ENOCH, THE SEVENTH from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones 15to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” 16These men are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.
Original Meaning
JUDE CAPS HIS denunciation of the false teachers with a prophecy. This in itself is nothing unusual; New Testament writers often apply ancient prophecies to their own situations. But what is unusual about this prophecy is its source. Enoch is a biblical figure, but no Old Testament book contains the prophecy quoted here—or, for that matter, any prophecy of Enoch. But we do find almost these exact words in the Jewish intertestamental book, 1 Enoch. Clearly, then, Jude takes this prophecy from 1 Enoch. His apparently authoritative use of a book that is not part of the canon raises some obvious questions (see discussion in the “Bridging Contexts” section).
We can understand why Jude chooses to quote this particular prophecy, for it reinforces the two key points that he has made about the false teachers. (1) They are “godless” (or “ungodly,” v. 4; cf. also v. 18). This word occurs three times in the prophecy (cf. v. 15) and may have been what drew Jude’s attention to it in the first place. (2) The false teachers will suffer the Lord’s condemnation. Enoch’s prophecy, of course, foretells the coming of the Lord as judge.
As he has in the two other paragraphs within this section devoted to the false teachers (vv. 5–10, 11–13), Jude follows his reference to tradition with application. Therefore, in verse 16 we find the word “these” again used to apply the point of the prophecy to the false teachers.
Enoch was an early descendant of Adam through the line of Adam’s son Seth. He appears in the Old Testament only in genealogical lists (Gen. 5:18–24; 1 Chron. 1:3), but he stands out because of the comment made about him: “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away” (Gen. 5:24).1 This verse apparently means that Enoch did not die, but, like Elijah (2 Kings 2:1–13), was transported directly to heaven; this supposition is confirmed by Hebrews 11:5, which reads, “By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away.”
The combination of this extraordinary commendation from God and the almost complete silence of Scripture about him made Enoch a fascinating character to the Jews. We therefore find a number of legends about him in the intertestamental literature; at least two books of apocalyptic visions, written during this period, are attributed to him.2 It is one of these books, 1 Enoch (actually a compilation of several distinct literary units), that Jude quotes from.
This book was popular in Jude’s day, and both he (cf. v. 6) and Peter (1 Peter 3:19–20; 2 Peter 2:4) allude to it. Because Jews often counted inclusively (that is, they included the first and the last in a series that they were counting), Enoch was considered to be “the seventh from Adam”; the genealogical list goes Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch (Gen. 5:1–24). Both the author of 1 Enoch (60:8; 93:3; cf. also another intertestamental book, Jubilees [7:39]) and Jude probably name Enoch the “seventh” because that number symbolized perfection.
It is not clear whether Jude intends to say that “Enoch prophesied about these men also [i.e., in addition to the wicked people of his own day]” or that “Enoch also [i.e., in addition to these other texts] prophesied about these men.”3 But the NIV is probably correct to suggest the latter by simply omitting the “also” (Greek kai). Like other New Testament writers, Jude assumes that the prophecies find their fulfillment in Christ and the church he founded. They can therefore apply the words of the prophets to their own circumstances.
The subject of Enoch’s prophecy is a common theme in Jewish apocalyptic writers: the coming of God to judge the wicked. The text Jude quotes is 1 Enoch 1:9. In one of the latest translations of this book into English, it reads:
Behold, he will arrive with ten million of the holy ones in order to execute judgment upon all. He will destroy the wicked ones and censure all flesh on account of everything that they have done, that which the sinners and the wicked ones committed against him.4
The original prophecy that Jude is quoting probably had the word “God” or “Lord” as subject, but Jude, understanding it in light of Christ, pictures “the Lord” Jesus as the one who comes. Both the Old Testament (e.g., Dan. 7:10) and the New claim that Jesus will be accompanied at his Parousia by huge numbers of angels (cf. Matt. 25:31).
The purpose of Jesus’ coming is to “judge.” In this context it is clear that this judgment is the negative one of condemnation. For although it is directed against “everyone,” the sequel makes it clear that the prophecy means “all the wicked.” In Jude’s quotation of the prophecy, he goes out of his way to stress the “ungodly” character of these people. Indeed, the use of the word three times in one clause in verse 15 creates an almost awkward reading: “to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts that they have done in an ungodly way.” We certainly do not have to guess Jude’s point!
But not only are these people judged for acting in an ungodly way; they have also sinned against God in speech. Jude may be alluding to another part of 1 Enoch at this point, perhaps 27:2: “This accursed valley is for those accursed forever; here will gather together all (those) accursed ones, those who speak with their mouth unbecoming words against the Lord and utter hard words concerning his glory.” The fact that a reference to sins of speech was probably not in the original text Jude quoted suggests that the idea was an important one for Jude. Presumably he added it because the false teachers were erring especially in this way (see vv. 8 and 10).
Jude continues this focus on sins of speech in his application of the prophecy to the false teachers in verse 16. The transition from verses 14–15 to verse 16 is apparently this: Enoch prophesied about ungodly people who would be judged by the Lord; “these men” are those ungodly people. They are, Jude says, “grumblers and faultfinders.” Who are they grumbling against and finding fault with? Church leaders, some say. But the biblical background of the term “grumbler” suggests that these false teachers are directing their complaints against God himself. The word used here often occurs in Old Testament passages that depict Israelites “grumbling” against God for bringing the people out of Egypt into the inhospitable desert (see, e.g., Ex. 16:7–12; 18:3; Num. 14:27–29; 17:5, 10).5 The false teachers, perhaps, are complaining about the restrictions that God’s law has placed on their “freedom” to behave as they want.
Jude’s second description of the false teachers in verse 16 picks up the reference to their “ungodly acts” from the Enoch prophecy: “They follow their own evil desires.” These evil desires probably encompass both the false teachers’ sexual lust and greed (see vv. 8, 10–11).6
According to the NIV, Jude’s third accusation against the false teachers here is that “they boast about themselves” (TEV is similar). But this rendering is open to question. A more literal translation of the Greek is, “and their mouth speaks haughty [or bombastic] things.” This haughty speech could, of course, have taken the form of boasting. But the context suggests the idea of arrogant speech about or even toward God.7
Jude’s final criticism returns to the issue of the false teachers’ greed, which he has briefly alluded to in verse 11. He employs here a biblical idiom that denotes partiality or favoritism.8 We cannot be sure about the exact form this greed-motivated favoritism took. Perhaps the false teachers were currying favor with the rich while ignoring the poor. Perhaps they, like many of their ancient compatriots, were teaching only the rich because only they could pay well.9
Bridging Contexts
JUDE’S TEACHING HERE seems to be straightforward: The Lord will return to judge ungodly people, such as the false teachers bothering his churches. But the message is complicated by the form in which he has chosen to cast it: a “prophecy” from a book that is not a part of the biblical canon. Experts in the art of interpretation use the analogy of hearing to talk about the kind of problem we face here. If, for instance, I am listening to a football game on my car radio, my ability to follow the broadcast may be severely hindered by “noise.” This noise could come from the radio itself, if the station were distant or weak enough and other stations kept interfering. Or it could come from within the car, if my family persisted in conversing while I was trying to listen to the game. Noise is what keeps us from really hearing and appreciating a message.
In the same way, a person trying to “hear” a written message may also have trouble understanding it because of “noise”—those preconceptions and misunderstandings that “interfere” with our ability to hear what a writer is trying to say. In Jude 14–15, most of us find it hard to appreciate Jude’s straightforward message about the Lord’s return because of the noise thrown up by his use of a noncanonical source. We cannot really appreciate his point—we cannot take it to heart and really believe it—because he makes it in this apparently unorthodox manner. The point, then, is that we are not going to be able to apply Jude’s message until we try to clear away some of the noise his quotation creates. Thus I want to look at some of the issues and options we face as we consider Jude’s quotation of 1 Enoch.
What, specifically, is the noise that Jude’s quotation of 1 Enoch creates for us? It is the idea that Jude may be quoting as an inspired and authoritative source of doctrine a book that is not in the canon of Scripture. And it is important to note here that 1 Enoch has never been given official canonical status by any religious body. It has never been in the Jewish canon, nor in the “Apocrypha” (those books accepted by the Roman Catholic church but rejected by Protestants). But doesn’t Jude’s use of 1 Enoch create, then, a problem for our belief that God has inspired only those books contained between the two covers of our Bibles and that only these books are to be used as an authoritative source of doctrine? If Jude can appeal to 1 Enoch, why can’t we appeal similarly to 2 Maccabees, or Sirach, or, for that matter, C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity?
These questions are not new to the modern era. Early church theologians asked the same ones. They came to three different opinions on the matter. (1) Several church fathers considered 1 Enoch to be an inspired book based on the reference here in Jude.10 (2) Others took the opposite tack: Because Jude quoted a noncanonical book, Jude did not belong in the canon.11 (3) Augustine thought that Jude’s reference showed that 1 Enoch was inspired at some points, but he argued that this did not mean that the entire book was inspired.12 As we know, it was this third view, or something like it, that the ancient church as a whole finally adopted. Jude was accepted into the New Testament canon, while 1 Enoch was officially rejected from the Old Testament canon.13 Can we justify this decision today? How can we explain Jude’s use of 1 Enoch?
Many commentators assume or argue that Jude’s reference to 1 Enoch shows that he thought it was an inspired book, as authoritative as, for example, Genesis and Isaiah. They point out that not only does Jude quote from 1 Enoch; he also uses the verb “prophesy” to introduce the quotation and alludes to the book elsewhere in his letter (most clearly in v. 6). But I do not think this conclusion is justified. Let me make two critical points.
(1) As I noted in the “Bridging Contexts” section on 2 Peter 3:14–18, we have solid evidence that Jews and Christians in the first century were already operating with a “closed” Old Testament canon. Jesus’ appeal to Scripture, the remarkable quotation pattern throughout the New Testament (according to which only books now found in the canon are called Scripture), the lack of any evidence of dispute between Jews and the first Christians on this matter—these and other bits of evidence suggest a widely accepted and set group of authoritative writings. Jude may, of course, be different, but we should not assume that without good evidence.
(2) It is crucial to note that Jude does not refer to 1 Enoch as Scripture; that is, the critical word graphe (“Scripture”) is not used here. The cognate verb of this word, grapho, is used throughout the New Testament to introduce Old Testament quotations: “as it is written,” and this formula is not found here either. Moreover, we find other quotations in the New Testament from sources that no one would consider canonical. Paul, for instance, quotes from the pagan philosopher Aratus in his speech to the Athenians (Acts 17:28); certainly he did not think that this writer’s Phaenomena (from which his quotation was taken) was a canonical book. To be sure, Jude claims that Enoch “prophesied.” But this word need not mean “wrote an inspired prophetic book”; it could well mean simply “uttered in this instance a prophecy.” The reference, in other words, could be to the immediate passage and not to the entire book.
I conclude that Jude probably did not think that 1 Enoch was an inspired and canonical book. We do not have sufficient evidence to lead us to believe that he differed from the apparent consensus of mainstream Jewish and early Christian opinion on this matter. But how, then, did he view this text from 1 Enoch? His use of the word “prophesy” and the placement of the quotation—as the wrap-up to his denunciation of the false teachers—suggest that he viewed the text as having authority for his readers.
The phrase “for his readers” is important here. As J. Daryl Charles has shown, the letter of Jude seems to have been written to Christians who were “into” apocalyptic ideas and traditions. Jude may well have quoted this particular prophecy because he knew it would carry weight with his audience.14 They regarded this book highly, and a quotation from it would be effective in motivating them to agree with him.15
Clearly, Jude thought that the content of the prophecy was true or he never would have quoted it. But did he believe that the historical Enoch really uttered this prophecy? It is certainly possible; God could well have seen to it that the unknown author of 1 Enoch included at this point in his book a genuine prophecy of Enoch. But it is also possible that Jude meant no more than that the “Enoch” of the book both he and his writers knew about uttered this prophecy.
Contemporary Significance
HAVING, I TRUST, eliminated some of the background “noise” created by Jude’s use of 1 Enoch, let us try and listen carefully to what he is saying in these verses. Two points stand out.
The Lord’s coming and evangelism. The Lord is coming back to judge. Enoch, whoever we understand him to be, undoubtedly meant the Lord God, Jehovah. His prophecy echoes the many Old Testament texts that predict the coming of God at the end of history to give victory and salvation to the righteous and to condemn the unrighteous (see, e.g., Isa. 40:10; 66:15; Mic. 1:3–5; Zech. 14:5).
This coming of God at the end of history was often pictured as parallel to the coming of God on Mount Sinai, when he gave his law to Israel. Note, for instance, the similarity between the prophecy of Enoch that Jude quotes and Deuteronomy 33:2:
The LORD came from Sinai
and dawned over them from Seir;
he shone forth from Mount Paran.
He came with myriads of holy ones
from the south, from his mountain slopes.
In a move typical of the New Testament appropriation of the Old Testament, however, Jude identifies “the Lord” with Jesus. And just as God came first to redeem and constitute his people (the Exodus and Sinai) and then promised to come again to deliver and judge, so Jesus, having come to redeem and constitute his people (the cross and resurrection), is coming again to redeem and judge.
As believers, we look forward to the day of Christ’s coming with eagerness and anticipation; it is the “blessed hope” that comforts us in our present afflictions and encourages us to lead a life of holiness (see Titus 2:13–15). But, as this text in Jude reminds us, Christ is also coming to judge. How should this lead us to regard the vast majority of people all around us—people who do not know Christ?
The answer is obvious, yet all too difficult really to take to heart and so to live by. We push judgment far into the future; or, worse yet, we get the idea into our heads that God will not really judge people who are living generally “good” lives. Yet the Scripture is clear: Christ will come to judge “all the ungodly” (Jude 15); and “there is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one” (Rom. 3:9b–12). Apart from a relationship with Jesus Christ, all those “good” people around us are, in God’s sight, “ungodly” and therefore doomed to suffer condemnation when Christ comes back.
“People need the Lord,” sings Steve Green. Do we really believe it? Do we believe it enough to do something about it? To make evangelism and missions as prominent a part of our church agenda as personal wellness and the edification of believers? To give sacrificially to those who are in the front lines of gospel ministry? To share the good news of Jesus Christ with that “good” coworker or “moral” neighbor? Never should we read biblical texts about judgment at the end of history without our consciences being disturbed and moved by these questions.
The Lord’s coming and self-evaluation. There is another set of questions that biblical passages about judgment should also raise before us. As believers, we should look forward to the day of Christ’s coming with joy, for it brings our final deliverance from sin, temptation, and bodily weakness. But contemplation of that day should also lead to serious self-evaluation. For although we need not fear rejection and condemnation, we know our lives will be scrutinized as Christ asks what we have done with the precious blessings he has entrusted to us (see Matt. 25:31–46; 2 Cor. 5:10).
Here, then, is the second point that we should hear in Jude 14–16. Christ, Jude says, is coming to judge the “ungodly.” While no believer is finally in the category of the “ungodly,” we cannot help but recognize how much ungodliness still clings to us, even in our redeemed state. Jude’s reminder that Christ is coming to judge ungodliness, then, should create in us not a smug satisfaction that we are not among those to be judged; it should stimulate each of us to ask about the ungodliness that is still too much a part of us.
What is “ungodliness”? The term is a broad one, encompassing any thinking or behavior that does not meet God’s approval. Jude undoubtedly uses the term precisely because it is so broad. But he also focuses in verses 15b–16 on the sin of haughtiness, pride, or arrogance. The ungodly people Jude is thinking of (the false teachers) “speak against” God; they “boast of themselves,” or “speak haughty things.” Here is a form of ungodliness that is a plague in our day.
Many theologians, indeed, think that pride is the root of all sin. Ever since Adam, people have wanted to “be like God,” and they chafe at any idea of a God whom they must worship and obey. Our society, precisely because of its great accomplishments in science, medicine, literature, and so forth, is proud and makes less and less room for God. Or, if room is made for a god, it is a god of our own creation, tailored to suit us and what we deem our needs to be. Thus we sense the need for spirituality, some vague feeling of worship—and we create the “new age” god because we are “into” nature.
I could multiply examples. But my point here is that we Christians are far from immune from the arrogant presumption of making God fit our own expectations and needs. The history of the church reveals how often Christians in every age have tended to develop a view of God that fits into their own culture. Consequently, we must ask ourselves: In what way have we tailored our view of God to fit our situation? Or, to revert to the analogy I used in the previous section, what “noise” from our culture is interfering with our ability to listen to God and to his message for us in our generation? Let me suggest two examples, one from the realm of theology and the other from the realm of practice.
(1) My theological example will, I know, be controversial. So let me say at the outset that I am not, I hope, committing the very sin I am writing against—arrogantly assuming that my own theology is correct. I want to make it clear that committed Christians can rightfully come to different opinions about the matter. I refer generally to the Arminian-Calvinist debate. I come down generally on the Calvinist side of this dispute. What I suggest here is that some people who disagree—and even violently disagree—with Calvinism can be guilty of the kind of arrogance I am talking about here. (Please, my Arminian brothers and sisters, note I am saying “can” be guilty of, not “are” guilty of, for I know many Arminians who do not make this mistake. And Calvinists can be just as guilty of this kind of arrogance.)
I once read a paper on this issue written by a student of mine, whose sole argument was that God would never choose some people and reject others because God is God of love; he simply cannot be like that. Now, if the student had carefully established from Scripture that God’s love requires that he not make ultimate choices about the eternal destiny of people, I would have had no quarrel with the argument—only with the conclusion. But she did not. It was simply her “idea of God” that led her to refuse to accept any kind of Calvinist view of God’s sovereignty. Never did she seriously examine her view of God on the basis of Scripture to see if it really squared with all the biblical data.
In discussing this issue with students and laypeople alike, I find this problem to be widespread. But don’t we realize that we come perilously close in this way to standing in judgment over God—of saying, in effect, that the Calvinist view of God simply does not fit my view of God, and so it must be wrong? The Calvinist view may be right, or it might be wrong. But on this theological matter, as on any other, we must humbly listen to what Scripture teaches, willing to submit to its teachings even when they do not fit our own preconceived ideas.
(2) A current practical example of the failure of Christians to listen to God is the general tendency for us in the Western world, because of our temporal well-being and capitalist economic system, to mute God’s call to his people to share their material things and “to look after orphans and widows” (James 1:27). As I write, for instance, politicians are debating welfare reform in the United States. Now committed Christians can certainly hold a wide spectrum of views on the way in which government should be involved in helping the poor. But what disturbs me as I listen to some Christians is their purely economic—or, not to mince words, materialistic—approach to the issue. For Christians, surely, the point should not be economic; it should be how the church in our day can best carry out its mandate to live out our Father’s concern for the helpless in society.
The canonical question. Before we leave this section, I want to make a final comment on the significance of the canonical question that I talked about in the “Bridging Contexts” section. Perhaps the point is obvious, but it should probably be made. If Jude regards 1 Enoch as canonical, then the whole idea of a closed canon can be called into question. The church has always insisted that only those matters clearly included in the canonical books have authority over the church and are able to instruct us about what to think and do. This has historically been a point of contention between Roman Catholics (who include the Old Testament Apocrypha in their canon) and Protestants (who do not).
But some scholars in our day are arguing that we throw out the idea of a canon altogether. And this is a far more radical step. For the point of having a canon is quite practical: It tells us what source Christians go to so that they can understand what to believe about God and what he wants his people to do. If, however, we do not have a fixed canon, then different Christians can appeal to different sets of books and come up with different versions of “Christianity.”
I do not want to minimize the genuine problems involved in the historical process by which the church determined a canon of authoritative books.16
But Christians believe that God superintended this process and that he himself thus stands behind the canon of Scripture we now possess. We imperil the faith itself if we give up on this issue.
Two more specific implications flow from the idea of a canon. (1) We should value these books in a way that we value no others. Christians, of course, generally agree with this principle. But in practice, and with the proliferation of Christian fiction, I find that many believers spend a relatively small proportion of their “spiritual” reading in the Scriptures themselves. What is happening is that the minds of many Christians are therefore being formed not by the Bible but by books about the Bible or books only loosely related to the biblical message. Surely we have at this point an implicit denial of the canon.
(2) We must be careful to value all the biblical books. Christians are always tempted to construct a “canon within a canon”—a set of books within the Bible that becomes more important than others. Martin Luther, for instance, was guilty of this. He was so enamored of Paul’s teaching of justification by faith that he elevated certain letters of Paul to a central place and had a hard time with some other books (such as James) that did not seem to match Paul’s message. The danger here, of course, is that we end up with an imbalanced Christianity—a view of the faith based on a narrow selection of books and passages. The antidote to this problem is to force ourselves to deal with the whole gamut of biblical revelation. In our private Bible reading, we should systematically read through all the Bible, or at least make sure we are reading representative sections. And preachers, likewise, should set up a preaching plan that exposes their congregations to the whole of God’s truth, not just those books they happen to be interested in or those issues they happen to get excited about.