The World and the Word

                                                 The Wheat and the Chaff

The Apostle Jude wrote his epistle as a prophetic warning to Christ's true believers about future apostates who would introduce false doctrines into the Church in their attempt to destroy the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. All that is good in Christianity hinges on repentance and faith. Jude wrote that the apostates would be unbelievers and ungodly persons. Unbelief and ungodliness always denote the totally evil and spiritually dead nature of every human. Apostates have allowed the totally evil natures of their inner beings to dominate their lives to the extent that they have fully suppressed the faith that God put into His image that He put into them when He created them. The have become secret agents of the Devil who seek to corrupt Christianity.

In verse 6, Jude compared these apostates to the fallen angels whom God cast into eternal darkness. But just as God stripped all of His goodness from Lucifer's system before God cast him to earth as a totally evil, negative consciousness, so God had to have stripped His fallen angels of all His goodness in them before He cast them into everlasting darkness. Ezekiel 28:15-19. Likewise, in verse 7, Jude wrote that only the totally evil natures of the people of Sodom and Gomorrha would be cast into eternal fire, not their living souls and spirits that God created and would reclaim. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15.

In verses 8-9, Jude compared these apostates to the Devil who contended with the archangel Michael over the body of Moses. Just as Michael told the Devil that the Lord would deal with him, so God will deal with the totally evil natures of the apostates.

Jude aptly described these apostates as being "brute beasts" in verse 10 just as the Apostle Peter had done in II Peter 2:12. In other words, both Apostles described the apostates as having an evil nature that is foreign to the image of God that He put into them which makes them truly human. In Matthew 15:16-20, Jesus taught about the evil nature of every person. In Luke 17:20-21, Jesus spoke about the eternal image of God that He puts into every human that He has created.

Jude wrote in verse 11 that the apostates could be compared to the "way of Cain," the "error of Balaam," and the "gainsaying of Core." In other words, Cain, Balaam, and Core practiced evil, but their souls and spirits were not inherently evil. It was their "way," their "error," and their "gainsaying" that was evil, not their living images of God in them.

Jude wrote in verse 12 that just as God's Holy Church would have evil persons within it, so these apostates would have an evil nature within them that would be devoid of any goodness. "Clouds they are without water" means they have no life whatsoever in their evil natures. "Trees whose fruit withereth" reminds one of Jesus' teaching about the inner nature of every human in Matthew 7:15-20. "Twice dead" reminds one that Christ will judge all humans not saved by grace after they physically die in order to cast their living souls and spirits still stained by sin into one of the regions of death, but He will use His consuming fire to separate and resurrect their living natures in His final judgment and cast their dead natures into the eternal lake of fire. Hebrews 9:27; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15; I Corinthians 3:11-15. "Plucked up by the roots" reminds one of Jesus' parable about the tares and wheat in Matthew 13:24-30. Every human has tares and wheat within their inner being.

In verses 14-15, Jude further wrote that Enoch prophesied that God would judge these ungodly apostates in the end of the world and get rid of them.

In verse 16, Jude instructed the Church as to how they could recognize these apostates. They would often murmur and complain about the true doctrines of the Church. When they preached, they would often use big, theological words to get unlearned Christians to admire them and think of them as being good men of God.  In verses 17-19, Jude warned the Church to beware of these apostates who would definitely be in their Churches.

In verse 20-25, Jude encouraged the Church to faithfully preach the true gospel of Christ in order to convert sinners to salvation by grace and a home in Heaven with God forever.