“Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints.” (Jude 3).

This is why Jude writes to the church in the apostasy of the last days, urging Christians to earnestly contend for the faith. Heretics had crept into the churches, so Jude goes into action at once, alerting the congregations by means of this letter. The action he advocates is not so much in opposition to heresies and heretics as it is “for the faith.” True, there are enemies within (more dangerous than those without), and they must be dealt with stren­uously, but opposing them must be for the sake of the faith.

BELOVED. The word appears 62 times in the New Testament, thrice being translated well-beloved, 9 times dearly beloved and thrice dear. It is no mere term of sentimental endearment. Such is not to be found in the Bible. It is an inspired word of God, as much as any other part of infallible, God- breathed Scripture. Then it is much more than the writer’s polite, even intimate and loving form of address. It is what the Spirit saith to the churches, to God’s people, His beloved ones, loved with an everlasting love. The “beloved of God” are “called saints,” that is, saints by calling. Rom. 1:7. “Beloved” is a name of God’s elect, for they are “as touching election be­loved.” Rom. 11:28. The name, then, belongs to the church corporately, Eph. 5:25, and to its membership individual­ly. Rom. 16:5, 8, 9, 12. Therefore, when the minister thus properly ad­dresses the church in the stated worship service, God is saying to her, “I have loved thee; thou art Mine.” Isa. 43:4, 1.

THE COMMON SALVATION. This is the subject matter of the faith once delivered to the saints. It is the faithful saying worthy of all their acceptation and enjoyed in common with them all. Its commonality is not in this, that it is a sincere offer and invitation to all humanity reached with the notice of it, but in this, that its common proclamation is of a particular gospel. Eternal salvation is not com­mon to all men, head for head, for all are not within the fold and enclosure of salvation. But the meaning is that it is common to all God’s elect, to all true believers in Christ, to all the saints. The electing love of God is common to them all alike. What else they have in common is the same covenant of grace, the same promised and realized bless­ings in Christ, the same precious price of His own blood making them His own property, the same righteousness, regeneration, calling, justification, sanctification, the same common inher­itance of glory, and the same one and only way of salvation through “the common faith” (Tit. 1:4) in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Its common­ality embraces not all men absolutely, but all His people, the church and its members of all sorts and conditions of men redeemed out of every kindred, tongue, tribe, people and nation.

THE EXHORTATION: “that ye should earnestly contend.” This is one word in the original, meaning literally “to increase and intensify the agoniz­ing,” as in gymnastic competition, ‘‘to contend for masteries, for athletic victories” in the crowded stadium (I Cor. 9:24, 25), ‘‘to struggle with vehement zeal,” as in pugilistic combat (9:26, 27. So the term is strong enough to carry the idea of fight (Jn. 18:36). We fight ‘‘for the faith.” What is that? The faith of the Bible, say the heretics and cultists. What does the Bible teach? we ask. Answering that pro­duces a creed. We fight for our creeds, the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the Creed of Chalcedon. We will fight for much more: for the personally applied truth as expressed in the Heidelberg Cate­chism, for the six loci of Reformed doctrine as expressed in the articles of the Belgic Confession, for what we call six-petaled T-U-L-I-P-S, taking the S for the Sovereignty of God, then Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Lim­ited Atonement, Irresistible Grace and Preservation and Perseverance of the Saints, as expressed in the Canons of Dordt. The errors we contend against are the so called ‘‘free offer of the gospel” and the free-willism of human nature’s exalted purity and power. We struggle against deniers of double predestination: divine election and sovereign reprobation. We agonize to keep all this precious body of truth. We are “valiant for truth,” not chiefly negatively, but positively in preaching it boldly, openly, fully and faithfully, disputing the very opposite to the truth, the lie, and defending the faith in our writings and publications and in our tape recording and radio ministries. It is a battle fought in much agony of soul to preserve our Christian schools and to keep our churches thriving under the preaching of the pure Word of God.

HOW. We all earnestly contend for the faith when we: (1) support faithful pastors by our attendance upon the means of grace, (2) honor our office bearers, (3) encourage our mission­aries, (4) distribute our pamphlets, books and periodicals and (5) train others to be faithful witnesses and ambassadors for Christ in our schools and seminary. Our Sunday School teachers are also earnestly contending for the faith when their educative ministry is in the spirit of, ‘‘Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge” (Prov. 19:27).

Our most holy faith was once-for- all delivered to the saints. This occurred when the divine revelation in holy Scripture was finally completed in the last inspired book of the Bible having been written, that of The Revelation. With that book delivered to the church the canon of Scripture, the only infallible rule of faith and life, was closed. Nothing further was to be added. It is not the Book of the Scripture plus some other book, say the Koran, or whatever. Divine revelation is not a mixture of fact and fantasy, the sublime and the ridiculous. To offer other extra-biblical books that contain other than this faith of the Scriptures as keys to the truth is to offer the poison of the lie. To add in this way a book by a male or a female heretic, or to subtract from “the faith” by a Digest Bible or a Shorter New Testament is to intrude what God in Christ did not give or to corrupt and remove what He gave. So, to the end of the world, it is the canonical Scripture given once-for- all which is the only rule of faith and conduct. We cannot have an “only rule” then plus something. God speaks to us exclusively through that only rule of faith and practice, Holy Scripture, and no more through dreams, visions, voices, Christophanies, strange lan­guage utterances or fantastical mir­acles. We cannot have an “only rule” and a subtraction from it. A yardstick is thirty-six inches; it is not forty inches long, nor is it thirty-four inches in length. Our only infallible rule is Moses, the Prophets, the Psalms, the Gospels and the Epistles. Let all men hear them, for if men believe not the Scripture canon, if they believe not the once-for-all delivered Faith, neither will they believe despite all the rest!

TO THE SAINTS. What does this mean? It means that the Faith was once for all delivered to the Church of saints. For example, “the saints at Jeru­salem” (Acts 9:13) means the church there. The saints in Rome refers to the church in Rome (Rom. 1:7; 16:15). “The church of God at Corinth” consisted of sanctified “called saints” (I Cor. 1:2). “The church at Corinth” with “all the saints which are in all Achaia” (II Cor. 1:1) shows that the saints were not just loose, scattered groups of believers, but were organized and instituted in local churches. So when the Scripture speaks of the saints at Ephesus, at Philippi and at Colossae, it means the churches in these places. The church of the saints is the depository of the Christian Faith. Unto it the oracles of God were committed. (See Acts 7:38; 20:17, 27, 28; Rom. 3:2; II Cor. 5:19; II Pet. 1:1; 3:1; 1:21).

The word “saints” means “holy ones,” but that does not mean we may find a perfect church on earth. Jesus had said to the apostles, “Ye are clean, but not all.” Judas was also in the apostolate. The church in Samaria, under the stirring ministry of Philip, had, in its membership a baptized, base and hypocritical pretender to magic. No church is perfect. The emperor, Frederick III, who had re­quested the preparation and production of the Heidelberg Catechism, answered one of his courtiers who hoped to find a church free of hypocrites in the words, “You will have to go beyond the frozen sea where there are no men. Yet if you should reach the place, there might be one hypocrite there then!”

JUDE WARNS. “I gave all dili­gence to write unto you. . .it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you.” Apply this to ourselves and our churches today. Why is this so needful? Our churches are extending their bounds. They are prosperous, especially spiritually. We have been awakened out of sleep, are favored with morning light and much happy activity. Rut there are dangers in all this. The spurious is so likely to slip in unnoticed. Jude warns us that in the church in her best condition men, and women, will arise who are clouds without rain, trees without fruit, giving themselves over to fornication. “Take heed that ye be not deceived” (Lk. 21:8). Take heed to the Faith once delivered to the saints. Be sound in it, true to it, earnestly contend for it, with the aim to be approved in the sight of God. Then our work shall be real and permanent.