Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters. My thanks goes out to JB for his kind compliment on last night’s blog. It’s hard to believe, but tonight, we’re going to start the next to last book of the New Testament, the book of Jude, in our Trinitarian Commentary. I ask for your prayers however in that I continue to grow in Christlikeness and cease to be a man of fear more often but rather one of courage. I also ask for your prayers concerning my current financial situation. Finally, I ask for your prayers in a certain are of my life. I’ve had a good deal of anxiety today that I’m working through which is in connection with the first prayer request that I list. For now, let’s go to the book of Jude. Today, we’ll be looking at verse 4:
4For 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.
Let’s get some introductory comments in first. Jude was the half-brother of Jesus, but yet, refers to himself as the brother of James, the half brother of Jesus, and the servant of the Lord. He’s creating a parallel of who he is in distinction to Jesus.
He also says he was eager to write about the salvation that is shared, but thought it imperative to write about a threat entering the church. While we as Christians should be in the practice of preaching the gospel, let us always follow the example of Jude and remember that in addition to that, we also have to contend for the faith.
Jude is dealing with the threat of people coming in to corrupt the family of believers with the idea that since we are saved by grace through faith, let’s go and live as we please. This is a kind of antinomianism that Paul also argued against.
There are mixed opinions as to the interpretation of this passage. Some see the only sovereign as the Father and the only Lord as Jesus. That is one held by many conservative evangelicals. Some see it all referring to Jesus. I agree with the latter and I will be looking at some reasons why as we go through this book.
But let us suppose that it is the former. How does that hurt the case? Not a bit. The relationship of the Father and the Son are still tied in together. To deny one is to deny the other. Both of them are given titles relating to sovereignty. We as Trinitarians must emphasize the relationship between the two persons.
The latter would give a much stronger case for the unique position of Jesus as the word used is “Despotes” which we can see the word “despot” in. Jude would be challenging them to consider who it is they’re going against and his position as the sovereign Lord and not to take that lightly.
As I said, we will look at this issue as we go further in the book, which we shall start doing tomorrow.
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