Jude 4-7

⁴ For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁵ I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. ⁶ And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. ⁷ Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

The first attack on truth came in the Garden of Eden when the serpent (Satan) deceived Eve and she and Adam ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3:1-6). Ever since then, Satan’s overall scheme has not changed. He is always in the business of assaulting the truth because he is “the father of” lies (John 8:44). One way in which he attacks the truth is through people that he has deceived that he uses among the people of God to undermine their faith, cause trouble and division among God’s people, and corrupt their testimony and commitment. Jesus told the parable of the wheat and the tares about this very thing (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43). The wheat represented the people of God and the tares represented those that the devil sowed among them. Therefore, throughout the Bible there are warnings and examples of people that Satan has used among the people to God to spread his deceptions and divisions and hinder them. In a long line of apostates, false teachers, false disciples, and false converts, Jude writes to God’s people so that they might be aware of “certain men” who have “crept in unawares.” These apostates are the tares among the wheat. In Jude 4-7, he begins to identify these people, not so much for their doctrinal heresies, but for their ungodly character, attitudes, and motives. In these four verses, we can identify four marks of false discipleship. We will begin to examine the first two this week.

The first mark of false disciples that Jude helps us to identify is that of subtle hypocrisy. Verse 4 alongside verse 3 serves as a key purpose statement of the entire letter. Jude writes to believers to “earnestly contend for the faith” in verse 3 because “certain men have crept in unawares.” These “certain men” are the reason for the letter. He is writing to warn and protect the people of God concerning them. Notice, first, that Jude is not dealing with something that might happen but with something that has happened. They “have crept in unawares.” The phrase “have crept in unawares” is actually one word in Greek and it means “to infiltrate” or “to slip in secretly.” Peter uses a similar word in 2 Peter 2:1 to describe how false converts “privily shall bring in damnable heresies.” The word “privily” there means “secretly” or “subtly.” This doesn’t mean that they have secretly joined the church or become a part of the visible community of God’s people as if they are hiding behind curtains or boxes in church gathering places. It means that they have deceived the church into accepting them in despite them not truly being apart of the people of God. They have joined local churches, but they have not been born again and brought into Christ’s universal Church. They have identified with the people of God without actually being a part of the people of God. False doctrine and false teachers always sneak into the church subtly. They rarely, if ever, burst through the front door with outright blasphemous heresy. That’s easy to spot. Instead, they join up with God’s people, act like a member of the flock, go along with most things, claim to stand for the truth, but subtly and overtime push ungodly agendas among the people of God. After addressing how they’ve come into the church, Jude goes on to describe their character, attitudes, motives, and lifestyles. First, Jude notes that they have not taken God by surprise nor has God failed to warn His people. He says, “who were before of old ordained to this condemnation,” What that means is that they have been written about for a long time. The entire Bible continually bears witness to the reality of such people. “Ungodly men” is the first description that speaks to their general character. They are “wicked” and “unholy.” They look the part of the Christian, but inwardly they are the total opposite. They are like the Pharisees that Jesus described as white-washed tombs that looked beautiful to people but were full of decaying things (Matthew 23:27-28). They had a “form [or appearance] of godliness” without “the power thereof [a changed life]” (2 Timothy 3:5). Jude then describes their actions and fruit as “turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.” What that means is that they twisted “the grace of God” into a license to sin. They used God’s grace to justify and tolerate sin in their own lives and the lives of others. In so doing, they engage in “denying the only Lord God.” It is not describing a denial that Jesus is Lord, for they, like the devils in James 2:19, would openly say “Jesus is Lord.” Instead, they deny His rule in their lives. They refuse to submit to Him and follow His ways for them. They do this by continually living a life governed by their own selfish and sinful desires. It is this quiet, subtle hypocrisy that is the first mark of false discipleship. We must be on guard against professing one thing and deliberately, and perhaps secretly, living contrary to what we profess to believe. It is a slippery slope and a deadly sign.

The second mark of false disciples that Jude helps us to spot is that of continual unbelief. Jude proceeds in verses 5-7 to pull three well-known examples of apostates in the Old Testament. This is him proving out that they “were before of old ordained [written] for this condemnation” (v. 4). The first of those examples is that of the unbelieving, grumbling, complaining, and rebellious Israelites that God delivered out of Egypt. Despite all that God did for them in bringing them out of slavery, they continually murmured against Him in the wilderness and refused to believe Him to the point of submission and obedience. Unbelief is not “weak faith.” Unbelief is willful rebellion and refusal to act on the clear instructions of God’s Word. Specifically, this group was told that God would give them the promised land and they refused to enter into the land and take it in obedience to the Lord because ten spies brought back a bad report of the land in Numbers 13-14. Because of this, that generation would perish in the wilderness except for the families of Joshua and Caleb because they believed the Lord. The issue the Israelites had was that they physically left Egypt, but they never really “left Egypt.” Continually they grumbled against God and wanted to return to the slavery of Egypt. There are so many people who are deceived into getting baptized or joining churches, perhaps even with sincere intentions, but they have never really left the world behind. They still love the world (1 John 2:15). This is only revealed in time. Like the soil that is too fertile and the weeds that grow choke out the fruitfulness of God’s Word so that it never bears fruit in their lives (Matthew 13:7, 22), these embrace the faith outwardly for a time, but eventually reveal that they are still lost in their sin. Simon the sorcerer of Acts 8 is such an example. He believed, was baptized, followed the apostles around, but eventually revealed his true character by trying to purchase the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:5-19). Peter saw that Simon was “in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity” (Acts 8:23) and declared to Simon, “thy heart is not right in the sight of God” (Acts 8:21). The great danger of religion is that we can serve in a church and experience all of the same rituals, benefits, etc., that come with identifying with the people of God in a church, but actually remain outside the faith. Paul warns about this very thing in 1 Corinthians 10:1-13. All of the Israelites that came out of Egypt got to see the plagues, cross the Red Sea, eat the manna, drink water from the rock, and follow the fire and cloud, but that did not mean that they truly believed God. The proof came in time when they refused to enter the land. So too, Jude speaks of these apostates as being those who join up with God’s people and enjoy many of the same experiences, yet they remain outside the faith. In time, their fruit will prove to be rotten. Just like those murmuring and complaining Israelites that brought continual bad consequences upon the assembly and caused the whole nation to wander for 40 years, these apostates are a thorn in the side of the church and may not even realize it. It is their very nature because they have not been born again. We must watch out for rebellious unbelief, certainly first in our own lives but also around us.

The truths that Jude’s words teach us are hard ones and there are many more for us to grasp. The question may arise in our minds, “How do I know I’m not one of these ‘certain men?’” Well, to that we must ask ourselves some searching questions in light of God’s Word: “Is my life marked by subtle (or secret), deliberate hypocrisy?” “Am I saying and presenting myself, my motives, and my actions as one thing when they are something altogether different?” “Am I striving to obey (of course falling short often) God in the things I know are His will?” “Is the fruit born in my life a help or a hindrance to God’s people?” While these questions may be personal, searching, and uncomfortable, they may be some of the most important questions we can answer. Next week, we will examine two more marks of false discipleship.