Jude refers to a very serious spiritual emergency, which needed the immediate attention of all Christians everywhere to resolve, if that was possible. They were urged to contend for the faith. That emergency centered around doctrine and the subject was grace. False teachers (false pastors, v. 12) had slipped in among the Christians and distorted the meaning of grace into something very different—a license to sin:
Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. (Jude 3,4)
The godless secretly slipped in among the godly to the harm of the godly, which needed rectified by contending for the faith (truth). Unity with the grace changers was not a possibility! All Christians, and not just the spiritual leaders, were to get involved in the struggle against the godless distorters of grace. Their doctrinal lies about grace endangered the entire Christian faith! Jude himself showed the recipients of his epistle how to contend for the faith against such enemies of Christianity in the next several verses:
Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. (Jude 1:5)
Jude reminded the Christians how God first delivered (saved) people, then afterwards destroyed the same ones who later didn’t believe at a future point. They stopped believing and got destroyed! Jude’s first argument against the grace changers of his day is still valid in our day against the grace changers we Christians battle, the once saved always saved people. The same point is valid against Charles Stanley and others like him who teach that a Christian can stop believing and his salvation is not jeopardized. Unlike Charles Stanley and other once saved always saved teachers, Jude taught—once saved, some later perished who stopped believing! That was Jude’s grace teaching. Jude’s second argument against the enemy grace changers comes from what happened to some of the angels:
And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. (Jude 1:6)
As the angels needed to keep what they spiritually had and not abandon it, Christians too must do the same or suffer a similar fate. Peter referred to the same angels:
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment (2 Pet 2:4)
The angels didn’t keep their positions, abandoned them and SINNED! Christians need to take warning from their sad example and end. We must not follow their example to destruction! We are to keep ourselves from being polluted by the world (James 1:27) and keep ourselves pure (1 Tim 5:22). Such is true grace and not a “works salvation,” as the grace changers say. God didn’t spare the angels who sinned and he won’t spare us either, according to Peter. NOTE: Those angels were already in heaven and lost their salvation! The third point Jude made was about people who are sexually immoral:
In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 1:7)
Similar to the angels were the people from Sodom and Gomorrah who were sexually immoral. Their end was clearly the punishment of eternal fire. Hence, Jude gave the Christians a hell warning through the sin of sexual immorality. Again, Jude’s three points against the grace changers were:
- You must continue to believe. A time of past faith is not going to deliver you in the future if you become unbelieving.
- You must keep and not abandon what you have. The example of the angels who were already in heaven and lost their salvation is relevant for us under grace.
- Sexual immorality will lead Christians to eternal fire, as it did the people of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Sadly, what Jude feared might happen, did happen! The false grace connected with once saved always saved now has the upper hand to the harm of SOULS. A whole book of the Bible is written about the false grace being presented in our day by the eternal security godless teachers. If you are a Christian, are you obeying the command to contend for the faith against their counterfeit grace?
