“For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). For introduces the reason why Jude must write and his readers must earnestly contend for the faith.

CREPT IN. Some men (not many in Jude’s day) did sneak in secretly by a side door into the church. They slipped past the strait gate to slither through other than the right way. (Jn. 10:1, 7, 9). Apostates are more slippery than eels in a barrel of lard. They are serpents which glided in before pastor and people were aware. Arminius was a crypto-Romanist who crept into people’s hearts and affections (cp. Absalom), pretending to be a friend of truth and godliness, but all the while, gradually and surreptitiously, spread­ing the errors of humanism and Pelagianism. Under cover of defending the truth, he was undermining it. As the Roman Catholic church does today, Pelagius talked of nothing but “grace”, but all the while he meant “works.” So today, many popular sensationalistic evangelistic enterprises are really slippery skids back to Rome.

BEFORE OF OLD: that is, from eternity. (Mic. 5:2). These men were “written before of old,” so that though they crept in unawares as to the church, yet not as to God. They were new in the church, but old to God, as old as His decrees. “Of old’’ means more than yesterday, or a long time ago as prophesied by Peter and Paul, as though whatever was in God’s mind in this connection, it was subsequent to the acts of His creatures. “Of old’’ means as old as possible, back within the eternal decrees and purposes of God. They were “of old before ordained to this condemnation.’’

ORDAINED TO CONDEMNA­TION. This is the decree of reprobation by their sins to come to condemnation. This, more than a mere foreknowledge, is a foreordination. The most wicked deed that ever occurred, the murder of the Son of God, came not only to the notice of foreknowledge, but was foreordained in “the determinate coun­sel of God.” Acts 2:23. It was not only definitely foreknown, but was un­changeably preordained and predeter­mined. Acts 4:27-28. God has so determined. There is nothing prior to God, nothing above or below Him, no outside cause of His will, to which He must respond or react. The thoughts and actions of God all begin in Himself and are determined by His sovereign will. Eph. 1:11. Jude is not saying that God determines on a foresight of man’s will receiving or rejecting proferred mercy. For then man’s will would be a superior cause to an act of God. No, but “He hath mercy on whom He will, and whom He will He hardeneth.” Rom. 9:18. Where it is said that “God hath not appointed us to wrath” (I Thess. 5:9), others He has so appointed (I Pet. 2:8) to stumble, to disobedience (to refuse Christ), to condemnation. For this reason, they are called “vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.” Rom. 9:22. Jesus, addressing the reprobate, said, “Ye believe not because ye are not of My sheep.” Jn. 10:11. For only “as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.” Acts 13:48. Some, the elect, were ordained to eternal life; the rest, the reprobate, were ordained to condemnation. This was before written in the Book of God’s eternal decrees.

THE WESTMINSTER CONFES­SION on this point states, “God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass. . .By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordain­ed to everlasting death.”

UNGODLY MEN so hate God and one another that they give diligence to make their reprobation evident to themselves and to everyone else. But we are exhorted to “give diligence to make your calling and election sure,” that is, labor to show the evidences of election marked out in II Pet. 1:5-10. Then we shall not fear being in the number of reprobates. What is the evidence that you are ordained to eternal life? That you believe; you use the means of grace; you find in yourself the good things Peter stressed as marks of election. But the careless and profane refuse the life of good works in which God has before ordained that His elect should walk. Although sovereign­ly ordained to condemnation, they also themselves by their own sin decide their own comfortless case to hear the just denunciation, “Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish. . .ye put it (the Word of God) from you and judge yourselves unworthy of everlast­ing life” (Acts 13:41, 46). There are downward steps to the accomplishment of the decree of reprobation: obstinacy against the loving counsel of God’s Word, the constant neglect of the means of grace, persistence in a way of error, a hardening of oneself in a life of sin. These are black marks of reproba­tion. Beware lest you be found one of them who by sin are ordained to condemnation. “Eli’s sons hearkened not to the counsel of their father because the Lord had a mind to slay them.” “Wherefore the rather, breth­ren, give diligence. . .”

“Ungodly ones” are, as the word signifies, “without worship.” It applies to the heathen world that lives without knowledge and worship of the true God. These are wicked and ungodly outside the church who stand opposed to the house of God: I Pet. 4:18. Also the term refers to those who acknow­ledge the true God, having a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof by a walk contrary to their knowledge and profession. Further, the term describes our unjustified state by nature, out of which we are brought only by the death of Christ, who “died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6), that we might be “justified by His blood” (5:9) through believing “on Him that justifi­ed the ungodly” (4:5).

LASCIVIOUSNESS is a mark of apostasy. The apostates were and are “turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.” The word appears 9 times in the New Testament, 6 times being translated as here, twice “wan­tonness” and once “filthy.” Licen­tiousness if defined as outrageous, unbridled lust, lewdness, lechery, the libidinous. We should understand the clause this way: “As to our biblical doctrine of grace, turning it to or removing it for lasciviousness.” How do they do this? Two ways: (1) the legalistic apostates claim that ours is a licentious doctrine which makes men careless and profane; and (2) the antinomian apostates make grace com­mon, extending it equally to all men alike (including apostates). The error of “common grace” deadens men to and hardens them in sin “to work all uncleanness with greediness,” (Eph. 4:19), under the pretense of exalting free grace. They have only one string in their harp —love. Now they talk about a universal love to all men, so that God will not punish sin with eternal judgment, because He is too kind and loving. There is no hell because God is love. Universalists have been saying this for ages. Now this one harp-string is heard vibrating in Reformed church­es. The implication is, we can live any life-style we choose, the feminist, the effeminate, the sado-masochist, what­ever, and get by at last, for God is love. That’s turning out or removing the grace of God for licentiousness.

THE LORD, “and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” This could be more literally translated, “denying the only benevo­lent Despot, God, even our Lord Jesus Christ!” Jude words it so that only one Person is spoken of, our Lord Jesus Christ, in His absolute sovereignty as “the only Despot,” in His supreme deity, “God,” (and so in His divine essence), also denying His headship over the church and lordship over the world, “our Lord.” In Scripture He is called “the true God” (I John 5:20), “the great God” (Tit. 2:13), “the mighty God” (Isa. 9:6), “God overall” (Rom. 9:5), “God manifest in the flesh” (I Tim. 3:16). Here Jude says He is our only Master, only God and only Lord. Christ deniers say, “We are lords; we will come no more unto Thee” (Jer. 2:31). They are libertines. Their happiness is to be free of God. They are not happy unless they have freedom to go on sinning.

DENYING. Heretics always did and still do this. The Ebionites denied His deity, making Him a mere human being who received great power at his baptism. The union of the two natures in the one divine Person they regarded as impossible. Thus they also denied the incarnation. Manicheism held that the Son was an emanation from the Father’s substance. The Docetites de­nied the humanity of Christ; it was only a phantasmal appearance. The Eutychians held that there was only one nature in Christ, consisting of a mixture of humanity and deity, as in a mixture of water and wine. The Nestorians, because He had two na­tures, made Him two persons. They separated the two natures, as oil and water, not mixing, are separated. Apollinarianism made Christ’s human nature incomplete, the Logos taking the place of His human spirit. (Cp. Belgic Confession, IX, XIX).

Apostate human nature is so fallen as to be as bad as it can get, so that the apostate church goes for anything and everything bad. Whatever is the worst, most detestable evil beyond all others, apostates in the church will go for it and plunge into it. They depart from their plighted vows, divorce, remarry and go from one mate to another. Where polluted swamp waters find in them no hogs, frogs or maggots, these “filthy dreamers” wallow in the most miry pits. Terminal sexual diseases spring up and spread so that there is not hope of them dying out. Evil men and seducers are becoming worse and worse. Monsters of iniquity American people have become to outdo the Nazis in murdering human beings. There are whole herds of wolves in sheep’s clothing. The whole world is a Sodom and Gomorrah aflame in the divine vengeance of eternal fire. (Jude 7). God help us in mercy and preserve us for Jesus’ sake! Amen.