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.