false teachers. They are marked with ungodliness.[17]
In the concluding section of the Epistle (17-25), Jude provides the solution for dealing with such people. The solution is threefold: the believers are to “remember the Apostles’ prophecy concerning these teachers (17-18)... to keep themselves in the love of God (20-21),” and they must show mercy and grace to those who doubt (22-23).[18] Jude then ends his letter doxologically: “[T]o him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever” (24-25). Jude’s statement that God keeps Christians goes hand in hand with his previous plea for believers to keep themselves in the love of God. This connection is explainable because “God’s action is decisive; He is keeping His own people. [Believers’] action[s] are dependant; [they] keep [them]selves. [Christians] have help [in that] God will protect His people from stumbling and make [them] stand in the presence of His glory.”[19]
Application
Three major points of application from Jude’s Epistle are useful for the church today.
First, since false teaching is as present in the church as it was in Jude’s time, Christians are to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (3). This means that Christians must persevere in holding true to orthodox doctrines in an age of theological diversity. There are false teachings of all kinds, evident in every area of the world, so Christians must stand firm for biblical truth derived from the Scriptures and texts such as the Epistle of Jude. In some areas of the world, where radical religious beliefs are apparent, Christians may even have to die for the Gospel. God will reward these martyrs, yet He will also reward the Christians who stand firm until their end due to other causes.
Second, Christians must remain in God's love (20-21). This is done by regularly gathering with God’s people and participating in the sacraments with them, spending time in the Word as a community and individually, and “praying in the Holy Spirit” (20), again, both congregationally and individually. When these disciplines are regularly practiced, God’s people can be assured that they are applying this plea of Jude to their own lives. Furthermore, these practices equip them to go into the world and love others. What better way is there for Christians to remain in God’s love than by sharing His love with all the people of the world?
Third, Christians must know and truly believe that God is their keeper. Jude ends his Epistle with a doxology to praise God and demonstrate his greatness to his audience. He tells them that God, by His power, keeps them to Himself and that all “glory, majesty, dominion, and authority” belong to Him. Therefore, Christians today should praise God for such things. Moreover, they should praise God simply for who He is.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Andreas J. Kӧstenberger, L. Scott Kellum, and Charles L. Quarles, The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016), 875.
[2] Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references in this paper are to the English Standard Version (ESV) (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016).
[3] Kostenberger, Kellum, and Quarles, 874.
[4] Ibid., 875.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Kostenberger, Kellum, and Quarles, 877-78.
[7] Ibid., 877.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid., 880.
[11] Patrick Schreiner, “New Testament Survey II - Dr. Patrick Schreiner - 1, 2, & 3 John and Jude,” YouTube.com, December 7, 2023, 9:02-20, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_a_ZsLMtig
[12] Patrick Schreiner, The Visual Word: Illustrated Outlines of the New Testament, illustrated by Anthony M. Benedetto (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2021), 168.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid., 169.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid., 168.
[17] Patrick Schreiner, “New Testament Survey II - Dr. Patrick Schreiner - 1, 2, & 3 John and Jude,” 11:45-50.
[18] Patrick Schreiner, The Visual Word: Illustrated Outlines of the New Testament, 169.
[19] Patrick Schreiner, “New Testament Survey II - Dr. Patrick Schreiner - 1, 2, & 3 John and Jude,” 12:30-45.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kӧstenberger, Andreas J., L. Scott Kellum, and Charles L. Quarles. The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown. Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016.
Schreiner, Patrick. “New Testament Survey II - Dr. Patrick Schreiner - 1, 2, & 3 John and Jude” YouTube.com. December 7, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_a_ZsLMtig
______. The Visual Word: Illustrated Outlines of the New Testament. Illustrated by Anthony M. Benedetto. Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2021.
