Jude 1:8 - Meaning and Application

The apostle here brings a charge against deceivers who were leading Christ’s disciples away from the profession and practice of his holy religion. He calls them filthy dreamers, because falsehood is like a dream, and it often leads into every kind of moral uncleanness. Sin is filthiness. It makes people hateful and vile in the sight of the most holy God, and in time it also makes them vile in their own eyes and in the eyes of others.

These filthy dreamers live in a false comfort on earth, and in the end they wake up in real hell. Their character, their way of life, and their end should warn us in time. Sins of the same kind will bring punishments and sorrows of the same kind.

Their character is shown in several ways. First, they defile the flesh. The body is often the place where many terrible sins are carried out, but sins done in the body also wound the soul deeply. Fleshly desires fight against the soul (1 Peter 2:11), and Scripture speaks of filthiness of flesh and spirit, both of which pollute the whole person (2 Corinthians 7:1).

Second, they despise authority and speak evil of those in high position. They are restless in mind and rebellious in spirit, forgetting that all governing powers are set up by God (Romans 13:1). God tells us to speak evil of no one (Titus 3:2), and it is a worse sin when such speech is aimed at rulers, whom God has placed over us. When people slander magistrates, they are striking at God’s own authority.

Some take this more broadly, as referring to religion itself, which should rule in this world. Such people mock the rule of conscience and want to cast it out. They also despise the word of God, which should guide conscience. God’s will means little to them unless they first reshape it and force their own meaning on others. Others understand the “dignities” here to mean God’s own people, like the psalmist’s warning, “Touch not my anointed ones, and do my prophets no harm” (Psalm 105:15).

Religious people and the things of God have always been spoken against. There is nothing in true religion that is not good, useful, and worthy of our highest respect, because it perfects our nature and serves our greatest good. Yet this way, as enemies like to call it, is still spoken against everywhere (Acts 28:22). At this point the apostle brings in Michael the archangel, which is explained in Jude 1:9.

Interpreters are not certain what is meant by the body of Moses. Some think the devil argued that Moses should have a public and honorable burial, with the burial place made known, hoping to stir up the Jews toward idolatry. Dr. Scott thinks the body of Moses means the Jewish church, whose destruction the devil tried to bring about, just as the Christian church is called the body of Christ in the New Testament. Others offer different views, but there is no need to trouble the reader with them here.

Though this dispute was sharp and earnest, and Michael won the victory, he would not bring a railing accusation against the devil himself. A good cause does not need abusive words to defend it. He would not do so, not because he feared the devil, but because he believed God would be displeased by that kind of reply. He thought it beneath him to enter a shouting match with the great enemy of God and man. This is a useful reminder for all who argue: never bring harsh, abusive speech into debate. Truth does not need lies or scolding to support it.

Some say Michael would not rail at the devil because he knew the devil would be stronger than him in that kind of exchange. Others think the apostle is referring to the event in Numbers 20:7-14. In that case, Satan may have tried to set Moses in the worst light, especially because Moses had then given some occasion for blame. Michael, in that account, stands up for Moses and says in holy zeal, “The Lord rebuke you.” He would not keep arguing with the devil or debate the case in detail. He knew Moses was God’s servant and one of God’s favorites, so he would not allow him to be insulted, even by the prince of devils.

The lesson is that we should stand up for those whom God honors, however harshly Satan and his agents may speak against them. Those who keep accusing upright magistrates over every fault may hear, “The Lord rebuke you.” And God’s rebuke is far harder to bear than careless sinners now suppose.

Third, these men speak evil of things they do not understand (Jude 1:10). Anyone who speaks against religion and godliness speaks against things he does not know. If he truly knew them, he would speak well of them, because nothing but good and excellent things can truly be said of true religion. It is sad when anything else can rightly be said of any of its followers. A godly life is the safest, happiest, most comfortable, and most honorable life a person can live.

People are also most likely to speak badly about those persons and things they know least. Many people would never have been hurt by slander if they had been better known. On the other hand, distance sometimes keeps even deserving people from being wrongly judged too quickly.

But what they know by natural instinct, like brute beasts, they corrupt themselves with. It is hard, if not impossible, to find stubborn enemies of the Christian faith who do not, in their regular way of life, live in clear contradiction to the principles of natural religion. Many think that is harsh, but it will likely be shown true in the day when God reveals his righteous judgment. The apostle compares such people to brute beasts, though they often boast of themselves as the wisest, or at least the wittiest, of mankind.

By these things they corrupt themselves. That is, they ruin themselves in the plainest and most natural matters, the things that should be most clear to reason and conscience. The problem is not mainly a lack of understanding. It lies in their twisted will, their disordered desires, and their stubborn love of evil. They could have acted better, but that would have meant fighting against the sinful passions they chose to satisfy instead of kill off.

In Jude 1:11, the apostle shows them as followers of Cain. In Jude 1:12-13, he describes them as godless and irreverent people who care little, and perhaps believe little, about God or a future life. They are greedy and covetous, willing to gain present worldly advantage whatever comes next. They are rebels against God and man, like Korah, who rushed into a doomed rebellion and perished in it.

Such people are spots in your love feasts, the agapai, or meals of Christian fellowship, often mentioned by the early writers. However they got in among the believers, they were blemishes there, both defiling themselves and defiling the setting. It is a serious shame on religion when people who profess faith, and join in its most solemn meetings, live in ways that do not fit that faith. Yet these stains are common in every Christian community on earth, even the best of them, and that is deeply sad. The Lord will correct it in his own time and way, not by the blind harshness of men who would pull up the wheat with the weeds.

When they feast with you, they feed themselves without fear. They are careless gluttons, concerned only with satisfying appetite through rich and plentiful food. They pay no attention to Solomon’s warning in Proverbs 23:2. In ordinary eating and drinking, holy fear is needed, and even more in feasting. We may sometimes be more easily and quietly overcome at a regular meal than at a feast, because we are less on guard. For some people, the abundance of a feast can even become its own trap.

They are clouds without water. They promise rain in a dry time, but they bring nothing that they promise. That is the mark of formal professors, people who make a strong start and seem full of hope, like early blossoms in a warm spring, but end with little or no fruit. They are carried about by winds, light and empty, moved this way and that by whatever breeze blows. Such people are easy prey for every deceiver. It is astonishing to hear many speak so confidently about things they know so little about, and yet remain too proud to admit their own ignorance. How much better the world would be if people either knew more or honestly knew how little they know.

They are trees whose fruit withers. They are trees because they stand planted in the Lord’s vineyard, but they are fruitless trees. If their fruit withers, they may rightly be called fruitless. They are no better for having any appearance of life. It is a sad thing when people seem to begin in the Spirit and end in the flesh, and that is both common and terrible. The text says they are twice dead. One death is bad enough, since we all naturally live in a fallen and sinful state. But these people seemed to recover, like someone revived from a faint, when they professed the Christian faith. Now they are dead again, as their false life has been exposed. Whatever they appeared to be, they had nothing truly alive in them. They are plucked up by the roots, as dead trees are, from which no more fruit is expected. They are dead, dead, dead. Why should they still take up the ground? Let them be thrown into the fire.

They are raging waves of the sea, wild, noisy, and loud, full of talk and unrest, but with little real sense or meaning. They foam out their own shame. They stir up trouble for people of better judgment and calmer spirits, but in the end their conduct will bring them greater disgrace and deserved reproach. The prayer of the psalmist should always be the prayer of every honest person, “Let integrity and uprightness preserve me” (Psalm 25:21). If that does not preserve me, then let me not be preserved. If honesty means little now, deceit will mean even less, and very soon. Raging waves may frighten sailors, but once they reach port, the waves are forgotten as if they never existed. Their noise and terror are over forever.

They are wandering stars, planets that move in unstable and erratic ways, not keeping the steady course of the fixed stars. The image fits false teachers very well. They are sometimes here and sometimes there, so no one knows where to find them or how to hold them to anything. At least in the main things, one would expect some steadiness. That can happen without claiming infallibility, or pretending that any of us poor mortals have it. In religion and politics, the great subjects of debate, there are surely some basic truths in which wise, good, honest, and unselfish people could agree. They should not throw ordinary people into panic and misery, or stir them into rage without even letting them understand what they are saying or affirming.

Their doom is reserved for blackness of darkness forever. False teachers must expect the worst punishment in this life and the next. This does not mean every person who teaches something by honest mistake and is not exactly right in every detail. If that were so, who would dare open a Bible in public to teach others, unless he thought himself equal to, or greater than, the angels of God in heaven? The warning is for those who deceive, disguise their purpose, and lead others into crooked paths so they can profit from them, or, as the apostle says, make merchandise of them (2 Peter 2:3). The awful phrase, blackness of darkness forever, belongs truly to false teachers, not by slander but by right judgment, men who twist the word of God and betray human souls. If that does not make both ministers and hearers careful, I do not know what will.

Jude’s mention of Enoch’s prophecy (Jude 1:14, 15) shows that a truth does not need to appear many times in Scripture to be certain. One clear statement from God is enough to prove what we are required to believe, especially when it concerns a fact. But in matters of faith, and especially saving faith, God has not chosen to test us that way, and we should thank him for that.

No basic truth of the Christian faith is left unclear in the New Testament. The Holy Spirit repeats these truths often, so we can see what deserves the greatest weight. Some people say this prophecy of Enoch was passed down in the Jewish church by tradition. Others say Jude was given direct knowledge of it by the Holy Spirit. However it came to him, the point is sure: this ancient prophecy was known and accepted in the Old Testament church, and it is a major part of New Testament belief.

Notice that Christ’s coming to judge was foretold as early as the patriarchal age, the time of the early fathers of God’s people. Even then it was known as a real and settled truth. The Lord comes with his holy myriads, that is, countless holy ones, including angels and the spirits of righteous people made complete. What a glorious day that will be, when Christ comes with ten thousand of them. He comes with them for a great and terrible purpose, to judge everyone.

This was spoken of long ago as something near at hand. “Behold, the Lord comes,” as if to say, he is surely coming, and he will come before people expect him. Unless they are careful and ready, he will come before they are prepared to meet him with peace. He comes, first, to judge the wicked. He comes, also, to convict them. Christ will condemn no one without clear evidence, trial, and conviction, and that conviction will at least silence them. They will have no excuse they can safely use or dare defend then. Every mouth will be stopped, and all fair-minded people will approve the Judge and his sentence. Even the guilty will be speechless, though now they may speak with boldness and confident-sounding arguments. It is one thing for prisoners to argue among themselves in jail, and quite another to stand at the bar before the proper judge.

I cannot pass Jude 1:15 without noticing how often the word ungodly is repeated there, four times in all: ungodly men, ungodly sinners, ungodly deeds, and ungodly ways of doing them. People today may think little of godly or ungodly, except to mock the words themselves, but it is not so in the language of the Holy Spirit. Omissions, as well as sins we commit, will be called to account on the day of judgment. And hard words spoken against one another, especially when they are not well founded, will certainly be brought up at the great day.

So let us take care now. As one of the old Puritans said, if you strike someone you wrongly call a heretic or a schismatic, and God finds that a true saint is bleeding, you will have to answer for it. It may be too late then to say before the angel that it was only a mistake (Ecclesiastes 5:6). I mention this only because of the words of the inspired writer.