Jude and the Subverters

Today's Reading

Read the entire letter of Jude. It is twenty-five verses. Read it twice. It rewards re-reading.

Jude originally intends to write a calm, encouraging letter about "our common salvation" (v. 3). Then news reaches him: certain people have "crept in unnoticed" — the verb suggests stealth, sliding in sideways — and have begun perverting the grace of God into license, denying Christ. The letter pivots, and what we have is the urgent, second letter Jude wrote because the first was no longer enough.

He marshals three Old Testament archetypes (v. 11): "Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion." Cain — the murderer, motivated by envy of his brother. Balaam — the prophet who took wages to misuse his gift, whose story is in Numbers 22-24. Korah — the leader who rebelled against the legitimate authority of Moses and Aaron and was swallowed by the earth.

Read also 2 Peter 2:1-3 — the parallel passage to Jude, suggesting the two letters address overlapping situations. And Galatians 6:1 — Paul's instructions for restoring a brother in a spirit of gentleness, keeping watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Discernment in the New Testament is never finally a posture of contempt.

Reflection

Jude is the most ferocious letter in the New Testament, and one of the most pastoral.

We tend to read those two adjectives as in tension. Jude does not. He moves, in twenty-five verses, from urgent denunciation of the false teachers to tender pastoral care for the people they are exploiting, and the move is not a contradiction but the mark of mature discernment. The defense of the truth and the love of the brother come from the same Spirit. Lose either, and the letter becomes something else — either a sentimental Christianity that cannot say "no," or a hard, suspicious Christianity that has forgotten how to say "yes."

Notice the situation Jude describes. The false teachers have "crept in unnoticed" (v. 4). They are not standing outside the church arguing with it. They are inside the church, at its tables, in its leadership. The Greek word translated "crept in" is used of spies infiltrating a city. The picture is not of an open assault but of a quiet sabotage from within — which, as 2 Peter 2 also showed us, is the more common biblical picture.

What are they teaching? Jude is not specific about doctrine; he is specific about behavior. They "pervert the grace of our God into sensuality" (v. 4) — meaning, they take the gospel of free grace and use it as license for anything they want to do. They "defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones" (v. 8). They are "grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage" (v. 16). They are charismatic and ungoverned. They speak well, especially when there is something in it for them.

Jude's three Old Testament archetypes diagnose the recurring engine of religious corruption.

Cain — the way of envy. Cain's worship was rejected; his brother's was accepted. Rather than repent, Cain turned on his brother. The way of Cain in the church is the leader who, frustrated at not receiving the recognition he believes he deserves, begins to undermine other ministries, attack other teachers, build his platform on his contempt for others'. It looks bold. It is envy.

Balaam — the way of greed. Balaam was a real prophet who could speak real words from God. He was offered money by an unfriendly king, Balak, to curse Israel. He could not curse what God had blessed, but he found ways to monetize his gift along the way and finally counseled Balak to corrupt Israel through Moabite women (Numbers 31:16). The way of Balaam in the church is the genuinely gifted minister whose gifts are slowly bent toward whatever pays. It is not always crude. Sometimes Balaam's wages are not money but applause, access, a seat at the table.

Korah — the way of pride against legitimate authority. Korah was a Levite — already in ministry. He was not opposing pagans; he was opposing Moses. His complaint sounded democratic ("all the congregation are holy," Numbers 16:3) and was, in fact, a power grab. The way of Korah in the church is the gifted insider who decides he should have the authority that has been given to others, who frames his ambition as principle, and who eventually leads a portion of the people away with him. Calvin draws the three together starkly: envy, greed, pride against authority. They are not exotic sins. They are the recurring sins of fallen man.

This is why Jude's response cannot be — and is not — mere denunciation. The false teachers have come from inside the church. The same temptations that produced them are alive in the congregation Jude is writing to, and in us. Discernment that does not begin with self-discernment becomes the very pride it claims to fight.

So watch what Jude prescribes in verses 17-23.

He does not call for purges. He does not call for a public denunciation campaign. He calls his readers to four things, and the order matters.

"But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith" — get rooted. Doctrinal grounding is not optional in a season of confusion; it is the load-bearing structure that lets you stand up under the confusion.

"praying in the Holy Spirit" — pray. Not just for the false teachers and not just for the church, but in the kind of dependence that admits we cannot, by sharpness alone, see clearly.

"keep yourselves in the love of God" — stay in love. The bitter, suspicious version of Christian one becomes when constantly on guard is itself a kind of casualty of false teaching. Jude does not want survivors who have lost their warmth.

"waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life" — keep your eyes on the end of the story. Discernment that has lost the eschatological horizon turns into a permanently embattled present.

Then, and only then, does Jude turn to those affected by the false teachers, and his instructions are exquisite: "have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh" (vv. 22-23). Three categories, three different responses. Some people in the orbit of false teaching are doubting — be merciful, do not bludgeon them. Some are in immediate spiritual danger — pull them out, urgently. Some are themselves becoming agents of corruption — show mercy still, but cautiously, fearing for your own soul. Tim Keller's sermon on Jude observes that the difference between healthy zeal and unhealthy zeal is whether the zeal is producing love or only producing distance. Jude's zeal produces both contending and mercy. Most of our zeal produces only one or the other.

The right Christian response to false teachers, to put it plainly, is not what either side of the modern internet expects. It is not the soft "everyone is welcome at every table" that surrenders truth. It is not the hard "denounce them daily" that surrenders love. It is the harder, older posture of contending earnestly for the faith while remaining merciful toward the people the faith is for.

Jude ends with one of the most beautiful doxologies in Scripture: "Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen" (vv. 24-25). That is the right note. The God who warns us about wolves is the same God who is able to keep you from stumbling. Discernment is not finally a labor of fear. It is a labor performed under the protection of a God who does not lose his sheep.

Going Deeper

Identify one person in your life who is "in the orbit" of teaching you find concerning — perhaps caught up in a movement you are wary of, perhaps drifting from clarity into confusion. Which of Jude's three categories are they in: doubting, in immediate danger, or themselves becoming an agent of distortion? What does mercy look like for that specific person? Often the difference between bitter Christians and discerning Christians is whether they have done this exercise on actual people, with actual love, or only on abstract groups they are angry at.