WOE TO THEM! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion. 12These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. 13They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.
Original Meaning
JUDE IS NOT yet finished with the false teachers. So concerned is he about their potential to harm his readers’ walk with the Lord that he is not satisfied his strong polemic against them in verses 5–10 has done the job. He thus launches one more attack against them. Like the first one, this one also begins with three examples of notorious Old Testament sinners (v. 11). The second part of the paragraph (vv. 12–13) also follows the pattern Jude has established in that, with the word “these,” he focuses attention directly on the false teachers, characterizing them in six brief and very negative descriptions.
Three Old Testament Examples (v. 11)
THERE ARE TWO main differences between this verse and verses 5–7. (1) Jude’s three Old Testament examples serve to back up his “woe” pronouncement on the false teachers. The English word “woe” is a transliteration of the Greek word ouai, which is, in turn, the transliteration of a Hebrew word. This word was used especially by the prophets in the Old Testament to announce the pain and distress people would experience as a result of God’s judgment on them. See, for instance, Isaiah 3:11: “Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them! They will be paid back for what their hands have done.”
The “woe oracle” often included both a reference to judgment and to the reason for that judgment. In this vein, Jude mentions the judgment the false teachers will experience (“they have been destroyed”) and the reason for their judgment: They “have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they [have taken the way of] Korah’s rebellion.”
(2) A second difference between verses 5–7 and verse 11 is that Jude does not just cite Old Testament examples, with application to come later. He directly implicates the false teachers in the sinful behavior and judgment that he describes with his Old Testament examples. Cain, Balaam, and Korah thus become “types”—people whose behavior prefigures that of their New Testament “antitypes.” It is probably for this reason that all three verbs in the verse are in a tense that is usually past-referring—cf. NIV, “they have taken,” “they have rushed,” “they have been destroyed.” Jude speaks this way because the actions of the Old Testament types were, of course, in the past. But because these people are “types,” their actions are, in a sense, timeless. Thus, the use of the present tense in English may better capture the idea—cf. NRSV, “Woe to them! For they go the way of Cain, and abandon themselves to Balaam’s error for the sake of gain, and perish in Korah’s rebellion.”
Jude’s first example is Cain, who murdered his brother out of envy (Gen. 4:1–16; cf. 1 John 3:11). In what way does Jude think the false teachers “go the way of Cain”? He may be suggesting that as Cain murdered Abel, so the false teachers “murder” the souls of people.
In Jewish tradition, however, Cain became a classic example of an ungodly skeptic. The Jerusalem Targum, an Aramaic paraphrase of the Pentateuch, presents Cain as claiming, “There is no judgment, no judge, no future life; no reward will be given to the righteous, and no judgment will be imposed on the wicked.” Jude’s intention may therefore be to reinforce his accusation of the false teachers as being rejecters of authority and blasphemers (see vv. 8–10).1 Another Jewish tradition views Cain as a corrupter of humankind; Josephus claims that “he incited to luxury and pillage all whom he met, and became their instructor in wicked practices.”2 In other words, Jude may also be pointing to the false teaching dimension of these ungodly people. The problem with both these latter views is that we cannot be sure which, if any, Jewish tradition Jude may have had in mind.
Balaam, the second character in Jude’s list, is known in the Bible especially for his greed, an emphasis Jude picks up also by claiming that the false teachers follow the way of Balaam out of a desire for “reward” or “gain” (misthos; cf., for a similar emphasis, 2 Peter 2:15–16). According to the story in Numbers 22–24, Balak, king of Moab, desperate to halt a threatened Israelite invasion, tries to hire Balaam to curse Israel. Although Balaam eventually refuses to do what Balak wants, he wavers enough in his loyalty to the Lord to justify the later view of him as a man who led Israel into sin for the sake of monetary reward.3 Jude may well be implying that the false teachers also are teaching what they are because they can make money by it. We know of many traveling teachers in the ancient world who taught people whatever it would pay them to teach; these false teachers may have been doing the same.
Korah’s story is told in Numbers 16:1–35. He “became insolent and rose up against Moses” (vv. 1–2), leading 250 other prominent Israelites in rebellion against Moses’ leadership. In response, God caused the earth to open up and swallow Korah, his followers, and their households. The text also mentions judgment by fire, as does a later commentary on the incident (Ps. 106:16–18). As early as the time of Moses, Korah had become “a warning sign” to those who might be tempted to rebel against the Lord and his appointed leaders (cf. Num. 26:9–10).
Jewish tradition followed this lead; Korah became “the classic example of the antinomian heretic.”4 Jude may therefore associate the false teachers with Korah because they too were refusing to listen to the duly appointed leaders of God’s people.5 But this may be overly specific; perhaps Jude wants to focus attention simply on the false teachers’ rebellious, antinomian attitude. In any case, he almost certainly cites Korah last (out of canonical order) because of the sudden and spectacular judgment that he and his followers experienced. Such is the fate of the false teachers also, who will be “destroyed” on the Day of the Lord.6
Application of the Examples to the False Teachers (vv. 12–13)
IN VERSE 8, Jude made the application of his Old Testament examples clear with the phrase “in the very same way.” Here he is more abrupt, probably because he has already implicated the false teachers in the sins (and judgment) of his examples. Thus he moves straight into further description without obvious connection with the examples he has cited in verse 11. Verses 12–13 contain six brief descriptions of these false teachers.
(1) “These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm.” The NIV “blemishes” is a controversial translation (cf. also NRSV; TEV); the word also means “(hidden) reef” (cf. NASB). The first translation finds some support from the parallel in 2 Peter 2:13, where, in a description of false teachers similar to the one here in Jude, Peter calls the heretics “blemishes” (spiloi).7 But Jude uses a different word here, so that we should probably prefer the second rendering, “reef.” If so, Jude is suggesting that the false teachers, like a hidden reef that rips the bottom out of a boat, lie in wait to bring destruction on the faithful.8 The NJB captures the metaphorical significance very well: “They are a dangerous hazard at your community meals.”
“Community meals” is not a bad rendering here for agapais. Agape means, of course, “love”; but the early Christians also began to apply the word to their joyful fellowship meals. These meals usually included both the celebration of the Lord’s Supper (what we might call the “vertical” dimension) and the eating of a regular meal together (the “horizontal” dimension). The false teachers, Jude implies, continued to participate in these regular community meals without any hesitation (NIV, “without the slightest qualm”; lit., “without fear”). By doing so they posed a real danger to other believers, who might be emboldened by their example to think that one could remain a Christian while following such a libertine lifestyle.
(2) “Shepherds who feed only themselves.” The shepherd is the epitome of a person who selflessly watches out for others. It was therefore a natural term to apply both to the Lord (e.g., Ps. 23; cf. John 10:1–18) and to the leaders of the people of God in the Old Testament (e.g., 2 Sam. 5:2) and in the New (Acts 20:28; 1 Peter 5:2). But the false teachers were abandoning their natural responsibility to care for others, thinking only of themselves. Jude is likely alluding to Ezekiel 34:2: “Son of Man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock?’ ” This reference to shepherds may, of course, imply that the false teachers were leaders in the church.
(3) “They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind.” Jude’s last four descriptions of the false teachers are all drawn from the natural world—and, whether intentionally or not, from each of the four regions of the earth, according to the ancients: the air (clouds), the earth (trees), the sea (waves), and the heavens (planets). “Clouds without rain” is a natural metaphor for those who do not deliver what they promise (cf. Prov. 25:14: “Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of gifts he does not give”). In a similar manner, Jude suggests, the false teachers make claims for themselves and for their teaching that they do not carry through on. Moreover, they are unstable, “blown along by the wind.”
(4) “Autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead.” A tree that is still without fruit in the autumn (or “late autumn,” as the Greek word suggests) has not fulfilled its purpose in being. And so “autumn trees” conveys a point similar to “waterless clouds.”9
But why does Jude say that such trees are “uprooted—twice dead”? The equivalent terms in the Greek occur in the reverse order, with the phrase for “twice dead” coming first, and it may be best to preserve this order if we are to understand Jude’s point. We should probably not assume that the language applies in any literal way to trees; Jude seems to have moved beyond his metaphor here to concentrate on the reality to which it points.
What does it mean for Jude, then, to claim that the false teachers have died, or will die, two times? Perhaps he is thinking of the false teachers’ apostasy. They were once “dead” in their transgressions and sins (Eph. 2:1) but were made alive in Christ. Now, however, by rebelling against the Lord, they have slid back into the state of spiritual death (see, e.g., Heb. 6:4–8; 2 Peter 2:18–22).10 A second possibility is that Jude refers to the false teachers’ eventual judgment. The New Testament calls eschatological judgment “the second death” (Rev. 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8). So these false teachers, Jude may be alleging, will not only die physically; they will also die spiritually and eternally.11 Both of these interpretations makes good sense in this context; but perhaps the second should be preferred, since Jude’s readers seem well acquainted with the kind of apocalyptic writings in which condemnation is called a “second death.” “Uprooted,” then, completes this picture of judgment. The whole description is reminiscent of Jesus’ parable about the fig tree that did not bear fruit (Luke 13:6–8).
(5) “They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame” (v. 13a). Jude here is probably dependent on Isaiah 57:20: “But the wicked are like the tossing sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud.”12 The word “shame” in the Greek is plural; Jude is thinking of the “shameful deeds” committed by the false teachers.
(6) “Wandering stars, for whom the blackest darkness has been reserved forever” (v. 13b). Ancient people believed that the heavens should display order and regularity. They therefore had difficulty in accounting for the planets, which seemed to “wander” across the night sky in no discernible pattern. It is the planets to which Jude is probably referring here (in fact, the Greek verb behind “wander” [planao] is the word from which we get the English “planet”).13
But Jude may be suggesting a deeper reference. Because ancient people were offended by the planets’ lack of regularity, they often attributed their movements to evil angels. First Enoch, the book that Jude refers to so often in this letter, gives one version of this myth:
And I saw the seven stars (which) were like great, burning mountains. (Then) the angel said (to me), “This place is the (ultimate) end of heaven and earth: it is the prison house for the stars and the powers of heaven. And the stars which roll over upon the fire, they are the ones which have transgressed the commandments of God from the beginning of their rising because they did not arrive punctually.” (18:13–15)14
Whether we are to see this further comparison of the false teachers to the evil angels is not clear. What is clear is that Jude has again stressed the instability of these people.
Jude concludes this paragraph on the same note that he has sounded at the end of every paragraph and sub-paragraph in this section—judgment:15 “for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.” “Darkness,” along with “fire,” is a popular biblical image for the judgment of God (see the “Bridging Contexts” section for further discussion). Jude again uses his favorite word “keep” (NIV, “reserved”), here in the negative sense of “keep under sentence until punishment” (see also v. 6).
Bridging Contexts
THE LAST PHRASE of this paragraph, “for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever,” poses a problem of application. Where is this darkness that the false teachers will be in “forever”? And does this assertion square with Jude’s claim that these same people will be “destroyed” (v. 11; cf. v. 5) and that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah are “an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire” (v. 7)?
Jude never uses the word “hell,” nor does he directly teach about it. But the language we have just noted reveals that he assumes the reality of what we call hell. He uses punishment in hell as a deterrent, to keep his readers from following the disastrous road the false teachers have taken. But how are we to interpret and apply this language? We must survey the broader biblical teaching on hell before we can answer these questions.
The word “hell” itself is the translation of the Greek word gehenna, which in turn is the transliteration of a Hebrew phrase that means “Valley of Hinnom.” This narrow gorge just outside Jerusalem had an evil reputation. Children were burned as sacrifices there in the Old Testament period (2 Kings 23:10; Jer. 7:31; 32:35), and the prophets used it as a symbol of judgment (Jer. 19:6; cf. Isa. 31:9; 66:24). Jews in the intertestamental period therefore began using the word to describe the last judgment.16 From this context Jesus picked up the word as a way of referring to eschatological punishment (Matt. 5:22, 29–30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; Luke 12:5; cf. James 3:6). New Testament writers use other words as well to refer to this place of punishment for the wicked, such as “Hades” (Matt. 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23; Acts 2:27, 31; Rev. 1:18; 6:8; 20:13, 14) and “Tartarus” (2 Peter 2:4). But they more often simply describe the punishment or use images to try to capture its nature.
The New Testament clearly teaches and everywhere assumes that after death God will punish in “hell” those who refuse to trust in Christ in this life. But evangelical Christians disagree over two matters: the nature of punishment in hell, and the duration of the punishment. We will look briefly at each issue so that we can better understand what Jude is teaching here.
(1) The most common way hell is described in the New Testament is as a fire or a place of burning. Jude uses this language in verse 8: “the punishment of eternal fire.” And because this language occurs so often, many believers throughout the history of the church have thought that hell was a place where people were literally burned.17 Even in popular parlance we hear about “hellfire,” and hell is regularly depicted by artists ancient and modern as a place of fire.
But we doubt whether Jesus and the New Testament writers ever intended us to take the language in this literal fashion. For one thing, as we have seen, the word “hell” itself was associated in Jesus’ day with a physical place of burning (the Valley of Hinnom). The idea of fire could, therefore, come from the image and not from the actuality. The same association with fire was facilitated by the way in which God actually destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—by literal fire and burning sulphur. Furthermore, “fire” is clearly used as a symbol throughout Scripture. Note, for instance, the description of God’s coming in Psalm 16:7–8:
The earth trembled and quaked,
and the foundations of the mountains shook;
they trembled because he was angry.
Smoke rose from his nostrils;
consuming fire came from his mouth,
burning coals blazed out of it.
This does not mean, of course, that “fire” must always be an image in the Bible, but it shows that it is a natural symbol of God’s wrath. Perhaps the strongest argument in favor of taking “fire” to be an image of judgment, however, is the fact that the Bible uses conflicting language about hell. In Jude, for instance, hell is presented both as a place of fire and as a place of “darkness” (vv. 8 and 13). We find the same combination of images in other biblical passages and in intertestamental Jewish passages, from which the New Testament imagery is often drawn. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, for instance, we find passages that describe hell as “the gloom of everlasting fire” and as a place of “destruction by the fire of the dark regions.”18
Now hell cannot be both a place of fire and of darkness. Both “fire” and “darkness,” then, as most contemporary evangelical scholars recognize, are metaphors. They are ways of trying to capture through experiences common to this world the pain and horror of hell. They plainly teach that hell is a place where people suffer agonies. But exactly what these agonies are we cannot know for sure.19 Surely, however, the simple fact that people in hell are forever separated from the God who created them and who loves them is one of the supreme causes of torment (see 2 Thess. 1:9: “They [sinners] will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power”). Nevertheless, we cannot confine the agonies of hell only to the negative experience of deprivation; the language of “fire” and “darkness,” while metaphorical, points to the infliction of punishment as well.
(2) However conceived, how long will this punishment last? Here again, Christians have traditionally insisted that punishment will be eternal. They note that, like Jude 7, the New Testament consistently claims that the punishments of hell are “eternal” (cf. also “everlasting chains” in v. 6; also Matt. 25:41; Mark 9:43, 48; Luke 16:22–24; Rev. 14:9–11). But some Christians have always questioned whether the punishment of hell is eternal, and these alternative views seem to be gaining ground among evangelicals in recent years.
The most popular of these alternatives is “annihilationism.” According to this interpretation, the wicked will simply be annihilated at death or shortly after undergoing a brief period of punishment after death. The strongest argument for this view also appears in Jude: the use of the word “destroy” to refer to the destiny of the wicked (v. 10; cf. v. 5; also 1 Cor. 3:17; Phil. 3:19; 1 Thess. 5:3; 2 Thess. 1:9; 2 Peter 2:1, 3; 3:7; Heb. 10:39). Defenders of this view also argue that it is more compatible with the love and justice of God.20
Annihilationism certainly has points in its favor; we should not automatically exclude it as an unorthodox viewpoint. But it does not finally explain the evidence of Scripture fairly. Negatively, the language of “destruction” in the texts we have mentioned does not necessarily mean “cease to exist”; the Greek words involved can mean “cease to be what one once was.” In other words, when the Bible says that the wicked are “destroyed” at the judgment, it may mean that they cease to be the kind of people they once were. Judgment involves such a transformation in circumstances as to be called a “destruction” from the standpoint of this world’s perspectives.
The strongest argument in favor of the traditional view is the language of “eternity” that is applied to hell. To be sure, one must always carefully interpret such language in the Bible; it does not always mean “forever” but can sometimes mean “for a long time.” But convincing evidence that “eternal” punishment means punishment “forever” comes from texts such as Matthew 25:41, where “eternal fire” is parallel to “eternal life” (Matt. 25:46). The Bible does seem to teach that the wicked will experience in hell conscious and eternal punishment.
Contemporary Significance
HELL CONJURES UP in the mind images of flames and a figure in red, with tail, horns, and a pitchfork. Hell and the devil have become staples in the comedian’s storehouse of standard jokes. The whole idea of hell is viewed as “medieval”—a word that connotes to most moderns ideas of intolerance, superstition, and ignorance. Surveys routinely show that most people believe in heaven but few believe in hell.
Christians therefore experience considerable pressure from the larger culture to dismiss the idea of hell or at least to soft-peddle it. But many, I suspect, also find in the Christian tradition itself reason to avoid the subject. They are embarrassed at what they consider extreme and insensitive references to hell by Christian evangelists. The most famous historical example is the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” preached by the New England pastor and theologian Jonathan Edwards in the early 1700s. Edwards sought to stimulate repentance among his hearers by picturing in great detail the torments of hell:
The body will be full of torment as full as it can hold, and every part of it shall be full of torment. They shall be in extreme pain, every joint of ‘em, every nerve shall be full of inexpressible torment. They shall be tormented even to their fingers’ ends. The whole body shall be full of the wrath of God. Their hearts and their bowels and their heads, their eyes and their tongues, their hands and their feet will be filled with the fierceness of God’s wrath.21
In our own day of bumper-sticker theology, we find Christians warning, simply, “Turn or burn!”
Now, of course, Christians can be guilty of presenting hell in an insensitive or unloving manner. But the problem, I suspect, is that many Christians simply want to avoid the subject altogether. It does not fit well into the ethos of much contemporary Christianity, with its focus on the love of God and its preoccupation with helping people to “feel good” about themselves. Yet faithfulness to the biblical message and a balanced view of God as both loving and holy require that we maintain and proclaim a clear doctrine of hell. And, in fact, the Lord used Edwards’ preaching to stimulate a great spiritual awakening.
Jude, as we have seen, minces no words when he talks about the fate of the false teachers: They will be “destroyed” (v. 11; cf. v. 10); they will “suffer the punishment of eternal fire” (v. 7); “blackest darkness has been reserved for them” (v. 13). One frequently hears it said that Jesus referred to hell more than any other person in the Bible. This is true in the technical sense—Jesus uses the word “hell” (Greek gehenna) more times than any biblical author. But, as we noted above, the biblical authors normally speak about “hell” without using the word, and I question whether we really have more teaching from Jesus on hell than from other New Testament writers.
Be that as it may, Jesus certainly is not shy about using the reality of hell to motivate his listeners to obedience. And not only does Jesus refer to hell; he uses imagery to describe it that is certainly as picturesque as anything we find in Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon. In Mark 9:43, for instance, Jesus encourages his followers to turn from sin, warning them about “hell, where the fire never goes out.” Just a few verses later (9:48), he presents hell as the place where “their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.”
Paul too can be quite blunt about the fate awaiting those who reject Christ and persecute his people (2 Thess. 1:6–10):
He [God] will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed.
Paul’s theological basis for this prediction of the punishment of the wicked is significant: “God’s judgment is right” (v. 5); “God is just” (v. 6). In other words, the theological basis for hell is the holiness and justice of God. We often lose sight of God’s majestic and awesome holiness in the midst of our concern to present God as loving, kind, and gracious. Keeping our balance in our view of God is a precarious matter; it is terribly easy to neglect one side of his character or the other. I think the church in our day is more often over-balanced on the side of God’s love.
As theologians and psychologists have pointed out, many people project a view of their own earthly father into their view of the heavenly Father. Now earthly fathers have all kinds of personalities. But we certainly live in a time when the emphasis in fatherhood is being placed less and less on disciplining and more and more on being sensitive and caring. To put it in an extreme fashion, the image of the father portrayed in our culture is often that of a weak wimp. We cannot help but project that image into our view of God. We think of him as a sort of “grandfatherly” type who loves us, who is quite willing to forgive us—and, of course, who would never punish us. The reality of God is quite different. So holy is he that people who confronted him in the Bible fell to their knees in fear and shame. And his holiness demands that he punish sinners.
All this suggests that we should not avoid in our preaching of the gospel the “negative” side of the picture. Not only does acceptance of the good news of God in Christ mean, positively, peace with God and the promise of eternal life; rejection of that message, we must warn, means eternal punishment. True, the Bible does not make clear precisely what this punishment will be. “Fire” and “darkness,” we think, are metaphors—painful and fearful earthly experiences that convey something of the torment that awaits the wicked in hell. We may even choose other images that better communicate in our day the reality and terribleness of hell. As we do so, we must ask God to preserve us from vindictiveness or from an enjoyment of the torments of the wicked. We need to preach about hell, but we should always preach about it with tears in our eyes.