Verse 10: But these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.
Jude now lays out in a logical manner the ignorance of these men, the false teachers. On the one hand they revile (blaspheme) things they do not even understand. They know nothing and are unable to comprehend specifically anything about the present and the future glories1 of the Lord Jesus Christ—about His present position at the right hand of the Father (Hebrews 1:3; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2; 1 Peter 3:22) and His Second Coming (1 Peter 1:7, 13; 4:13; 5:1). The Apostle Paul explained the reason for their lack of understanding these things:
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. (1 Corinthians 2:14)
Paul further emphasizes his stance about the false teachers in his epistle to Timothy:
If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. (1 Timothy 6:3–5)
Paul maintains that because these false teachers are advocates of “a different doctrine” it has caused them to be conceited, while they continually understand nothing—literally, not a single thing.2 Their conceit is a form of arrogant self-importance and self-delusion, which the Greek grammar contends that this delusion continue to this day.
This is a bit of irony on Jude’s part, since these men were Gnostics and believed that they were in “possession of a superior wisdom, which is hidden from others.”3 For the Gnostics claimed to have a “private knowledge over and above that of the Bible.”4 The Gnostics also believed that all matter was inherently evil, including the human body. This led to their false teaching that since the body is evil, Jesus could not be true humanity, that He had only a superficial body and not a real one.5 This is how they blasphemed the Lord of glory based on human viewpoint and not upon the absolute truth of God’s Word. To reject Divine Truth and attempt to interpret Scripture with human viewpoint and subjective feelings will result in irrational conclusions, thus false doctrine.
And then on the other hand, Jude says that what they do know, they know by animal instincts. The Greek word ‘know’ implies a “knowledge that a person receives by observation or by hearing some information.”6 It is by this type of objective and rational reasoning that a normal person obtains the understanding of what they know. But these things which the apostates know and understand have been derived by “instinct,” like unreasoning animals that are lacking in rational thought processes. Animal instincts are actually the result of behavioral patterns responding to the stimulus of observation or the hearing of a command. This is taught in basic biology.
An instinct is the ability of an animal to perform a behavior the first time it is exposed to the proper stimulus. For example, a dog will drool the first time—and every time—it is exposed to food.7
The question that is left unasked: What actually do these men know by instinct? This takes us back to the gross immoralities of Sodom and Gomorrah (v.7) and the defiling of the flesh (v.8). Just like animals that do not have the ability of rational reasoning, these men respond to the immoral stimulus of the fleshly demands of the body. Fornication, homosexuality, pedophilia—anything goes, whatever the body craves. And they respond like any irrational of animal.
Since they lack objective reasoning, Jude declares that they are destroyed by these things. The Greek word for ‘destroyed’ here is different than what Jude used in verse 5, there it refers specifically to the physical death of the unbelieving Israelites. In this verse, Jude uses a word which conveys a type of destruction that these false teachers have effected upon themselves—moral and spiritual corruption.8 They have corrupted themselves and are therefore moral and spiritual degenerates.
Their degeneracy is evidenced by their rejection and distortion of God’s Truth and the spreading of their false doctrines. The Apostle Peter referring to these same apostates outlined their deception designed to enslave believers in their moral and spiritual degeneracy:
For speaking out arrogant words of vanity they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error, promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved. (2 Peter 2:18–19)
Peter goes on to assure us that God’s judgment upon them is a certainty. He wrote that the Lord will “keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment and especially those who indulge the flesh in its corrupt desires and despise authority” (2 Peter 2:9b-10a).
A Final Thought
The Apostle John declared:
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. (2 John 7)
These false teachers are the same deceivers who John characterized as the antichrist, not an individual person, but the embodiment of all apostates that Jude, Peter, John and Paul have been unmasking. As Jude explains, their teachings are based entirely upon sensual instincts and human viewpoint thinking. Their rejection and misinterpretation of God’s Word obliterates God’s Truth. What remains is relative ‘truth’ which leads to the advancement of their distortion of Biblical doctrines.
The gospel of Christ (Galatians 1:7), God’s
grace gift of salvation, is a prime example of present day distortion of truth.
In many Christian circles today the clarity of the gospel of salvation has been
inaccurately taught. For the Scriptures are clear on how one may obtain
salvation: “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” (Acts
16:31a) and “He who believes in the Son has eternal life” (John 3:36a).
Salvation is obtained “through faith” in Jesus Christ by virtue of God’s grace
provision (Ephesians 2:8), accomplished by His Son Jesus Christ on Calvary’s
cross (Colossians 1:20; Hebrews 2:9; 1 Peter 2:24). Nowhere in Scripture does
it state: “to accept Christ”; “I found Jesus”; “let Him into your heart”;
“answer the knock at the door”; “invite Him into your life”. This is an example
of why Jude appealed that we “contend earnestly for the faith” (v.3) and for
maintaining the clarity of “the truth of the gospel” (Galatians 2:4-5) - as well as the whole realm of Biblical doctrines.
[1] See explanation of “glories” in verse 8.
[2] Paul used the same Greek word for ‘understand’ as Jude
[3] Lightfoot, J.B. (1999). St. Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, p. 77.
[4] Wuest, K. S. (1997). Wuest’s Word Studies from the Greek New Testament, Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 13.89.
[5] Wuest, 13.89.
[6] Beetham, Christopher A. (Ed.) (2021). ἐπίσταμαι (epistamai). The Concise New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis, Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, p. 311.
[7] https://bio.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Introductory_and_General_Biology/Book%3A_Introductory_Biology_(CK-12)/10%3A_Animals/10.04%3A_Innate_Behavior_of_Animals [Retrieved April 12,2023]
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