The Ungodliness Of The Ungodly
THE UNGODLINESS OF THE UNGODLY
JUDE 8-16
Jesus Christ died for these people also.
Jude calls the doctrines of these teachers dreams (v.8); they had no solid basis. They degraded the human body, ignored authority ordained by God and insulted those to whom God had given glory by the position he had granted them. One feature of Jude is his familiarity with Jewish apocalyptic and pseudepigrapha. In verse 9 he quotes from the Assumption of Moses. It is immaterial whether it is factual; this is how one should behave in the presence of God’s great officials. Satan acted as a sort of public prosecutor (see also Job 1:6-12; 2:1-6; Zechariah 3:1-5; Luke 22:31). These men had destroyed their higher nature by their dreams, and so they had become like animals to be destroyed by their passions. Cain committed murder because his brother’s life rebuked his (see 1 John 3:12). For Balaam, see Numbers 22:5-7; 2 Peter 2:15; he was willing to flout God’s will for money. Korah rebelled against God-given authority (Numbers 16:1-35).
“These are blemishes on your love feasts” (v.12): this is the way it is taken in 2 Peter 2:13, where an almost identical Greek word is used. There is, however, much to be said for taking the word here as meaning “hidden reefs”: “these men are a menace” (JBP). The picture is of them sitting in the love feasts of the local church threatening the spiritual life of those around them by their conversation and selfish conduct. Like “waterless clouds” they have a promise of good things but give nothing; “fruitless trees in late autumn” will bear no fruit (see Mark 11:12-14,20), and none in the future because they have no roots. The “sea” (v.13) is the Old Testament symbol for chaos and lawlessness (see Isaiah 57:20). The “wandering stars” are probably comets.
In verses 14-15 we have a quotation from the Jewish writing, the book of Enoch. There is no importance in the fact that this is an extracanonical book, for Jude could have easily found similar statements in the canon. The tense is the prophetic perfect, ie that something foretold is so certain that it can be described as though it had already happened. It was the constant use of “ungodly” that commended the passage to Jude. They were “loudmouthed boasters” with small people, but flatterers of the great (v.16).