Judas 1
Marvin Vincent · Citado em PreceptAustin
Judas 1:1-13
Vincent - The Jews regarded the angels as having dominion over earthly creatures; and the angels are often spoken of in the NT as arche, principalities (Ro 8:38; Ephesians 1:21), so that this term would be appropriate to designate their dignity, which they forsook.
Judas 1:1-13
Vincent commenting on Michael the Archangel - Here we strike a peculiarity of this epistle which caused its authority to be impugned in very early times, viz., the apparent citations of apocryphal writings. The passages are Jude 1:9, 14, 15. This reference to Michael was said by Origen to be founded on a Jewish work called "The Assumption of Moses," the first part of which was lately found in an old Latin translation at Milan; and this is the view of Davidson, so far at least as the words "the Lord rebuke thee" are concerned. Others refer it to Zechariah 3:1; but there is nothing there about Moses' body, or Michael, or a dispute about the body. Others, again, to a rabbinical comment on Dt 34:6, where Michael is said to have been made guardian of Moses' grave. Doubtless Jude was referring to some accepted story or tradition, probably based on Dt 34:6. For a similar reference to tradition compare 2Ti 3:8+; Acts 7:22. Adam
Judas 1:1-13
Vincent says this refers to "the whole range of invisible things, while the other verb in this verse, translated know (epistamai, originally of skill in handicraft), refers to palpable things; objects of sense; the circumstances of sensual enjoyment." "Apostate teachers, in their brash, bold, egotistical infatuation with imagined power and authority, rail on that which they don't even understand. Apostates are intellectually arrogant and spiritually ignorant in that they don't now because they have been blinded by Satan (2Cor 4:4-+) and spiritual matters are beyond their unregenerate capacity to understand." (MacArthur) It is notable that blasphemeo (and blasphemia) is used 5x in 3v, which clearly identifies their hurtful, evil, slanderous tongues as one of their major markers, which should help us identify them as chaff in the midst of wheat.
Judas 1:1-13
Vincent writes ekcheo is literally "were poured out. Rev., ran riotously. A strong expression, indicating a reckless, abandoned devotion of the energies, like the Latin effundi. So Tacitus says of Maecenas, "he was given up to love for Bathyllus;" lit., poured out into love." Like a herd of spooked wildebeests on the African plains. Error (plane) literally describes a roaming, a straying about or a wandering (whereby one is led astray from the right way). Figuratively plane means a going astray (as from orthodox, sound doctrine) or a wandering out of the right way. Vincent says plane is an "error which shows itself in action… It may imply deceit as accompanying or causing error" Balaam - 59v in OT and NT - Num 22:5, 7-9, 12-14, 16, 18, 20-21, 23, 25, 27-29, 34-36; Nu 23:1-3, 11, 16, 25-27; 24:1-3, 10, 12, 15, Nu 24:25; Nu 31:8, 16; Deut 23:4-5; Josh 13:22; 24:9-10; Neh 13:2; Mic 6:5; 2Pet 2:15; Jude 1:11; Rev 2:14 Balaam reminds me of Demas (Read about Demas' decline over time = Philemon 1:24 circa 60AD > Col 4:14+ circa 62AD > 2Ti 4:10+ circa 67AD). Demas was so close to the Truth (cp Heb 6:4-6+, Heb 10:26-31+, Heb 12:25+ 2Pe 2:20+) but ultimately showing his true "love" by deserting Paul (and God, ~denying Jesus by his actions = Mt 10:33), he failed to endure to the end (cp Heb 3:6+, Heb 3:14+, Mt 24:13). W A Criswell - Balaam is typical of the adulterous mind (cf. Nu 22:1-41, Nu 23:1-30, Nu 24:1-25, Nu 25:1-18). Warren
Judas 1:14-19
Vincent - The railing, gainsaying; the profane and vain babblings (2Ti 2:16-note). Ungodly sinners (“godless sinners that they are!”) - Placed last in the Greek sentence for emphasis. Literally it reads "sinners, godless persons." They are not just sinners but "ungodly" ones at that! Ungodly is the key word in this passage and describes their basic sinful attitude of refusing to have a proper reverence for God. As Johann Bengel said "A sinner is bad; asebes, one who sins without fear, is worse." Ungodly (765)(asebes from a = w/o + sébomai = worship, venerate) in simple terms describes a lack of interest in the things of God and a behavior and lifestyle consistent with such an irreverent attitude. See the depth study of the related word ungodliness (asebeia). Ungodly pertains to violating norms for a proper relation to deity, and in short means irreverent (lacking proper respect of God) or impious. Living as if God does not exist and with no regard for Him. Even the English dictionary definitions of ungodly are relatively accurate - denying or disobeying God; characterized by iniquity; lacking reverence for God; impious, sinful, immoral or wicked
Judas 1:14-19
Vincent explains "for the sake of advantage; their glory being in having a multitude of followers." NET = "enchanting folks for their own gain." Wiersbe = "They also use flattery to manipulate their listeners." Hiebert - They show warm interest in others, not to help them but to exploit them. Inconsistently, they stoutly refuse submission to God, where it is due, but servilely render submission to follow human beings, where it is not due. “As the fear of God drives out the fear of man, so defiance of God tends to put man in His place, as the chief source of good or evil to his fellows.” Whenever men refuse God His rightful place in their lives, they inevitably place Him with inferior gods of their own making. (Second Peter-Jude: An Expositional Commentary) Peter uses a different verb but conveys the same idea... and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep. (2 Pe 2:3-note) E C Pentecost sums up these apostates - Vocally discontented, sinfully self-centered, extravagantly egotistical, and deceptively flattering—such are apostates, then and today. Thus in unflinching terms Jude clearly identified the apostates, while at the same time exposing their character in order to warn believers of their true nature and their final destiny. He was laying the groundwork to call his readers to action against these ungodly men and their practices. (The Bible Knowledge Commentary) SMOOTH TALKER - A man who was trying to explain the meaning of the word oratory commented with tongue in cheek, “If you say black is white, that’s foolishness. But if while you say black is white you roar like a bull, pound on the table with both fists, and race from one end of the platform to another, that’s oratory!” We can quickly be swept off our feet by the way people express themselves, even though we have some questions about their message. Jude warned us about those whose mouths speak “great swelling words” (Jude 1:16). The masses are often moved more by style than by content. According to Paul, the time will come when people will turn away from the truth of sound doctrine and tolerate only those who entertain and make people feel good (2Ti 4:3-4). So we must carefully analyze and evaluate in the light of the Scriptures everything we hear—even what is taught and proclaimed by the most eloquent of speakers. We must not allow ourselves to be swayed by mere oratory—especially in the church! We need to be sure that the Bible teachers we listen to are “speaking the truth in Christ and not lying” (1Ti 2:7). We must beware of speakers who Distort and twist God's Word; They'll entertain and motivate, And call the truth absurd. —Sper To recognize Satan's lies, focus on God's truth. Jude 1:17 But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ,: humeis de agapetoi mnesthete (2PAPM) ton rhematon ton proeiremenon (RPPNPN) hupo ton apostolon tou kuriou hemon Iesou Christou remember = Mal 4:4; Acts 20:35; Eph 2:20; Eph 4:11; 2Pe 3:2; 1Jn 4:6 Click for over 60 versions of this verse. Amplified - But you must remember, beloved, the predictions which were made by the apostles (the special messengers) of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One). Barclay But you, beloved, you must remember the words which were once spoken by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; you must remember that they said to us NET But you, dear friends- recall the predictions foretold by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Judas 1:14-19
Vincent - As psuche denotes life in the distinctness of individual existence, "the centre of the personal being, the I of each individual," so the adjective (psuchikos) derived from it denotes what pertains to man as man, the natural personality as distinguished from the renewed man. So 1Corinthians 2:14+; 1 Cor 15:44+ (see Vincent's note on 1Cor 15:44). The rendering sensual, here and James 3:15, is inferential: sensual because natural and unrenewed In contrast with this is life in the Spirit. (Jude - Vincent's Word Studies) "The word (Psuche) is often used in the New Testament in its original meaning of life. See Mt 2:20; 20:28; Acts 20:10; Ro 11:3; Jn 10:11. Hence, as an emphatic designation of the man himself. See Mt 12:18; Heb 10:38; Lk 21:19. So that the word denotes “life in the distinctness of individual existence” (Cremer). (Mark 12) Henry Alford - The psuche is the centre of the personal being, the ‘I’ of each individual. It is in each man bound to the spirit, man’s higher part, and to the body, man’s lower part; drawn upwards by the one, downward by the other. He who gives himself up to the lower appetites, is sarkikos (fleshly): he who by communion of his pneuma (spirit) with God’s Spirit is employed in the higher aims of his being, is pneumatikos (spiritual). He who rests midway, thinking only of self and self’s interests, whether animal or intellectual, is the psuchikos (sensual), the selfish man, the man in whom the spirit is sunk and degraded into subordination to the subordinate psuche (soul). In the lack of any adequate word, I have retained the ‘sensual’ of E.V., though the impression which it gives is a wrong one: ‘selfish’ would be as bad, for the psuchikos may be an amiable and generous man: ‘animal’ would be worse, ‘intellectual,’ worse still. If the word were not so ill-looking in our language, ‘psychic’ would be a great gain.” Wuest translates psuchikos as "unspiritual" with this amplification - "having to do with the natural, physical existence as over against the spiritual world of the supernatural." That's a good description of worldly wisdom but take time to read Johnstone's explanation below to get a fuller sense of what James intends by using psuchikos to describe earthly wisdom. (Wuest Word Studies - Eerdman Publishing Company Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3 - used by permission) Robert Johnstone in his commentary on the Epistle of James has an excellent extended explanation of the meaning of natural (sensual) wisdom in the sense it is used in James 3:15+ and here in Jude 1:19. It is long but worth reading (I had to read it twice). The wisdom which displays itself in bitterness (and alas, brethren, in the history of the church of Christ, how often has fancied wisdom displayed itself in bitterness! how much of real knowledge and mental power has been wasted in such bitterness!)—this wisdom is not from heaven; but as it displays itself on earth, so it is also of ‘earthly’ origin. And, being ‘earthly,’ it is ‘sensual.’ (NATURAL) The word so translated occurs in the New Testament several times, but is rendered ‘sensual’ only here and in a verse in Jude, where ‘mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts,’ (Jude 1:18+) are described as ‘worldly-minded (psuchikos), devoid of the Spirit’ (Jude 1:19+). Elsewhere the rendering is ‘natural,’ as in the contrast between the ‘natural body’ and the ‘spiritual body’ in 1 Cor. 15:44 ("it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.")., and in the statement in the second chapter of the same epistle, that ‘a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:14+). According to its derivation, the original word strictly means ‘belonging to the soul.’ The contrast with spirit and the spiritual, which is expressed in the passages that I have quoted from First Corinthians and from Jude, and implied in that now before us, is the key to the exact meaning. Sometimes in Scripture, as commonly among ourselves, man is spoken of as consisting of a body and a soul, in which case ‘soul’ is used in the widest sense. Sometimes, however, we have three constituent elements mentioned or alluded to—the body, soul, and spirit. According to this division, the ‘soul’ comprehends only those energies and capacities of mind and heart which have to do with the world known by our bodily senses,—man’s mental and emotional nature in so far merely as he is the highest of the animals—an animal able to buy and sell, as the beaver can build a hut and a dam; the ‘spirit’ is that highest power of a rational being by which it can apprehend the idea of God, and hold communion with Him,—by which through faith it can live under the influences of an unseen world. The ‘spirit’ should be the governing principle, holding the whole nature under a firm and healthful sway. But, as you know, brethren, in man, as he now is by nature, the spirit is darkened, perverted, and weakened; it is dethroned through sin; and only the enlightening and strengthening energy of God’s Spirit can enable our spirits to take their rightful dignity and rule. Where the spirit does not rule, the soul—that is, as we have seen, the mental and emotional nature in so far as it is occupied with the world open to the senses—tends to become ever more and more subject to the lowest element of our constitution, the appetites of the body. Hence the Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Romans, distinguishes all men into two classes—those who are ‘in the flesh,’ and those who are ‘in the spirit;’ the standard on which the division is based being that which I have now indicated: ‘Ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you’ (Ro 8:9+). You see, then, that when James here calls the wisdom that bore bitter wranglings as its fruit a wisdom ‘of the soul,’ with an implied and well understood contrast to that wisdom of the spirit which ought to regulate all the thoughts and feelings, words and actions, of Christians, he means that it belongs entirely to the lower elements of our nature, and that its characteristics are simply those of the wisdom belonging to the men of the world, whose aim is personal honour and aggrandisement. The words which this wisdom utters may be of God’s glory, but their real aim is man’s glory. Its plans and procedure have all reference to self and to this world of the senses, though the subjects it discusses may belong to the invisible world, the world known to faith. Rightly understood, then, brethren, you cannot but feel how searching and scathing this word of the apostle is; and it is interesting to notice, that the very same tempers which are here denounced as unspiritual, merely ‘of the soul,’ are those which the Apostle Paul specifies as peculiarly grieving to that Divine Spirit through whose indwelling alone man’s spirit has rule over his lower nature. ‘Grieve not (present imperative with a negative) the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you’ (Eph. 4:30–32+). From the completeness with which the distinction between soul and spirit has been lost to our modern thought, it seems impossible to give the idea of the word before us exactly in any translation. ‘Sensual’ and ‘animal’ suggest too exclusively the action of the very lowest propensities of our nature, though, as we have seen, the tendency of the ‘soul,’ when ungoverned by the ‘spirit,’ is steadily towards subjection to these. Perhaps, on the whole, ‘natural,’ in its well understood opposition to ‘spiritual,’ is the best word. (Lectures Exegetical and Practical on the Epistle of James)(Bold added) DEVOID OF THE SPIRIT Devoid of the Spirit (pneuma) (Literally = "the Spirit not having") - This statement is shorthand for an unbeliever because every believer has the Holy Spirit (Ro 8:9+)! They lack the indwelling Holy Spirit and thus lack the higher spiritual life. The adjective pneumatikos, spiritual, is everywhere in the New Testament opposed to psuchikos, natural. See 1 Corinthians 15:44, 46. Believers on the other hand were "praying in the Holy Spirit" (Jude 1:20), something these men could not do! What does the Spirit do? He unifies (Eph 4:3), but their lack of the Spirit causes them to divide the Body. They have no capacity for understanding the things of God.
Judas 1:20
Vincent says it indicates the placing of one layer upon another + oikodomeo [from oikos = house + domeo = to build] = build a house) literally means to build upon something already built, "adding to the foundation of a building" (Friberg), "to build further" (TDNT), to erect a superstructure (an entity, concept, or complex based on a more fundamental one - 1Co 3:10). Epoikodomeo is used 7x in 6v in the NT - 1Co 3:10, 12, 14; Eph 2:20; Col 2:7-note; Jude 1:20 Epoikodomeo is always used figuratively in the NT referring to their spiritual edification (cf Eph 2:20-note, Col 2:7-note). The present tense calls for continual building on the superstructure of our faith. Note that some writers see this participle (as well as praying and watching) as have the force of an imperative or command. While the apostates majored on tearing down the faith, Jude charges the godly ones to be zealous to build up the faith. The building of strong Christian character is a process that takes a lifetime. Indeed, we are all "works in progress." (Php 1:6-note), or as someone has abbreviated it... PBPGIFWMY Which means "Please Be Patient. God Isn’t Finished With Me Yet." Often times when we look in the mirror and deep into our own soul, we may not like what we see, but it's then that we need to recall the great truth that God isn’t finished with us yet. And as Jude reminded them in Jude 1:1-note they are "kept" (perfect tense= speaks of the permanence of this keeping) and in Jude 1:24 God is "is able to keep (them) from stumbling and to make (them) stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,." Paul used the root verb oikodomeo in his letter to the Thessalonians, exhorting them to "encourage one another and build up one another." (1Th 5:11-note) Peter uses a similar construction metaphor writing that we are "living stones...being built up as a spiritual house" built upon Jesus Christ the "precious corner stone." (1Pe 2:4-6-note). In Acts 20:32-note we see "the Word of His grace...is able (has the inherent power) to build (oikodomeo) you up." The point is that the Body of Christ will NOT be built up without the intentional "injection" of the Word of Truth (cf Jn 17:17)! THOUGHT- How is your church doing dear reader? Is the preaching expositional and profound (deep) or is the offering more like "sermonettes" for "Christianettes?" Are Bible studies offered that focus on "how you feel about the passage" (or what it means to you) or on what the Word of God authored by the Spirit of Truth actually teaches? There is a difference and only the latter genre of Bible study truly builds up and fortifies the body individually and corporately! In Ephesians 2:20-note Paul says that we have "been built upon (epoikodomeo - aorist tense = past tense; passive voice = divine passive = God the Spirit being the one who built us) the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone." In Colossians 2:7-note Paul says we have "been firmly rooted (perfect tense = past completed action with continuing effect/result) and now being built up (epoikodomeo in the present tense = continually, passive voice = "divine passive" = by the Spirit) in Him (Christ). " John MacArthur on building ourselves up - Practically speaking, edification centers on studying the Word of God and learning to apply it. In Acts 20:32-note Paul tells the Ephesian elders, “I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.” All the ministries of the church should result in edification (Ro 14:19-note; 1Cor 14:12, 26; Eph 4:16-note; 1Th. 5:11-note; cf. 1Cor 8:1). God gave the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, and pastor/teachers to proclaim His Word, which results in “the building up of the body of Christ” (Eph 4:11-12-note; cf. Col 2:6-7-note). Peter wrote that believers should desire the Word for spiritual growth, just as babies desire milk for their physical nourishment (1Pe 2:2-note). Along those same lines, the apostle John wrote that the spiritually strong believers, those capable of successfully waging effective warfare for the truth, are those in whom the Word of God abides (1 John 2:14-note). (2 Peter and Jude MacArthur New Testament Commentary) Matthew