Study in the Epistle of Jude # 13: Verse 3

by Chris McCann

EBible Fellowship (http://www.ebiblefellowship.com)

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study time. We are currently looking at the book of James. We have reached the point in our study of Jude where Jude begins to speak of the faith that was “once delivered unto the saints.” This has brought us to James chapter 2, especially verses such as verse 21, where we have been looking at Abraham’s faith. In James 2:21, we read:

Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?

We have seen that it could not have been Abraham’s works that justified him because the Bible indicates that a man is not justified by works (Galatians 2:16). The works in view, we realized, must be the work of Jesus Christ. We progressed to verse 23, where it says:

And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.

Once again, we saw that the “it” that was imputed unto Abraham for righteousness was the faith of Christ, the work of Christ in providing salvation for those He came to save. That is what was imputed or counted for Abraham’s righteousness. This is the only possible explanation for this verse; we cannot understand it in any other way. It must be the faith of Christ, because other parts of the Bible clearly say that we are justified by Christ’s faith.

It goes on to say in verse 23:

…and he was called the Friend of God.

Here, as Abraham is called the “Friend of God,” we wonder, “What does it mean to be a ‘Friend of God’?” That is a nice thought. We would like to be the friend of God, so we are curious as to what God means by this language. How does a man become a friend of God? In John 15:12-13, we read:

This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Then verse 14 says:

Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

We see that to be a friend of God has a two-fold view. First, to be God’s friend means that Christ laid down His life for us. He laid down His life for His friends. Therefore, each one whom Christ came to save is a friend of Christ. Abraham was a friend of God, and so were Isaac and Jacob and anyone who was truly saved. Anyone who is saved today can be said to be a friend of God if Christ has paid for their sins. Then Jesus goes on to say:

Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

We see how this was acted out in Abraham’s life as God gave Abraham perhaps one of the most difficult commands to obey that a man has ever been given. He commanded Abraham to take his son, his only son Isaac, and offer him up as a sacrifice. Abraham was obedient. He took his son Isaac and carried out God’s instructions. He was going to slay his own son. It is no wonder that God says of Abraham, “He was called the Friend of God.” Abraham was faithful and obedient to the commandment of God, and Jesus says, “Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you.”

The child of God desires to do the will of God. They desire to keep His commandments and to obey God more and more in their lives as they are growing in grace and in the knowledge of God (2 Peter 3:18). Yet, this desire to obey God comes after salvation. It comes after God has saved a sinner and after He has placed His Spirit in the heart of that individual. That is when a man or a woman desires to keep Christ’s commandments, and so that is why Abraham was able to act out this great display of faith as God tested him in this way. It was because he was a child of God, and because he was justified by the work of Christ, as we have already seen.

In James 2:24, God goes back to this same point. He does not want us to miss it, and is emphasizing this point just about as much as anything could possibly be emphasized. He says:

Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

What a verse this is for anyone who desires to set up their own plan of salvation where they obtain salvation on their own terms. What a verse this is for someone to take and run with if they wanted to add a little something of their own to God’s grace, if they wanted to say, “You have to do something. You have to accept Christ or be baptized or walk down the aisle or say the sinner’s prayer. You must do something. ‘You see then how that by works a man is justified.’ You must come to church and do these things in order to be justified in God’s sight.”

We can see how people could come to a verse like this and arrive at these wrong conclusions because of the way in which God has written this verse and this whole passage in James. He is allowing man to take these kinds of ideas away, because God has written the Bible in that manner. He has written it as a snare and a trap for unsaved man who desires to obtain salvation through his works or his own righteousness of some sort. God lets that happen by actually wording verses in this way. It is a test even for us—will we develop wrong ideas about salvation? Will we start thinking that our works play some kind of role in bringing salvation to us? We read, “You see then how that by works a man is justified,” but we must compare Scripture with Scripture (1 Corinthians 2:13). Let us turn to Galatians 2:16, which says:

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

I do not think that God could say it any more plainly. He says three times that a man is definitely not justified by the works of the law. It is only when someone comes to the Bible not carefully following God’s methodology of comparing Scripture with Scripture that they can read a verse like James 2:24 which says, “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified…,” and by a failure of looking at related verses such as Galatians 2:16, walk away and think that something they could do can justify them like Abraham.

We know, though, that all Scripture is given to us (2 Timothy 3:16), and we have to harmonize all of our conclusions with the whole Bible (1 Corinthians 2:13). The idea that man’s works are in view in verse 24 cannot be because of what we read in Galatians 2:16. We go back then to what we have come to realize—that the work in view which justifies and saves a sinner is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is His work as He paid for the sins of His people. It is Christ’s work as He underwent the wrath of God to provide the atonement that saves those whom God has chosen. Now we understand what James 2:24 is saying:

Ye see then how that by works [the work of Christ] a man is justified…

That is the only way a man can be justified—by Christ’s saving work and not by faith only. That is, not by the individual’s profession of faith, but by the work of Christ. Then, when a profession of faith accompanies that work, faith is made perfect (James 2:22). All is in agreement, and now we have true salvation.

In verse 25, God now introduces Rahab the harlot. Let us read this verse which says:

Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?

Notice that God used the same language here as He used to speak of Abraham back in verse 21. Let us then back to the book of Joshua and read this account of Rahab. In Joshua 2:1-16 it says:

And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho. And they went, and came into an harlot’s house, named Rahab, and lodged there. And it was told the king of Jericho, saying, Behold, there came men in hither to night of the children of Israel to search out the country. And the king of Jericho sent unto Rahab, saying, Bring forth the men that are come to thee, which are entered into thine house: for they be come to search out all the country. And the woman took the two men, and hid them, and said thus, There came men unto me, but I wist not whence they were: And it came to pass about the time of shutting of the gate, when it was dark, that the men went out: whither the men went I wot not: pursue after them quickly; for ye shall overtake them. But she had brought them up to the roof of the house, and hid them with the stalks of flax, which she had laid in order upon the roof. And the men pursued after them the way to Jordan unto the fords: and as soon as they which pursued after them were gone out, they shut the gate. And before they were laid down, she came up unto them upon the roof; And she said unto the men, I know that the LORD hath given you the land, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. And as soon as we had heard these things, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath. Now therefore, I pray you, swear unto me by the LORD, since I have shewed you kindness, that ye will also shew kindness unto my father’s house, and give me a true token: And that ye will save alive my father, and my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death. And the men answered her, Our life for yours, if ye utter not this our business. And it shall be, when the LORD hath given us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with thee. Then she let them down by a cord through the window: for her house was upon the town wall, and she dwelt upon the wall. And she said unto them, Get you to the mountain, lest the pursuers meet you; and hide yourselves there three days, until the pursuers be returned: and afterward may ye go your way.

We see the historical situation here as Rahab, a harlot in the city of Jericho, has heard reports of the nation of Israel and the God of Israel. She has heard of His mighty wonders that He has done in bringing out His people from Egypt, and of the crossing of the Red Sea. She has heard of these things, and now she has heard that they have destroyed the kings Sihon and Og on the other side of the sea, and she is beginning to fear. She fears to the point that, when she sees these spies, she hides them, and she does so because her heart is turning towards God. God is working in her heart and drawing her to Himself. Rahab is becoming saved, and so in James 2:25 we read:

Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?

Once again, God gives us an example in someone’s life where they are performing a good deed and doing something that is pleasing to God. Certainly, Rahab protecting these spies was pleasing to God. God again uses such a picture to set a trap which allows people to get the idea that it was the work of Rahab in hiding the spies or the work of Abraham in offering Isaac his son upon the altar that brought about their justification. Yet it was not Abraham’s work in offering up Isaac, nor was it Rahab’s work in hiding the spies that brought about their justification, but again, it was the work of Christ. Christ’s work is what justified Rahab. She became a child of God. God spared her and saved her, and so Christ’s work became a provision for her salvation. That is how we have to understand this. Once we do, everything falls into place and fits together and harmonizes, not only in this passage, but with the whole Bible. Was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, the work of the Lord Jesus Christ? If God is asking us the question, the answer is yes. She was justified by the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then there is that time reference—when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way. At that point in time, Rahab was a child of God. Did she become a child of God right then? That is possible. Or maybe she became a child of God a day earlier or a week earlier—we do not know. But at that point in time, we definitely know that she was a child of God, because she was justified by the work of Christ.

It is just as Abraham was justified when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar. Now Abraham was justified by the work of Christ a great deal before that point in time. He had been a saved individual, a saved man, for many years. However, God picked that moment in time to ask this particular question, just as He picked the moment to ask the question about Rahab.

As we said before, it is like a snapshot, a picture. It is like a Polaroid snapshot that God has taken of a child of God. He picked, in Abraham’s case, one of the greatest moments of obedience that a man has ever accomplished on earth, and in Rahab’s case, another shining moment in the life of a sinner where she is now endeavoring to do things God’s way. God takes the picture of His servant Abraham or the harlot Rahab, and then He writes the caption which was in Rahab’s case, “Was she not justified when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?” The answer is yes. Yes, Rahab was justified and born again at that point in time.

Like we said before, a good way of understanding this is to substitute your own name, or anyone’s name, and say, “Was not John justified by works when he was driving his car?” Of course, we realize right away that driving one’s car is not a particularly good work. It is not a particularly great feat that anyone does, so how could that justify John? Driving his car does not justify him, but he was justified by the work of Christ when he was driving his car because he is a saved person. Likewise, you could take any moment of time in John’s life. God could do this as He was writing the Bible. He could take any moment in Abraham’s life or Rahab’s life after they became saved, and write a verse and ask a question in this way. Since He picked these brilliant moments in the lives of these people, we tend to think that it was their work that brought about their justification. Yet it was not their work. Was not John justified when he was cooking dinner? Yes, John was justified by works when he was cooking dinner. He was justified, however, by the work of Christ, not the work of cooking dinner. Was not Abraham justified when he offered Isaac his son upon the altar? We think, “Oh, how tremendous and great an act that was!” and we think about the work that Abraham did.

There is the trap for anyone who deep down does not like God’s salvation plan. Deep down they do not like the idea that man provides no work of any kind towards his salvation. They do not like the idea that man does nothing when it comes to salvation, the idea that man plays absolutely no part. The only role that man has is that of the spiritually dead corpse that is acted upon. That is our only task in God’s salvation plan. We are the one that is acted upon, and that is only if God chooses to have mercy upon us. That is very humbling, and it breaks a man’s pride and brings him low. That is why men do not like this. God has provided individuals with these types of Scriptures so that they can go and develop their own kind of a gospel and feel as if they have justification in doing so because, after all, Abraham was justified by his works. They really are not seeing what God is saying here, because in no way is He saying that man is justified by his works. We are justified by the work of Jesus Christ. Verse 26 sums it all up:

For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

Again, for the third time, God is making the point that we can say that we believe. We can say that we have faith and so forth, but if we do not have the work of Christ, if our sins were not placed upon the Lord Jesus Christ, if He did not pay for those sins and purge them through the fires of Hell, if the work of His enduring the equivalent of an eternity in Hell was not provided for us, then our faith is dead and we are still in our sins. We are still spiritually dead and subject to the second death of being thrown into Hell (Revelation 21:8). There is no getting away from this truth. We must have faith with works, and those works are not our own but Christ’s as He came to save a people for Himself.

Next time, we are going to go back to the book of Jude and pick up in verse 4 which speaks about certain men crept in unawares. This is a very interesting verse, especially as we can now begin to see what God is saying as we relate this verse to the parable of the wheat and the tares, to the language that says while men slept, tares were sown amongst the wheat (Matthew 13:24-30). That will be our next study, Lord willing. May the Lord richly bless you.