God used a righteous 'Jude' to expose the apostates, for whom another Jude, namely Judas Iscariot, was an example. We only know for sure that the rightly minded 'Jude' was a 'servant of Jesus Christ, but brother of James.'
Regarding the recipients, Jude mentions three characteristics that apply to all believers. They are 'called,' [1] 'loved in God the Father,' and 'kept for Jesus Christ.' God has called these people out of the world through the gospel so that they belong to Him. They are set apart by God to be God’s special and pure people. And they are wonderfully 'kept' from danger, defilement, and condemnation until they are eventually led into heaven, where they will see the King in His beauty.
Regarding the recipients, Jude mentions three characteristics that apply to all believers. They are 'called,' [1] 'loved in God the Father,' and 'kept for Jesus Christ.' God has called these people out of the world through the gospel so that they belong to Him. They are set apart by God to be God’s special and pure people. And they are wonderfully 'kept' from danger, defilement, and condemnation until they are eventually led into heaven, where they will see the King in His beauty.
Footnote
[1] Instead of "loved" (TR; ē gapē menois), one can also read "sanctified" (NA; hēgiasmenois). The vehement condemnation of immorality found in this letter might perhaps be better introduced with its opposite, namely with "sanctified."
 | Author: William MacDonald Rank: Author Posted on: 2024-01-02 Source: Title: Commentary on the New Testament Year (original): 1989 Author: William MacDonald Number of pages: 1504 Publisher/Editor: CLV Print: GGP Media GmbH, Pößneck |
Sender, Recipients, Purpose of the Letter
[Verse 1]. Jude presents himself as “a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James”. At the explanation of the letter of James we saw that James is a brother of the Lord Jesus [Jas 1:1]; [Gal 1:19]. Besides a James we also come across a Jude among the brothers of the Lord after the flesh [Matt 13:55]. It is obvious that he is the author of this letter.
Just like James, Jude does not call himself ‘a brother’ of Jesus Christ, but joyfully calls himself ‘a bond-servant’. He neither speaks about ‘Jesus’, but about ‘Jesus Christ’. Every familiarity is missing, although he and James were raised together with the Lord in the same parental home. That undoubtedly has got to do with the fact that they have learnt to know Him as the Resurrected [1Cor 15:7]. It is more important to be spiritually related to Him and to show that by listening to His Word than to be with Him in a natural family relationship [Luke 11:27-28].
As it already has been noticed, in his letter Jude address all believers without distinction. He calls them “those who are the called”. He has the interest of all believers in mind, all who belong to the worldwide church. At the same time the letter is also very personal, for a calling is a personal matter of every believer. Those who are called – and therefore by grace you too are included – he presents directly at the beginning of his letter in a twofold regard: first to “God the Father” and then to “Jesus Christ”. The regard to God the Father is related with love and the regard to Jesus Christ with preservation.
What Jude does here lies in the same line as what the Lord Jesus does in His prayer to His Father when He asks Him to keep those who are His own [John 17:11]. What Jude is saying and what the Lord Jesus has prayed is, with a view to the content of the letter, very encouraging. You may know that you are an object of Divine love, no matter how much evil has penetrated Christianity. You may know that you will be preserved till the end by Jesus Christ, while the penetrated evil will be judged by Him. What an encouragement! That gives security and power to your faith that is being tested severely in the time of apostasy wherein you live.
[Verse 2]. After addressing his readers Jude has a threefold wish to his readers, “mercy and peace and love”. In addition he also wishes that it may be “multiplied”. We always find in the greeting of the letters of Paul ‘grace and peace’ as a wish. Only in the two letters to Timothy he adds the wish of ‘mercy’. That shows that ‘mercy’ is especially meant for individuals, which emphasizes the personal character of the letter of Jude.
The combination of the three wishes that Jude speaks out here, only occurs with him:
1. He begins with “mercy”. In this word you find the aspect of need and compassion. Jude knows that the believers especially need that, with a view to the time that he will describe right away.
2. Also “peace” is important in such a time. All evil that has entered into the church abundantly, may be a reason to get filled with dissatisfaction. When everything seems to be hopeless and there seems to be no way out, dissatisfaction can easily creep in.
3. Finally “love” is needed. How evil the times may be, the believer may always be aware of the love of God.
Jude mentions these things in general terms. Of course he wishes them to you because of God. At the same time it is the intention that these characteristics will also be expressions that are coming out of you to others in a time of decay. After all, you have the new life, you are born of God and you have His nature. When the apostasy will be manifested more and more clearly, then it is more urgently desirable that these expressions of God’s care are to be found toward one another among the believers. And Jude does not only wish that they will increase, but that they will be in abundance by multiplication, meaning that they may increase more and more.
[Verse 3]. Jude calls his readers “beloved” and in this way he participates with God the Father of Whom he has said that He loves the ones that He owns (verse 1). He has the same feelings for them as God the Father has. It is important to see your brothers and sisters the way God the Father sees them and to feel for them what He feels for them.
Jude tells that he was intended to write them a letter. He indeed carries out that intention. He also tells them about what he wanted to write to them, but that something has changed. He would have loved to share with them what he and they possess in common in the salvation that they have received (cf. [2Pet 1:1]). However, the wish to write about the “common salvation” had been replaced by a burden that God’s Spirit has placed in his heart. He has been obedient to that and has acknowledged the necessity to write an exhortation instead of about enjoyable truths.
He tells about this change in his plan, because this makes you feel the seriousness of the content of his letter even more. It shows that sometimes plans need to be changed and that instead of enjoying the truths of faith these truths of faith are to contend for.
The faith – this refers to the truth of faith and not so much to your personal faith – is extremely precious. It is everything that you know of God in Christ, just as you have it in the inspired, infallible, authoritative and complete Word of God. Therefore it also has to be maintained and defended as such. Everything that comes from God will always be attacked and must therefore be defended. You are to hold on to it that only to the apostles it has been given to determine the touch stones of the faith in the inspired scriptures.
To explain and teach the faith is not the task of all, but of the gifts who are given by the Lord Jesus [Eph 4:11]. But it is certainly the task of each believer, therefore also of you, to defend the faith and to contend for it. That is not a matter of only a few. It is after all the faith which was “once for all handed down to the saints”, which includes all saints and not only a small group of privileged people. The result is that all saints are to defend it. The expression ‘saints’ also emphasizes the contrast with the ungodliness of the ungodly men about whom Jude writes in the following verses.
What you are to be defending is the faith that ‘once for all’ was delivered. Therefore it is not about a new discovered faith or a faith that is developing and to which new things are continually being added to. It was once for all and fully manifested by God. Men are not to contribute anything to it, although they are the instruments through which it has been passed on. There will be no more new revelations. Once it was noted like this: If it is new, it cannot be true and if it is true, it is not new.
Just like James, Jude does not call himself ‘a brother’ of Jesus Christ, but joyfully calls himself ‘a bond-servant’. He neither speaks about ‘Jesus’, but about ‘Jesus Christ’. Every familiarity is missing, although he and James were raised together with the Lord in the same parental home. That undoubtedly has got to do with the fact that they have learnt to know Him as the Resurrected [1Cor 15:7]. It is more important to be spiritually related to Him and to show that by listening to His Word than to be with Him in a natural family relationship [Luke 11:27-28].
As it already has been noticed, in his letter Jude address all believers without distinction. He calls them “those who are the called”. He has the interest of all believers in mind, all who belong to the worldwide church. At the same time the letter is also very personal, for a calling is a personal matter of every believer. Those who are called – and therefore by grace you too are included – he presents directly at the beginning of his letter in a twofold regard: first to “God the Father” and then to “Jesus Christ”. The regard to God the Father is related with love and the regard to Jesus Christ with preservation.
What Jude does here lies in the same line as what the Lord Jesus does in His prayer to His Father when He asks Him to keep those who are His own [John 17:11]. What Jude is saying and what the Lord Jesus has prayed is, with a view to the content of the letter, very encouraging. You may know that you are an object of Divine love, no matter how much evil has penetrated Christianity. You may know that you will be preserved till the end by Jesus Christ, while the penetrated evil will be judged by Him. What an encouragement! That gives security and power to your faith that is being tested severely in the time of apostasy wherein you live.
[Verse 2]. After addressing his readers Jude has a threefold wish to his readers, “mercy and peace and love”. In addition he also wishes that it may be “multiplied”. We always find in the greeting of the letters of Paul ‘grace and peace’ as a wish. Only in the two letters to Timothy he adds the wish of ‘mercy’. That shows that ‘mercy’ is especially meant for individuals, which emphasizes the personal character of the letter of Jude.
The combination of the three wishes that Jude speaks out here, only occurs with him:
1. He begins with “mercy”. In this word you find the aspect of need and compassion. Jude knows that the believers especially need that, with a view to the time that he will describe right away.
2. Also “peace” is important in such a time. All evil that has entered into the church abundantly, may be a reason to get filled with dissatisfaction. When everything seems to be hopeless and there seems to be no way out, dissatisfaction can easily creep in.
3. Finally “love” is needed. How evil the times may be, the believer may always be aware of the love of God.
Jude mentions these things in general terms. Of course he wishes them to you because of God. At the same time it is the intention that these characteristics will also be expressions that are coming out of you to others in a time of decay. After all, you have the new life, you are born of God and you have His nature. When the apostasy will be manifested more and more clearly, then it is more urgently desirable that these expressions of God’s care are to be found toward one another among the believers. And Jude does not only wish that they will increase, but that they will be in abundance by multiplication, meaning that they may increase more and more.
[Verse 3]. Jude calls his readers “beloved” and in this way he participates with God the Father of Whom he has said that He loves the ones that He owns (verse 1). He has the same feelings for them as God the Father has. It is important to see your brothers and sisters the way God the Father sees them and to feel for them what He feels for them.
Jude tells that he was intended to write them a letter. He indeed carries out that intention. He also tells them about what he wanted to write to them, but that something has changed. He would have loved to share with them what he and they possess in common in the salvation that they have received (cf. [2Pet 1:1]). However, the wish to write about the “common salvation” had been replaced by a burden that God’s Spirit has placed in his heart. He has been obedient to that and has acknowledged the necessity to write an exhortation instead of about enjoyable truths.
He tells about this change in his plan, because this makes you feel the seriousness of the content of his letter even more. It shows that sometimes plans need to be changed and that instead of enjoying the truths of faith these truths of faith are to contend for.
The faith – this refers to the truth of faith and not so much to your personal faith – is extremely precious. It is everything that you know of God in Christ, just as you have it in the inspired, infallible, authoritative and complete Word of God. Therefore it also has to be maintained and defended as such. Everything that comes from God will always be attacked and must therefore be defended. You are to hold on to it that only to the apostles it has been given to determine the touch stones of the faith in the inspired scriptures.
To explain and teach the faith is not the task of all, but of the gifts who are given by the Lord Jesus [Eph 4:11]. But it is certainly the task of each believer, therefore also of you, to defend the faith and to contend for it. That is not a matter of only a few. It is after all the faith which was “once for all handed down to the saints”, which includes all saints and not only a small group of privileged people. The result is that all saints are to defend it. The expression ‘saints’ also emphasizes the contrast with the ungodliness of the ungodly men about whom Jude writes in the following verses.
What you are to be defending is the faith that ‘once for all’ was delivered. Therefore it is not about a new discovered faith or a faith that is developing and to which new things are continually being added to. It was once for all and fully manifested by God. Men are not to contribute anything to it, although they are the instruments through which it has been passed on. There will be no more new revelations. Once it was noted like this: If it is new, it cannot be true and if it is true, it is not new.
Verses that belong to this explanation: 1-3
1 Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, [and] called: 2 Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied. 3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort [you] that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
 | Author: Ger de Koning Rank: Author Posted on: 2023-03-31 Source: Title: Jude Author: Ger de Koning Copyright: kingcomments.com Note General: All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author or the publisher. |
And brother of James, the apostle and bishop of Jerusalem; he might have added, the brother of Christ, as he and the same St. James are so styled; i.e. cousin germans. — And called. That is, to all converted to the faith of Christ, whether they were Jews or Gentiles. (Witham)
 | Author: George Leo Haydock Rank: Author AD: 1849 Source: Title: Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary Year (original): 1859 Number of pages: 571 Print: Edward Dunigan and Brother, New York, New York |
Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ,— of Him as Lord; but the brother of James. For this is true; he was His brother, (the son) of Joseph.
 | Author: Clement Of Alexandria Rank: Author AD: 215 |
Jude, who wrote the Catholic Epistle, the brother of the sons of Joseph, and very religious, while knowing the near relationship of the Lord, yet did not say that he himself was His brother.
| Author: Clement Of Alexandria Rank: Author AD: 215 |
The listed verse explanations of the individual persons have nothing to do with the explanations of the other persons. This also applies to the Bible translations.
