Jude 1:3

(3, 4) The purpose and occasion of the Letter.

(3) Beloved.—“Very unusual at the beginning of an Epistle; Jud_1:2, is the only other example It indicates, possibly, the writer’s wish to be brief and get to his subject at once; and, as his subject is a very unpleasing one, he hastens to assure his readers of affection for them, to prevent his strong language from offending them.

When I gave all diligence.—Better, in giving all diligence: i.e., in having it much at heart. Wiclif and Rheims are nearly right. The expression is unique in the New Testament—2Pe_1:5 is similar, but the Greek for “giving” differs in verb and tense from the word used here.

Of the common salvation.—The best MSS. insert “our”—of our common salvation: i.e., of those things which pertain to the salvation of us all. (Comp. Tit_1:4.) Some would take these words after “it was needful for me to write unto you.” The Authorised version is better.

It was needful for me to write unto you.—Better, I found it necessary to write at once to you, St. Jude had intended to write on general grounds; then the circumstances stated in Jud_1:4 made him write immediately for the special purpose of warning them against a pressing danger. The “at once” comes from the tense, which is present in the first clause, aorist in the second. That St. Jude had intended to write a longer letter is pure conjecture, for which there is no evidence.

Contend for.—The word is a graphic one, implying standing over a thing to fight in its defence. You must fight as well as build (Neh_4:16; Neh_4:18).

The faith—i.e., that which is believed by Christians: not the expression of the doctrine, nor the holding of it, but the substance of it.

Once delivered.—Rather, once for all delivered. No change in it is possible. (Comp. Gal_1:8-9.) By “the saints” are meant all Christians; comp. Act_9:13 (where see Note), Act_9:32; Act_9:41. The word is used advisedly here, in marked contrast to the libertines now to be denounced.

(4) Certain men crept in unawares—viz., into the Church. The “certain” shows that these men are a decided minority, and has a tinge of depreciation, as in Gal_2:12. “Crept in unawares” is analogous to “unawares brought in, who came in privily” (Gal_2:4, where see Note), and to “privily bring in (2Pe_2:1). It is this insidious invasion which constitutes the necessity for writing stated in Jud_1:3. Unfaithful Christians are sometimes regarded as an emergence from within, rather than an invasion from without (1Jn_2:19).

Close similarity to 2 Peter begins here and continues down to Jud_1:18; the Notes on the parallel passages in 2 Peter 2 should be compared throughout. In this Epistle the first three and last seven verses are the only portions not intimately related to 2 Peter.

Who were before of old ordained to this condemnation.—Literally, who have been of old written down beforehand for this sentence; or, perhaps, “written up”; for the metaphor may come from the practice of posting up the names of those who had to appear in court for trial. The text is a favourite one with Calvinists; but it gives no countenance to extreme predestination views. “Of old” cannot refer to the eternal purposes of God, but to something in history. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether it can refer to the recent warnings of St. Paul and St. Peter that false teachers should arise: otherwise one would be tempted to refer it to 2 Peter 2 Something more remote from the writer’s own day seems to be required: either the Old Testament prophets, or the Book of Enoch, quoted below. The Greek word here rendered “before ordained” is in Rom_15:4 rendered “written aforetime.” (Comp. Eph_3:3.)

To this condemnation.—Literally, to this sentence, or judgment; but the context shows that the judgment is an adverse one. “This condemnation,” viz., the one stated in the denunciations which follow, and illustrated by the fate of those mentioned in Jud_1:5-7. Note the three-fold description of the men thus written down for judgment: they are ungodly; they pervert God’s grace; they deny Christ.

Turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness.—Turning Christian liberty into unchristian license. “Our God,” not theirs; they are “without God in the world.” “Wantonness” would be better than “lasciviousness” here, as in 2Pe_2:18. The Greek word expresses license generally, not merely sins of impurity.

Denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.—Rather, denying the only Master, and our Lord Jesus Christ. “God” is an addition to the original text, and must be omitted. “Lord” represents two words in the Greek quite different one from the other. The Genevan version is right all but the insertion of “God;” the Rhemish quite right—having “Dominator,” however, for “Master.” We are once more in doubt whether one or two Persons of the Trinity are mentioned here. (Comp. 2Pe_1:1.) Certainly 2Pe_2:1 countenances our taking “the only Master” as meaning Christ; and the fact that the article is not repeated with “Lord” is in favour of only one Person being meant. But Luk_2:29, Act_4:24, Rev_6:10 countenance our understanding these words as meaning the Father; and the absence of the article before “Lord” is not conclusive. The insertion of “God” is, perhaps, a gloss to insist on this latter interpretation. If it be right, the clause is closely parallel to 1Jn_2:22 : “He is Antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son.” Note the emphatic insertion of “our” once more: they will not have Him for their Lord; His divine authority was precisely what they denied.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jud_1:3

Beloved.

Ministerial courtesy and love

1 Piety is no enemy to courtesy.

2. The work and labour of a minister should proceed from love to his people.

3. People should study to be fit for the love of their pastor.

4. The love of a minister must not be slack and remiss, but vehement and ardent.

5. Loving a ministers person has a great influence upon loving his doctrine.

6. The aim of minister in being beloved of his people should be to benefit their souls.

7. The love of a minister to his people should procure love again from his people. (W. Jenkyn, M. A.)

I gave all diligence.

Diligence

1. Greatest diligence is always to be used about the best things, about matters of greatest concernment. It is madness to make as great a fire for the roasting of an egg as for the roasting of an ox; to follow the world with as much fervency as we do holiness: and about trifles to be employed with vast endeavours. It is impossible to be too diligent for heaven, and difficult not to be over-diligent for the earth.

2. All that ministers, even the best of them, can do, is but to be diligent, to take pains and endeavour (1Co_3:6). One thing to preach, another to persuade.

3. Diligence in duty is the commendation of ministers. The light of knowledge without the heat of love, speaks him not excellent. He is not made for sight, but for service.

4. People who partake of the ministers diligence, must take heed of negligence. (W. Jenkyn, M. A.)

To write unto you.--

Writing

Writing is a great help to promote the common salvation. By this means we speak to the absent and to posterity; and by this means are the oracles of God preserved in public records, which otherwise were in danger of being corrupted, if left to the uncertainty of verbal tradition. Apostolical doctrine being committed to writing, remaineth as a constant rule of faith and manners. Finally, by writing, the streams of salvation are conveyed into every family, that in the defect of public preaching good supply may be had in this kind (Jdg_5:14). Again, in controversials there is great use of writing, controversies not being so easily determined by the judgment of the ear as the eye. In the clamour of disputations and violent discourse, usually there is such a dust raised, that we cannot so soon discern the truth as upon a calm debate, and mature consideration of what is delivered in writing. (T. Manton.)

Of the common salvation.--

The common salvation

I. Invite attention to the theme. The common salvation.

1. Salvation is adapted to all. It meets the case of man, as it provides--

(1) An atonement for sin.

(2) A justifying righteousness.

(3) The Holy spirit, to renew and sanctify.

2. The salvation of the gospel is sufficient for all. As well exhaust the Godhead as exhaust it. If you were bid betake yourself to that mighty ocean, would you say there was not water enough for me to bathe in?

3. The salvation of the gospel offers itself freely to all.

II. Exhort the urgency of personal appropriation of the common salvation. It suggests mournful considerations. Is what lies within the reach of all, what comes as a boon to be forfeited. Ah, what a dismal consummation from such preliminaries! It is no dubious problem, that, in order to any benefit, the salvation must be appropriated; otherwise it is worse than of no avail. For that dishonoured salvation must throw a dismal complexion on your eternity. It must add intensity to all its retributions. (Adam Forman.)

The common salvation

I. The essential truths it embraces.

1. The full admission of mans entire depravity and ruin.

2. The necessity of an entire and sole dependence on the finished work of Christ.

3. The necessity of the influences of the Holy Spirit, for the regeneration and sanctification of the soul.

II. The wondrous scenes it discloses.

1. Look back to the counsels of eternal love.

2. Observe the scenes of the Redeemers advent.

3. Look to the scenes of purity and bliss above.

III. The distinguishing blessings it confers.

1. Pardon and peace.

2. Adoption and dignity.

3. Comfort and preservation.

4. Present pleasure and joyful anticipation.

IV. The personal attention it demands. (W. Spencer.)

The common salvation

(with Tit_1:4):--Jude was probably one of Christs brothers, and a man of position and influence in the Church. He is writing to the whole early Christian community, numbering men widely separated from each other by nationality, race, culture, and general outlook on life; and he beautifully and humbly unites himself with them all as recipients of a common salvation. Paul is writing to Titus, the veteran leader to a raw recruit; and yet Paul beautifully and humbly associates himself with his pupil, as exercising a common faith. But you will notice that they take up the same thought at two different stages, as it were. The one declares that there is but one remedy for all the worlds woes; the other declares that there is but one way by which that remedy can be applied. All who possess the common salvation are so blessed because they exercise the common faith.

I. The underlying conception of a universal deepest need. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. The tap root of all human miseries lies in the solemn fact of human transgression. That is a universal fact. Wide differences part us, but there is one thing that we have all in common: a conscience and a will that lifts itself against disliked good. Beneath all surface differences of garb there lies the same fact, the common sickness of sin. Now, do not let us lose ourselves in generalities. Whatever you may want, be sure of this: that your deepest needs will not be met until the fact of your individual sinfulness and the consequences of that fact are somehow or other dealt with, staunched, and swept away.

II. The common remedy. The common salvation. There is one remedy for the sickness. There is one safety against the danger. There is only one, because it is the remedy for all men, and it is the remedy for all men because it is the remedy for each. Jesus Christ deals, as no one else has ever pretended to deal, with this outstanding fact of my transgression and yours. He, by His death, as I believe, has saved the world from the danger because He has set right the worlds relations to God. On the Cross, Jesus Christ the son of God bore the weight of the worlds sin, yours and mine and every mans. Further, Jesus Christ imparts a life that cures the sickness of sin. Christ deals with men in the depths of their being. He will give you, if you will, a new life and new tastes, directions, inclinations, impulses, perceptions, hopes, and capacities, and the evil will pass away, and you will be whole. Jesus Christ heals society by healing the individual. There is no other way of doing it. If the units are corrupt the community cannot be pure.

III. The common means of possessing the common healing. My second text tells us what that is--The common faith. If it is true that salvation is a gift from God, then it is quite plain that the only thing that we require is an outstretched hand. It is no arbitrary appointment. The only possible way of possessing the common salvation is by the exercise of the common faith. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The common salvation

I. It is common because it comes to all men from: a common source.

II. Because it concerns all classes.

III. Because it satisfies a common need.

IV. Because it is adapted to men of all races and every clime.

V. Because it is the theme of all the writers of Scripture. Learn--

1. To accept this salvation.

2. To publish it.

3. To defend it. (James Hoyle.)

The common salvation

I. It lies open to all.

II. Christ is offered freely to all, in order to be received altogether as He is exhibited in the gospel.

1. In His complex character as God-man.

2. In all His offices as Mediator, Prophet, Priest, and King. (F. Frew.)

The general character of the gospel scheme

I. The gospel, which is characterised by its spiritual or experimental effect, is here called the salvation. It is the instrumental medium through which this comprehensive blessing is conveyed to the soul. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

II. The gospel is not only called the salvation, but the common salvation. This may be intended to intimate--

1. That the salvation which the gospel reveals flows to believers from one common source--Christ.

2. That it is the same salvation that is enjoyed by all the children of God.

3. That the salvation of the gospel is common to every age, and class, and clime.

4. That all true believers have a common interest in this salvation--that they are all alike bound to maintain its doctrines, to vindicate its principles, and to promote its practical designs.

III. The gospel is also here described as the faith once delivered to the saints.

IV. The manner and spirit in which we are to contend for the faith.

V. The reasons which render this contending for the faith necessary.

1. Because men are by nature hostile to the truth, and therefore disposed to pervert it.

2. Because the glory of God is peculiarly connected with the preservation of His truth.

3. Because the uncorrupted truth is essential to the salvation of man.

4. Because we are bound in this matter to follow the example of our Lord and His apostles. (W. McGilvray, D. D.)

The common salvation

1. God is most free of His best blessings. He affords salvation in common to all His people.

2. Christ and heaven are full and satisfactory; they are enough for all.

3. None should be willing to be saved alone. Heaven was made for a common good.

4. They who teach others the way to salvation, should be in a state of salvation themselves. He who has sailed into foreign coasts, discourses more thoroughly and satisfactorily than he who has only map knowledge.

5. The commonness of salvation to all believers should be a great inducement to every one to labour particularly for salvation, and that they may not miss of it themselves.

6. There is but one way to heaven. There are many nations, more men, only one faith.

7. The partakers of this common salvation, who here agree in one way to heaven, and who expect to be hereafter in one heaven, should be of one heart. (W. Jenkyn, M. A.)

The common salvation

And note that he calleth it common salvation, not proper to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Peter, etc., but common to all. First, he calleth it common salvation. First, to admonish all men to lay hold of it. So saith Paul to Timothy, Lay hold of eternal life. And also to admonish ministers to neglect no sheep of God, not the very least. Secondly, he calleth it common salvation because it is not prepared for some few, as the Ark was for the deluge. Salvation is of the Jews, but the doctrine of the gospel is offered unto all. Thirdly, he calleth it common salvation because we are all saved by one common means, that is, by Christ. In this sense, as salvation is called common, so the Church is called common or catholic in three respects. First, it is not tied to any time, as the time of the law, but it endureth for ever. Secondly, it is not tied to any place, but to the whole world. Thirdly, it is not tied to any persons, as to the seed of Abraham, but to all that believe. In these respects salvation is called catholic, or common, and so is the Church. (S. Otes.)

The common salvation

I. Because it provides that which mankind everywhere require. It may be rightfully said, I think, that mankind are addicted to religion; by which I mean that the propensity to engage in worship, and to seek for help and succour from powers which are external to our selves--that that propensity is characteristic to man as man. Man is religious because he cannot help it; he is religious from necessity; he wants that which naturally he does not possess, and without which he believes it cannot be well with him, either now or hereafter. Why else will you find men going upon pilgrimages, offering sacrifices, and enduring the heaviest self-denial? Well, look here, in the glorious gospel of the blessed God you have just the common benefaction which humanity require. This, and not something else; not this or something else, but this exclusively, and this alone.

II. Because you can communicate it to mankind everywhere. I have spoken of various forms of religious service, and various modes of religious action; now of many of them it may be said that they arose out of the necessities of some given district, and that they relate exclusively to the peculiarities of that district. But you cannot tell me of any region of earth where Christianity cannot be instituted; the man does not live to whom it may not be preached, and by whom it may not be forthwith enjoyed. The nation cannot be found under heaven to which it may not be sent. The government does not exist under which it will not survive. Peculiarities, geographical, local or national, cannot be found whereby it would be set at nought.

III. Because it is adapted to mankind everywhere. It is not only required by them in the general, but it is adapted to them severally, wherever they may be found. There are great peculiarities--personal peculiarities amongst the human family.

1. What peculiarities there are, for example, in respect to constitutional temperament! One man is cheerful, so much so that some would say of him, that he is volatile and gay. Another man, on the contrary, is taciturn. It would be said of him that he is gloomy or morose. Others partake of each of these peculiarities in a manner which, perhaps, may be said to constitute the temperament we most admire. The gospel when brought to bear on these peculiarities, ministers impulse where it is required--it ministers equanimity where that is required, and strength where strength is required. It preserves cheerfulness from degenerating into levity, and seriousness from degenerating into gloom.

2. Again, what peculiarities there exist with respect to age! The young man needs to be reminded that the world is a great delusion, and to be kept under constant, powerful, yet cheerful check, lest he put darkness for light, and light for darkness. The man of business needs to be reminded that this is not his rest. The man of threescore years and ten needs to be succoured, comforted, and cheered by the consolations of the gospel. It takes the young man and the maiden, and administers counsel and instruction to them. It takes the man of business, and is like a monitor at his very elbow on the exchange, bidding him not to forget the things which are unseen and eternal. It goes to the old mans chamber, and makes all his bed in his sickness.

3. Yet again, there are peculiarities with respect to intellectual power. There are some men who are profoundly intellectual, and there are other men who are not profoundly intellectual. There is a very great variety of gradation between those two extremes; but mark! The proverbs, the parables, the doctrines, the invitations in this Book were made as much for the sage as they were for the rustic; and, engaged as men of the most opposite intellectual power may be upon the examination of it, I would defy anybody to tell whether the philosopher or the peasant were most at home.

4. Then there is another peculiarity with regard to the degree of each persons criminality. It is adapted to the profligate, the blasphemer, the dishonourable--to adopt the language of the Apostle Paul, it is adapted to the disobedient, the lawless, the ungodly.

IV. Because it may be proffered to all mankind, everywhere. So explicit are its declarations, so unrestricted are its invitations. Believe thou on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved! The light of heaven is unrestricted, and the light of the gospel is equally so. (W. Brock.)

Earnestly contend for the faith once delivered.

Contending for the faith

The revelation of God in Christ--whose contents are the object of Christian faith and are therefore described as the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints--does not consist merely in additional knowledge concerning God. Christ is the Saviour as well as the teacher of men. A large part, perhaps the larger part, of the revelation of God which has come to the race through Christ consists in the actual redemption of men from sin and eternal death. Those who receive the Christian gospel are not only brought under the power of great and pathetic and animating truths concerning God--they enter into the actual possession of a redemption which God has achieved for the race. To them the faith was once for all delivered. That is, the revelation of God in Christ, the Christian gospel, which is the object of the faith of all Christians, and which is here described as the faith, is committed to the trust of all who have been actually redeemed and restored to God by Christ. They are responsible for its purity and integrity. There are other provisions for perpetuating it, and for renewing it, when it has been corrupted or wholly lost. The written story of the earthly life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the authoritative teaching of the apostles. But even those sacred books were written by elect saints in discharge of the same trust which has been inherited by ourselves. They stand apart. They have an exceptional authority. But they illustrate the fidelity which is required of the saints of all succeeding generations; and in our age, as in all past ages, the effective defence of the faith lies, under God, with living men and women who through Christ have received the remission of sins, and the supernatural life, and the grace and light of the Holy Ghost. To the saints was the faith delivered once for all. The saints of every age are responsible for defending it in times of peril and asserting its power. For they, and they alone, have an independent, personal, and immediate knowledge of the Divine objects of faith. Some kinship with a poets genius is necessary for a true understanding of his verse; and spiritual kinship with the writers of the Old Testament and the New is necessary to catch their real thought. Who can tell what is meant by being in Christ except the man who is conscious that he himself is in Christ ? Who can have any clear perception of the great truth--the paradox of the Christian gospel--that we are justified, not by our own righteousness, but in Christ, except the man who, out of the fulness of his own happy experience, can join in the exulting triumph of saints and say, Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, etc. The theologian, therefore, must first of all be a saint. It is not enough that he has mastered the theories of conflicting theologies concerning the Christian atonement, the forgiveness of sins, justification, the new life which is given to the race in Christ, judgment to come. He must know for himself the greatness of the Christian redemption. He must be vividly conscious that in the power of a new life he has passed into a new world, if he is to be able to give any true account of that Divine regenerative act in which the new life is given. His science is the science of God. He must have a large and varied knowledge of God--not merely of the speculations of other men about God. His faith in Christ as the Eternal Word who has become flesh must rest, not on proof texts, but on a direct vision of Christs glory, and his faith in the Holy Spirit on his own consciousness that that august and gracious Presence dwells in him as in a temple. For his thought to move with any certainty in the great mysteries which surround the being of the Eternal, he must be able to say with other saintly souls, Through Christ we have access in one Spirit unto the Father. To all Christian men the great objects of faith are revealed by the Spirit of God. No man can really say that Jesus is the Lord but in the Holy Spirit. The theologian who is called of God to be the teacher of the Church must receive in larger measure than his brethren the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God. It is not given indeed to man to know in this direct way all the wonders of the Divine kingdom; and the theologian, like the discoverers in other sciences, must sometimes rely on the observations and experience of other men. The great things he should know for himself. Where his own vision is defective, and his own experience at fault, he will try to learn what other men have seen and what other men have experienced. He will distinguish between their speculations and the facts which they have verified and which have been verified by ordinary Christian men in different ages and under different conditions. He will remember that to the meek God teaches His way. He has to give an intellectual account of the faith once for all delivered to the saints. He will therefore attribute supreme value to that central substance of Christian truth which has been the life and strength of Christian men in all generations. The spirit of intellectual adventure will not be uncontrolled. He will not imagine that after nineteen centuries of Christian history the saints have yet to learn what are the first principles of Christ. Believing that the light of God has come to himself he will also believe that it came to devout men of past generations. We claim for the intellect the largest freedom. It can render no worthy service to the Church or to truth if it be fettered. We claim for it in religion a freedom as large as is conceded to it in science. In science it cannot change the facts; its function is to ascertain and to interpret them. In faith it cannot change the facts; its function is to ascertain and to interpret them. In both departments the facts are supreme. Wherever facts are known the speculative intellect is under limitations and restraints; it is absolutely free only where it is absolutely ignorant. The methods of the intellect in the investigation of religious truth differ from its methods in the investigation of scientific truth, as the methods of the historian differ from the methods of the chemist. But the claim for intellectual freedom in theology needs no other qualification than that which is imposed upon it in every other province of intellectual activity--facts, through whatever channel the certain knowledge of them may come, and by whatever methods they are discovered or verified--facts are its only limitation. It is our duty to keep an open mind to the discoveries of theologians and scholars; but this does not mean that we should consent to regard all the articles of the Christian faith as open questions. On the great subjects our mind is made up. The facts we know, and under God we have to transmit the knowledge of them to coming generations. We are willing, if necessary, to revise definitions, but can accept no definition which obscures the Divine glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Son of Man, Creator, Brother, Lord, Redeemer of the human race. We are prepared to discuss theories of the Atonement, but can accept no theory which would dislodge our hearts from their sure confidence in Christ, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even the remission of sins according to the riches of Gods grace. We confess that the mystery of the eternal life of God transcends our science; that the terms of the creeds must be inexact; that they point towards august truths, but do not reach them; and yet, with reverence and awe we worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--one God, blessed for evermore; and in the knowledge of God we have eternal life. The substance of the faith delivered once for all to the saints of the first age has been verified in the experience of the saints of every succeeding generation, and has, in these last days, been verified in our own. Theologians have not to create new heavens and a new earth, but to give a more exact account of that spiritual universe whose mysteries and glories have environed the saints from the beginning. (R. W. Dale, D. D.)

Contend for the faith

I. The great cause for the maintenance of which the apostle exhorts Christians to contend.

1. For the purity of the faith.

2. For the influence of the faith.

3. For the propagation of the faith.

II. The grounds which justified the apostle in making this duty so imperative.

1. The importance of the faith in itself.

2. The proneness of men to deteriorate or pervert the faith.

3. The violent opposition of avowed enemies, and the seduction of secret foes.

4. The Divine origin of the revelation.

III. The spirit and temper in which, as Christians, we should discharge the duty.

1. Our methods must be spiritual, not carnal.

2. Our efforts should be enlightened and scriptural.

3. We should contend for the faith with great earnestness.

4. We should combine with firmness a charitable spirit.

5. While active in the propagation of the gospel among our fellow men, there should be a consistent exemplification of religion in our own lives.

6. We should give ourselves to prayer, accompanying all our exertions with ardent supplications for the outpourings of the Holy Spirit. (C. Barry.)

The defence of the faith

I. The cause to re defended. The faith.

1. Christians are not called upon to contend for--

(1) Mere forms and ceremonies.

(2) Mere speculative opinions, though those opinions may refer to some points of Christian doctrine.

2. We are to contend for--

(1) The great facts of the gospel. The incarnation, miracles, sufferings, death, resurrection, etc., of Christ.

(2) The essential doctrines of the faith. The fall of man. Divinity and atonement of Christ. Influence of Holy Spirit. Salvation by faith.

(3) The experimental power and influence of the faith. Practical holiness.

II. The nature of this duty. Earnestly contend.

1. Not with bigoted zeal.

2. Not with secular, carnal weapons.

3. In a Christian spirit.

4. Judiciously.

5. Practically. By example, as well as precept or rebuke.

III. The necessity of discharging this duty.

1. It is enjoined by Divine authority.

2. By contending for the faith you will yourself become more established in it. (Josiah Hill.)

The faith once delivered to the saints

I. What is it?

1. The word faith here must be understood as meaning the objects of faith--all the great doctrines of the gospel which we must cordially believe, and all its holy precepts which we must diligently practise.

2. This faith was once delivered to the saints. It was communicated first to the evangelists and apostles by the teaching of Jesus Christ and by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and was by them spread abroad in the world.

II. How are we to contend for it?

1. We must strenuously contend for this faith, as a prize of inestimable value.

2. We must also contend for this faith with great diligence. It should be our daily study and prayer that this faith may be firmly rooted in our own hearts, and in the hearts of all who are placed under our care or under our influence.

3. We must contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, with much anxiety. We must be sober and vigilant, as knowing that we are exposed to many enemies, who would rob us of our faith.

4. We must further contend for this faith with constant perseverance. Surely you would not wish merely to fight some battles well in contending for your Christian faith, and then give up all for lost.

Conclusion:

1. If any additional motives are necessary to persuade you thus to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, consider--

(1) How much your present peace and eternal welfare depend upon this contest.

(2) Consider how strongly you are urged by a principle of gratitude to hand down to others the pure faith of the gospel which you have received from your fathers.

(3) There is another motive which should strongly urge you in this arduous contest: This is the love of Christ and of your brethren. (John Bull, M. A.)

Contending for the faith

I. We are called to contend earnestly. But to contend earnestly does not mean that we are to contend bitterly, fiercely, unkindly. It merely means, that we view the question as we ought to view it; that we are serious where we should be serious; firm where we should be firm; and that, as we know the value of truth, we should be as decided in maintaining it as we have been diligent in seeking it.

II. The object for which we abe directed to contend. We are to contend earnestly; but it is for the faith once delivered to the saints. In other words, we are to contend, not for any notions of our own, not for any private views, personal feelings, imaginary distinctions, but for that which God has revealed. It is not easy to say how much the character of contention is affected by that, which is regarded as its object. If the object is personal, the contention becomes personal. Self-love, in that case, mixes itself with the feelings of the moment; and pride and vanity, and a hundred other evil tempers, are enlisted in the cause, and add bitterness and warmth to the dispute. On the other hand, he who wishes to defend nothing but the faith once delivered to the saints, can contend, and earnestly too, without allowing his earnestness to exceed its proper limits, or become violent and intemperate. The cause in which he is engaged sanctifies the spirit with which it is advocated. The consciousness that he has truth on his side makes him calm. The assurance of Gods word gives certainty and steadiness to his reasoning. (H. Raikes, M. A.)

The permanence of the Christian faith

What are our primary, positive reasons--such as spring from the broad facts which meet us on the forefront of history and human nature--for believing in the permanence of our Christian creed?

1. First, surely we may gather reassurance from the past history of Christianity. Human nature is one and the same beneath all distinctions of race and class. Christianity has already in the past shown a marvellous power so to get down to the permanent roots of human life and to pass in substance unchanged through the greatest possible crisis and most radical epochs of change in human history.

2. Should we not find reassurance in the fact that the panics with which the faith of our own generation has been assailed are storms which the ship of Christian faith is already showing signs that she can weather? For example, it cannot be denied that the horror with which, not wisely perhaps, but certainly not unnaturally, new conceptions of evolution in nature were at first regarded by theologians and Christian teachers is passing away, and they at least are declaring on all sides and in all good faith that they do not find their frankest acceptance at all inconsistent with a Christian belief.

3. Again, if we are tempted to take an over-ideal view of development as the law of the world, and to fear that Christianity by the very fact that it claims finality proves its falsity, is there anything more reassuring than to consider carefully the broad fact that Christian morality has as a matter of history vindicated its claim in this respect. A morality--an ideal of human life, individual and social--promulgated in Syria 1800 years ago, proclaimed in its completeness by a few mostly uneducated men of Jewish birth and training, within the limit of a few years--this ideal has remained through the ages, and almost nobody seriously claims to find it deficient. At any rate those who do, appeal very little to our consciences and better reason. But, then, what a vast admission is here! It means that morality has, under circumstances when such a fact was not at all to be expected, vindicated its finality; each successive generation has but to go back and drink its fill afresh from that inexhaustible source of a moral ideal which is Catholic.

4. And if we are convinced of this, if we are convinced that in this moral and spiritual sphere of human life an ideal promulgated 1800 years ago in an Eastern country has shown every sign of being universal and final, if we are convinced that the law of evolution has here something which in actual experience limits its application, then it seems no great step to ask a person to admit that this finality shall be attributed not to the life merely in ideal and effect, but to what St. Paul calls the mould of Christian teaching which fashions the life. For just as surely as in the lapse of years we identify the Mahommedan character with the Mahommedan creed, and in the creed recognise the condition of the character, just so surely we must recognise the whole organism of the historic Christian system as the condition of the Christian morality. Is there any consideration in the world which can call itself scientific which would justify us in supposing that a life consciously and confessedly moulded by a body of truths can go on existing without those truths? Is it not contradicting all principles of science to imagine that a changed environment of truth will not produce a changed product? The prayerful temper must excite our admiration, but is it not inconceivable that the prayerful temper can be developed except on the basis of a belief in a personal God to whom we can have personal and open access? The temper of penitence we know to be one of the most absolute essentials of spiritual progress. But the temper of penitence is the simple product of a belief at once in the personal holiness and personal love of God, a belief which can become conviction only in the revelation of Christ. (Canon Gore.)

Contending for the faith given to the saints

Here note three things:

1. That faith is a gift.

2. That it is once given.

3. That it is given unto the saints.

I. And first, that faith is a gift, it is evident by the apostles own words where he calleth Christ the Author and Finisher of our faith, as the Athenians were called the inventors and perfecters of all good learning. But the Church hath all her learning, religion, and faith from God; He gave it at the first, and He confirmed it at the last. This doctrine serveth to humble us; to let us see that it is not in our power, that faith is not hereditary: God beginneth it, and increaseth it, and finisheth it.

II. But to proceed to the next point: this faith was once given, once for all, once for ever; which commendeth unto us the constancy of God, with whom is no variableness nor shadow of change; He speaketh, and it is done. There is such mutability in men, that they change like the moon, they alter like the cameleon; but God alters not, but giveth His gifts to His Church once for ever. The gifts and calling of God are without repentance. Note this word once so often repeated--once God gave the law, once He gave the gospel.

III. Thirdly, this faith is given to the saints. By saints he meaneth the children of God. First, in respect of separation, for they are elected and gathered out of this world. Secondly, in respect of vocation, they were saints by calling. Thirdly, in respect of regeneration. And lastly, in respect of justification or imputation, because the holiness and sanctity of Christ is imputed unto them. In that this faith is given unto the saints we learn that holy things are not to be given to dogs. The songs of nightingales are not for the ears of asses. (S. Otes.)

The faith once for all

Among the testimonies which the sons of genius, in their deep disappointment and bitter want, have given to the solitary superiority of the Christian faith, I know none more impressive than that of Sir Humphrey Davy. His brilliant genius, his practical inventiveness, his great talents, his discovery of four metals, his fortunate surroundings and his pre-eminent distinction conspire to make the entry in his later diary very mournful--namely, the two words very miserable, and to give profound emphasis to his estimate of the Christian faith. He says, I envy no quality of mind or intellect in others--not genius, power, wit, or fancy; but if I could choose what would be most delightful, and I believe most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing; for it makes life a discipline of goodness, creates new hopes when all earthly hopes vanish, and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights; calling in the most delightful visions where the sensualist and the sceptic view only gloom, decay, and annihilation.

I. Our first endeavour must be to ascertain and verify the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

1. The treasure. What is it? The faith, that is the phrase. It is a record of certain specific facts about the Lord Jesus Christ--if you please, a creed. To be sure there are creeds and creeds. Men have built around the great citadel of revelation certain out-works of theology which may be mere rubbish and worse than rubbish; and it is well for the citadel itself that the enemies of Christianity should destroy these.

2. The casket, what is it? It is that which contains the treasure.

3. The custodian is the church, the everlasting succession of Christs true, living, human witnesses, who first received this truth from God. The truth was delivered, not invented by man, not reasoned out by mans intellect; delivered, handed by God to man; delivered once for all.

II. It remains to state and unfold the duty of contending for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

1. It is sure to be contended against. Christ is the Prince of Peace, but He is also a man of war. He came not to bring peace on earth but a sword. Christs own track to His throne lay through thorns and blood. The truth is sure to be contended against. Heretics were Divinely predicted; therefore they are credentials of the faith.

2. It is worth contending for. It destroyed the old polytheistic civilisation. It changed the face of the world. It brought in a new and better era for the race of man. It emancipated the mind. Look back eighteen hundred years to what the world was. Gibbon writes of a sinking world. I use his phrase. There was no promise of a noble future for the race. The home, as we conceive it, was not. The marriage tie had no sacredness. Man as man had no rights, and the individual was sunk in the state. Power, power was the one idea of ancient Rome. A modern French painter has caught the idea and represented it with wonderful fidelity. I mean Gerome; whose canvas shows us the Coliseum with its eighty thousand spectators hungering for the sighs of cruelty. The gladiatorial combat has proceeded, until the wretched victim has fallen at the feet of his more brawny or fortunate conqueror. He is weak, let him die. So said the vestal virgins, and so said ancient Rome. It was not far from that very time that plain, homely man wrote a letter to some people in Rome and said, I am ready so much as in me lies to preach the gospel to you which are at Rome also; for it is power. Here is power against power. It is the power of God against the power of man. It is the power of God unto salvation as against mans power of destruction.

3. It is worth our while to contend for it. Gods great way of making His truth mighty is by putting that truth into living men. His way of getting for His truth currency in the world is by putting it into the mouths and lives of men with hot hearts, making their hot hearts hotter by means of it, and so thrusting it before the unbelieving multitude. It is wonderful how any truth once lodged in a human soul will enlarge and ennoble that soul. Many a scientific thought without any moral aspect has lifted up a man into nobler thinking, and more earnest working, and a higher grade of living. Thoughts essentially moral and religious have still higher developing power. (C. D. Foss, D. D.)

The faith once delivered to the saints

I. Christianity has a creed. There is a body of dogmatic teaching which can be called the faith, the thing to be believed. Indifference to religious truth is sheer folly, to say the least. Do we allow that it makes no difference what a man thinks on the subject of geology provided he is devoted to his favourite science? Do we say that a mans opinion on a point of law is of no consequence so long as he is sincere in advocating it? Far from it. The question we ask in all these cases is, whether the opinions are correct. We know that truth may be one thing, and what a man thinks to be truth a very different thing. Why, then, should men adopt the opinion that on the subject of religion it is a small matter what a man thinks?

II. This body of truth is revealed. It was delivered--divinely, as we know from other statements of Gods Word. It is not a matter of intuition. Intuitions cannot be pleaded in behalf of the common practices of morality even, far less for a complete system of religious faith. It is not a matter of philosophical speculation. It is final, and it is authoritative. It is of great moment to find out exactly what the truth is which has been revealed, for once found we may have a faith which is sure and which binds.

III. It is a complete body of truth. It was delivered once, not once upon a time, but once for all. Nineteenth century sinners are like the sinners of all the preceding centuries, and nineteenth century salvation is the same salvation which Paul preached.

IV. It was delivered to the saints. And so has it come down the line of evangelical succession ever since. The Church and the family have been Gods appointed agencies for perpetuating and spreading far and wide His truth. Do we despise knowledge which comes to us through the channel of tradition? Is the boys belief in the earths figure less real because, instead of a scientific proof of it, he has been told only that it is round like an orange and not flat like a plate? Then why should we undervalue the religious beliefs which multitudes hold because they were taught to hold them, and it has never occurred to them to call them in question or even to verify them. We may trust the Church to act as trustee of the Bible without allowing it to make the Bible, or without accepting doctrines which it teaches outside of the Bible, just as we may trust a servant to go to the druggist to bring some medicine, when we would not allow him to put up the prescription. If, then, the Church is in possession of a definite body of truth--if, moreover, this truth is contained in the Bible--it would seem to follow that any objection to a formulated expression of it is very weak. For the Bible is practically of no use to us unless we are able to impose a meaning on what it says. We have entered into an inheritance of truth because of a pious parentage and a faithful ministry, and we are under solemn obligation to transmit that truth to the coming generation. (The Study.)

Defenders of the faith

I. What are we to understand by the faith which was once delivered to the saints?

1. The faith is Divine in its origin.

2. The faith is adapted to mans moral needs. Three truths force themselves upon our notice when we study man in his moral relations.

(1) The sense of guilt and moral weakness.

(2) The liability to temptation and trouble.

(3) The certainty of death and a future state.

These exist in all men everywhere. The faith responds to the sense of guilt and moral weakness.

3. The faith is complete in its contents--once delivered, i.e., complete. To it nothing can be added. Astronomy may discover worlds of light in the heavens, but it does not add to the universe. Every star was there before astronomers lifted their telescopes skyward. Astronomy may enlarge our knowledge of the heavens and thrill us with new views of heavenly beauty, but it cannot create a new star. Music cannot add a new tone to the scale. The octave is the final measure of possible tones. So with the faith. Theology cannot add to it. The Bible will gain in interpretation, but no new principles can be added to its contents.

II. To whom was the faith delivered? To the saints.

1. Saints are the depositaries of the faith.

2. Saints are the disseminators of the faith.

III. what is our duty in reference to the faith? Contend earnestly, etc.

1. We must hold to it experimentally and consistently. Not to the theory, but to the practice; not to doctrine merely, but to salvation as a blessed reality.

2. We must hold it with courage and resolution.

3. We must contend for it with simplicity and sincerity. (W.Hansom, D. D.)

Contending for the faith

I. what we must contend for. For every truth of God, according to its moment and weight. The dust of gold is precious, and it is dangerous to be careless in the lesser truths (Mat_5:19). There is nothing superfluous in the canon. Better heaven and earth should be blended together in confusion, saith Luther, than one dust of Gods truth should perish. If the Lord call us out to the defence of them, whatever cometh of it we must be faithful. A man may make shipwreck of a good conscience in small matters. Hearken to Satan, and this will be a little one, and that shall be a little one, till we have littled away all the principles of faith. All this is not spoken to justify undue rigours, such as are without any temper of Christian moderation, or those frivolous controversies about trifles, such as have no foundation in the Word. Nor to justify the breaking of Church fellowship and communion, and making rents in the body of Christ, because of difference of opinion in smaller matters, when we agree in the more weighty things. We are to walk together as far as we are agreed (Php_3:16); and externals wherein we differ, lying far from the heart of religion, are nothing to faith and the new creature wherein we agree (Gal_5:6; Gal_6:15). The most weight should be pitched upon the fundamentals and essentials of religion, and when there is an agreement there private differences in smaller matters should not make us break off from one another.

II. Who must strive, and in what manner? I answer, All in their place, and in that way that is proper to them.

1. Private Christians must have a share in this holy contention; their duty is partly--

(1) To search out the truth that they may not fight blindfold, or by an unhappy mistake lavish out their zeal upon fancies which they affect, or ordinances and doctrines of men.

(2) To own the profession of the truth, whatever it cost them.

(3) To honour the truth by their conversations. There are heretical manners as well as heretical doctrines; and there are many that are otherwise of an orthodox belief, yet make others sectaries and disciples of their vices. Therefore Christians are called to hold forth the word of life in their conversations (Php_2:16), and to make the doctrine of God the Saviour comely (Tit_2:10), by glorifying God in that course of life to which they are disposed.

(4) To comprise all in a few words, whatever maketh for the truth, either with God or men, all that must the people do.

2. There is something that the magistrate may do: He is the minister of God for good (Rom_13:4). I cannot see how they can be true to civil interest unless they be careful for the suppression of error. Besides that error is masterly and loveth to give law, therefore, ere it be too late, they should look to the civil peace, for if men be quiet God will not when His honour and truth and worship is neglected.

3. Ministers are to contend for the truth, for by their office and station in the Church they are captains of the people in this war against Satan and his adherents (Tit_1:9). Ministers must contend, partly by preaching, warning the people of the wolves that are abroad (Act_20:29); partly by disputing (Act_15:2; Act_18:28), that by the knocking of flints light may fly out. (T. Manton.)

Contending for the faith

I. Contending for the faith once delivered to the saints implies--

1. That, in opposition to infidels, we exhibit the evidence of the authenticity of the Scriptures.

2. The next step, in defending the faith delivered to the saints, is to maintain the ground that the Bible is not only an authentic record, but that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God; that holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. There can be no firmer ground on which to rest our religious belief and our hopes of salvation.

3. We are to contend for those principles of interpretation which will lay open to our view the true meaning of the Scriptures, and not bring to them a meaning derived from our own preconceived opinions.

4. We are to contend for the very system of truth which was delivered to the saints; to maintain it in its simplicity and purity, unadulterated with additions from the speculations of men.

5. Contending for the primitive Christian faith implies a defence, not merely of what is expressly stated in the Scriptures, but also of what may be clearly inferred from the truths revealed.

II. Our subject may be further illustrated by considering some modes of theological discussion, which are not necessarily implied in contending for the primitive Christian faith.

1. A. defence of Scriptural doctrines do not necessarily imply that we prove them to be true by a course of argument independent of revelation. The evidence on which they rest is this, that God, who cannot err, and will not deceive, has caused them to be revealed to us as true. But we have to deal with those who do not admit the authority of the Bible. Is it not necessary on their account to resort to a course of reasoning, to establish religious principles? If you can prove all the truths of Scripture by a course of reasoning independent of Divine testimony, what need is there of inspiration?

2. Contending for the faith delivered to the saints does not necessarily imply that we contend for any particular form of words, different from those of Scripture, in which we or others have thought proper to express this faith.

3. Defending the truths of revelation does not imply, of course, a defence of the philosophical theories or hypotheses which have been proposed to explain the grounds, and reasons, and causes of what is revealed.

4. Contending for the faith delivered to the saints does not imply that we undertake to free it from all the difficulties which may be connected with the truths revealed.

5. Defending the primitive faith does not necessarily imply that we earnestly contend for every point which may be connected even with fundamental doctrines.

6. Contending for the Christian faith does not imply a defence of all the additions which have been made to this faith, with a view to supplying supposed deficiences in the Scriptures. (Jeremiah Day, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jdg 1:3. When I gave all diligence — Or made all haste, as πασαν σπουδην ποιουμενος literally signifies, Jude being informed of the assiduity, and perhaps the success, with which the false teachers were spreading their pernicious errors, found it necessary to write this letter to the faithful without delay. To write to you of the common salvation — The salvation from the guilt and power of sin, into the favour and image of God here, and from all the consequences of sin into eternal felicity and glory hereafter; a salvation called common, because it belongs equally to all who believe; to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews; to men of all nations and conditions; designed for all, and enjoyed in part by all believers. For the same reason Paul terms the faith of the gospel, the common faith, (Titus i, 4,) because an opportunity of believing is afforded to all. Here the design of the epistle is expressed, the end of which exactly answers the beginning. It was needful for me to exhort you that ye should earnestly contend — Yet humbly, meekly, and lovingly, otherwise your contending will only hurt your cause, if not destroy your souls; for the faith — All the fundamental truths of the gospel. “In the circumstances in which the faithful were when Jude wrote this letter, an exhortation to hold fast and maintain the true doctrine of the gospel against the false teachers, was more necessary and profitable for the disciples, than explications of the particular doctrines of the gospel. By strenuously contending for the faith, the apostle did not mean contending for it with fire and sword, but their endeavouring, in the spirit of meekness and love, to establish the true doctrines of the gospel, by arguments drawn, not only from the Jewish Scriptures, but especially from the writings of the evangelists and apostles, which were all, or most of them, published when Jude wrote this letter. In the same manner they were strongly to oppose and confute the errors of the false teachers. The word επαγωνιζεσθαι properly signifies, to strive as in the Olympic games, that is, with their whole force.”

Once delivered to the saints — By απαξ, once, Macknight understands formerly, the word being used in that sense, Jdg 1:5. But Estius and Beza adopt the common translation, supposing the meaning of the clause to be, that the faith spoken of was delivered to the saints once for all, and is never to be changed; nothing is to be added to it, and nothing taken from it. By the saints Jude first means the holy apostles and prophets of Christ, (in which sense the word saints is used, Colossians 3:26, compared with Eph 3:5,) to whom the Lord Jesus delivered the doctrine of the gospel in all its parts, including the truths which men were to believe, and the precepts they were to perform, together with the promises of present and eternal salvation made to the believing and obedient, and the threatenings denounced against the unbelieving and disobedient. This doctrine the apostles and evangelists delivered to their hearers in their various discourses, and consigned it to writing for the instruction of future ages. “Hence it is evident that the faith for which Christians are to contend strenuously, is that alone which is contained in the writings of the evangelists, apostles, and Jewish prophets. Now as they have expressed the things which were revealed to them in words dictated by the Spirit, (1Co 2:13,) we are to contend, not only for the things contained in their writings, but also for that form of words in which they have expressed these things, lest by contending for forms invented and established by human authority, as better fitted to express the truth than the words of inspiration, we fall into error. See 2Ti 1:13. Jude’s exhortation ought in a particular manner to be attended to by the ministers of the gospel, whose duty more especially it is to preserve the people from error, both in opinion and practice.” — Macknight.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES

Jud_1:3. Common salvation.—It does not immediately appear why he uses this epithet “common.” He may only mean, “this salvation which is a matter of common interest to us all.” The best MSS. read, “of our common salvation”; of those things which pertain to the salvation of us all. It is suggested that Jude may intend to distinguish between the “faith,” or “salvation,” which is common to all, and the “knowledge” which was claimed by false teachers as belonging only to a few. Faith once delivered.—Faith is objective—the substance of truth offered to faith. It is assumed that this is well known, and stands within recognised limitations. It was not then embodied in a creed; and we cannot with certainty declare its contents. The apostle Paul frequently refers to a well-known and clearly-defined setting of the primary Christian verities (2Ti_1:13-14, etc.). Saints.—Such they were in their calling; and such they were by their separation through belief of the Christian truth. There is special significance in the term “saints” here, because Jude has in mind those who were disgracing the Christian profession by moral licence. He means to suggest a contrast.

Jud_1:4. Unawares.—Finding their opportunity in Christian unwatchfulness. Mischievous teachers get into Churches under false pretences. Of old ordained.—Reference is to previous prophetic intimations and warnings, and not to Divine decrees. The sentence has been well rendered thus: “who were long ago before marked out as on their way to this condemnation.” “Ordained” means “written down,” or “written up”; the “metaphor may come from the practice of posting up the names of those who had to appear in court for trial.” προγεγραμμένοι εἰς κρίσιν. Condemnation.—The denunciation which follows. Their “ungodliness” is seen in the two things which most distressed the later Christian writers:

(1) the association of the Christian profession with sensual indulgences; and

(2) the teaching of perilous error concerning the person of Jesus Christ. In “Lord God,” the name “God” should be omitted. Only one person is meant. “Denying Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord.”

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Jud_1:3-4

Jud_1:3. The Common Salvation.—It appears that the mind of the apostle was moved, in the first place, to write concerning salvation generally; but on reflection he was constrained to write on one particular aspect, bearing on the temper of the times. The brevity of the epistle testifies that only one special aspect of religion is set forth. It was in view of the general defection among Christians, then so prevalent, he was earnestly moved to write. The case was urgent, as we learn from ἀνάγκην ἔσχον, arising from the necessity of contending earnestly for the faith—ἐπαγωνίζεσθαι. The description given in the epistle of the declension of some, and the false teaching of others, fully sets forth the earnest hope the apostle felt, that a few lines from him might serve the good purpose of conserving the true faith.

I. A designation of the gospel.—“Common salvation.” The gospel had an interest for all. Its integrity was a matter which affected all. Nothing could be of more importance than the general concern which all ought to feel in the matter of the purity of the teaching which was intended to set it forth.

1. Salvation is the great need of all. It supplies a universal want. It reveals clearly the great subjects which have agitated human thought in every age—God, the soul, moral accountability, and futurity. It also leads mankind to the fountain of blessing—God in Christ Jesus. If life is to answer any special end, and if the soul of man is to attain to any particular satisfaction and happiness, the gospel is as great a necessity to the mind as air is to the body.

2. Salvation is a provision for all. It touches the case of every one. There had been a Jewish exclusiveness even on the part of the apostles; but they were taught to “call no man common or unclean,” and that “God is no respecter of persons.” The gospel is free to all, whether Jew or Gentile, Barbarian, Scythian, bond, or free. The gospel, like the sun, is God’s great blessing to all men of every clime and time. Jesus is the “Son of man,” to designate the universality of His mission. He is come to seek and to save the race of man.

II. The sacred trust.—“Once for all delivered unto the saints.” The gospel is in the custody of the Church. 1. The integrity of its doctrines. Those to whom the Spirit has revealed the truth alone can transmit it to posterity. If inspiration has ceased, illumination continues. The gospel as a revelation from God is also taught by Him.

2. The purity of its ordinances. Truth must have forms as channels of transmission. Sacraments and spiritual exercises are essential to the spread of the gospel and the growth of piety. However free Christianity may be in its spirit, it prescribes forms and rites for the welfare of the Church. 3. The consistency of its professors. To walk in the light is the duty of every believer. Christ has ordained that infractions of the laws of His kingdom should receive attention and be visited with discipline. The fruitless and rotten branches must be taken away. The Church has authority to deal with matters of internal order, and also the conduct of its members in the world. The affairs of the kingdom of Christ are now administered by the Church, until He comes.

III. Special duty enjoined.—“Contend earnestly for the faith.” The Church is often thrown into times of particular difficulty, when its efforts are needed to defend its position in the world. The apostolic Church was early called upon to defend its doctrines and practices against false teachers. This is done:

1. By unswerving fidelity to truth. To hold fast that which we have is a duty we owe, not only to ourselves, but to the Church and the world.

2. By a bold confession before men of that which God has done for our soul. Men will be convinced of the efficacy of the means when they see the cure.

3. By being ready to give an intelligent reason for the hope which is in us. The defence of the faith on the ground of truth and justice is a matter that can be accomplished.

Jud_1:4. The Denial of the Divinity of Christ.—The reason is here stated why the apostle chose a particular line to write to the scattered Christians. The case was urgent, because the opposition came not from men who had openly denied the truths of the gospel, but from those who had privily crept into the Church, and were, in name, members of it. The danger was not from without this time, but from within. The use of the three verbs παρεισάγω (2Pe_2:1), παρεισέρχομαι (Gal_2:4), and παρεισδύω in the text, plainly shows a systematic conspiracy to subvert the truth. The bold opposition of persecution having failed, the evil one covertly introduced into the Church false teachers. The adroit use of προγράφω, which follows, indicates the impossibility of hiding the evil designs of these false prophets. St. Jude doubtless refers to the second epistle of Peter, and also to the warnings contained in the writings of St. Paul. The figure is taken from the practice of posting up the names of those who were cited to trial, with a description of their crimes. Every corrupter of the doctrines, and every disturber of the peace of the Church, is a marked man. On the notice-board of justice is written, “Wanted,” etc. The κρῖμα is fully described in the following verses. The force of μετατίθημι, which means to alter a thing from its original use, is brought out in the contrast between the grace of God and lasciviousness—the greatest abuse of the greatest favour. In the same way we get the full meaning of ἀρνούμενοι from μόνον δεσπότην καὶ Κύριον ἡμῶν. It was not a denying of the truths of the gospel in general, but the central truth—the Divinity and the Divine mission of Christ.

I. A great crime.—Never was there a time in the history of the Church when this crime should be guarded against more than at present. The days of intolerance are over, and the danger now is of relaxing all obligations as to the truth, and holding that every man is at liberty to believe and teach whatsoever he pleases. The sacred trust committed to the care of the Church is the “faith once delivered to the saints.” Why should men want to change the truth of the living God? Look into the text, and you have the answer.

1. Because the fear of God is not in their soul—“ungodly men.” When the helm is broken, the vessel will drift in every direction. Reverence for God is the first essential of faith in Revelation 2. Because to human appearance sin appears less hideous when committed in the name of religion—“turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness.” This meant the abuse of that liberty which the gospel confers, and the committal of sin that grace might abound.

3. Because the authority of “our only Master and Lord” is against the licence they would afford the flesh”. Take Christ out of the gospel, and any use might be made of it; but give Him His place in the sphere of Divine truth, and the force against sin is irresistible.

II. An awful doom.—St. John in the Apocalypse sounds the warning in strong accents: “If any man shall add unto them,” etc. (Rev_21:18-19). A few considerations will show that the punishment of those who pervert the truth, and teach so unto others, must be very severe.

1. It is a defiance of Divine authority. God is contradicted. When this is done, moral government is at stake.

2. It is the greatest wrong that can be done to others. If you do not know the way, say so; but to know the way and direct the man to go in the contrary direction is to cause him harm. To tell people that they are on the road to heaven, when it is known that they are going to hell, must be punished.

3. It is an offence against the love of God, who sent His only Son to make us good, and lead us to virtue.—W. P.

SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES

Jud_1:3. Doctrinal Contention.—As in war they will clear away the houses and the flower-gardens that have been allowed to come and cluster about the walls and fill up the moat, yet the walls will stand, so in all the conflicts that befall Christ’s Church and God’s truth, the calming thought ought to be ours, that if anything perishes it is a sign that it is not His, but man’s excrescence on His building. Whatever is His will stand for ever.—A. Maclaren, D.D.

Books of the Olden Time.—Who knows anything about the world’s wonders of books that, a hundred years ago, made good men’s hearts tremble for the ark of God? You may find them in dusty rows on the top shelves of great libraries. But if their names had not occurred in the pages of Christian apologists, flies in amber, nobody in this generation would ever have heard of them.—Ibid.

Influence of Strong Assertion.—The consciousness that Christian truth is denied makes some of you falter in its profession, and fancy that it is less certain simply because it is gainsaid. The mist wraps you in its folds, and it is difficult to keep warm in it, or to believe that love and sunshine are above it all the same. “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.”—Ibid.

Contending for the Faith.—What do we observe as a fact in Christian Church history? This. Christian doctrine is evidently a great whole made up of many parts. What we seek to find is the harmonious fitting of the several parts, each being held in its proper proportions. But the Christian faith is subject to attacks on its several positions. The attacks have their special characteristics in each age. They should be met by the whole united force of the Church; the common foe met by a common resistance. There is, however, another process going on continually, as Christ’s truth is committed to the charge of weak men. Aspects of truth are in constant danger of being pushed to extremes; and important sides and aspects of truth are in constant peril of being neglected and dropped out of sight. And in this way the proportions of truth, the harmonious whole of truth, may be lost. So there is a continual, and ever-repeated call for the activity of those who will reaffirm the truth that is slipping from view, or qualify the truth that is getting exaggerated settings. That may be the good side of what may be misapprehended, and called heresy and schism. It may be questioned in what sense the whole Christian faith was “once for all delivered to the saints.” All revelations are wholes for the age to which they come; but they are not necessarily wholes to the after-ages of intellectual and moral advancement. The Mosaic revelation was a whole; but in prophetic times its deeper moral features came to view, and the Christian ages have perfected it, fulfilled it, fully realised it. It is a whole now which the Jews of Moses’ time could not by any possibility recognise. Perhaps we may affirm that finality can belong to nothing that bears relation to finite, but ever-unfolding man; and so we can never really look for more than a faith adequate to an age. If your mother’s name were defiled, would not your heart bound to her defence? When a prince is a dethroned exile, his throne is fixed deeper in the hearts of his adherents, “though his back be at the wall,” and common souls become heroes because their devotion has been heightened to sublimity of self-sacrifice by a nation’s rebellion. And when so many voices are proclaiming that God has never spoken to men, that our thoughts of His book are dreams, and its long empire over men’s spirits a waning tyranny, does cool indifference become us? will not fervour be sobriety, and the glowing emotion of our whole nature our reasonable service?—Ibid.

Right Dealing with Unbelief.—You may hammer ice on an anvil or bray it in a mortar. What then? It is pounded ice still, except for the little portion melted by heat of percussion, and it will soon all congeal again. Melt it in the sun, and it flows down in sweet water, which mirrors that light which loosed its bonds of cold. So hammer away at unbelief with your logical sledge-hammers, and you will change its shape perhaps, but it is none the less unbelief because you have ground it to powder. It is a mightier agent that must melt it—the fire of God’s love, brought close by a will ablaze with the sacred glow.—Ibid.

Defenders of the Faith.—This exhortation applies to our circumstances in this period of unsettledness in religious beliefs. It is claimed that the old “faith” has served its day, and some new faith must take its place. Our opinion is that instead of finding a new faith, we are on our way to a better understanding of the old one. We are concerned about the essential truths of Christianity, and willingly renounce the accretions and interpretations by which those truths have been overlaid and obscured. The indications of our modern unrest point to a change for the better.

I. What are we to understand by the faith which was once delivered to the saints?—It is defined as “the common salvation.” Not the doctrine of salvation, but the salvation itself; it is not a theory, but an experience. Faith is the means, salvation is the end. “Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls” (1Pe_1:9). It was common to all the apostles. They might have particular methods, but they certainly had a general result in view. Salvation was the aim in their teaching. They became all things to all men, that by all means they might save some. This salvation is common to all men, and not a matter pertaining to a particular class. It is available for Jew and Gentile. It is for every one that believeth. The essential truths of Christianity, as contained in the New Testament, constitute the faith once delivered to the saints.

1. The faith is Divine in its origin. It is not a production of human philosophy, but the substance of a Divine revelation. The necessity for a Divine revelation appears in the fact that human opinions are so varied and contradictory. When my heart is burdened with the consciousness of guilt, and my soul cries out in its agony, “Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” I must have a Divine answer. I need to know God’s thought and purpose concerning a penitent soul. The gospel is the Divine answer to human need.

2. The faith is adapted to man’s moral needs. Three truths force themselves upon our notice when we study man in his moral relations:

(1) The sense of guilt and moral weakness;

(2) the liability to temptation and trouble;

(3) the certainty of death and a future state. These exist in all men everywhere. These are the bases of moral needs, and to these needs the gospel responds. The faith responds to the sense of guilt and moral weakness. The fact and experience of sin are common to all men. In every land men are wrestling with the great problem, “What shall we do to be saved?” The gospel is the specific. “It is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” This “common salvation” includes two things—deliverance and safety. It delivers from impending danger by a perfect pardon. It fortifies and strengthens the soul against the temptations of all evil agencies, so that it is enabled to stand in the glorious liberty of the gospel. The faith responds to the liability to temptation and trouble. All, irrespective of position or rank, are exposed to them. The only remedy philosophy offers is stoicism. The gospel discovers One who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, who was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. “Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Apart from this living Christ, one of the deepest needs of human nature is left unsatisfied. The certainty of death is also answered by this faith. Death and the problem of the future hang like a heavy pall over all heathendom. The religious and philosophical systems of paganism throw no light upon the darkness of the grave. But the gospel of Christ tells of Him who died and rose again as the firstfruits of those who slept, who has abolished death, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. It inspires men with hope of immortality. It alleviates human bereavement and gilds the future with radiant hope. Blessed gospel! It meets the deepest needs of the human soul.

3. The faith is complete in its contents “once delivered”—i.e. complete. To it nothing can be added. New light, hidden riches, sweetest harmonies, may be found in it. Astronomy may discover worlds of light in the heavens, but it does not add to the universe. Every star was there before astronomers lifted their telescopes skyward. Astronomy may enlarge our knowledge of the heavens, and thrill us with new views of heavenly beauty, but it cannot create a new star. Music cannot add a new tone to the scale. The octave is the final measure of possible tones. Gifted musicians may combine the tones in new relations, and thus give the world sweeter song and more thrilling melody; but in all the witchery of music they will never reach beyond the octave of tones. So with the faith. Theology cannot add to it. The Bible will gain in interpretation, but no new principles can be added to its contents. The foundation of our faith is laid in final power away from frost and wave and storm.

II. To whom was the faith delivered?—“To the saints.” The term refers to character, not to official position.

1. Saints are the depositaries of the faith. Not councils, priests, or popes, but holy men are the trustees of this precious gift. The power and the safety of the faith are not in organisation, or popular favour, or political power, desirable as these may be, but primarily in the character of individual Christians.

2. Saints are the disseminators of the faith. Dissemination is the purpose for which the deposit has been made. Saints hold it in trust for the use and benefit of mankind. Truth must be incarnated before it can become an available factor in the world’s evangelisation. God incarnates the gospel in His saints. This incarnation is the secret of successful evangelism. The old prophets were mighty because their hearts were burdened with the “word of the Lord.” God put His great truths in their hearts, and they were transfigured by the glory of inward truth, and flamed and burned among men. The apostles were resistless evangelists because their souls were thrilled and dominated by the great revelations of Christ, and they could not but speak the things commanded them. The disciples, scattered by persecution, went everywhere. In all their flight they were flaming evangelists. So grew the word of the Lord mightily and prevailed.

III. What is our duty in reference to the faith?—“Contend earnestly,” etc.

1. We must hold to it experimentally and consistently. Not to the theory, but to the practice; not to doctrine merely, but to salvation as a blessed reality. The faith needs not swords to fight for it, but saints to live it. A holy life is the noblest defence of the gospel.

2. We must hold it with courage and resolution. The faith has had to contend for recognition in the world. In the beginning the Jew denied it, the Greek ridiculed it, and the Roman denounced it; but the saints contended for it in spite of all. So now it comes into conflict with the prejudices, selfish interests, and wrath of men. It requires brave, true men to stand by it. The age of chivalry is not yet past. Valiant knights of the Order of the Cross are needed now in defence of the old faith.

3. We must contend for it with simplicity and sincerity. “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal,” etc. Not the weapons of the flesh, not the mere external aids that men are wont to use, not eloquence, learning, wealth, or beauty—these, though highly desirable, are not essential. Simple, sincere Christian lives are the irresistible argument for the faith. I do not undervalue apologetics. Its function is to defend the Bible and set forth the evidences of the Divine authority of the Scriptures. All honour to our “great apologists” for their literary work in defence of our precious faith; but I do insist that an earnest Christian, sincere in heart, true in conduct, pure in speech, and gentle in spirit, is the one unanswerable argument for Christianity. He is “the people’s Bible,” needing neither commentary nor apology. We are to be “defenders of the faith.” Paul’s saying ought to be the conviction of our heart: “I am set for the defence of the gospel” (Php_1:17).—W. Hansom, B.D., LL.D.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jude

THE COMMON SALVATION

Jud 1:3

‘The common salvation.’- Jud 1:3.

‘The common faith.’- Tit 1:4.

Jude was probably one of Christ’s brothers, and a man of position and influence in the Church. He is writing to the whole early Christian community, numbering men widely separated from each other by nationality, race, culture, and general outlook on life; and he beautifully and humbly unites himself with them all as recipients of a ‘common salvation.’ Paul is writing to Titus, the veteran leader to a raw recruit. Wide differences of mental power, of maturity of religious experience, separated the two; and yet Paul beautifully and humbly associates himself with his pupil, as exercising a ‘common faith.’

Probably neither of the writers meant more than to bring himself nearer to the persons whom they were respectively addressing; but their language goes a great deal further than the immediate application of it. The ‘salvation’ was ‘common’ to Jude and his readers, as ‘the faith’ was to Paul and Titus, because the salvation and the faith are one, all the world over.

It is for the sake of insisting upon this community, which is universal, that I have ventured to isolate these two fragments from their proper connection, and to bring them together. But you will notice that they take up the same thought at two different stages, as it were. The one declares that there is but one remedy and healing for all the world’s woes; the other declares that there is but one way by which that remedy can be applied. All who possess ‘the common salvation’ are so blessed because they exercise ‘the common faith.’

I. Note the underlying conception of a universal deepest need.

That Christian word ‘salvation’ has come to be threadbare and commonplace, and slips over people’s minds without leaving any dint. We all think we understand it. Some of us have only the faintest and vaguest conception of what it means, and have never realized the solemn view of human nature and its necessities which lies beneath it. And I want to press that upon you now. The word ‘to save’ means either of two things-to heal from a sickness, or to deliver from a danger. These two ideas of sickness to be healed and of dangers to be secured from enter into the Christian use of the word. Underlying it is the implication that the condition of humanity is universally that of needing healing of a sore sickness, and of needing deliverance from an overhanging and tremendous danger. Sin is the sickness, and the issues of sin are the danger. And sin is making myself my centre and my law, and so distorting and flinging out of gear, as it were, my relations to God.

Surely it does not want many words to show that that must be the most important thing about a man. Deep down below all superficialities there lies this fundamental fact, that he has gone wrong with regard to God; and no amount of sophistication about heredity and environment and the like can ever wipe out the blackness of the fact that men willingly do break through the law, which commands us all to yield ourselves to God, and not to set ourselves up as our own masters, and our own aims and ends, independently of Him. I say that is the deepest wound of humanity.

In these days of social unrest there are plenty of voices round us that proclaim other needs as being clamant, but, oh, they are all shallow and on the surface as compared with the deepest need of all: and the men that come round the sick-bed of humanity and say, ‘Ah, the patient is suffering from a lack of education,’ or ‘the patient is suffering from unfavorable environment,’ have diagnosed the disease superficially. There is something deeper the matter than that, and unless the physician has probed further into the wound than these surface appearances, I am afraid his remedy will go as short a way down as his conception of the evil goes.

Oh, brethren, there is something else the matter with us than ignorance or unfavorable conditions. ‘The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint.’ The tap-root of all human miseries lies in the solemn fact of human transgression. That is a universal fact. Wide differences part us, but there is one thing that we have all in common: a conscience and a will that lifts itself against disliked good. Beneath all surface differences of garb there lies the same fact, the common sickness of sin. The king’s robe, the pauper’s uniform, the student’s gown, the mill-hand’s fustian, the naked savage’s brown skin, each cover a heart that is evil, and because it is evil, needs salvation from sickness and deliverance from danger.

For do not forget that if it is true that men have driven their rebellious chariots through God’s law, they cannot do that without bringing down God’s hand upon them, and they ought not to be able to do it; and He would not be a loving God if it were not so. There are dangers; dangers from the necessary inevitable consequences, here and yonder, of rebellion against Him.

Now, do not let us lose ourselves in generalities. That is the way in which many of us have all our lives long blunted the point of the message of the Gospel to our hearts. That is what we do with all sorts of important moral truths. For instance, I suppose there never was a time in your lives when you did not believe that all men must die. But I suppose most of us can remember some time when there came upon us, with a shock which made some of us cower before it as an unwelcome thing, the thought, ‘And I must.’

The common sickness? Yes I ‘Thou art the man.’ Oh, brother, whatever you may have or whatever you may want, be sure of this: that your deepest needs will not be met, your sorest sickness will not be healed, your most tremendous peril not secured against, until the fact of your individual sinfulness and the consequences of that fact are somehow or other dealt with, stanched, and swept away. So much, then, for the first point.

II. Now a word as to the common remedy. One of our texts gives us that-’ the common salvation.’

You all know what I am going to say, and so, perhaps, you suppose that it is not worth while for me to say it. I dare say some of you think that it was not worth while coming here to hear the whole, threadbare, commonplace story. Well! is it worth while for me to speak once more to men that have so often heard and so often neglected? Let me try. Oh, that I could get you one by one, and drive home to each •ingle soul that is listening to me, or perhaps, that is not listening, the message that I have to bring!

‘The common salvation.’ There is one remedy for the sickness. There is one safety against the danger. There is only one, because it is the remedy for all men, and it is the remedy for all men because it is the remedy for each. Jesus Christ deals, as no one else has ever pretended to deal, with this outstanding fact of my transgression and yours.

He, by His death, as I believe, has saved the world from the danger, because He has set right the world’s relations to God. I am not going, at this stage of my sermon, to enter upon anything in the nature of discussion. My purpose is an entirely different one. I want to press upon you, dear brethren, this plain fact, that since there is a God, and since you and I have sinned, and since things are as they are, and the consequences will be as they will be, both in this world and in the next, we all stand in danger of death-death eternal, which comes from, and, in one sense, consists of, separation in heart and mind from God.

You believe in a judgment day, do you not? Whether you do or not, you have only to open your eyes, you have only to turn them inwards, to see that even here and now, every sin and transgression and disobedience does receive its just recompense of reward. You cannot do a wrong thing without hurting yourself, without desolating some part of your nature, without enfeebling your power of resistance to evil and aspiration after good, without lowering yourself in the scale of being, and making yourself ashamed to stand before the bar of your own conscience. You cannot do some wrong things, that some of you are fond of doing, without dragging after them consequences, in this world, of anything but an agreeable kind. Sins of the flesh avenge themselves in kind, as some of you young men know, and will know better in the days that are before you. Transgressions which are plain and clear in the eyes of even the world’s judgment draw after them damaged reputations, enfeebled health, closed doors of opportunity, and a whole host of such things. And all these are but a kind of premonitions and overshadowings of that solemn judgment that lies beyond. For all men will have to eat the fruit of their doings and drink that which they have prepared. But on the Cross, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, bore the weight of the world’s sin, yours and mine and every man’s. There is one security against the danger; and it is that He, fronting the incidence of the Divine law, says, as He said to His would-be captors in the garden, ‘If ye seek Me, let these go their way.’ And they go their way by the power of His atoning death.

Further, Jesus Christ imparts a life that cures the sickness of sin.

What is the meaning of this Whitsuntide that all the Christian world is professing to keep today? Is it to commemorate a thing that happened nineteen centuries ago, when a handful of Jews for a few minutes had the power of talking in other languages, and a miraculous light flamed over their heads and then disappeared? Was that all? Have you and I any share in it? Yes. For if Pentecost means anything it means this, that, all down through the ages, Jesus Christ is imparting to men that cleave to Him the real gift of a new life, free from all the sickness of the old, and healthy with the wholesomeness of His own perfect sinlessness, so that, however inveterate and engrained a man’s habits of wrong-doing may have been, if he will turn to that Saviour, and let Him work upon him, he will be delivered from his evil. The leprosy of his flesh, though the lumps of diseased matter may be dropping from the bones, and the stench of corruption may drive away human love and sympathy, can be cleansed, and his flesh become like the flesh of a little child, if only he will trust in Jesus Christ. The sickness can be cured. Christ deals with men in the depth of their being. He will give you, if you will, a new life and new tastes, directions, inclinations, impulses, perceptions, hopes, and capacities, and the evil will pass away, and you will be whole.

Ah, brethren, that is the only cure. I was talking a minute or two ago about imperfect diagnoses; and there are superficial remedies too. Men round us are trying, in various ways, to stanch the world’s wounds, to heal the world’s sicknesses. God forbid that I should say a word to discourage any such! I would rather wish them ten times more numerous than they are; but at the same time I believe that, unless you deal with the fountain at its head, you will never cleanse the stream, and that you must have the radical change, which comes by the gift of a new life in Christ, before men can be delivered from the sickness of their sins. And so all these panaceas, whilst they may do certain surface good, are, if I may quote a well-known phrase, like ‘pills against an earthquake,’ or like giving a lotion to cure pimples, when the whole head is sick and the whole heart faint. You will never cure the ills of humanity until you have delivered men from the dominion of their sin.

Jesus Christ heals society by healing the individual. There is no other way of doing it. If the units are corrupt the community cannot be pure. And the only way to make the units pure is that they shall have Christ on the Cross for their redemption, and Christ in the heart for their cleansing. And then all the things that men try to produce in the shape of social good and the like, apart from Him, will come as a consequence of the new state of things that arises when the individuals are renewed. Apart from Him all human attempts to deal with social evils are inadequate. There is a terrible disillusionising and disappointment awaiting many eager enthusiasts to-day, who think that by certain external arrangements, or by certain educational and cultivated processes, they can mend the world’s miseries. You educate a nation. Well and good, and one result of it is that your bookshops get choked with trash, and that vice has a new avenue of approach to men’s hearts. You improve the economic condition of the people. Well and good, and one result of it is that a bigger percentage than ever of their funds finds its way into the drink-shop. You give a nation political power. Well and good, and one result of it is that the least worthy and the least wise have to be flattered and coaxed, because they are the rulers. Every good thing, divorced from Christ, becomes an ally of evil, and the only way by which the dreams and desires of men can be fulfilled is by the salvation which is in Him entering the individual hearts and thus moulding society.

III. Now, lastly, the common means of possessing the common healing.

My second text tells us what that is-’ the common faith.’ That is another of the words which is so familiar that it is unintelligible, which has been dinned Into your ears ever since you were little children, and in the case of many of you excites no definite idea, and is supposed to he an obscure kind of thing that belongs to theologians and preachers, but has little to do with your daily lives. There is only one way by which this healing and safety that I have been speaking about can possibly find its way into a man’s heart. You have all been trained from childhood to believe that men are saved by faith, and a great many of you, I dare say, think that men might have been saved by some other way, if God had chosen to appoint it so. But that is a clear mistake. If it is true that salvation is a gift from God, then it is quite plain that the only thing that we require is an outstretched hand. If it is true that Jesus Christ’s death on the Cross has brought salvation to all the world, then it is quite plain that, His work being finished, we have no need to come in pottering with any works of ours, and that the only thing we have to do is to accept it. If it is true that Jesus Christ will enter men’s hearts, and there give a new spirit and a new life, which will save them from their sins and make them free from the law of sin and death, then it is plain that the one thing that we have to do is to open our hearts and say ‘ Come in, Thou King of Glory, come in!’ Because salvation is a gift; because it is the result of a finished work; because it is imparted to men by the impartation of Christ’s own life to them: for all these reasons it is plain that the only way by which God can save a man is by that man’s putting his trust in Jesus Christ. It is no arbitrary appointment. The only possible way of possessing ‘the common salvation ‘ is by the exercise of ‘the common faith.’

So we are all put upon one level, no matter how different we may be in attainments, in mental capacity -geniuses and blockheads, scholars and ignoramuses, millionaires and paupers, students and savages, we are all on the one level. There is no carriage road into heaven. We have all to go in at the strait gate, and there is no special entry for people that come with their own horses; and so some people do not like to have to descend to that level, and to go with the ruck and the undistinguished crowd, and to be saved just in the same fashion as Tom, Dick, and Harry, and they turn away.

Plenty of people believe in a ‘common salvation,’ meaning thereby a vague, indiscriminate gift that is flung broadcast over the mass. Plenty of people believe in a ‘common faith.’ We hear, for instance, about a ‘national Christianity,’ and a ‘national recognition of religion,’ and ‘Christian nations,’ and the like. There are no Christian nations except nations of which the individuals are Christians, and there is no ‘common faith’ except the faith exercised in common by all the units that make up a community.

So do not suppose that anything short of your own personal act brings you into possession of ‘ the common salvation.’ The table is spread, but you must take the bread into your own hands, and you must masticate it with your own teeth, and you must assimilate it in your own body, or it is no bread for you. The salvation is a ‘ common,’ like one of the great prairies, but each separate settler has to peg off his own claim, and fence it in, and take possession of it, or he has no share in the broad land. So remember that ‘the common salvation’ must be made the individual salvation by the individual exorcise of ‘the common faith.’ Cry,’ Lord! I believe!’ and then you will have the right to say, ‘ The Lord is my strength; He also is become my salvation.’

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chapter 31

THE PURPOSE OF THE EPISTLE-THE FAITH ONCE FOR ALL DELIVERED, AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.

Jud_1:3

THE Greek of the opening sentence of this passage, in which St. Jude explains his reason for writing this Epistle, is ambiguous. The words "of our common salvation" (πϵϱί τῆϛ ϰοινῆϛ ἡμῶν σωτηϱίας) may go either with what precedes or with what follows. But there is little doubt that both the Authorized and the Revised Versions are right in taking them with what precedes. The true connection is, not, "While I was giving all diligence to write unto you, I was constrained to write unto you of our common salvation," but, "While I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith." This Epistle can scarcely be called a letter "about our common salvation." The meaning is that St. Jude had intended to write such a letter, but the crisis created by the entrance of these ungodly men into the Church constrained him to write a letter of a different kind, viz., the one which lies before us. That he had already begun to write a letter "respecting our common salvation," and that we have here to lament the loss of another Epistle besides the lost Epistles of St. Paul and St. John, {1Co_5:9; 3Jn_1:9} is neither stated nor implied. St. Jude had been thinking very earnestly about writing a more general and comprehensive Epistle, when he realized that the presence of a very serious evil required immediate action, and accordingly he writes at once to point out the existing peril, and to denounce those who are the authors of it. It is the duty of all Christians to be on their guard, and to be unflinching in their defense of the truth which has been committed to them to preserve and cherish.

"The faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints." This does not mean, which was delivered by God to the Apostles, but which was delivered by the Apostles to the Church. "The saints" here, as so often in the New Testament, {Act_9:13; Act_9:32; Act_9:4; Act_126:10; Rom_8:27; Rom_13:13; Rom_15:25-26; Rom_15:31; etc., etc.} means all Christians. If the whole nation of the Jews was a "holy people" (λαος αγιος), "a peculiar treasure unto Jehovah from among all peoples," {Exo_19:5} by reason of their special election by Him; {Deu_7:6; Deu_14:2; Deu_14:21} if they were "saints of the Most High," {Dan_7:18; Dan_7:22; Dan_7:25} much more might this be said of Christians, who had inherited all the spiritual privileges of the Jews, and had received others in abundance, far exceeding any that the Jews had ever possessed. Christians also, in a still higher sense, were "an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for Gods own possession". {1Pe_2:9} The Christians of Corinth, Ephesus, and Colossae, in spite of the enormous evils which they practiced or sanctioned, or at least tolerated, are still called "saints." They are holy, not as being persons of holy life, but as being devoted to God. Of course such persons ought to be holy in conduct, but to call them "saints" does not assert that they are so. The name asserts the fact of being set apart by God for Himself, and implies what ought to be the result of such separation. "Thus the main idea of the term is consecration. But though it does not assert moral qualifications as a fact in the persons so designated, it implies them as a duty." To each individual Christian, therefore, the name is at once an honor, an exhortation, and a reproach. It tells of his high calling, it exhorts him to live up to it, and it reminds him of his grievous shortcomings.

"The faith once for all delivered unto the saints" (τη απαξ παραδοθειση τοις αγιοις πιστει) both the adverb, "once for all," and the aorist participle, "delivered," are worthy of special notice. "The faith" does not mean any set formula of articles of belief, nor the internal reception of Christian doctrine, but the Substance of it; it is equivalent to what St. Paul and the Evangelists call "the Gospel," viz., that body of truth which brings salvation to the soul that receives it. This Faith, or this Gospel, has been once for all delivered to Christians. No other will be given, for there is no other. Whatever may be delivered by any one in future cannot be a Gospel at all. The one true Gospel is complete and final, and admits of no successors and no supplements. {Gal_1:6-9}

"The faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints." Does, this exclude all possibility of a "development of Christian doctrine"? That depends upon what one means by "development." The expression has been interpreted to mean "that the increase and expansion of the Christian creed and ritual, and the variations which have attended the process in the case of individual writers and Churches, are the necessary attendants on any philosophy or polity which takes possession of the intellect and heart, and has had any wide or extended dominion; that from the nature of the human mind, time is necessary for the full comprehension and perfection of great ideas; and that the highest and most wonderful truths, though communicated to the world once for all by inspired teachers, could not be comprehended all at once by the recipients, but, as received and transmitted by minds not inspired and through media which were human, have required only the longer time and deeper thought for their full elucidation." If the ambiguous expression "and perfection" be omitted, one may readily allow that development of Christian doctrine in this sense has taken place. To say that time is needed for the full comprehension of the great truths which were communicated to the Church once for all by the Apostles is one thing; to say that time is needed for the perfection of those truths may or may not be quite another. And the manner in which the subject is treated in the famous Essay from which the passage just quoted is taken shows that what is meant by the "perfecting" of the truths is a very different thing from the full comprehension of their original contents; it means making additions to the original contents in order to remedy supposed deficiencies. In this sense it may be confidently asserted, and as loyal Christians we are bound to assert, that there is no such thing as development of Christian doctrine. If there be such a thing, then we cannot stop short with those developments which can in some measure be called Christian. The author himself reminds us that "no one has power over the issues of his principles; we cannot manage our argument, and have as much of it as we please and no more". If the faith once for all delivered to the saints was defective, and needed to be supplemented by subsequent additions, why may not Christianity itself be, as some have maintained, only a phase in the development of religion, which in process of time is to be superseded by something wholly unchristian? The transition is easily made from the position of the "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine" to that of Channing, that "it makes me smile to hear immortality claimed for Catholicism or Protestantism, or for any past interpretations of Christianity; as if the human soul had exhausted itself in its infant efforts; as if the men of one or a few generations could bind the energy of human thought and affection forever"; and thence to the position of Strauss, who, in his latest and most dreary work, on "The Old and the New Faith," asks the question, "Are we still Christians?" and answers it emphatically in the negative. The chief doctrines of Christianity are to him childish or repulsive beliefs, which thoughtful men have long since left behind. We may still in some sense be religious; but Christianity has done its work, and is rightly being dismissed from the stage. This is the advanced thinking of which St. John writes in his Second Epistle: "Every one that goeth onward (πας ο προαγων), and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God" (2Jn_1:9). There is an advance which involves desertion of first principles; and such an advance is not progress, but apostasy.

But does the development of doctrine, in the sense contended for by the author of the celebrated Essay, mean making actual additions to the faith once for all delivered, as distinct from arriving at a better comprehension of the contents and logical consequences of the original deposit? This question must be answered in the affirmative, for various reasons. The whole purpose of the Essay, and the actual expressions used in it, require this meaning; and that this is the obvious meaning has been assumed by Roman Catholic as well as Protestant critics, and (so far as the present writer is aware) this interpretation has never been resented as illegitimate by the author. The whole argument is admittedly "a hypothesis to account for a difficulty," "an expedient to enable us to solve what has now become a necessary and an anxious problem", viz., the enormous difference between the sum total of Roman Catholic doctrines and those which can be found in the Christian documents of the first two or three centuries. The Essay is believed by its author to furnish "a solution of such a number of the reputed corruptions of Rome as might form a fair ground for trusting her where the investigation had not been pursued". And that the faith once for all delivered is regarded as in need of supplements and additions seems to be implied in such language as the following: "In whatever sense the need and its supply are a proof of design in the visible creation, in the same do the gaps, if the word may be used, which occur in the structure of the original creed of the Church, make it probable that those developments, which grow out of the truths which lie around them, were intended to complete it". It is the business of succeeding ages of the Church to "keep what was exact, and supply what was deficient".

The author of the "Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine" states in another of his works that when he was admitted to the Church of Rome he embraced volumes containing the writings of the Christian Fathers, crying out that now they were really his own. The action and exclamation were thoroughly inconsistent with the position maintained throughout the Essay, and since then adopted by numbers of Roman controversialists. He ought rather to have cleared his shelves of the works of the Fathers, and to have consigned them to the lumber-room with the remark, "Now I need never look at you any more." As Bishop Cornelius Mussus (Musso) said long ago, "For my part, to speak quite frankly, I would give more credence to a single Pope than to a thousand Augustines, Jeromes, and Gregorys" (In "Epist. ad Ro. 14," p. 606, Venet., 1588, quoted in Hardwicks edition of Archer Butlers "Letters on Romanism," p. 394). It is the latest and most modern works on Roman theology, especially those which expound the utterances of the most recent Popes, that deserve to be studied, if the theory of the development be correct. According to that theory, the teaching of the primitive Church was certainly immature and defective, and possibly even erroneous. In order to find out what primitive writers meant, or ought to have meant, we must look to the latest developments. They are the criteria by which to test the teaching of the early Church; it is beginning at the wrong end to test the developments by Christian antiquity. In former times Romanists were at great pains to show that traces of their peculiar tenets could be found in the writers of the first few centuries; and not in a few cases the works of these primitive writers were interpolated, in order to make out a fair case. Criticism has exposed these forgeries, and it has been demonstrated that the early Christian teachers were ignorant of whole tracts of Roman doctrine and practice. Roman controversy has therefore entirely shifted its ground. It now freely admits that these things were unknown to Irenaeus, Cyprian, Chrysostom, Athanasius, and Augustine; but for the simple reason that, when they wrote, these things had not yet been revealed. The Church was still ignorant that the Blessed Virgin was conceived without sin, was taken bodily to heaven after her death, and ought to be invoked in prayer; it was still ignorant of the doctrine of purgatory, of indulgences, and of the necessity of being in communion with the Church of Rome. It will not do to say that Christ and His Apostles planted the germs of these things, and that for centuries the germs did not expand and fructify, and therefore remained unnoticed. For, first, how can there be a germ of a historical fact, such as the supposed removal of the Virgins body to heaven, which is most happily named an "assumption"? Secondly, now that the fruit has appeared, we ought to be able to trace it back to the germ which for so long was ignored. And, thirdly, if the germs were really deposited by Christ and His Apostles, they would have developed in a somewhat similar manner in all parts of Christendom. Different surroundings will account for some variety of development, but not for absolute difference in kind. The germ respecting communion with the Church of Rome, if there was one, developed in the East, where all germs were in the first instance planted, into the doctrine that no such communion was necessary. Therefore, from the Roman point of view, it is necessary to maintain that the development of Christian doctrine involves, not merely the better comprehension of the contents of doctrines, and the expansion of seeds and germs of truth, but the admission of actual supplements and additions, derived from new revelations of fresh items of truth. As the Jesuit Father Harper said, in his reply to Dr. Puseys "Eirenicon," "Christ grew in wisdom daily. So does the Church, not in mere appearance, but of truth. Her creed, therefore, can never shrink back to the dimensions of the past, but must ever enlarge with the onward future."

Hence the necessity for the doctrine of Infallibility. For Roman developments are not the only ones. The Eastern Churches have theirs; Protestant Churches have theirs; and outside these there are other developments, both non-Christian, and anti-Christian. Unless there is some authority which can say, "Our developments are Divinely inspired and necessary, while all others are superfluous or wrong," the doctrine of Development may be used with as much force against Rome as for her. Consequently we find the author of the Essay using the theory of Development as an argument for that of the Infallibility. "If the Christian doctrine, as originally taught, admits of true and important developments this is a strong antecedent argument in favor of a provision in the Dispensation for putting a seal of authority upon those developments…If certain large developments of it are true, they must surely be accredited as true." (pp. 117-19).

This is further proof that what is contemplated in this theory is not mere logical deductions from revealed truth; for logical deductions vindicate themselves by an appeal to the reason, and need no sanction from an infallible authority. Developments are indeed said to follow by way of "logical sequence," but this term is made to receive an enlarged meaning. "It will include any progress of the mind from one judgment to another, as, for instance, by way of moral fitness, which may not admit of analysis into premise and conclusion". Thus the "deification of St. Mary" is a "logical sequence" of our Lords Divinity. "The votaries of Mary do not exceed the true faith, unless the blasphemers of her Son came up to it. The Church of Rome is not idolatrous, unless Arianism is orthodoxy". The following criticism, therefore, does not seem to be unjust: "However the theory may be modified by the subsequent additional supposition of infallible guidance, it is quite evident that, considered in itself, its internal spirit and scope (especially as illustrated by its alleged Roman instances) are nothing short of this, that everything which certain good men in the Church, or men assumed to be such, can by reasoning or feeling collect from a revealed truth is, by the mere fact of its recognition [i.e., by the supposed infallible guide], admissible and authoritative." This is indeed a wide door to open for the reception of additions to the faith!

That St. Jude lays much stress on the fact that the sum total of the Gospel, and not merely the elementary portions of it, have been once for all committed to the Church, is shown, not only by the prominence which he gives to the thought here, but by his repetition of it a few lines later, when he begins the main portion of his Epistle: "I desire to put you in remembrance, though ye know all things once for all" (Jud_1:5). Any teaching of new doctrines is not only unnecessary, it is also utterly inadmissible. And every Christian has his responsibilities in this matter. He is to "contend earnestly" (επαγωνιζεσθαι). with all the energy and watchfulness of an athlete in the arena, for the preservation of this sacred deposit, lest it be lost or corrupted. And the manner in which this earnest contest is to be maintained is not left doubtful; not with the sword, as Beza rightly remarks, nor with intemperate denunciation or indiscriminate severity, but with the mighty influence of a holy life, built upon the foundation of our "most holy faith" (Jud_1:20-23). It is in this way that lawful development of Christian doctrine is secured; not by additions to what was once for all delivered, but by a deeper and wider comprehension of its inexhaustible contents. "If any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine."

William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.

1:3 The tribe of Simeon virtually disappeared within the land assigned to Judah (Josh 19:1). • fight against the Canaanites . . . help you conquer: See Josh 16:10; 17:13; 23:4-13.

1:3-4 In place of the thanksgiving that usually comes at this point in a New Testament letter (see Rom 1:8-14; 1 Cor 1:4-9), Jude explains his central purpose. False teaching was a potent danger to the faith of his readers (see Jude 1:22-23).

1:3 In the New Testament, “faith” usually refers to the act of believing, while the faith refers to the content of Christian belief.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Jud 1:3. Πᾶσαν σπουδὴν ποιούμενος) when I gave all diligence.—γράφειν—σωτηρίας, to write—salvation) Antithetical to marked out before (fore-written) to judgment: Jud 1:4.—περὶ, concerning) Here is the design of the Epistle: Jud 1:20-21. There is a close agreement between the beginning and the end of the Epistle.—κοινῆς, common) by equally (“like”) precious faith: 2Pe 1:1. The ground of mutual exhortation.—σωτηρίας, salvation) Even severe admonitions tend to salvation.—ἀνάγκην ἔσχον) I could not but.—γράψαι ὑμῖν παρακαλῶν, to write to you with exhortation) Of all kinds of writing, Jude judged exhortation to be most salutary at that time. The word, to write, is in close connection with exhorting. Exhortation is introduced in Jud 1:17-18. This is the express design of the Epistle.—ἐπαγωνίζεσθαι, that ye contend) It is a double duty, to fight earnestly in behalf of the faith, against enemies; and to build one’s self up in the faith: Jud 1:20. Comp. Neh 4:16-18.—ἅπαξ, once for all) The particle expresses great urgency: no other faith will be given. Comp. in the second instance [subsequently, “afterward”], Jud 1:5.—παραδοθείσῃ, delivered) from God.—τοῖς ἀγίοις) to all the saints, who are such (i.e. holy) by reason of their most holy faith: Jud 1:20. Construe this with delivered.—πίστει, the faith) by which we arrive at salvation: Jud 1:20-21.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jud_1:3-4. Statement of the reason which determined Jude to write this Epistle: comp. on this 2Pe_1:12 f., 2Pe_3:1 f.

ἀγαπητοί] found at the beginning of an Epistle only here and in 3Jn_1:2.

πᾶσαν σπουδὴν ποιούμενος κ.τ.λ.] Giving all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, I felt constrained to write to you, exhorting you to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. Pricaeus, Lachmann, Buttmann put a comma after the first and after the second ὑμῖν, so that περὶ … σωτηρίας is connected with ἀνάγκην ἔσχον, and παρακαλῶν, etc., is separated from γράψαι. Most expositors, on the contrary, as Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, de Wette, Wiesinger, etc., connect περὶ σωτηρίας with the preceding γράφειν, and unite παρακαλῶν with γράψαι. Not only the position of the words, but also the train of thought decides for this latter arrangement; for since, according to Jud_1:4, the ἀνάγκη, inducing the author to write this Epistle, consisted in the appearance of wicked men, so it is evidently more suitable to connect γράψαι with παρακαλῶν ἐπαγωνίζεσθαι, having special reference to it, than with the general idea περὶ τῆς κοινῆς σωτηρίας, particularly as the contents of the Epistle are anything but a treatise concerning the common salvation.[8] The preceding participial clause states in what condition Jude was when the ἀνάγκην ἔχειν came upon him; the σπουδή to write already existed when the entrance of certain ungodly men constrained him not to write generally περὶ τῆς κοινῆς σωτηρίας, but to compose such a hortative Epistle as the present. Some expositors incorrectly think that the ἀνάγκη had its reason in the σπουδή (Erasmus: tantum mihi studium fuit, ut non potuerim non scribere vobis); others, that to the σπουδή the ἀνάγκη supervened as a new point; so Hornejus: cum summum mihi esset studium scribendi ad vos aliquid de communi nostrum omnium salute, etiam necessitas insuper scribendi imposita fuit, quae autem illa sit, statim addit (so also Calvin and others). De Wette (with whom Brückner agrees) considers that Jude by the first clause expresses that he had been engaged on the composition of a longer and more comprehensive Epistle (the loss of which we have to lament), when he was for the time called away from that work in order to write the present Epistle; but the expression πᾶσαν σπουδὴν ποιούμενος does not necessarily involve actual writing.[9]

σπουδὴν ποιεῖσθαι is only found here in the N. T. (2Pe_1:5 : σπουδὴν πᾶσαν παρεισφέρειν; prologue to Ecclus.: προσφέρειν τινὰ σπουδήν); the meaning is: to be eagerly solicitous about something; it may refer both to mental activity and to external action; here the former is the case. Luthers translation: After I purposed, is too flat; Meyers is better: since it lies pressingly upon my heart.

πᾶσαν serves, as frequently, for the strengthening of the idea.

The participle ποιούμενος, in connection with the aorists ἔσχον γράψαι, is to be taken as the imperfect participle. Stier incorrectly translates: when engaged in it I would take diligence. It expresses the activity which took place, when the action expressed by the finite verb occurred and therefore must not be resolved, with Haenlein, into the perfect or pluperfect.

περὶ τῆς κοινῆς ἡμῶν σωτηρίας] states on what Jude intended to write. On κοινῆς, comp. Tit_1:4; 2Pe_1:1. There is no reason to refer the idea, with Semler, to the Jews and Gentiles, as the object common to both.

σωτηρία, not the doctrine of salvation (Jachmann), but the salvation itself, acquired by Christ for the world, and applied to believers. The explanation of Beza: de iis quae ad nostram omnium salutem pertinent, deviates from strict precision, as σωτηρία itself is indicated by Jude as the object of writing. Schott incorrectly explains σωτηρία, state of salvation, possession of salvation.

ἀνάγκην ἔσχον] Comp. Luk_14:10; Luk_23:17; 1Co_7:37. The explanation of Grotius is inaccurate: nihil potius habui, quod scriberem, quam ut, etc. The translation of Luther is too flat: I considered it necessary; for in ἀνάγκην ἔχειν is contained the idea of an objective necessity founded on duty, circumstances, etc. (de Wette, Wiesinger, Schott). The meaning here is: the entrance of false teachers constrained me, made me to recognise it as necessary. On the one hand, Semler inserts a strange reference, paraphrasing it: accidit interea inopinato, ut statuendum mihi … esset; and, on the other hand, Schott, who, in order to emphasize the contrast between the two members of the sentence, finds in ἀνάγκ. ἔσχον the thought expressed that Jude wrote this Epistle unwillingly, contrary to his inclination.

γράψαι ὑμῖν παρακαλῶν] παρακαλῶν is closely united to γράψαι, as indicating the kind of writing to which the author felt constrained by circumstances; therefore no comma is to be put after ὑμῖν.

ἐπαγωνίζεσθαι τῇ … πίστει] ἐπαγωνίζεσθαι, a ἅπ. λεγ., as συναθλέω, Php_1:27, connected with the dative of the object which is contended for; Stier: to fight for the faith; comp. Sir_4:28 : ἀγωνίζειν περί.

πίστις is not = doctrina, system of doctrine; nor yet does it here denote the subjective quality of the believing disposition; but that which is believed by Christians (τοῖς ἁγίοις), the objective contents of faith. Schott is incorrect in explaining it: the conduct arising from faith; for the notion of conduct does not suit παραδοθείσῃ. The explanation: the way of salvation (Hofmann), is also wanting in correctness; it is not proved by Gal_3:23.

As the subject to παραδοθείσῃ, by whom the communication or transmission was effected, God (Bengel) is not here to be thought of, but the apostles, as Jud_1:17 shows; 2Pe_2:21; Luk_1:2 (comp. also 1Co_11:2; 1Co_11:23; 1Co_15:3); yet the author does not name them, because he is not concerned here with the personal instruments, but with the mode and manner of transmission contained in ἅπαξ (Schott). τοῖς ἁγίοις are not the apostles (Nic. de Lyra), but Christians.

ἅπαξ brings prominently forward the fact that as it once took place, so there is now an end to the παράδοσις; Bengel: nulla alia dabitur fides. Jachmann incorrectly explains it by ἤδη, olim, jam, appealing to Jud_1:5 and Heb_6:4. According to Hofmanns view, ἅπαξ is used with reference to the preceding intention of Jude to present to the readers a writing having the common salvation as its object; but this reference is not indicated.[10]

[8] The translation of the Vulgate: omnem solicitudinem faciens scribendi vobis de communi vestra salute necesse habui scribere vobis depraecans supercertari, etc., may also be punctuated in both ways. Lachmann has, in his larger edition of the N. T., punctuated it as he has done in the Greek text; in other editions of the Vulgate, on the contrary, the other punctuation is found.

[9] De Wette incorrectly appeals for this supposition to Sherlock (in Wolf), who thus explains it: dilecti, animus mihi erat, scribere ad vos de communibus doctrinis et spe evangelii ad fidem vestram et Jesu Christi cognitionem amplificandam; jam vero coactum me video, ut hoc institutum deseram et ad cavendum praesens periculum, vos exhorter, ut serio teneatis eam quae vobis tradita est, doctrinam, contra falsos doctores, quos clanculum audio irrepsisse. What de Wette regards as accomplished, or in the act of being accomplished, Sherlock considers only as intended.

[10] When Hofmann maintains that ver. 4 could only have been written by an apostle, he evidently proceeds too far; for why could not also another besides an apostle have cherished the design to address a writing to Christians respecting the common faith?

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Jud 1:3-4 . Reasons for Writing . He had been intending to write to them on that which is the common interest of all Christians, salvation through Christ, but was compelled to abandon his intention by news which had reached him of a special danger* [783] threatening the Gospel once for all delivered to the Church. His duty now was to stir up the faithful to defend their faith against insidious assaults, long ago foretold in ancient prophecy, of impious men who should change the doctrine of God’s free grace into an excuse for licentiousness, and deny the only Master and our Lord Jesus Christ.

[783]* For this see the Introduction on Early Heresies.

Jud 1:3 . ἀγαπητοί occurs in Jud 1:17 ; Jud 1:20 , also in 2Pe 3:1 ; 2Pe 3:8 ; 2Pe 3:14 ; 2Pe 3:17 , 1Pe 2:11 ; 1Pe 4:12 and James. It is common in the Epistles of John and of Paul, sometimes with μου attached, as in 1Co 10:14 , Phi 2:12 , and is often joined to ἀδελφοί , especially in James. The ἀγάπη of Jud 1:2 leads on to the ἀγαπητοί here. They are themselves ἀγαπητοί because the love of God is shed abroad in their hearts.

πᾶσαν σπουδὴν ποιούμενος . For πᾶσαν , see my n. on Jas 1:2 , and cf. 2Pe 1:5 , σπουδὴν πᾶσαν παρεισενέγκαντες , Jud 1:15 , σπουδάσω ἔχειν ὑμᾶς μνήμην ποιεῖσθαι , also Isocr. Orat. v. p. 91 b , πᾶσαν τὴν σπουδὴν περὶ τούτου ποιεῖσθαι , Plato, Euthyd. 304 e , περὶ οὐδενὸς ἀξίων ἀναξίαν σπουδὴν ποιοῦνται . Jude was busy on another subject, when he received the news of a fresh danger to the Church, which he felt it his duty to meet at once. Whether he lived to carry out his earlier design, and whether it was of the nature of a treatise or of an epistle, we know not. It is noteworthy that there is a similar allusion in 2Pe 3:1 to an earlier letter now lost. Compare Barn. iv. 9, πολλὰ δὲ θέλων γράφειν … γράφειν ἐσπούδασα .

κοινῆς σωτηρίας . Cf. Tit 1:4 , κατὰ κοινὴν πίστιν , Ign. Ephesians 1 ., ὑπὲρ τοῦ κοινοῦ ὀνόματος καὶ ἐλπίδος with Lightfoot’s n., Jos. Ant. 10. 1. 3 (Hezekiah besought Isaiah to offer sacrifice) ὑπὲρ τῆς κοινῆς σωτηρίας . Bede explains as follows: “omnium electorum communis est salus, fides, et dilectio Christi”. Jude puts on one side the address he was preparing on the main principles of Christianity (probably we may take Jud 1:20-21 as a sample of what this would have been) and turns to the special evil which was then threatening the Church.

ἀνάγκην ἔσχον γράψαι . Cf. Luk 14:18 , ἔχω ἀνάγκην ἰδεῖν αὐτόν , Heb 7:27 , al. , also Plut. Cato Mi. 24, ἀνάγκην ἔσχεν ἐκβαλεῖν ἀσχημονοῦσαν τὴν γυναῖκα . There is a similar combination of γράφειν and γράψαι in 3Jn 1:13 . The aor. γράψαι , contrasted with the preceding pres. γράφειν , implies that the new epistle had to be written at once and could not be prepared for at leisure, like the one he had previously contemplated. It was no welcome task: “necessity was laid upon him”.

ἐπαγωνίζεσθαι τῇ ἅπαξ παραδοθείσῃ τοῖς ἁγίοις πίστει . “To contend for the faith,” almost equivalent to the ἀγώνισαι περὶ τἠς ἀληθείας in Sir 4:28 , see 1Ti 6:12 , ἀγωνίζου τὸν καλὸν ἀγῶνα τῆς πίστεως , and εἰς ὃ κοπιῶ ἀγωνιζόμενος , Col 1:29 . We may compare ἐπαμύνειν , ἐπαναπαύειν νόμῳ , Rom 2:17 and Clem. Strom , iii., p. 553, ἐπαγωνιζόμενος τῇ ἀθέῳ δόξῃ . It is possible (as is shown by the following examples) for spiritual blessings, once given, to be lost, unless we use every effort to maintain them. The redemption from Egypt was a fact, as baptism into the name of Christ is a fact, but, unless it is borne in mind and acted upon, the fact loses its efficacy.

τῇ ἅπαξ παραδοθείσῃ τοῖς ἁγίοις πίστει . The word πίστις here is not used in its primary sense of a subjective feeling of trust or belief, but in the secondary sense of the thing believed, the Truth or the Gospel, as in Jud 1:20 below, Gal 1:23 , ὁ διώκων ἡμᾶς ποτε νῦν εὐαγγελίζεται τὴν πίστιν ἥν ποτε ἐπόρθει , also Gal 3:23 , Phi 1:27 , συναθλοῦντες τῇ πίστει τοῦ εὐαγγελίου , where see Lightfoot, Act 6:7 . In the same way ἐλπίς is used in a concrete sense for the object or ground of hope (as in Col 1:5 , τὴν ἐλπίδα τὴν ἀποκειμένην ὑμῖν , 1Ti 1:1 , Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τῆς ἐλπίδος ἡμῶν , Tit 2:13 , προσδεχόμενοι τὴν μακαρίαν ἐλπίδα ), and φόβος for the object of fear, Rom 13:3 , 1Pe 3:14 .

ἅπαξ . Used here in its classical sense “once for all,” as below Jud 1:5 , and in Heb 6:4 , τοὺς ἅπαξ φωτισθέντας , Heb 9:26-27 ; Heb 10:2 , 1Pe 3:18 . This excludes the novelties of the Libertines, cf. Gal 1:9 . The later sense “on one occasion” is found in 2Co 11:25 , ἅπαξ ἐλιθάσθην , 1Th 2:18 , καὶ ἅπαξ καὶ δὶς ἠθελήσαμεν ἐλθεῖν .

παραδοθείσῃ . Cf. Philo M. i. 387, πιστεύει τοῖς ἅπαξ παραδοθεῖσι . The Christian tradition is constantly referred to by the Fathers, as by Clem. Al. Str. vii. where we read of ἡ ἀληθὴς παράδοσις (p. 845), ἡ ἐκκλησιαστικὴ π . (p. 890), ἡ θεία π . (p. 896), ἡ πάντων τῶν ἀποστόλων π . (p. 900), αἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ π (p. 901), and even in the N.T. as in 1Co 11:2 , κάθως παρέδωκα ὑμῖν τὰς παραδόσεις κατέχετε , 2Th 2:15 , 1Ti 6:20 . τὴν παραθήκην φύλαξον . For an account of the gradual formation of the Creed, see A. E. Burn’s Introduction to the Creeds , ch. 2., 1899, and compare the comment in my larger edition, p. 61 f.

τοῖς ἁγίοις . Used generally of Christians who were consecrated and called to be holy, as in 1Co 1:2 , Phi 1:1 , where see Lightfoot. The word contains an appeal to the brethren to stand fast against the teaching and practice of the Libertines.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Which was once so given, that it may never be changed.

The end and mark whereat he shooteth in this Epistle is that he confirmeth the godly against certain wicked men, both in wholesome doctrine and good manners.

Of those things that pertain to the salvation of all of us.

That ye should defend the faith by all the might you can, both by true doctrine and good example of life.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

We have here, I. The design of the apostle in writing this epistle to the lately converted Jews and Gentiles; namely, to establish them in the Christian faith, and a practice and conversation truly consonant and conformable thereunto, and in an open and bold profession thereof, especially in times of notorious opposition, whether by artful seduction or violent and inhuman persecution. But then we must see to it very carefully that it be really the Christian faith that we believe, profess, propagate, and contend for; not the discriminating badges of this or the other party, not any thing of later date than the inspired writings of the holy evangelists and apostles. Here observe, 1. The gospel salvation is a common salvation, that is, in a most sincere offer and tender of it to all mankind to whom the notice of it reaches: for so the commission runs (Mar 16:15, Mar 16:16), Go you into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature, etc. Surely God means as he speaks; he does not delude us with vain words, whatever men do; and therefore none are excluded from the benefit of these gracious offers and invitations, but those who obstinately, impenitently, finally exclude themselves. Whoever will may come and drink of the water of life freely, Rev 22:17. The application of it is made to all believers, and only to such; it is made to the weak as well as to the strong. Let none discourage themselves on the account of hidden decrees which they can know little of, and with which they have nothing to do. God's decrees are dark, his covenants are plain. "All good Christians meet in Christ the common head, are actuated by one and the same Spirit, are guided by one rule, meet here at one throne of grace, and hope shortly to meet in one common inheritance," a glorious one to be sure, but what or how glorious we cannot, nor at present need to know; but such it will be as vastly to exceed all our present hopes and expectations. 2. This common salvation is the subject-matter of the faith of all the saints. The doctrine of it is what they all most heartily consent to; they esteem it as a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, Ti1 1:15. It is the faith once, or at once, once for all, delivered to the saints, to which nothing can be added, from which nothing may be detracted, in which nothing more nor less should be altered. Here let us abide; here we are safe; if we stir a step further, we are in danger of being either entangled or seduced. 3. The apostles and evangelists all wrote to us of this common salvation. This cannot be doubted by those who have carefully read their writings. It is strange that any should think they wrote chiefly to maintain particular schemes and opinions, especially such as they never did nor could think of. It is enough that they have fully declared to us, by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, all that is necessary for every one to believe and do, in order to obtain a personal interest in the common salvation. 4. Those who preach or write of the common salvation should give all diligence to do it well: they should not allow themselves to offer to God or his people that which costs them nothing, or next to nothing, little or no pains or thought, Sa2 24:24. This were to treat God irreverently, and man unjustly. The apostle (though inspired) gave all diligence to write of the common salvation. What then will become of those who (though uninspired) give no diligence, or next to none, but say to the people (even in the name of God) quicquid in buccam venerit - whatever comes next, who, so that they use scripture-words, care not how they interpret or apply them? Those who speak of sacred things ought always to speak of them with the greatest reverence, care, and diligence. 5. Those who have received the doctrine of this common salvation must contend earnestly for it. Earnestly, not furiously. Those who strive for the Christian faith, or in the Christian course, must strive lawfully, or they lose their labour, and run great hazard of losing their crown, Ti2 2:5. The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God, Jam 1:20. Lying for the truth is bad, and scolding for it is not much better. Observe, Those who have received the truth must contend for it. But how? As the apostles did; by suffering patiently and courageously for it, not by making others suffer if they will not presently embrace every notion that we are pleased (proved or unproved) to call faith, or fundamental. We must not suffer ourselves to be robbed of any essential article of Christian faith, by the cunning craftiness or specious plausible pretences of any who lie in wait to deceive, Eph 4:14. The apostle Paul tells us he preached the gospel (mind it was the gospel) with much contention (Th1 2:2), that is (as I understand it), with earnestness, with a hearty zeal, and a great concern for the success of what he preached. But, if we will understand contention in the common acceptation of the word, we must impartially consider with whom the apostle contended, and how, the enlarging on which would not be proper for this place.

II. The occasion the apostle had to write to this purport. As evil manners give rise to good laws, so dangerous errors often give just occasion to the proper defence of important truths. Here observe, 1. Ungodly men are the great enemies of the faith of Christ and the peace of the church. Those who deny or corrupt the one, and disturb the other, are here expressly styled ungodly men. We might have truth with peace (a most desirable thing) were there none (ministers or private Christians) in our particular churches and congregations but truly godly men - a blessing scarcely to be looked or hoped for on this side heaven. Ungodly men raise scruples, merely to advance and promote their own selfish, ambitious, and covetous ends. This has been the plague of the church in all past ages, and I am afraid no age is, or will be, wholly free from such men and such practices as long as time shall last. Observe, Nothing cuts us off from the church but that which cuts us off from Christ; namely, reigning infidelity and ungodliness. We must abhor the thought of branding particular parties or persons with this character, especially of doing it without the least proof, or, as it too often happens, the least shadow of it. Those are ungodly men who live without God in the world, who have no regard to God and conscience. Those are to be dreaded and consequently to be avoided, not only who are wicked by sins of commission, but also who are ungodly by sins of omission, who, for example, restrain prayer before God, who dare not reprove a rich man, when it is the duty of their place so to do, for fear of losing his favour and the advantage they promise themselves therefRom. who do the work of the Lord negligently, etc. 2. Those are the worst of ungodly men who turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, who take encouragement to sin more boldly because the grace of God has abounded, and still abounds, so wonderfully, who are hardened in their impieties by the extent and fulness of gospel grace, the design of which is to reduce men from sin, and bring them unto God. Thus therefore to wax wanton under so great grace, and turn it into an occasion of working all uncleanness with greediness, and hardening ourselves in such a course by that very grace which is the last and most forcible means to reclaim us from it, is to render ourselves the vilest, the worst, and most hopeless of sinners. 3. Those who turn the grace of God into lasciviousness do in effect deny the Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ; that is, they deny both natural and revealed religion. They strike at the foundation of natural religion, for they deny the only Lord God; and they overturn all the frame of revealed religion, for they deny the Lord Jesus Christ. Now his great design in establishing revealed religion in the world was to bring us unto God. To deny revealed religion is virtually to overturn natural religion, for they stand or fall together, and they mutually yield light and force to each other. Would to God our modern deists, who live in the midst of gospel light, would seriously consider this, and cautiously, diligently, and impartially examine what it is that hinders their receiving the gospel, while they profess themselves fully persuaded of all the principles and duties of natural religion! Never to tallies answered more exactly to each other than these do, so that it seems absurd to receive the one and reject the other. One would think it were the fairer way to receive both or reject both; though perhaps the more plausible method, especially in this age, is to act the part they do. 4. Those who turn the grace of God into lasciviousness are ordained unto condemnation. They sin against the last, the greatest, and most perfect remedy; and so are without excuse. Those who thus sin must needs die of their wounds, of their disease, are of old ordained to this condemnation, whatever that expression means. But what if our translators had thought fit to have rendered the words palai progegrammenoi - of old fore-written of, as persons who would through their own sin and folly become the proper subjects of this condemnation, where had the harm been? Plain Christians had not been troubled with dark, doubtful, and perplexing thoughts about reprobation, which the strongest heads cannot enter far into, can indeed bear but little of, without much loss and damage. Is it not enough that early notice was given by inspired writers that such seducers and wicked men should arise in later times, and that every one, being fore-warned of, should be fore-armed against them? 5. We ought to contend earnestly for the faith, in opposition to those who would corrupt or deprave it, such as have crept in unawares: a wretched character, to be sure, but often very ill applied by weak and ignorant people, and even by those who themselves creep in unawares, who think their ipse dixit should stand for a law to all their followers and admirers. Surely faithful humble ministers are helpers of their people's joy, peace, and comfort; not lords of their faith! Whoever may attempt to corrupt the faith, we ought to contend earnestly against them. The more busy and crafty the instruments and agents of Satan are, to rob us of the truth, the more solicitous should we be to hold it fast, always provided we be very sure that we fasten no wrong or injurious characters on persons, parties, or sentiments.

III. The fair warning which the apostle, in Christ's name, gives to those who, having professed his holy religion, do afterwards desert and prove false to it, Jde 1:5-7. We have here a recital of the former judgments of God upon sinners, with design to awaken and terrify those to whom warning is given in this epistle. Observe, The judgments of God are often denounced and executed in terrorem - for warning to others, rather than from immediate or particular displeasure against the offenders themselves; not that God is not displeased with them, but perhaps not more with them than with others who, at least for the present, escape. I will put you in remembrance. What we already know we still need to be put in remembrance of. Therefore there will always be need and use of a standing stated ministry in the Christian church, though all the doctrines of faith, the essentials, are so plainly revealed in express words, or by the most near, plain, and immediate consequence, that he who runs may read and understand them. There wants no infallible interpreter, really or conceitedly such, for any such end or purpose. Some people (weakly enough) suggest, "If the scriptures do so plainly contain all that is necessary to salvation, what need or use can there be of a standing ministry? Why may we not content ourselves with staying at home, and reading our Bibles?" The inspired apostle has here fully, though not wholly, answered this objection. Preaching is not designed to teach us something new in every sermon, somewhat that we knew nothing of before; but to put us in remembrance, to call to mind things forgotten, to affect our passions, and engage and fix our resolutions, that our lives may be answerable to our faith. Though you know these things, yet you still need to know them better. There are many things which we have known which yet we have unhappily forgotten. Is it of no use or service to be put afresh in remembrance of them?

Now what are these things which we Christians need to be put in remembrance of?

1. The destruction of the unbelieving Israelites in the wilderness, Jde 1:5. Paul puts the Corinthians in mind of this, 1 Cor. 10. The first ten verses of that chapter (as the scripture is always the best commentary upon itself) are the best explication of the fifth verse of this epistle of Jude. None therefore ought to presume upon their privileges, since many who were brought out of Egypt by a series of amazing miracles, yet perished in the wilderness by reason of their unbelief. Let us not therefore be high-minded, but fear, Rom 11:20. Let us fear lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it, Heb 4:1. They had miracles in abundance: they were their daily bread; yet even they perished in unbelief. We have greater (much greater) advantages than they had; let their error (their so fatal error) be our awful warning.

2. We are here put in remembrance of the fall of the angels, Jde 1:6. There were a great number of the angels who left their own habitation; that is, who were not pleased with the posts and stations the supreme Monarch of the universe had assigned and allotted to them, but thought (like discontented ministers in our age, I might say in every age) they deserved better; they would, with the title of ministers, be sovereigns, and in effect their Sovereign should be their minister - do all, and only, what they would have him; thus was pride the main and immediate cause or occasion of their fall. Thus they quitted their post, and rebelled against God, their Creator and sovereign Lord. But God did not spare them (high and great as they were); he would not truckle to them; he threw them off, as a wise and good prince will a selfish and deceitful minister; and the great, the all-wise God, could not be ignorant, as the wisest and best of earthly princes often are, what designs they were hatching. After all, what became of them? They thought to have dared and outfaced Omnipotence itself; but God was too hard for them, he cast them down to hell. Those who would not be servants to their Maker and his will in their first state were made captives to his justice, and are reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness. Here see what the condition of fallen angels is: they are in chains, bound under the divine power and justice, bound over to the judgment of the great day; they are under darkness, though once angels of light; so horribly in the dark are they that they continue to fight against God, as if there were yet some small hope at least left them of prevailing and overcoming in the conflict. Dire infatuation! Light and liberty concur, chains and darkness how well do they agree and suit each other! The devils, once angels in the best sense, are reserved, etc. Observe, There is, undoubtedly there is, a judgment to come; the fallen angels are reserved to the judgment of the great day; and shall fallen men escape it? Surely not. Let every reader consider this in due time. Their chains are called everlasting, because it is impossible they should ever break loose from them, or make an escape; they are held fast and sure under them. The decree, the justice, the wrath of God, are the very chains under which fallen angels are held so fast. Hear and fear, O sinful mortals of mankind!

3. The apostle here calls to our remembrance the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Jde 1:7. Even as, etc. It is in allusion to the destruction of Pentapolis, or the five cities, that the miseries of the damned are set forth by a lake that burneth with fire and brimstone; they were guilty of abominable wickedness, not to be named or thought of but with the utmost abhorrence and detestation; their ruin is a particular warning to all people to take heed of, and fly fRom. fleshly lusts that war against the soul, Pe1 2:11. "These lusts consumed the Sodomites with fire from heaven, and they are now suffering the vengeance of eternal fire; therefore take heed, imitate not their sins, lest the same plagues overtake you as did them. God is the same holy, just, pure Being now as then; and can the beastly pleasures of a moment make amends for your suffering the vengeance of eternal fire? Stand in awe, therefore, and sin not," Psa 4:4.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Design of the Epistle (compare Jde 1:20-21).

all diligence-- (Pe2 1:5). As the minister is to give all diligence to admonish, so the people should, in accordance with his admonition, give all diligence to have all Christian graces, and to make their calling sure.

the common salvation--wrought by Christ. Compare Note, see on Pe2 1:1, "obtained LIKE precious faith," This community of faith, and of the object of faith, salvation, forms the ground of mutual exhortation by appeals to common hopes and fears.

it was needful for me--rather, "I felt it necessary to write (now at once; so the Greek aorist means; the present infinitive 'to write,' which precedes, expresses merely the general fact of writing) exhorting you." The reason why he felt it necessary "to write with exhortation," he states, Jde 1:4, "For there are certain men crept in," &c. Having intended to write generally of "the common salvation," he found it necessary from the existing evils in the Church, to write specially that they should contend for the faith against those evils.

earnestly contend--Compare Phi 1:27, "striving together for the faith of the Gospel."

once, &c.--Greek, "once for all delivered." No other faith or revelation is to supersede it. A strong argument for resisting heretical innovators (Jde 1:4). Believers, like Nehemiah's workmen (Neh 4:17), with one hand "build themselves up in their most holy faith"; with the other they" contend earnestly for the faith" against its foes.

the saints--all Christians, holy (that is, consecrated to God) by their calling, and in God's design.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 3. When I gave all diligence] This phrase, πασαν σπουδηνποιουμενος, is a Grecism for being exceedingly intent upon a subject; taking it up seriously with determination to bring it to good effect. The meaning of the apostle seems to be this: "Beloved brethren, when I saw it necessary to write to you concerning the common salvation, my mind being deeply affected with the dangers to which the Church is exposed from the false teachers that are gone out into the world, I found it extremely necessary to write and exhort you to hold fast the truth which you had received, and strenuously to contend for that only faith which, by our Lord and his apostles, has been delivered to the Christians."

Some think that St. Jude intimates that he had at first purposed to write to the Church at large, on the nature and design of the Gospel; but seeing the dangers to which the Churches were exposed, because of the false teachers, he changed his mind, and wrote pointedly against those false doctrines, exhorting them strenuously to contend for the faith.

The common salvation] The Christian religion, and the salvation which it brings. This is called common because it equally belongs to Jews and Gentiles; it is the saving grace of God which has appeared to every man, and equally offers to every human being that redemption which is provided for the whole world.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

3. When I gave diligence. I have rendered the words σπουδὴν ποιούμενος, “Applying care:” literally they are, “Making diligence.” But many interpreters explain the sentence in this sense, that a strong desire constrained Jude to write, as we usually say of those under the influence of some strong feeling, that they cannot govern or restrain themselves. Then, according to these expounders, Jude was under a sort of necessity, because a desire to write suffered him not to rest. But I rather think that the two clauses are separate, that though he was inclined and solicitous to write, yet a necessity compelled him. He then intimates, that he was indeed glad and anxious to write to them, but yet necessity urged him to do so, even because they were assailed (according to what follows) by the ungodly, and stood in need of being prepared to fight with them.

Then, in the first place, Jude testifies that he felt so much concern for their salvation, that he wished himself, and was indeed anxious to write to them; and, secondly, in order to rouse their attention, he says that the state of things required him to do so. For necessity adds strong stimulants. Had they not been forewarned how necessary his exhortation was, they might have been slothful and negligent; but when he makes this preface, that he wrote on account of the necessity of their case, it was the same as though he had blown a trumpet to awake them from their torpor.

Of the common salvation. Some copies add “your,” but without reason, as I think; for he makes salvation common to them and to himself. And it adds not a little weight to the doctrine that is announced, when any one speaks according to his own feelings and experience; for vain is what we say, if we speak of salvation to others, when we ourselves have no real knowledge of it. Then, Jude professed himself to be (so to speak) an experimental teacher, when he associated himself with the godly in the participation of the same salvation.

And exhort you. Literally, “exhorting you;” but as he points out the end of his counsel, the sentence ought to be thus expressed. What I have rendered, “to help the faith by contending,” means the same as to strive in retaining the faith, and courageously to sustain the contrary assaults of Satan. For he reminds them that in order to persevere in the faith, various contests must be encountered and continual warfare maintained. He says that faith had been once delivered, that they might know that they had obtained it for this end, that they might never fail or fall away.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

3. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation …] More accurately, giving all diligence, as a present act connected with the time of writing. The word for “diligence,” as with the cognate verb in 2Pe_1:10; 2Pe_1:15; 2Pe_3:14, implies earnest effort. The term “common salvation,” not elsewhere found in the New Testament, has a parallel in the “common faith” of Tit_1:4. In both passages stress is laid on the “faith,” or the “salvation,” as being that in which all Christians were sharers, as distinct from the “knowledge” which was claimed by false teachers as belonging only to a few.

it was needful for me to write unto you] Better, perhaps, I found a necessity. The ground of the necessity lies in the fact stated in the next verse. The words have been interpreted as meaning that he was about to write a fuller or more general Epistle, and was then diverted from his purpose by the urgent need for a protest against the threatening errors; and the inference, though not, perhaps, demonstrable, is at least legitimate, and derives some support from the change of tense (which the English version fails to represent) in the two infinitives, the first “to write” being in the present tense, such as might be used of a general purpose, the second in the aorist, as pointing to an immediate and special act.

that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints] The simple form of the verb for “contend” is found in Col_1:29; Col_4:12, and implies, as it were, “wrestling” for the faith. This expression finds a close parallel in the “striving together for the faith” of Php_1:27. “Faith” is obviously to be taken in its objective sense, as being, so to speak, the belief of the Universal Church. And this faith is described as being “once for all delivered to the saints.” It was not necessarily embodied as yet in a formal Creed, or committed to writing, but was imparted orally to every convert, and took its place among the “traditions” of the Church (2Th_2:15; 2Th_3:6), the noble deposit, “the good thing committed to their trust” which all pastors and teachers were to watch over and pass on to others (2Ti_1:14), identical with the “form of sound words” (2Ti_1:13). In the words that describe the “mystery of godliness” in 1Ti_3:16, and in the “faithful sayings” of the Pastoral Epistles (1Ti_1:15; 1Ti_3:1; 1Ti_4:9; 2Ti_2:11; Tit_3:8), we have probably portions of this traditional faith. It was now imperilled by teachers who denied it, both in their doctrine and their life, and it was necessary that men should redouble their efforts to maintain it unimpaired.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Beloved - An expression of strong affection used by the apostles when addressing their brethren, Rom 1:7; 1Co 4:14; 1Co 10:14; 1Co 15:58; 2Co 7:1; 2Co 12:19; Phi 2:12; Phi 4:1; and often elsewhere.

When I gave all diligence - When I applied my mind earnestly; implying that he had reflected on the subject, and thought particularly what it would be desirable to write to them. The state of mind referred to is that of one who was purposing to write a letter, and who thought over carefully what it would be proper to say. The mental process which led to writing the Epistle seems to have been this:

For some reasons - mainly from his strong affection for them - he purposed to write to them. The general subject on which he designed to write was, of course, something pertaining to the common salvation - for he and they were Christians. On reflecting what particular thing pertaining to this common salvation it was best for him to write on, he felt that, in view of their peculiar dangers, it ought to be an exhortation to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to them. Macknight renders this less correctly, “Making all haste to write to you,” etc. But the idea is rather that he set himself diligently and earnestly to write to them of the great matter in which they had a common interest.

To write unto you of the common salvation - The salvation common to Jews and Gentiles, and to all who bore the Christian name. The meaning is, that he did not think of writing on any subject pertaining to a particular class or party, but on some subject in which all who were Christians had a common interest. There are great matters of religion held in common by all Christians, and it is important for religious teachers to address their fellow Christians on those common topics. After all, they are more important than the things which we may hold as peculiar to our own party or sect, and should be more frequently dwelt upon.

It was needful for me to write to you - “I reflected on the general subject, prompted by my affectionate regard to write to you of things pertaining to religion in general, and, on looking at the matter, I found there was a particular topic or aspect of the subject on which it was necessary to address you. I saw the danger in which you were from false teachers, and felt it not only necessary that I should write to you, but that I should make this the particular subject of my counsels.”

And exhort you - “That I should make my letter in fact an exhortation on a particular topic.”

That ye should earnestly contend - Compare Gal 2:5. The word here rendered “earnestly contend” - ἐπαγωνίζεσθαι epagōnizesthai - is one of those words used by the sacred writers which have allusion to the Grecian games. Compare the notes, 1Co 9:24, following. This word does not elsewhere occur in the New Testament. It means “to contend upon” - i. e., “for or about” anything; and would be applicable to the earnest effort put forth in those games to obtain the prize. The reference here, of course, is only to contention by argument, by reasoning, by holding fast the principles of religion, and maintaining them against all opposers. It would not justify “contention” by arms, by violence, or by persecution; because:

(a)That is contrary to the spirit of true religion, and to the requirements of the gospel elsewhere revealed;

(b)It is not demanded by the proper meaning of the word, all that that fairly implies being the effort to maintain truth by argument and by a steady life;

(c)It is not the most effectual way to keep up truth in the world to attempt to do it by force and arms.

For the faith - The system of religion revealed in the gospel. It is called “faith,” because that is the cardinal virtue in the system, and because all depends on that. The rule here will require that we should contend in this manner for all “truth.”

Once delivered unto the saints - The word here used (ἅπαξ hapax) may mean either “once for all,” in the sense that it was then complete, and would not be repeated; or “formerly,” to wit, by the author of the system. Doddridge, Estius, and Beza, understand it in the former way; Macknight and others in the latter; Benson improperly supposes that it means “fully or perfectly.” Perhaps the more usual sense of the word would be, that it was done once in the sense that it is not to be done again, and, therefore, in the sense that it was then complete, and that nothing was to be added to it. There is indeed the idea that it was formerly done, but with this additional thought, that it was then complete. Compare, for this use of the Greek word rendered “once,” Heb 9:26-28; Heb 10:2; 1Pe 3:18. The “delivering” of this faith to the saints here referred to is evidently that made by revelation, or the system of truth which God has made known in his word. Everything which He has revealed, we are to defend as true. We are to surrender no part of it whatever, for every part of that system “is” of value to mankind. By a careful study of the Bible we are to ascertain what that system is, and then in all places, at all times, in all circumstances, and at every sacrifice, we are to maintain it.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Being very solicitous to discharge my duty of an apostle, in writing and instructing you in the common concern of your salvation, I judge it necessary at present to write this letter, to exhort you to contend earnestly,[1] and stand firm in the Christian faith. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

To contend earnestly, supercertari, which has an active sense, of which there are divers examples. See Estius and P. Alleman, Greek: epagonizesthai.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

When I gave all diligence to write unto you: the apostle here declares the first cause of his writing to them, viz. his own inclination and readiness, according to the duty of his place, (as an apostle), so to do: q. d. Being of myself willing, and earnestly desirous to promote your welfare, when absent from you, by writing unto you.

Of the common salvation; i.e. those things which concern the salvation of us all in common, or that salvation which is common to us all; there being but one salvation for all believers, and one way to it.

It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you; the second reason of his writing, viz. the necessity of it, in respect of the danger they were in, as follows, Jud 1:4.

That ye should earnestly contend; by constancy in the faith, zeal for the truth, holiness of life, mutual exhortation, prayer, suffering for the gospel, &c.; against those that would pervert the gospel.

For the faith; the doctrine of the gospel; faith is taken for the object of faith.

Which was once; either, once for all, because it was delivered by all the apostles as the only unchangeable rule of governing their lives, and obtaining salvation, to which nothing is to be added, and from which nothing is to be taken away; or it implies, that it was therefore delivered to them that they might never forsake it, and that if they do, they miss of their salvation, as being never like to have another way made known to them.

Delivered unto the saints; viz. by God, not invented by men.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

3. Beloved—Thus far the address; now commences the opening of the subject. Note 3Jn_1:1-2.

Gave all diligence—Rather, making to myself all earnestness. The earnestness was awakened by alarm at the inroads of the errorists.

Common salvation—The gospel salvation, which was common to the whole Christian republic, and so threatened by a common danger.

It was needful—Literally, I had a necessity; a necessity to do what, without a necessity, he would not advise, namely, to contend. There are blessed times for peace, but now comes the pressure of contest.

Earnestly contend—A term borrowed from the palestric contests, yet also used of real battles. This spiritual contest, now at hand, required not merely quiet Christian life, but a bold maintenance of Christian truth and morals, a refutation and rebuke of error and sin, and an extrusion of the heretical transgressors from the Church of God.

The faith—The system of doctrines and morals.

Once—That is, once for all; excluding all additions, diminutions, and modifications; and especially such perversions as now threatened to mislead and destroy the Church.

Saints—All true Christians, especially the sanctified of Jud_1:1.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The author"s reason for writing. The statement of this is introduced by the conciliatory address, beloved a form of address found twice again in this short Epistle (verses 17, 20). It occurs at great turning-points in all the Catholic Epistles, except for an obvious reason in Jam_1:16, 19 2:5 (who couples the term "brethren" with it); 1Pe_2:11 1Pe_4:12 2Pe_3:1, 2Pe_3:8, 2Pe_3:14, 17 1Jn_3:2, 21 4:1, 7, 11 3Jn_1:2, 5, 11) It is frequent also in the Pauline Epistles. It is only here, however, and in 3Jn_1:2 that it is introduced so near the beginning of an Epistle. The statement itself contains several expressions which demand notice. The phrase which the Authorized Version renders, When I gave all diligence, is better rendered, while I was giving all diligence, with the Revised Version. In this particular form it occurs nowhere else in the New Testament; but it has close parallels in 2Pe_1:5 and Heb_6:11. The noun is the same as is translated "diligence" in Rom_12:8, and "business" in Rom_12:11. It is not certain whether the phrase expresses action here as well as earnest desire; but it indicates the position of the author, whether as seriously bethinking himself to write, or actually engaged in the task, when he had occasion to send the counsels given in this Epistle. The subject on which he had thought of addressing them was the common salvation the term "salvation" meaning here neither the doctrine nor the means of redemption, but the grace of redemption itself. And this grace is designated "common," or, as the better reading gives it, "our common salvation;" not with reference to any contrast of Jew with Gentile, but simply as a grace open to all, and in which writer and readers had an equal interest. (comp. Act_2:44 Act_4:32; and especially the "common faith" Tit_1:4) The "like precious faith" of 2Pe_1:1 is a stronger expression, and probably points to a distinction, formerly existent, but now removed, between Jew and Gentile. The next phrase is rendered too weakly by the Authorized Version, It was needful for me to write unto you. Neither does the Revised Version quite bring out the idea when it substitutes, I was constrained to write unto you. What is in view is an objective necessity; certain circumstances which had arisen and imperatively demanded writing. So that we might translate it, "necessity arose for me to write," or, "an emergency occurred constraining me to write." He was thus induced to write in the way of exhorting them. The particular subject of the exhortation is described as the duty of contending earnestly for the faith; the contention being expressed by a strong term somewhat analogous to that used by Paul in Php_1:27, and the "faith" being taken, not in the subjective sense of the quality or grace of belief, but in the objective sense of the things believed. This "faith" is declared to have been delivered once for all (so, with the Revised Version; not once delivered, as the Authorized Version puts it, which might mean "once on a time") to the saints. It is not stated by whom the deliverance was made. The unexpressed subject may be God, as some suppose who point to the analogy of 1Co_11:23 and 1Co_15:3; or it may be the apostles, as others hold who look to the analogy of such passages as 1Co_11:2 2Pe_2:21, and especially the seventeenth verse of the present Epistle itself. The main point is, not the author or the instruments of the deliverance, but the fact that such a deliverance has taken place. What has been transmitted is carefully defined, not, indeed, as a system of doctrine, but at least as a sum or deposit of things necessary to be believed. This is said to have been given once for all, so that there is no repetition or extension of the gift. It is described; further, as committed, not to the Church as an organization, nor to any particular office-bearers, but to the saints in general.

Vers. 3, 4. Error not to be trifled with, but to be earnestly dealt with.

"It was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith," etc. Least of all is the kind of error which acts upon the moral life to be lightly thought of or suffered to pass unchallenged. One of the most difficult, yet most imperative, of the Christian duties is to admonish and fortify brethren who are ready to yield to the seductions of error. The bond of a "common salvation" of which we are partakers together, pledges us to the discharge of such duty. The "faith" is the deposit of truth. The message of Christ is spirit and life. But the new spirit and the new life, in which the power of his gospel consists, rise out of the facts and truths of revelation, and work through these. To the Church universal, the whole body of believers, has been committed, therefore, a sacred deposit of truth, here called the faith, embracing evangelical history, doctrine, and precept. This body of truth is a permanent trust. It has survived the times of the Church"s greatest declension, and by it she has lived. It is her chief advantage and distinction, as the possession of the "oracles of God" was the chief advantage of the Jew over the Gentile. (Rom_3:2) It is something delivered to us, not elaborated by our own thought. How great the responsibility attaching to our stewardship therein! The trustee"s duty is to keep this deposit intact, to protect it against corruption, and to hand it on to others.

The purpose and occasion of this Epistle.

It was to exhort the saints to steadfastness in contending for the truth which was then threatened by an insidious party of antinomians who had entered the Church. Love prompted the writing of the Epistle, as we may infer from the term "beloved" by which the author addresses his readers.

I HIS CONCERN FOR THEIR WELFARE. "Beloved, while I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was constrained to write unto you.

1. It was a, ready, prompt, entire diligence, because there was danger in delay, and the constraint of love was upon him.

2. It is right that ministers should be diligent about the most important concerns, the interests of truth and the welfare of the flock.

3. Jude showed his concern for the saints by committing his thoughts to writing.

(1) Writing gave them permanence. Words pass away, but writing remains. "This shall be written for the generation to come.

(2) Writing secured a wider circle of hearers. Every age of the Church, as well as the first, has been benefited by this brief letter of Jude.

(3) It is a great sin to undervalue the written Word of God.

II THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT OF HIS WRITING. "Our common salvation.

1. The nature of this salvation.

(1) It is the deliverance of man from the guilt and power of sin and the complete redemption of his soul and body in the day of judgment.

(2) It begins in the present life.

(3) God has given us his Word to show the way of salvation.

2. It is the common salvation of all sailors. "Our common salvation.

(1) Christ, the Saviour, is common to all the saints.

(2) There is but one common way to heaven. There is but "one faith.

(3) The blessings of salvation are common to all believers, Jew and Gentile.

(4) It is a salvation of which the early Christians had an experimental knowledge; it is "our common salvation.

III THE NECESSITY FOR HIS WRITING. "I was constrained to write unto yon." This arose:

1. From the evil doctrines of the antinomians.

2. From their subtle arts.

3. From the too great readiness of the saints to be deceived.

4. The exposure of seducers is a necessary part of the ministry.

IV THE NATURE OF THE EXHORTATION JUDE ADDRESSED TO THE SAINTS. "Exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints." Christians must suffer the word of exhortation, which is an excellent help to religious steadfastness.

1. The matter to be contended for.

(1) It is the doctrine of faith, or the truth which is to be received in order to our salvation. It is called "faith" because it is the instrument used by the Holy Spirit to work faith.

(2) It is the faith "delivered" by God, not discovered by man. The natural man can no more perceive than he can discover the things which are of. (1Co_2:2-4)

(3) It is the faith delivered "once for all." No other faith will ever be given. No new doctrines are to be added to the circle of faith, though the truth may be cast in new forms, and shaped according to the intellectual and spiritual exigencies of each age. Therefore

(a) it is a great sin to despise the faith delivered to us;

(b) we ought to be thankful for it;

(c) we ought to receive and obey it in the love of it;

(d) we ought to guard it against heretical perversions.

(4) It is a sacred deposit placed in the hands of trustees delivered to the saints. Not to holy prophets and apostles merely, but to all saints, even in ages destitute of prophets and apostles.

(a) It is a solemn trust, involving great responsibilities.

(b) The saints are to keep the faith for their own salvation and comfort.

(c) They are to keep it for generations to come.

(d) How much is the world indebted to the saints!

(e) The trustees of the faith ought to have holy hands and holy hearts.

2. The duty of the saints to contend for the faith. This duty implies

(1) the importance of this faith, for it is the best things that Satan is most anxious to destroy;

(2) the presence of adversaries seeking to corrupt or destroy it;

(3) the need of Divine strength for contending for it with effect;

(4) the various ways in which the saints are to contend for it

(a) by refuting and convincing gainsayers,

(b) by praying for its success,

(c) by confessing it boldly before men,

(d) by mutual exhortation,

(e) by holy example,

(f) by suffering for the truth. T.C.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

When I gave all diligence to write to you of the common salvation - Designed for all, and enjoyed by all believers. Here the design of the epistle is expressed; the end of which exactly answers the beginning. It was needful to exhort you to contend earnestly - Yet humbly, meekly, and lovingly; otherwise your contention will only hurt your cause, if not destroy your soul. For the faith - All the fundamental truths. Once delivered - By God, to remain unvaried for ever.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

salvation (See Scofield "Rom 1:16").

it was needful Lit. constraint was upon me, i.e. of the Spirit.

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

An exhortation to constancy in faith:

v. 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.

v. 4. For there are certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God Into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here Jude not only gives his reasons for writing, but also for writing as he did; Beloved, as I was putting forth all earnestness to write to you concerning our common salvation, I felt constrained (instead) to write to you, admonishing you to contend for the faith which once for all has been committed to the saints. Jude had planned to write a letter or a treatise on the great message of salvation, of the love of God in Christ Jesus, on the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith which are intended for all men. With this intention he was seriously concerned, to it he was giving all diligence. But he found himself obliged to change his plans, to abandon his intention, and that by certain news that had come to him, which caused him to write, instead, of a danger which was threatening the Gospel in the province where his readers were living. Without going into the discussion of the fundamental doctrines at all, Jude here briefly admonishes the Christians not only to be on the defensive, but also on the offensive, to defend themselves and to contend most earnestly and emphatically for the faith, for the Gospel-truth, as it was, once for all, delivered to the saints in the teaching of the apostles. Wherever the apostles had come, they had communicated to men the joyful news of the salvation of all men through the atoning work of Christ. That was the summary and basis of all their teaching. To this truth, therefore, the Christians must cling, for this they must battle with all the power at their command.

The apostle now describes the danger: For by stealth certain men have slipped in, who long ago have been designated beforehand to this condemnation, ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God to lasciviousness and deny our one Master and Lord Jesus Christ. The false teachers to whom Jude has reference made use of the same tactics that have been employed by their successors ever since. They did not proclaim themselves as the murderers of men’s souls, as liars and deceivers. They crept into the congregations unawares, they slipped in by stealth. Gal 2:4; 1Ti 1:6; 2Ti 2:16-18; they assumed a pious, a sanctimonious behavior; they affected a great zeal for the Gospel. But, as the apostle says, the judgment which characterizes such men, the condemnation which will strike them, has been predicted in Scriptures long ago. Although professing godliness, they were in reality godless; they perverted the free grace of God into lasciviousness, the lust of the flesh; they turned the liberty of the Gospel into the license which their evil nature craved; they became addicted even to public indecency; and they denied both God, the only Lord, and Jesus Christ the Savior. 2Pe 2:1-3; 2Ti 3:2-8; Tit 1:10-16.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Observe here, 1. A courteous and loving compellation, Beloved; people should study to render themselves fit objects of their pastor’s love.

Observe, 2. How his love towards them put upon writing to them with all diligence: love must be the spring and fountain of all our ministerial performances; all services without love, are as sacrifices without fire. Christ first enquired after Peter’s love, before he urged him to labour; God will reward no services to our people, but what have been done in love.

Observe, 3. The excellency and weightiness of the subject about which he was to write, it was concerning the common salvation; so called, not as if it were a salvation common to all persons, good and bad; but because common to all believers, who have a joint title to it, and a common interest in it; the salvation which the gospel reveals, is a common salvation; it is common in regard of the purchaser of it, Christ, our common Saviour; in regard of the price paid for it, the precious blood of Christ; in regard to the way and means by which it is obtained and secured, and that is faith; and in regard of the earnest of it, and longings after it, the Holy Spirit of God is common to all believers, and gives them a pledge, an earnest of, and sets them a breathing after and longing for, this salvation.

Observe, 4. The exhortation itself, Earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, that is, for the sincere doctrine of the gospel delivered by Christ. Once delivered; that is, once for all so as never to be changed or altered more, no new rule of faith is evermore to be expected; and therefore the articles of faith added to the apostle’s creed by the council of Trent, can be no articles of Christian faith, because never delivered by Christ or his apostles, and never known to many Christians long after their decease.

Learn, That it is the duty of Christians at all times, but especially in times of error and seduction, to contend earnestly for that pure and uncorrupted faith which is contained in the gospel.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

ARGUMENT 1

THE PRIMITIVE FAITH

3. “Contend earnestly,” is epagoonizesthai from agona, the arena in which the gladiators fought a man or a wild beast till bloody death ended the conflict. Hence you see the climacteric force of this inspired exhortation to strive with all our power of soul, mind and body, to hold fast the truth as it is in Jesus, revealed in the Bible, and preach it to all the world. Oh, how we need a universal rally on this line at the present day! So few churches are now willing to see the truth as it is in Jesus. The popular preacher must let go his grip and drift compassless and chartless on the dubious sea of sinning religion till engulfed in the fearful maelstrom of irretrievable woe.

4. “For certain men who long ago have been written down for this condemnation, ungodly, having changed the grace of our God into impurity, even denying our only Sovereign, yea, our Lord Jesus Christ.” The foreknowledge of God is illimitable, apprehending the untrammeled choice of every human being, and consigning all to their eternal destiny, pursuant to the election of their own free will relative to the things appertaining to life and godliness. Jude here, in the clear illumination of the Holy Ghost, has his eye on the coming millions of counterfeit preachers, “transforming the grace of God unto impurity,” i.e., propagating anti- holiness religion as a substitute, or the spiritual purity proclaimed by every inspired apostle. The denial of Jesus Christ is now the rejection of the Holy Ghost, His Successor and Revelator. Joh 16:7. We must keep in mind the divine unity, remembering that Satan is no fool, but he always adapts his artillery to the enemy on the field. During the Father’s dispensation he turned all the battering rams of earth and hell against the divine Fatherhood, i.e., monotheism in contradistinction to the polytheistic idolatries of the heathen nations. During the Son’s dispensation, Satan stirred earth and hell till he killed Him, pushing the battle with all possible energy through the early centuries against the Christhood of Jesus. As we are now living in the last dispensation, i.e., that of the Holy Ghost, now in charge of the world, calling all nations to the glorious privileges of the heavenly bridehood, preparatory for the coming Christ and the glorious millennial reign, all the artillery of the pandemonium, augmented and utilized by the arts and sciences in the hands of wicked men, are turned against the divine personality, office and work of the Holy Ghost. Thus Satan is fighting in his last ditch, destined soon to suffer signal and final defeat in his war against the Holy Ghost, as during his terrible and prolonged campaigns against the Father and Son. Then apocalyptic angels will descend, arrest him like a common criminal, and lock him up in hell. It is a misnomer to talk about the fight against holiness. It is simply the devil’s old fight against God now in the person of the Holy Ghost. Oh, how few churches at the present day will tolerate a Holy Ghost meeting, and how very few let the Holy Ghost rule them! Surely we are living in the last days, when the lukewarm Laodicean church hastens to her awful doom, when the Lord will come and “spew her out of his mouth.” Oh, how important that all true hearts rally under the blood-stained banner of the Lord Jesus Christ, responsive to the leadership of the Holy Ghost.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3, 4. When I gave all diligence. His thought was that when he proposed to write diligently and carefully some need impelled him to write at once, more briefly perhaps than he had purposed. Earnestly contend for the faith which was once, etc. He exhorts to contend for the faith delivered once for all, the faith without innovation, the gospel of the apostles in distinction from the adulterations of false teachers. The doctrine of a progressive revelation after the apostles is not found in the New Testament.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

Connecting Statement:

Jude tells the believers his reason for writing this letter.

General Information:

The word "our" in this letter includes both Jude and believers. (See: Inclusive "We")

our common salvation

"the salvation we share"

I had to write

"I felt a great need to write" or "I felt an urgent need to write"

to exhort you to struggle earnestly for the faith

"to encourage you to defend the true teaching"

once for all

"finally and completely"

For certain men have slipped in secretly among you

"For some men have come in among the believers without drawing attention to themselves"

men who were marked out for condemnation

This can also be put into the active voice. AT: "men whom God chose to condemn" (See: Active or Passive)

who have changed the grace of our God into sensuality

God's grace is spoken of as if it were a thing that could be changed into something horrible. AT: "who teach that God's grace permits one to continue to live in sexual sin" (See: Metaphor)

deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ

Possible meanings are 1) they teach that he is not God or 2) these men do not obey Jesus Christ.

translationWords

beloved

save

exhort

faith

saint

condemn

godly

grace

lord

Jesus

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

3. Ἀγαπητοί recurs in 17, 20 and often in 2 Peter. It is also frequent in 1 John, but there a great many other forms of address are used as well.

πᾶσαν σπουδὴν ποιούμενος γράφειν … ἀνάγκην ἔσχον γράψαι. Distinguish between the use of the present tense in the first clause and that of the aorist in the second: we may infer that Jude was contemplating the writing of a treatise (or more probably an Epistle) on more general lines περὶ τῆς κοινῆς σωτηρίας, when he was suddenly compelled to write at short notice and warn his readers against a special danger. We are reminded of the intention expressed in 2Pe 1:12-15.

ἐπαγωνίζεσθαι: not common in the sense of defending, which is its meaning here. Plutarch (quoted by Mayor) speaks of the philosopher Cleanthes ἐπαγωνιζόμενος τῇ ἐκπυρώσει, i.e. defending the Stoic doctrine of the destruction of the world by fire.

τῇ ἅπαξ παραδοθείσῃ τοῖς ἁγίοις πίστει. ἅπαξ “once for all,” cf. Jud 1:5 and Heb 6:4. παραδοθείσῃ, compare the Pauline use in 1Co 11:2, 2Th 2:15, and the παραθήκη of 1Ti 6:20. ἁγίοις. Bodies of Christians are called ἅγιοι in Act 9:32; Act 9:41 (at Lydda and Joppa), 1Co 16:1 etc.

πίστει. Here not the act of believing but the truths believed. Paul preached the faith, τὴν πίστιν, which once he used to destroy (Gal 1:23). The phrase belongs to a time when a creed (of however simple a kind) was delivered to converts by their teachers: a confession of faith which they were required to repeat in public at the time of their baptism.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3.] Beloved (only found in the beginning of an Epistle here and 3Jn 1:2), giving all diligence (the phrase σπουδὴν ποιεῖσθαι is only found here: see reff. and especially 2 Pet. It implies more than mere earnest desire: a man’s σπουδή is necessarily action as well as wish: “giving diligence” seems the exact idea required. The participle like other present participles is contemporaneous with the verb to which it is attached, viz. ἔσχον: cf. Joh 9:25, τυφλὸς ὢν ἄρτι βλέπω, “I, who am a blind man, now see”) to write to you concerning the common salvation (thus must the sentence be arranged, and not as Lachm. al., with a comma after ὑμῖν, and joining περὶ τῆς κοινῆς ἡμ. σωτηρίας to the next clause. For thus the participial clause loses all its weight and propriety, and indeed the apodosis likewise: see below.

περὶ τῆς κοινῆς σωτηρίας may mean, concerning the fact of our common salvation, brought in by Christ; or concerning the means of attaining that salvation, i. e. the doctrines and practices by which it is to be forwarded. Perhaps the latter is here preferable. On the idea conveyed by κοινῆς, see reff. and 2Pe 1:1), I found it necessary (reff.: not, as E. V., “it was needful:” nor as Grot., “nihil potius habui, quam ut:” the ἀνάγκη was not part of the σπουδὴν ποιεῖσθαι, but supervened on it owing to the circumstance to be mentioned in the next verse) to write to you (notice the aoriat here following the present before: I was most desirous to write (present expressing merely the general fact of writing) …: but I found it necessary to write (at once; to have written, “epistolam absolvere”) …) exhorting (you) to contend earnestly for (cf. συναθλοῦντες τῇ πίστει, Php 1:27: the ἐπί gives the purpose for which the fight is to be waged) the faith (objective here: the sum of that which Christians believe: “fides quæ creditur” not “quâ creditur”) once for all (“particula valde urgens: nulla alia dabitur fides,” Bengel. This is obscured by the “once” of the E. V., which represents merely “olim,” not “semel”) delivered to the saints (i. e. Christians: believers, as in reff. The meaning then of this verse is, that St. Jude, who was before earnestly desirous to write to the Church universal concerning the salvation which is common to us all (De Wette, after Sherlock, supposes that St. Jude was actually engaged on a larger and more general Epistle, and was compelled to break it off by the necessity mentioned. This may have been so: but we can hardly gather so much from the words), found urgent occasion at once to do so, respecting not merely nor directly that common salvation, but one point, viz. the keeping inviolate the faith once for all delivered to God’s people. And the reason of this necessity which arose, now follows).

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

3. ἀγαπητοί … πίστει. “Beloved, while I was giving all diligence to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to do battle for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” With πᾶσαν σπουδὴν ποιούμενος compare the language of 2Pe 1:5, 2Pe 1:10, 2Pe 1:15, 2Pe 1:3:14. These repeated phrases have caught St. Jude’s ear.

ἐπαγωνίζεσθαι is not used elsewhere in the New Testament; the preposition merely strengthens the verb, but the simple ἀγωνίζεσθαι. is as strong a word as could be found. For παραδοθείς cf. Act 16:4; 1Co 11:2, 1Co 11:15:3; 2Pe 2:21; Spitta thinks that the use of the word here is suggested by this last passage.

ἃγιοι. “The saints” is here another name for Christians, as in Act 9:13, Act 9:32, Act 9:41; Rom 12:13; Heb 6:10; Rev 5:8, but the word is not used as a substantive by Mark, Luke, John (in Gospel or Epistles), James, or Peter. See Hort, Christian Ecclesia, pp. 56, 57. Ἡ πίαρις, in defence of which men are to contend, is not trust or the inner light, but a body of doctrine, dogmatic and practical, which is given to them by authority, is fixed and unalterable, and well known to all Christians. It is “your most holy faith,” ver. 20, a foundation on which the readers are to build themselves up. It combined intellectual and moral truth. See Sanday and Headlam on Rom 1:17. It had been attacked by men who turned the grace of our God into lasciviousness, that is to say, by Antinomians; but these men were mockers, ver. 18, and, from the emphasis with which Jude introduces his quotation from Enoch, ver. 14, we may presume that they mocked at the Parousia.

Jude’s language about the Faith is highly dogmatic, highly orthodox, highly zealous. His tone is that of a bishop of the fourth century. The character may be differently estimated, but its appearance at this early date, before Montanism and before Gnosticism, is of great historical significance. Men who used such phrases believed passionately in a creed.

Lachmann, and some of the older school of commentators, placed a comma after ὑμῖν, and took περὶ τῆς κοινῆς ἡμῶν σωτηρίας with γράψαι: but recent scholars generally reject this unnatural punctuation.

St. Jude says that he had been busy with, or intent upon, writing to his people περὶ τῆς κοινῆς σωτηρίας an ordinary pastoral Epistle dealing with general topics of instruction and exhortation, but found it necessary to change his plan and utter this stirring cry to arms. Evidently he is referring to some definite and unexpected circumstance. News had been brought to him of the appearance of the false teachers; possibly he had just received 2 Peter; if so, we can understand the use which he makes of that Epistle.

De Wette, Brückner, Spitta, Zahn think that the writing referred to by the γράφειν was not an ordinary Epistle, but a treatise of some considerable length; but the age was hardly one of treatises, and there is nothing in the text to support the idea.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Beloved. Occurring at the beginning of an epistle only here and 3Jo 1:2.

When I gave all diligence [πασαν σπουδην ποιουμενος] . Lit., making all diligence; the phrase found only here. In Heb 6:11, we find "shew diligence" [ενδεικνυσθαι] ; and in 2Pe 1:5, "adding diligence." See note there.

The common salvation. The best texts add hJmwn, of us. So Rev., "our common salvation."

It was needful [αναγκην εσχον] . Lit., I had necessity. Alford, I found it necessary. Rev., I was constrained.

Earnestly contend [επαγωνιζεσθαι] . Only here in New Testament.

The faith. The sum of what Christians believe. See on Act 6:7.

Once [απαξ] . Nor formerly, but once for all. So Rev., "No other faith will be given," says Bengel.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.