Study in the Epistle of Jude # 18: Verses 4-5

by Chris McCann

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

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study time. We are currently studying the book of Jude and have come to the end of verse 4, which says:

…ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Lasciviousness is not a word that is used very often. We have seen that when God is saying that they turn His grace into lasciviousness, we can understand this to mean that they are turning the grace of God into works. We see this in Galatians 5, where lasciviousness is listed as one of the works of the flesh. These ungodly men who crept in unawares received the true Gospel of the Bible, the Gospel of grace, yet they changed and perverted it by introducing works. They encouraged people to do some type of work in order to become saved.

This is reprehensible to God; it is contrary to what He teaches in His Word. Never does He require man to do any work of any kind in order to obtain salvation. Salvation cannot be achieved or obtained by man’s works, whether the work be keeping the Ten Commandments, or accepting Christ, or saying the sinner’s prayer. Whatever work it might be, it cannot bring salvation to a sinner. All of this is seeking to be justified by works, and this turns the grace of God into lasciviousness. It is the breaking of the law of God, the doing of evil deeds because these things are contrary to God’s law.

We are going to move on in verse 4 to the part of the verse that states:

…and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.

These people are denying Christ by their perverting of the true Gospel. Christ has given the truth of His Word, the Bible, and laid out on its pages very plainly the Gospel of grace. Yet many teachers and preachers, regardless of denomination, whether Catholic or Protestant, encourage the people in their memberships to do some kind of work. They teach that you must take some kind of action, and then you will be right with God. As they are doing this, they think that they are lifting up God’s name, that they are praising God and giving the glory to Him. But in actuality, they are denying God. They are denying Jesus Christ.

In Titus, that book which comes before Philemon and Hebrews, we read in chapter 1:15-16:

Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him…

This is exactly what we are reading in Jude. They have turned God’s grace into lasciviousness, into a work, so in works they are denying God. When any so called “Christian” religion begins to say, “You must speak in tongues,” or “You must fall over backwards,” or “You must do this or do that,” or whatever work they say you must do, they are thereby denying the power of God and the Gospel of grace.

It goes on to say in Titus 1:16:

…being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.

These individuals are professing God. They are saying that they are Christians with their mouths. They are honoring God with their lips and singing His praises with their tongues. However, in works, in the gospel which they have developed and devised and are sending out to their listeners, they are denying God. They are denying the Lord Jesus Christ, exactly as we read in Jude.

It is a horrible thing, a terrible thing, to deny God. “God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap” (Galatians 6:7). It is a dangerous thing when one sows the seeds of a false gospel. It is a dangerous thing when one sows rebellion against God and is deceiving people into thinking that if they do certain things and take certain actions, they will get right with God. This is a dangerous thing for anyone to be involved with. God says in the last part of 2 Timothy 2:12:

…if we deny him, he also will deny us:

That is what will take place if anyone is an adherent to this type of gospel. In this life, they can get away with it. They can fool everyone. They can put on their robes and their gowns and be given the praise of men and be looked upon as holy. They can wear their collars and have their titles of doctor or theologian or reverend or pastor or elder or deacon or whatever it might be. Thereby, they can deceive man. Man is easily deceived, but God is not deceived because God looks upon the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). Those who have been involved with teachings and a gospel that ultimately denies Christ will be denied themselves. Let us remember that Christ is the Word of God, so their gospel that supposedly is based upon the Word of God is denying that very same Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. If someone does live their life in this manner, and if they deny the Word of God, the truth of the Word, God will also deny them.

When will that happen? We read our answer in Matthew 7:21-23:

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

What has Christ done here on Judgment Day? Who are these “many,” these multitudes who are saying, “Lord, Lord”? Are they not Christians? Are they not those who have filled the churches and congregations of the world in their lifetime, those who thought that they were saved? Are they not those who sang hymns and went to church on many a Sunday? Are they not those who assumed that they were right with God? They did the work that the pastor told them to do.

How many there will be on that day who were told in this life, “Well, all you have to do is accept Christ and confess your sins and say the sinner’s prayer and walk down the aisle. Do some work, take some action, and you will be right with God.” But now, here they are. It is the end of time, it is the Last Day. Christ has returned, and now it is the time of judgment. They are standing before Him, not to receive rewards or to be exalted into Heaven, but for judgment. They are to be judged for their sins and cast away into Hell.

They cannot believe this. They cannot understand how it could be possible. “Lord, Lord,” they say, “we are the ones who prophesied in your name! We call you Lord, we are Christians. We gave praise to you with our mouths, and look, we even did certain works. We brought the Gospel that cast out devils, and we did many wonderful works.” Yet their works deny Him, as we read in Titus. It is their works that have changed the Gospel of grace and ruined it. Therefore, since they have denied Him through their works, Christ will deny them on this day (Matthew 10:33). That is what He does when He says:

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you…

This is denial of any sort of intimate relationship, a denial of any kind of spiritual marriage. They are supposed to be the bride of Christ, but Christ denies it. “I never knew you,” He says. “You are a strange woman unto me.”

Then He says:

…depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

“Ye workers of iniquity”—the emphasis here is on their works. They did works, and that was their problem, their fault. They thought that they could please God through their works, yet that brought about their condemnation, their casting off into Hell. They have never been the recipients of God’s grace, for God’s grace is received apart from any work (Romans 4:5). We are justified by the faith of Christ, not by the work of man (Galatians 2:16). It is impossible for man’s work to justify him or to make him right in the sight of God. Therefore, the Lord Jesus Christ is denying them.

In 2 Peter 2:1, we read about the false prophets of old. It says there:

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies…

This fits very well with what we are seeing in the first part of Jude 4, which says:

For there are certain men crept in unawares…

“Crept in unawares”—they are sneaking in. Satan was sowing the tares among the wheat (Matthew 13:25). He was placing his people within the congregations, many of whom would end up being teachers. It is just like what we read in 2 Peter 2:1:

…even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies…

“Privily”—that is, secretly, unawares. This is happening undercover; it is shrouded in mystery. No one is aware. No one can recognize them or tell the wheat apart from the tares while they are growing together. God will not separate them until the time of the harvest (Matthew 13:30). They are coming in privily, and they look just like any other teacher.

…who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

Again, they are denying the Lord in their teaching. What one teaches is very important. If anyone is going to teach, they have to be very careful that they never even hint that there is something that someone can do in order to become saved, because that would be denying the grace of God. It would be denying what Christ has done. It would be denying that He has done all the work in the matter of salvation, that He is the One who possesses forgiveness, and that He is the One who must bestow that forgiveness upon the sinner. The sinner cannot convince God through any degree of work that he is deserving of God’s grace, for we do not receive God’s grace because we deserve it. That is impossible—not one man, not one sinner has ever done anything to deserve God’s grace (Ephesians 2:8). What we deserve, if we truly want to look at it, is the wrath of God (Ephesians 2:3). If we want to receive what we deserve, then we would receive God’s wrath and be thrown into Hell. No one has ever received what they earn in the matter of salvation. We do not receive God’s grace because we have earned it, or because it is something that God should give to us because we are a good person, a good Christian. That is not how the Gospel works.

The Gospel of grace is given to those who do not deserve it. It is given not to those who are good, but to those who recognize their sinfulness, who recognize that they are evil and spiritually filthy in their sin and deserving of God’s wrath. It is given to those who recognize that God, through His own grace and mercy, is the One who bestows salvation upon them.

This is what God says as He speaks of Jacob and Esau in Romans 9. He tells us there how He chooses to save some and does not save others. He says regarding Jacob and Esau who were twin brothers—you could not find two individuals who were more alike—that before either of them had done good or evil (that is, before they were born), He chose to love Jacob and He hated Esau (Romans 9:13). God made the choice, and He wants us to know that it was before they had done any good or evil, because it was not based on their works. It was not based on how they would live their lives in any way, nor was it based on whether or not one would do more good than the other.

That is the opposite of how man operates. Man thinks, “Well, this person is nicer and more generous and kind, so he is a good person.” That is how we would operate a salvation plan if we were the ones in charge and in control. For those who were the more wicked and evil, we would withhold salvation. However, that is not how God operates, because God looks upon the hearts of men (1 Samuel 16:7) and sees that all are desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). He sees that all are dead in sin (Colossians 2:13) and that all are in the same boat—every single human being is just as evil as the next. They are all contrary to Him and in rebellion against Him. God, according to His own good pleasure, selects certain individuals based upon His own choosing (Ephesians 1:5). That is, He chose one over another because that was His will. It was His doing, and there was nothing in the man himself. That is how God’s grace is.

Any other teaching that presents the Gospel in any other kind of light, implying that man can somehow sway God and convince God to look kindly upon him through doing some work, is another gospel that denies the Lord Jesus Christ. It denies Him, and it will bring upon that individual Christ’s denial on the Last Day. We want to avoid that as much as possible. We want to give no hint or inkling that the Gospel we are bringing to the world has any work involved with it at all.

Going back to Jude verse 5, we read:

I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.

Here Jude, who is writing as God is moving him to do, says, “I will therefore put you in remembrance.”

As we read the Bible, we see that there are many parts of it that are very repetitious. God says some truths over and over again. In numerous places, He points out that man is sinful. Again and again, He points out that man’s sin brings the wrath of God, the judgment of God, upon him. In place after place, God teaches that there is Hell to pay for sin, and again and again He shows that the only way out of this predicament is the Lord Jesus Christ. God emphasizes these points over and over.

Likewise, we have seen numerous times, in many books of the Bible, that God makes a point regarding the end of the Church Age. He emphasizes that truth over and over in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Isaiah. In book after book, chapter after chapter, it is repeated again and again. Why is this? “I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this.”

Many times, we have very bad memories when it comes to spiritual things. Even though we knew something or learned something, we need to have that truth reinforced. We need to be reminded. We need to think about it repeatedly and go over it again and again so that it sinks down and we learn it. God, therefore, speaks about putting people in remembrance as Jude is saying here.

We see this over in 2 Peter 1:10-12, which says:

Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them…

This is the same thing that we read in Jude. It says there, “I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this,” and Peter is saying the same thing. He is speaking of giving diligence “to make your calling and election sure.” Then in this context, he is going to put us in remembrance of these things “though ye know them.” That is, we ought to examine ourselves (2 Corinthians 13:5). We ought to make sure that we are in the faith. We ought to be as positive as anyone could be that we have assurance of salvation, that we are not mistaken on that point. Therefore, Peter is saying, “I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things”—of this point of the Gospel and that point of the Gospel—even “though ye know them.”

Sometimes, as a believer is talking to another believer or as someone is teaching a group, they are going over some truths that are basic or are very familiar to that group. Often, people immediately lose interest. They turn their heads away and start fiddling with their hands and maybe talking with the person next to them. Why is that? “Oh, I know that,” they think. “I know what he is going to say, so I do not have to pay attention.” The next time that truth comes up, the same thing happens—they do not pay any attention. Then the next time comes, and the next time, and before you know it, they have forgotten that truth. They think that they know and understand it, but they have developed a pattern of ignoring that particular aspect of the Gospel. They have the wrong idea that, once you know something, then you can stop listening to it. However, God says that even if we know something, He is going to put us in remembrance once again. He is going to bring it up again even though we know it. Therefore, God is going to talk about sin and salvation and Hell, and we are to give heed and listen.

Sometimes, as we read in Acts 17, especially in our society and culture, people are only interested in hearing new things just as the Athenians were. In Acts 17:21, we read:

(For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)

This is the world’s operation; this is how the world works. They get bored with reruns and want the new shows. They want something new and exciting. They want some new story to be spun. They always want to hear something new, something strange, something different. That is how the world works. Even though it is true with the Bible that from time to time, we learn something new—and that is exciting and wonderful—we cannot just turn off our ears when we are hearing something that is familiar. We cannot stop listening to that which we might have already learned or have some knowledge of, because, before you know it, we are going to lose that knowledge. We are going to forget what the spiritual meaning is or what this thing over here is pointing to if we are not reminded and brought into remembrance.

Lord willing, we will look at this a little more in our next study as we continue in our study of the book of Jude.