JUDE 1: HONOR, UNITY AND GLORY

Verse 1: Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.

As was presented in the last study, Jude asserted that we being “kept for Jesus Christ” implies that God the Father is the agent for keeping us eternally secure (John 10:29; 1 Peter 1:5). Dr. L.S. Chafer affirms this, that we are “preserved unto the realization of the design of God.”1 His design intent is for the life of the believer to provide evidences of the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is emphasized by the Greek construction of this phrase indicating that we are kept for the advantage, or personal interest of Jesus Christ.2 This begs the question: What personal interest does Jesus Christ derive from our being eternally secured? We will briefly highlight three in this study: Honor; Unity; Glory.

Honor

During Our Lord’s earthly ministry, He was constantly at odds with the Jewish leaders. In John chapter 5, Jesus heals a sick man on the Sabbath. This riled the Jews, accusing Him of breaking the Sabbath laws and calling God His Father (v.17). Jesus exposes the error of their way, that they dishonor Him and God the Father.

“For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” (John 5:22–23; cf. John 8:49)

So what does it mean to honor Jesus Christ? The Greek word means respect, reverence, esteem.3 Specifically, this denotes the “recognition of another’s work by giving him the position and honors he merited.”4 Accordingly, for believers to honor Jesus Christ they must recognize His rightful place in their lives. He should be the central figure in their lives; their ultimate role model (1 Peter 2:21) with their focus fixed firmly upon Him (Hebrews 12:2) learning from His Word (2 Timothy 3:16-17) and keeping His commandments (1Peter 1:2, 22; John 14:15; 1 John 5:3).

In Matthew 15, Jesus pinpoints the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and scribes by quoting Isaiah 29:13:

“This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.” (Matthew 15:8-9)

This verse is a relevant warning for our day, for the Church of Jesus Christ. For there is a subtle deception in Christianity today: the belief that to gain church attendance, there needs to be entertainment or something stimulating to entice people to come. In many instances the strategies exceed the teaching of God’s Word. And what is taught is often a concoction of cultural dictates which contaminates His Word. This is apostasy. It is dishonoring Him with lip service.

Unity

That the believers “preserve the unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3), as Paul wrote, is of upmost interest to Jesus Christ. He proclaimed this truth in His high-priestly prayer in John 17.

“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.” (John 17:20–23)

The implication is that the demonstration of the unity of believers will be persuasive evidence to the world that He was sent by the father (John 17:3, 8, 25). Dr. Charles Ryrie stated that “This spiritual unity should be visibly expressed in the exercise of spiritual gifts (Ephesians 4:3–16), prayer, and exhortation (2 Corinthians 1:11; Hebrews 10:25).”5 In Ephesians 4:4-6 Paul delineates all the aspects of this unity. Please take the time to note the supporting passages to each point that he mentions: 

•    It is to be grounded in the bond of peace (Colossians 3:15);
•    one body, the mystical Body of Christ, comprising all believers (1 Corinthians 10:17);
•    one and the same Spirit indwelling every believer (1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19);
•    one hope of eternal life (Romans 8:28-30);
•    one Lord, Jesus Christ (John 13:13);
•    one faith, the doctrinal beliefs (2 Timothy 3:15-17);
•    one baptism of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13);
•    one God and Father of all (1 Corinthians 8:6).

Reading again the above passage, John 17:20–23, you can then appreciate why Dr. Francis Schaeffer maintained that the unity of believers is “the final apologetic,” the ultimate defense to the authenticity of the Christian faith:

We cannot expect the world to believe that the Father sent the Son, that Jesus’ claims are true, and that Christianity is true, unless the world sees some reality of oneness of true Christians.6

Glory

Another advantage of Jesus Christ that believers are kept for Him is that we are divinely intended to reflect His glory. The Apostle Paul revealed this truth:

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

Paul states that unlike Moses, who had to veil his face while speaking face-to-face with the Lord because the reflection of God’s glory was so intense that it caused his face to shine (Exodus 34:33-35), believers today do not need to veil their faces when looking at the glory of the Lord. The phrase translated here, beholding as in a mirror, is one word in the Greek. It literally means reflecting as a mirror,7 the implication being to look at something as in a mirror, contemplate something.8 The mirror is figurative of God’s Word, the Bible. When we contemplate the truths of His Word, we are “beholding the glory of the Lord as reflected”9 back to us, just as when Moses communed with the Lord on Mt. Sinai.

Thus, when we step away from the study of His Word, we begin to reflect His glory. This is borne out by the phrase being transformed into the same image. It is the same command given by Paul in Romans 12:2, “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” W.E. Vine aptly explains that this renewing is the believer undergoing “a complete change which, under the power of God, will find expression in character and conduct”10 into the same glorious image as Our Lord. His glory that we project increases in stages, from glory to glory, as we continue to contemplate and study His Word. We reflect His glory to the world, by exhibiting His reality and His work of redemption.

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[1] Chafer, L.S. (1976). Systematic Theology, Dallas, TX: Dallas Seminary Press, 3.268

[2] Dana, H.E. and Mantey Julius R., (1957). A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament. Toronto, Ontario: The Macmillan Company, p.84.

[3] Zodhiates, S. (2000). The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament (electronic ed.). Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, G5092.

[4] Aalen, Sverre (1986). The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Colin Brown, Gen.Ed.). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2.44.

[5] Ryrie, C. C. (1995). Ryrie Study Bible: New American Standard Bible, 1995 Update (Expanded ed.). Chicago: Moody Press, p.1715 note.

[6] Schaeffer, Francis A. (1985). The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 4.189

[7] Liddell, H. G. (1996). A Lexicon: Abridged from Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., p. 423.

[8] Arndt, W., Gingrich, F. W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (1979). In A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 424.

[9] Zodhiates, G2734.

[10] Vine, W. E., Unger, M. F., & White, W., Jr. (1996). Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words. Nashville, TN: T. Nelson, 2.639.

 

 © 2023 David M. Rossi

 

ST. PATRICK

☘ On March 17^th, 465 A.D., the man known today as St. Patrick died and left an indelible mark on Irish history as well as on all of Christianity. The day is celebrated by many in different ways and for different reasons. There are parades and festivals and there are those who hoist their favorite brew with songs and poems commemorating Ireland and this great man of God.

Patrick is believed by many to have been born about 387 A.D. in Kilpatrick near Dumbarton in Scotland, the son Calpurnius, a senator and deacon, and Conchessa. Also his grandfather was a priest.1 He was a good Roman, a Latin-speaking son of Roman wealth and Roman privilege, living in Britain, a land from which the Roman Empire was receding from its dominate position in the world.2 When he was about sixteen years old, Irish pirates abducted him, taking him along with thousands of others to Ireland. There he was enslaved as a herder of their flocks. During his enslavement, the teachings from his youth of Christ were reawakened. He escaped six years later to France or Britain. It is at this point in his life that he declares that he had a calling in a dream by a man named Victoricus. This man handed Patrick a letter entitled “The Voices of the Irish” that begged him to come back to Ireland and help them. Realizing his inadequate knowledge, He resumed the education that had been interrupted by his enslavement, took holy orders, and eventually made it back to Ireland.

Ireland at this time was an undivided country, consisting of many petty kingdoms. It was a violent place—as a way of life, brother fought brother and tribes fought each other.3 This made Patrick’s travels in Ireland far from easy. He had to make alliances with these kings and their families in order to secure safe passage throughout the country. His efforts and obedience to God’s leading succeeded; devoting the rest of his life to the conversion of the Irish peoples—ordaining clergymen and baptizing thousands.4 He believed that Ireland was at the ends of the inhabited earth and that he was fulfilling the Lord’s command just as the Apostle Paul, to “bring salvation to the end of the earth” (Acts 13:47). He passionately believed in Our Lord’s proclamation recorded in Matthew 24:14:

“The gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”

There are many legends which surround the work of Patrick in Ireland. And as with all legends there are elements of truth contained. He is said to have driven all the snakes and frogs from Ireland by ringing his bell from the top of Croagh Patrick, a 2500 feet tall mountain near Westport. However, there is no evidence of snakes in Ireland prior to the Ice Age which separated the island from the mainland. And yet the truth of the matter may be that the druids who were converted to Christianity used the symbol of a serpent in their cultic worship.

A more believable legend is that Patrick used the three-leaf clover (shamrock) to teach the very difficult truth of the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as the Triune God. He was apparently very successful for the pagan leaders were converted as well as their subjects, and thousands were baptized into Christianity.

Philip Schaff, the Christian historian, provides an interesting side note:

The Christianity of Patrick was substantially that of Gaul and old Britain, i.e. Catholic, orthodox, monastic, ascetic, but independent of the Pope, and differing from Rome in the age of Gregory I in minor matters of polity and ritual. In his Confession he never mentions Rome or the Pope; he never appeals to tradition, and seems to recognize the Scriptures (including the Apocrypha) as the only authority in matters of faith. He quotes from the canonical Scriptures twenty-five times; three times from the Apocrypha.5

How many Christians today believe as Patrick did, that the Scriptures are the only authority in their lives? This truth comes to us from within the writings of the Apostle Paul who wrote:

All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

400 years after Paul wrote this, Patrick took this established doctrine to a land and a people that had enslaved him in his youth and revolutionized their thinking from paganism to a faith in the God of Scripture—the One true God of the universe. In his own writings, Patrick regarded his ministry as God’s accomplishments of converting a people who “cherished idols and unclean things”6 as the fulfillment of Hosea 2:23:

  “And I will say to those who are not My people,

‘You are My people!

  And they will say, ‘You are my God!’”

The profound lesson we learn from Patrick is that he believed in the sufficiency of God’s Word to direct his life, to the extent that he became faithful in spreading the Gospel of Christ to a pagan people, convincing them to turn from their idols and to serve a living and true God (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Are we challenged today to do likewise? Do our words and actions encourage others to desire to hear the gospel?

We live in a culture that is systematically rejecting its original Christian heritage. Christianity is a fading memory and regarded as nothing more than myths and superstitions. Our challenges today may be different than those of Patrick’s time, yet the Gospel message remains the same, that God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).

We who believe in Jesus Christ have been given the same calling that Patrick had been given, to communicate this powerful gospel message to our culture by word and by our manner of living. For just as it was not the government or any social organization which resolved the difficulties of the Irish people of Patrick’s day, it is only the gospel of salvation that can resolve the core problem of our own culture.☘

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[1] Hoever, Hugo [Ed.] (1959). Lives of the Saints, New York, NY: Catholic Book Publishing, p. 111.

[2] Rogers, Jonathan (2010). Saint Patrick, Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson p. 4.

[3] Rogers, p. 101.

[4] Rogers, p. xxi, 65, 67.

[5] Schaff, Philip (2006) History of the Christian Church. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 4.47.

[6] Rogers, p. 98.

 

© 2023 David M. Rossi

 

JUDE 1b: ETERNALLY LOVED AND KEPT

 

Verse 1: Jude, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ. 

Beloved in God

In the previous study it was established that the believer had been called to salvation by the effectual drawing of the God the Father (John 6:44, 65). Jude now asserts that we are beloved in God. God loves us not in an emotional manner; His love for us is unconditional and self-sacrificial. He demonstrated His love by providing eternal life by grace, through faith alone (Ephesians 2:8-9) and “that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Dr. Wuest elaborates on the unique Greek construction of this word beloved:

The perfect tense speaks here of the fact that the saints are the permanent objects of God’s love. Jude is therefore writing to those who have been loved by God the Father with the present result that they are in a state of being the objects of His permanent love, and that love extends not merely through the brief span of this life, but throughout eternity. 1

The Apostle John expresses the depth of the Father’s love for us when he wrote:

See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. (1 John 3:1)

Now that we are saved by His matchless grace, we are indeed in the most extraordinary position as the objects of His eternal love. This He demonstrated when He “gave His only begotten Son” (John 3:16) to die on the cross in order to secure our redemption from the penalty of sin.

Kept for Jesus Christ

 The word kept is another technical theological term. The basic meaning of the Greek word is to keep, hold, reserve, preserve someone or something, unharmed or undisturbed for a definite purpose or for a suitable time.2 This phrase highlights an aspect of our salvation, known in Christian theology as the perseverance of the saints or eternal security. Note the following verses which attest to this truth:

“This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:39–40)

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” (John 10:27–29)

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?...For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35, 38–39)

Regarding the Apostle Paul's statements in Romans 8, John MacArthur maintains that “no stronger passage in the Old Testament or New Testament exists for the absolute, eternal security of every true Christian.”3

There is an old adage which applies to this doctrine of the believer being eternally secure by the free gift of salvation: “Once saved. Always saved.” Dr. Chafer contends this to be true:

No individual once the recipient of the saving grace of God will ever fall totally and finally from that estate, but that he shall be “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” (1 Peter 1:5).4

He further asserts that:

There is no true distinction indeed between salvation and safekeeping, for God offers no salvation at the present time which is not eternal.5

Scripture emphatically states that the believer can never lose his salvation—that salvation is forever. Even if the individual states that they no longer want to be saved and associated with God or the Bible (cf. 2 Timothy 2:13)—nothing can separate them from the eternal status of being saved by grace.

Moreover, the Apostle Paul declares that we are securely sealed in Him by the work of the Holy Spirit:

In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory. (Ephesians 1:13–14)

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. (Ephesians 4:30)

And adding to this, the Apostle Paul also stated that our present position is seated in heavenly places:

Even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:5–6)

In conclusion, Scripture assures that once a person believes in the finished work of Christ on their own behalf, that they are secure forever and nothing can separate them from the love of God, not now or in eternity.

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[1] Wuest, K. S. (1997). Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament: for the English Reader. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 16.232.

[2] Arndt, W., Gingrich, F. W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (1979). A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 814.

[3] MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (2006). The MacArthur Study Bible. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, John 10:28 note.

[4] Chafer, L.S. (1976). Systematic Theology, Dallas, TX: Dallas Seminary Press, 3.267

[5] Chafer, 7.286

 

© 2023 David M. Rossi