Safe and Secure

Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. Jude 1:5 NASB

Did not believe – Most of the time we just skip over this one page letter in the back of the book. Just twenty-five verses filled with lots of strange allusions and quotations from non-canonical literature, Jude has given commentators fits ever since it was included in Holy Scripture. Nevertheless, some have taken up the challenge, often suggesting rather odd conclusions like that of Michael Green, “This allusion to Israel in the wilderness makes it very plain that Jude’s opponents were once orthodox Christians who had gone wilfully [sic] astray into heresy.”[1] I am not sure where Green gets the idea that these opponents were orthodox Christians, but I am sure he means well. The text itself is quite messy. NASB translates part as “the Lord, after saving,” but at least some Greek manuscripts read ‘Iesous apax, which the ESV translates, “Jesus after saving.” References to fallen angels seem to be taken from material we no longer have although obviously Jude’s readers knew the source. Peter assumes the same thing in his second letter. All in all, quite a mess.

But Green captures the gist of Jude’s concern even if he thinks in Christian terms. “It is hardly surprising that men accepted the indicative of pardon and forgot the imperative of holiness. It was an inherent risk in the proclamation of the gospel of free grace, and it has always been so since then.”[2] It seems to me that this is a problem invented by Luther, not Jude. Luther’s view of grace stands in opposition to the Roman idea of law. As such, Luther’s reading of the text appeals to “freedom from the law,” a concept that would never have entered the mind of a Jew. Once we adopt the same Lutheran view, we are left with statements like Green’s. But if the Hebraic idea of deliverance (grace = hen) includes the inevitable and necessary action of obligation to holiness (hesed), then there really isn’t a problem, is there? Those who did not believe (Greek me pisteusantas) were not those who drifted into heresy but rather those who, having tasted God’s renewal, refused to follow through with the expected obedience. It isn’t failure to maintain proper theology. It is a failure to do what God demands. Faith is acting according to the expectations of a life committed to the Lord. Faith is not distinct from these actions. Those who do not exhibit the actions do not believe no matter what their past experience with God has been.

In other words, once we remove the Lutheran idea that grace and obedience are two separate events, one accomplished by God alone and the other optional, Jude’s warning makes perfect sense. If faith is obedience, then we have examples of those who once obeyed and subsequently did not—and God judged them accordingly. Safe and secure simply means continuing to obey. Jude’s Hebraic declaration is the end of the “once saved always saved” mythology. That bifurcation of belief and obedience isn’t found in Hebraic language, either in the Tanakh or the apostolic writings. God does secure our salvation, but not without our cooperation. It’s kind of like this: if a child that you attempted to adopt refused to live in your house, disobeyed all your rules, claimed to have a different name and denied your very existence, would you say that the child was adopted even if you signed the papers? Does a name on a list make one a member of the household?

Topical Index: believe, pisteuo, hesed, grace, judgment, salvation, Jude 1:5

[1] Michael Green, The Second Epistle of Peter and the Epistle of Jude, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, p. 164.

[2] Ibid., p. 162.