The second example is that of a group of angels who do not escape God's judgment. Even in the angel camp there were some who fell away. I like the way Jude says it--"abandoned their own home." How bad does that feel, to voluntarily give up all they've ever known and choosing to go with Satan?! What a gamble--what a loss. Those who had never known anything else quickly lost the glory of heaven and exchanged it for the gates of Hell. No going back, no mercy offered or received.
"How great is God's mercy toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." For some, mercy. For others, judgment.
We should never take God's mercy for granted, or use it as an excuse to sin, or even skirt the edges of possible sin. Why would we? Place your focus where it belongs--straight onto Christ and his death on the cross. Is it about us or is it about Him? Our minds can often deviate from the heart of the matter into peripheral concerns and there we go, down the trail of selfishness, stubbornness, pleasure, whatever.
For those of us who have received mercy, it should never give us license to sin. We have been delivered from SO much!
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Jude 5
Jude tells the church with a few Old Testament examples, that not all church members are actually Christians.
The first example is in verse 5. When Israel left Egypt, they left as a group, an ethnic group of oppressed people. Everyone was ready to leave. Egyptians were practically begging them to go, throwing their expensive jewelry at them. But many proved later to not be people of God, with their deceit and idoltry, and God wiped them out.
Is this the same God for the New Testament Church? Yes! Is He the same God today? Yes!
My friend Lois and I were confessing yesterday that our prayer life looks like that of people who don't really believe God will answer prayer, or that He will do whatever He will do without our prayers. So many years go by and we don't see anything happening that we lose heart. But God IS the same God! We should always be expectant.
The first example is in verse 5. When Israel left Egypt, they left as a group, an ethnic group of oppressed people. Everyone was ready to leave. Egyptians were practically begging them to go, throwing their expensive jewelry at them. But many proved later to not be people of God, with their deceit and idoltry, and God wiped them out.
Is this the same God for the New Testament Church? Yes! Is He the same God today? Yes!
My friend Lois and I were confessing yesterday that our prayer life looks like that of people who don't really believe God will answer prayer, or that He will do whatever He will do without our prayers. So many years go by and we don't see anything happening that we lose heart. But God IS the same God! We should always be expectant.
Jude 4b continued
The second thing: "they deny Jesus Christ our only Savior and Lord." How in the world did it come to that?!!
A parallel passage can be found in 2 Peter 2. Sounds like the same group, or type of group. They deny the Sovereign Lord. They are questioning Jesus as God--he was just a man who tried hard and then he died. But if we lose Jesus as God, we lose Christianity entirely. He is the heart of the gospel!
In 2 Peter 1 Peter spends the entire chapter defending Jesus as God's Son. "I was there!" he says. I saw the miracles--I heard the voice form heaven say, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." I saw him risen from the dead! I have seen the Old Testament come alive in the person of Jesus Christ, who fulfilled all the prophecies of long ago.
You can see that whoever wins this argument wins the church. And we know that God will keep His Church. But what a scary time this must have been for the remaining apostles, who saw the damage these guys were doing and the repercussions that would follow if they were allowed to remain in the church.
Jude echoes Peter's letter with the same defense. Jude's book is like 2 Peter in shorthand. Less explanation, but still covering all the bases.
If we're dealing with Gnostics as the godless group, then they have denied Jesus as God because to them flesh is totally sinful and the spirit is totally pure. Therefore ther eis no way Jesus could be God's Son and live in a body of flesh. So they question Jesus' divinity based on a faulty supposition. Jesus' body was not in an ordinary body. He was not actually from the seed of Adam. The Holy Spirit placed Jesus in the womb of Mary (God knows how to make people, after all) so that he came from a woman, but was not of the woman. He was like the first Adam, perfect upon arrival. The difference is, he never sinned.
A parallel passage can be found in 2 Peter 2. Sounds like the same group, or type of group. They deny the Sovereign Lord. They are questioning Jesus as God--he was just a man who tried hard and then he died. But if we lose Jesus as God, we lose Christianity entirely. He is the heart of the gospel!
In 2 Peter 1 Peter spends the entire chapter defending Jesus as God's Son. "I was there!" he says. I saw the miracles--I heard the voice form heaven say, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." I saw him risen from the dead! I have seen the Old Testament come alive in the person of Jesus Christ, who fulfilled all the prophecies of long ago.
You can see that whoever wins this argument wins the church. And we know that God will keep His Church. But what a scary time this must have been for the remaining apostles, who saw the damage these guys were doing and the repercussions that would follow if they were allowed to remain in the church.
Jude echoes Peter's letter with the same defense. Jude's book is like 2 Peter in shorthand. Less explanation, but still covering all the bases.
If we're dealing with Gnostics as the godless group, then they have denied Jesus as God because to them flesh is totally sinful and the spirit is totally pure. Therefore ther eis no way Jesus could be God's Son and live in a body of flesh. So they question Jesus' divinity based on a faulty supposition. Jesus' body was not in an ordinary body. He was not actually from the seed of Adam. The Holy Spirit placed Jesus in the womb of Mary (God knows how to make people, after all) so that he came from a woman, but was not of the woman. He was like the first Adam, perfect upon arrival. The difference is, he never sinned.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Jude 4b
"They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord."
Wow. They are turning Christianity upside down!
When it comes to worship, God has always been strict. Remember the sons of Eli? Remember the man who steadied the ark? Remember King Saul when he offered a sacrifice? Swift judgment, no compromise, no soft correction. Just judgment. You don't mess around when it comes to worship. God has told us what worship is and how He wants it done. He will not abide men who want to change the heart of worship, which is the truth of the gospel.
These godless men are doing two things:
First, they are using the grace of God a s alicense of live sinfully in the flesh. Just as Paul warned about in Romans 5 and 6. We have been given this wonderful grace that covers our sin, each one, and makes us righteous before God. The more our sin (5:20-21), the greater God's grace to us. But Romans 6:1 is an expected response: should we keep sinning even more so that God's grace will abound even more? Of course not!
But this is what the godless men are doing. They have interpreted the grace of God to extend to future sins. We're safe--God is obligated to forgive us. They have also separated the body from the spirit, as the Gnostics did. Flesh is evil, spirit is pure. They can be totally separate. Your spirit can remain acceptable to God while your flesh does what it wants, because one day the flesh will die and the spirit will remain.
Paul knows the acts of the flesh proceed from the heart (spirit). They cannot be separated like that. Chapter 6 is Paul's answer to that way of thinking. You have died to sin and now live with Christ, so why would you continue in the very sins that nailed Jesus to the cross? Later in Romans 10 he explains that anyone who has been chosen by God will respond with love and obedience and purity.
Wow. They are turning Christianity upside down!
When it comes to worship, God has always been strict. Remember the sons of Eli? Remember the man who steadied the ark? Remember King Saul when he offered a sacrifice? Swift judgment, no compromise, no soft correction. Just judgment. You don't mess around when it comes to worship. God has told us what worship is and how He wants it done. He will not abide men who want to change the heart of worship, which is the truth of the gospel.
These godless men are doing two things:
First, they are using the grace of God a s alicense of live sinfully in the flesh. Just as Paul warned about in Romans 5 and 6. We have been given this wonderful grace that covers our sin, each one, and makes us righteous before God. The more our sin (5:20-21), the greater God's grace to us. But Romans 6:1 is an expected response: should we keep sinning even more so that God's grace will abound even more? Of course not!
But this is what the godless men are doing. They have interpreted the grace of God to extend to future sins. We're safe--God is obligated to forgive us. They have also separated the body from the spirit, as the Gnostics did. Flesh is evil, spirit is pure. They can be totally separate. Your spirit can remain acceptable to God while your flesh does what it wants, because one day the flesh will die and the spirit will remain.
Paul knows the acts of the flesh proceed from the heart (spirit). They cannot be separated like that. Chapter 6 is Paul's answer to that way of thinking. You have died to sin and now live with Christ, so why would you continue in the very sins that nailed Jesus to the cross? Later in Romans 10 he explains that anyone who has been chosen by God will respond with love and obedience and purity.
Jude 4a
"For certain men, whose condemnation was written about long ago, have secretly slipped in among you."
Here's the problem: certain men. Jude knows who they are by the things they say, by the way they live, and by the manner in which they came to church. These "certain men" are described with chilling judgment--they were condemned a long time ago, before they were born. Another translation is, "marked for condemnation." This is the other side of the election coin. God marks some for election and others for condemnation (not by the toss of a coin, though--the analogy of the coin is for the two sides, not for the flippin :). But they don't know that and the Church doesn't know that until these men march onto the pages of history and open their mouths and live their lives. Then we can look at them and say that their judgment is with the wicked.
Jude, who loves mercy, does not counsel the church to confront them with love and try to correct them and bring them into the truth. It's more, "Don't waste your time with them--these deceivers have already chosen their path and are making it their mission to bring as many saints with them as possible." A real zeal for the truth. When Jesus drove out the moneychangers from doing business in the temple, it was said of Jesus, "Zeal for Thy house has consumed me." (John 2:17, quoting Psalm 69:9).
God has always been very zealous regarding worship. It is very important to God how we worship Him. We will see more of that in the next post.
Here's the problem: certain men. Jude knows who they are by the things they say, by the way they live, and by the manner in which they came to church. These "certain men" are described with chilling judgment--they were condemned a long time ago, before they were born. Another translation is, "marked for condemnation." This is the other side of the election coin. God marks some for election and others for condemnation (not by the toss of a coin, though--the analogy of the coin is for the two sides, not for the flippin :). But they don't know that and the Church doesn't know that until these men march onto the pages of history and open their mouths and live their lives. Then we can look at them and say that their judgment is with the wicked.
Jude, who loves mercy, does not counsel the church to confront them with love and try to correct them and bring them into the truth. It's more, "Don't waste your time with them--these deceivers have already chosen their path and are making it their mission to bring as many saints with them as possible." A real zeal for the truth. When Jesus drove out the moneychangers from doing business in the temple, it was said of Jesus, "Zeal for Thy house has consumed me." (John 2:17, quoting Psalm 69:9).
God has always been very zealous regarding worship. It is very important to God how we worship Him. We will see more of that in the next post.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Jude 3
"Dear friends,
Although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints."
Jude can't write what he wants because he has to write what the church needs. It's not about him, it's about protecting the gospel. This reminds me of Paul's relationship with the church in Corinth. In 2 Corinthians he tells them that he had wanted to come to them with joy and comfort and encouragement, but he had heard about so many issues where they were straying that he sent a letter instead, 1 Corinthians, full of rebuke and correction. It grieved him to do it, but it was for their good and for the purity of the gospel.
So now Jude, who would love to talk about the beauty of the gospel and all its facets, he instead has to address a danger that he sees creeping into the church--not one particular church, but many. False shepherds, those wolves in sheep's clothing that are found in other epistles as well, are trying to sneak in and corrupt the church. So Jude wants to bring this problem to their attention and urge them to "contend for the faith that was entrusted" to them.
"Contend for the faith" means to fight for the faith, as in a competition where only one side wins. This is a fight to the death. The loser loses for eternity. The winner will decide the fate of Christianity. Keeping the faith is hard when there are those who wish to redefine Christianity, change words meanings and make things symbolic that used to be real, or mystical instead of true. That happened to the Southern Baptist Convention while I was at seminary, liberal leaders who were definiting the meaning of Christianity and salvation and faith and repentance. They were changing the gospel completely.
If false teachers were allowed to gain footing in the church they would change the gospel that Paul, Peter, John, James and others had worked for years to institute. These men were aging, some perhaps dead, and Jude realizes how important it is that the gospel remains rooted and grounded in Christ and in his work on the cross. We will see next the possible ways in which these false teachers are trying to pervert the gospel.
Although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints."
Jude can't write what he wants because he has to write what the church needs. It's not about him, it's about protecting the gospel. This reminds me of Paul's relationship with the church in Corinth. In 2 Corinthians he tells them that he had wanted to come to them with joy and comfort and encouragement, but he had heard about so many issues where they were straying that he sent a letter instead, 1 Corinthians, full of rebuke and correction. It grieved him to do it, but it was for their good and for the purity of the gospel.
So now Jude, who would love to talk about the beauty of the gospel and all its facets, he instead has to address a danger that he sees creeping into the church--not one particular church, but many. False shepherds, those wolves in sheep's clothing that are found in other epistles as well, are trying to sneak in and corrupt the church. So Jude wants to bring this problem to their attention and urge them to "contend for the faith that was entrusted" to them.
"Contend for the faith" means to fight for the faith, as in a competition where only one side wins. This is a fight to the death. The loser loses for eternity. The winner will decide the fate of Christianity. Keeping the faith is hard when there are those who wish to redefine Christianity, change words meanings and make things symbolic that used to be real, or mystical instead of true. That happened to the Southern Baptist Convention while I was at seminary, liberal leaders who were definiting the meaning of Christianity and salvation and faith and repentance. They were changing the gospel completely.
If false teachers were allowed to gain footing in the church they would change the gospel that Paul, Peter, John, James and others had worked for years to institute. These men were aging, some perhaps dead, and Jude realizes how important it is that the gospel remains rooted and grounded in Christ and in his work on the cross. We will see next the possible ways in which these false teachers are trying to pervert the gospel.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Jude 2
"Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance." This is Jude's opening. Most letters say "Grace and peace," but I think Jude wants to remind the church that the grace of God is wholly undeserved. Grace is the positive aspect of salvation--a free gift. Mercy reminds us that we deserved God's wrath and were forgiven instead.
Mercy is used often in this small book. Have you ever noticed that in the church there are some who lean more towards justice, fairness, getting what you deserve, and then those who want to empathize, forgive, encourage? More about personality and past experience that about what the Bible says. I believe Jude is more of the second nature. Mercy is on his mind and heart.
That's why it's all the more impressive that he doesn't extend mercy towards the false teachers. No mercy for them. They are distorting the gospel, making untrue what is true, demeaning Christ's work on the cross and making it useless. Jude was there once. When Jesus was alive he and his mother and brothers went to get Jesus and bring him home, thinking him a little crazy. It wasn't until after his death and resurrection that Jude was saved. So he values the mercy that was shown to him, but knows that mercy should be directed towards fellow believers, not towards the false teachers.
I know my follower will have wonderful things to say about this--Iapologize for not saying more.
Mercy is used often in this small book. Have you ever noticed that in the church there are some who lean more towards justice, fairness, getting what you deserve, and then those who want to empathize, forgive, encourage? More about personality and past experience that about what the Bible says. I believe Jude is more of the second nature. Mercy is on his mind and heart.
That's why it's all the more impressive that he doesn't extend mercy towards the false teachers. No mercy for them. They are distorting the gospel, making untrue what is true, demeaning Christ's work on the cross and making it useless. Jude was there once. When Jesus was alive he and his mother and brothers went to get Jesus and bring him home, thinking him a little crazy. It wasn't until after his death and resurrection that Jude was saved. So he values the mercy that was shown to him, but knows that mercy should be directed towards fellow believers, not towards the false teachers.
I know my follower will have wonderful things to say about this--Iapologize for not saying more.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)