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Introduction

A warning against the false teachers who would arise at the end of days concludes the collection of seven letters in the Christian canon attributed to Peter, James, the brother of the Lord, John, the son of Zebedee, and Jude, the brother of James (Mark 6:3). Though the author of 2 Peter employed its material, Jude is rarely mentioned in early Christian authors or read in worship services today. Unlike the Pauline Epistles, which are targeted to specific churches or individuals, the so-called Catholic Epistles are addressed to churches in a broad region. Those attributed to brothers of Jesus give voice to a Greek-speaking Jewish Christianity that had become marginalized by the second century (Perkins, 1–2, 141–45).

Visions of the end of days connected with the figure of Enoch (Gen. 5:22) circulated widely among first-century Jews, so it is not surprising that Jude adopts a prophecy from Enoch (v. 15; 1 En. 1:9). The author also knows popular Jewish legends about the fallen angels responsible for the evils of the preflood generation, as well as a tale that the devil attempted to wrest the body of Moses from the archangel Michael (v. 9). In that episode, Satan, acting out his role as prosecutor (Job 1:6–7), apparently charged Moses with the murder of the Egyptian (Exod. 2:12). No murderer should enjoy divine burial (Deut. 34:5–6). By using these dramatic stories, Jude underlines the serious evil at work in the false teachers (vv. 8, 10, 12, 16; Painter and deSilva, 208–17). This polemical rhetoric (vv. 5–16) makes it difficult to determine what the specific points of dispute were (Thurén). Certainly, Jude’s demand that readers exclude false teachers from the communal meal (agapē) because their presence defiles indicates that the opponents are part of the local church (v. 12). Matthew 18:15–17 has such a ban on sinners who will not listen to the voice of the community, as does 1 Cor. 5:3–5, 11, in a case of extreme immorality. Therefore most interpreters conclude that the false teaching more likely involved Christian conduct than points of doctrine (Painter and deSilva, 183–84).

Several phrases in the letter’s appeal to the audience envisage the difficulty that a postapostolic generation may have in preserving a tradition (“faith”) entrusted to them (vv. 3, 20; Kraftchick, 62–65). In addition to the warnings embedded in familiar stories from the Torah, Jude reminds readers that “the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ” had predicted the rise of such scoffers at the end of days (vv. 17–18). By presenting this exhortation in the form of an apostolic letter, the author suggests that its message enjoys comparable authority. The concluding doxology (vv. 24–25) follows a familiar liturgical pattern already employed in the Pauline Epistles (Rom. 16:25–27; Phil. 4:20; 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:15–16). However, Jude lacks the concluding greetings that ordinarily precede the liturgical-sounding phrases that conclude those letters. That omission suggests that this piece was intended for general circulation.

Jude follows a standard pattern (Bauckham, 3).

Greeting (vv. 1–2)

Opening stating the occasion for writing (vv. 3–4)

Body of the letter, establishing judgment awaiting the impious (vv. 5–19)

Three examples: wilderness generation, Sodom and Gomorrah, death of Moses

Three additional examples: Cain, Balaam, Korah

Two prophecies of judgment against false teachers: Enoch, the apostles

Conclusion, exhortation to the recipients (vv. 20–23)

Doxology (vv. 24–25)

THE TEXT IN ITS ANCIENT CONTEXT

The greeting of the letter (vv. 1–2) identifies the sender as “brother of James” rather than “brother of the Lord,” as James was commonly known (Gal. 1:19), suggesting that this work is directed to Jewish Christian churches that revered James (Mark 6:3). Instead of the familiar “grace and peace” of the Pauline letter, Jude has an augmented Jewish formula, “mercy, peace, and love,” but retains the two-part reference to the Father and Jesus Christ. The expression “kept safe” in Jesus Christ strikes the ominous note that believers must be protected against the end-time ravages of the wicked (Fuchs and Reymond, 155).

In verses 3–4, the author suggests that the danger of false teachers infiltrating the community has forced him to break off an exposition of Christian salvation to compose this warning. He telegraphs the two sections that follow: (a) evidence from ancient Scripture and prophecy for the condemnation of such persons; and (b) appeal to the recipients to resist their influence. The charges, turning grace into the occasion for immorality and denial of “the only Master,” probably meaning God (v. 25), and the Lord Jesus, reflect a general disdain for God’s commandments (cf. Titus 1:16).

Verses 5–8 describe divine judgment against the rebellious. The first three examples of destruction employ a schema in which those who had experienced God’s salvation rebel and are destroyed: the Israelites in the wilderness, through lack of faith (Num. 14); the fallen angels, who desert their proper place (Gen. 6:1–4) out of lust for human women; and the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, who are punished for unnatural sexuality. Imprisonment of the angels prior to judgment belongs to the Enoch material (1 En. 6–19). Verse 8 applies the examples to the present by providing three corresponding vices, though not in the same order, “defile flesh” (= fallen angels); “reject authority” (= that of Moses), and “slander glorious ones” (= the demand that Lot turn over his angelic visitors; Bauckham, 48–55).

In verses 9–11, the woe against those who are acting like irrational beasts and who are primed to reap the consequences that befell those led astray by Balaam (Deut. 23:3–6), or the rebellious Israelites at Korah (Num. 16:1–3), invokes an apocryphal tradition concerning the burial of Moses. Satan attempts to snatch the body of this murderer (Exod. 2:11–15) from the archangel Michael. Patristic sources (Clement of Alexandria, Didymus the Blind, Origen) attribute the story to a Testament of Moses that is no longer extant. Michael’s response, a phrase from Zech. 3:2 (LXX), charges Satan with blasphemy for putting himself forward as judge against the Lord (Bauckham, 60–67).

Verses 12–13 include a warning to guard against false teachers, whose presence in the community corrupts its most sacred ritual, the “love feasts” or communal meal. A catalog of striking images builds to the rhetorical climax, eternal confinement in darkness for such brazen individuals.

Readers should not be taken off guard, according to verses 14–19, since God’s judgment against such impiety has been prophesied from the earliest days, from “the seventh from Adam, Enoch,” up to the apostles themselves. The rhetorical climax, which declares this wickedness evidence of the end-time and describes the schismatics as “without Spirit,” suggests that Jude is not an appeal for their conversion.

However, all are not lost. The final words of encouragement and ethical advice to the community in verses 20–23 include the possibility that some can be rescued from the fiery judgment, which otherwise awaits them. Ancient scribes found verses 22–23a problematic: the three-clause exhortation to “convince, save, and have mercy” found in some manuscripts appears to be a clarification of a problematic two-clause sentence, “saving from fire, having mercy,” that alluded to Zech. 3:1–5 (LXX).

Jude 24–25 concludes with a traditional doxology (cf. Rom. 16:25) that has been modified to underline the author’s concern that his audience remain firm in their faith until the Lord’s coming in judgment.