(13) I had many things to write unto thee, but I am unwilling to write them to thee with ink and pen: (14) but I hope shortly to see thee, and we shall speak face to face. Peace be unto thee. The friends salute thee. Salute the friends by

name.

the control of Diotrephes, without belonging to them inwardly. But for this very reason the Apostle has sent the congregational letter through the missionaries to him, who would, sooner than the excommunicated Gaius, manage to put it into the hands of the congregation. For this reason Gaius is to be moved by this recommendation to trust Demetrius, and already on account of the letter, to enter into closer relations with him. At the close of the letter, as at the close of his 13 congregational letters, the Apostle refers to his approaching visit, on which occasion he will orally communicate all details to Gaius. Then follows the wish of peace, and the greetings from old friends of Gaius. But as the Apostle expressly directs him to greet his friends by name, it follows from this, that he can only count some few in the congregation as such, but all the warmer on this account are the greetings which he sends them.

1

THE EPISTLE OF

JUDE

I 1Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ: (2) Mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied.

1 Gr. Judas. Gr. bondservant. $ Or, Jacob. Or, to them that are beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ, being called.

The author in the address of this letter merely describes himself as a man who is standing in the presence of Christ, and whose admonitions the readers are accordingly to heed. But in order that they may know which Jude it is, he calls himself the brother of the well-known James, who was so highly honored among the Gentile and the Jewish Christians as the head of the congregation in Jerusalem. He was accordingly, as this James was also, one of the brothers of Jesus, i. e. of the sons of Mary and Joseph, born later than Jesus. He does not, as the New Testament letters generally do, address himself to a particular congregation or group of congregations, but only to those who have remained faithful in one of these, for which reason, too, the place where they live is not mentioned. These belong, as all Christians do, to the called, who, because God through Christ has become our Father, know that they are beloved of God, and in consequence of this love are reserved for Christ as His property, to whom they were originally consecrated in baptism, because God has strengthened them in their faithfulness toward Him, although others have become 2 unfaithful. For this reason the blessing, with which

(3) Beloved, while I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints. (4) For there are certain men crept in privily, even they who were of old 1 written of beforehand unto this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying 2 our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

1 Or, set forth.

2

Or, the only Master, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

the Epistle opens, starts with the mercy of God, which has called them unto redemption in Christ, and in Him has given them his love. He can only wish, then, that all this be increased in them.

The author begins by explaining the occasion of his letter. It is, indeed, true that he personally did not lack the zealous desire to write to them; but then 3 he would rather have spoken to them concerning the deliverance which he, the believer out of Israel, has secured in common with them, the Gentile Christians, and which in the end, on the day of judgment, is to be given to them as the goal of their Christian hope. Then a circumstance occurred which forced him, rather to write to them an earnest word of admonition, urging forcibly upon them to fight for the precious possession of the confidence in this consummation of redemption, which had been entrusted to them when in baptism they had been consecrated to God as His possession, but which cannot be entrusted to them a second time if they do not faithfully preserve the holiness which had been given them, and in this way permit it to be lost. The reason, however, which has made such 4 an admonition necessary is this, that several persons have appeared in the congregation who really did not belong to it, and could only have come into it surreptitiously, because they are by no means holy persons, but such as have in times past been described in the Old

(5) Now I desire to put you in remembrance, though ye know all things once for all, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them

1 Many very ancient authorities read Jesus.

Gr. the second time.

Testament Scriptures as men who are under the judg ment of iniquity. They, indeed, pretend to be Christians, but they regard the grace of God, who has in Christ entered into a special relationship of love to us, as a permit for licentiousness, because His grace would under all circumstances grant them forgiveness for everything, a claim which Paul had already foreseen as coming (cf. Rom. vi. 15). But thereby, as a matter of fact, they deny, that they have a Superior over them, who certainly is for them, as Christians, the only Master, and they act as though Jesus Christ were not our Lord 5 who had been exalted to God. As Jude merely intends to admonish his readers in their contest with these impious men, who through their deception would make them lose their certainty for their final redemption, to defend this possession that had been entrusted to them, he certainly knows full well, that already on a previous occasion, when this had been entrusted to them, they had learned to know upon what presupposition this assurance rests, and by what way only it can be preserved. Nevertheless, he wants to remind them once again of all this.

For, as they know, the people of Israel, whom God delivered out of Egypt, know everything that the grace of their God had done to them and had thereby guaranteed to them. But when they, notwithstanding this, lost their confidence in Him, then, when for the second time the question was to be decided, whether He would deliver them and take them into the Promised Land or not, He gave them up to destruction in the wilderness. If this could happen to a whole nation, as it did to the

that believed not. (6) And angels that kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. (7) Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, having in like manner with these given themselves over to fornication and gone after strange flesh, are set forth 1as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire.

1 Or, as an example of eternal fire, suffering punishment.

chosen people of God, how much more to them, if they, through the abuse of this grace and the actual denial of the sovereignty of the Mediator of their redemption, permit the assurance of attaining their redemption that is in store for them to be lost. But even such highly 6 favored creatures as those angels were, of whom Gen. vi. 2 speaks, have not preserved the high position of dignity that was given to them, when they descended upon the earth and mingled with the daughters of men. An old Jewish book (the so-called Book of Enoch), which at that time was highly revered but afterwards was not received into the canon, describes how these angels are bound with chains that cannot be broken and covered with the deepest darkness, and are preserved for the judgment of a great day, such as the final judgment will be. But they can no longer escape from this habitation of theirs, and for this reason there is no escape for them from the eternal destruction; nor is there such for those who have deserted the dignity of saints which has been given them and have again sunk into godlessBut we need not to search for hidden information, which reports concerning the punishment of those angels. For in the case of the cities in the Siddim valley, 7 which made themselves guilty of the same terrible sins of prostitution when the Sodomites lusted after the flesh of the angels who in human form had entered the house of Lot (cf. Gen. xix. 5), which was for them just as much strange flesh as was that of the daughters of men, after

ness.