Jude

                  For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. (Jude 1:4)

                Not long ago, we explored some of what Paul wrote about false teachers. Today, let’s look at what Jude wrote. As a reminder, Jude was one of Jesus’ half-brothers, like James. In this letter, he wanted to write something about what he and his audience had in common: their salvation, but something had happened or been said that took the letter in a different direction. This is a common theme in the New Testament, so while we may be tempted to ignore it, we need to pay attention.

                Jude’s specific warning in this passage has three points. The first is that these people, people who do what he is going to describe, were written about long before his day, and they have been condemned. This doesn’t mean that they were condemned long ago, but that what they were doing was declared to be something for which people would be condemned. It’s not, “Joe and Lisa have been condemned.” It’s “People who pervert the grace of God have been condemned.”

                The second point is that they were acting in secret. They look good, sound good, and probably smell good, but they show up, and before long, they whisper, just to a few.

                The third point is the content of their whispers: about not judging, and loving everyone unconditionally, and that since we’re saved by grace, we can do whatever we want. God will forgive us. It sounds good. It sounds Biblical, but it’s using the Bible to violate the principles of the Bible, and that’s what Jude is writing about.  While doing “whatever we want because of grace” is bad enough, teaching others to do whatever they want because of grace is worse.  

                I’m not suggesting that we should be legalistic and throw people out of the Church if they fail in any way. But the warnings about false teachers show that it is imperative that we judge what we see and hear and reject what is evil. Loving everyone unconditionally is not described in Scripture as accepting, approving, and applauding anything and everything anyone wants to do. In fact, one can love a person and entirely reject what they do. And being saved by grace may mean that we can do what we want, but if we want to do what God has told us not to do, if we expect God to accept, approve, and applaud whatever we want to do, we’re making a big mistake. And if we’re teaching others to do these things, our danger is compounded.

                We need to pay attention to what is happening around us, and to what we are doing.