Heretics, One and All (1)
For certain people have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into indecent behavior and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Jude 1:4 NASB
Crept in unnoticed – Who are these terrible people? Who are the ones who crept in to the Messianic assembly, who are teaching false ideas, sending the flock in the wrong direction? According to Jude, they are not outside enemies, atheists fighting against all religion, or horrible pagans ready to devour the faithful. They are already in the community. In fact, as Jude explains, they espouse belief in the one true God of Israel, they participate in the rituals, they know Torah, and they are well known by the group. Their opposition is not principally theological. They fit—almost—what they really do is behave in ways that are not according to the Torah. They have incorporated Greco-Roman ideas and practices into their religious worldview, things that stand opposed to the teachings of Moses. Amazingly, Jude doesn’t even excommunicate them. His concern is not what to do with this fifth column. His concern is how to strengthen the true followers.[1]
Why is this important to us? Jude’s letter is thousands of years old. His opponents have been dead for centuries. The Church survived. Gnosticism was denied. Marcion was rejected. The faith was protected. So what’s the big deal now?
Ah, the big deal is that Jude isn’t Christian. He’s a Jewish follower of the Jewish Messiah according to the Jewish view of piety. That means Jude measures the opposition in terms of Moses. His argument isn’t about the eschatology, ecclesiology, soteriology, or cosmology. It’s about living according to the Law, and that only means one thing—living according to the revelation given to Moses. The ones Jude opposes are those who appear to be members of the group but, in fact, act in ways that are not in concert with Moses. They are, in a word, anti-Torah. As far as Jude is concerned, these people oppose God and will one day be held accountable by God. In fact, he likens their situation to that of the fallen celestial beings of Genesis 6, the citizens of Sodom, and the rebellious group in the wilderness.
Consider the real implications. If Jude were writing today, would he even recognize the modern Christian church? Jude, the advocate of Torah-observant service to the one true God of Israel, would be hard pressed to justify virtually any of the contemporary doctrines regarding law, grace, or the character of God. The Church today is, in fact, the ones who have crept in. Christianity’s view toward the Law, its notion of sin, its idea of repentance, its view of the afterlife, its declaration of the Godhead, are all syncretism—precisely what Jude wishes to expose. Tertullian, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Erickson, Geisler, et. al. are in the group of those who crept in. Oh, perhaps not intentionally. They all espoused similar beliefs, but when it comes to the place and priority of Moses, well, Jude has some pretty strong words to say. I wonder what he would say to us?
Topical Index: crept in, heretics, fifth column, Jude 1:4
[1] For a complete study of Jude, see my recent lecture series and notes at www.skipmoen.com
The nature of God disclosed in God’s self-revelation through Scripture— being the very testimony that brings to light the distinctive nature of the realities to which they witness, forcing the truth out into the open— is the way in which God addresses us personally. It is by the testimony of Scripture that knowledge of God and knowledge of ourselves are brought together, yet in such a way—in the Theanthropos of Jesus Christ—that God cannot be self-imagined or otherwise idolatrously conceived. (John 5:39)
All human terms and thoughts fall far short of the nature of God, so we must think through the relation of language to being in a thoroughly realistic way, in an onto-theological way, in the One who is declared the way, the truth and the life, and, except by him, no one comes to the Father. He alone is the image of the invisible God. And he is the firstborn of all creation, assumed (“taken up”) in the being of the true and living God, to serve as prophet, priest and Sovereign. (John 14:6; Colossians 1:15)
In Sinai’s context of dynamic relationship in which competing loyalties exist, the allure of all other loyalties for Israel are precluded by YHVH.
In response to YHVH’s revealed will, made known through the command of Torah, Israel’s work in relation with YHVH is one that is submitted to a rule of emancipation; nevertheless, it also remains for Israel a work of loyal obedience.
Yet this work of obedience, firmly grounded on the foundation stone of a dynamic relationship with YHVH, as “the elect people of God”— a rule of emancipation and willing exclusive loyalty— became for both houses of Israel a “stone of stumbling” and “rock of offence.”
How did this happen? Israel pursued the law of righteousness, as if emancipation comes merely by loyalty to the law rather than by exclusive loyalty to the lawgiver, pursuing an idol that they supposed is pleased by works, rather than loyal obedience to the emancipating will of the true and living God.