Study in the Epistle of Jude # 24: Verse 6
by Chris McCann
EBible Fellowship (http://www.ebiblefellowship.com)
Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study. We are going through the book of Jude, the little Epistle that comes right before the book of Revelation. We are in verse 6, which says:
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
Verse 6 is following along the same lines as verse 5 where God had indicated that He would put us “in remembrance” of how He had saved Israel out of Egypt but later destroyed them. Why is He speaking now about the angels?
The angels were created perfectly. They were created good. They were just and they were pure. All the angels were created as “ministering spirits” (Hebrews 1:14), and they all dwelt with God in Heaven. There was no sin in them as God created them. They had this as their first estate; that is, their habitation was in Heaven dwelling in the very presence of God. You could not ask for a more glorious situation or for a more glorious relationship than the angels had with God.
Yet, God is making the point that, immediately after these angels fell into sin, after Satan rebelled against God and brought with him some of the angels (not all of them, but a portion), they lost their first estate. They lost that habitation, that eternal blessed condition that they would have had with God had they not sinned. They could have continued, as all the other angels did, being in God’s presence and ministering according to the dictates of God and obeying His commandments, but sin brings about the anger and judgment and wrath of God.
It did so with the Israelites. They were delivered out of Egypt. God wrought a wonderful deliverance on their behalf as He plagued the Egyptians and opened up the Red Sea. They had a tremendous relationship with God as God was looking out for them and fighting their battles on their behalf. Yet, they sinned in the wilderness. They murmured against God. Therefore, God “destroyed them that believed not” (Jude 5).
So it was with “the angels that kept not their first estate.” There is no way that a Holy God, a just God, can permit sinful and rebellious creatures to dwell in His presence. God will not permit a corporate body, such as national Israel, to simply sin at will. There is no relationship a creature can enter into with God in which they have risen above the level where God can bring them into judgment. They cannot enter into a state that is beyond the justice of God, where they can behave themselves as they please and do whatever they want. Israel was delivered out of Egypt, but no, they could not do what they wanted. They were destroyed in the wilderness.
Even the angels, who had this wonderful relationship and situation with God, who dwelt in Heaven itself in the very presence of God, could not remain there. They could not say, “We have a holy relationship with God and God views us in a special way.” That is not possible.
Let us again read Jude, verse 6, which says:
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
God has “kept” or “reserved” these fallen angels in a certain kind of relationship. He has kept them in “everlasting chains under darkness,” and He has reserved them for the “judgment of the Great Day.” We see similar language in 2 Peter 2. Verse 4 of that chapter says:
For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
The passage goes on to say in verse 9:
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
“God spared not the angels that sinned.” He has no salvation plan for fallen angels. The Lord Jesus Christ did not come to die for the sins of any angel, nor did He take upon Himself the presence of an angel in order to bear their sins. God did not pour out His wrath upon Christ for the angels. That was never God’s plan. The angels were not created in the image of God as man was, so God, for His own purposes, never developed any kind of plan of salvation to cover their sins.
The angels have committed numerous sins, beginning with Satan, and have greatly rebelled against God. We see Satan’s rebellion right away in the book of Genesis (Genesis 3). There he is coming to Eve in order to deceive her that she might eat of the fruit that God had said she should not eat of (Genesis 2:17). At that point, Satan wins the victory over man for a period of time, until the Lord Jesus Christ comes and redeems His people and seals the judgment of Satan at the Cross. However, God did not die for any angels.
There are some people who accuse God of being unfair. They say that His salvation plan is not just. They say that it is not fair to mankind to save only a few out of the whole when salvation is not something that everyone has an equal opportunity at. “If God died for the sins of His elect, and only His elect will become saved, then that makes God unjust,” they say.
Yet, you never hear any of these same people mourning for the angels, the demons as we know them, or for Satan. No one cries that it is unfair that God did not provide salvation for the angels. No one is crying tears over the fact that the fallen angels have already been cast down to Hell in one sense and are “reserved…unto the judgment of the Great Day” where it is certain, guaranteed, and without question that they are going to be thrown into the pit of Hell forevermore. There is no love of God towards fallen angels. There is nothing but wrath and fierce anger and judgment towards them.
Is that not terrible? Is not God an unjust God for not providing any salvation for these angels that sin? Of course not—no one feels pity for these angels. It is their own fault, is it not? We do not feel sorry for Satan, even though God did not provide any kind of plan of salvation for him. “Good riddance,” is what man thinks. “Good riddance—throw him into Hell.” We are all in agreement that Satan deserves to go to Hell. That is what he has wrought with his whole being. On that Last Day, it will be justice, it will be proper vengeance, and it will be a good thing when Satan is cast down into Hell and all the fallen demons with him. We will shed no tears. We are glad that God has not provided salvation for Satan. That is man’s attitude.
If we think about those people who dare point a finger at God, and those individuals who accuse God of injustice and a lack of mercy and love, we wonder, “Why? Why are there all these accusations against a God who has sent His Son to die for the sins of His people? How could they accuse God of such things when the Lord Jesus Christ has taken the sins of the rebels who have rebelled against Him upon Himself and then suffered an incredible torment and agony for those individuals in order to save them? How could it be that anyone could accuse God? How is it possible that they could point a finger back at Him? Would not God be just and right and holy if He threw us all into Hell, just like the fallen angels? Would that not be the just and right dessert for each human being? Have we not sinned, just as the angels sinned? Have we not rebelled against God, just as the angels? Have we not thought to be like God, just as the angels that sinned? Are we not just as guilty and deserving of eternal damnation as these fallen angels are?”
The answer is, “Absolutely yes!” If God provided no salvation, if He did not save one human being, if He threw us all down to Hell, He would be perfectly just. If He did not send His Son but just wrapped this whole world up into one fiery ball and cast it into eternal damnation, “into the fire that never shall be quenched” (Mark 9:43), God would most definitely be just in doing so. Who could accuse Him? Who could accuse God of being unjust or unmerciful or unkind or unfair? No one could who understands what justice is, for that is justice.
If people want fairness and justice, then they ought to want God to throw all the fallen creatures and fallen angels right down into Hell without a moment’s hesitation, without a moment’s notice. We do not deserve anything, yet God in His mercy and for His great love wherewith He loved His people (Ephesians 2:4) has developed a plan of salvation and worked it out through the whole timeline of history. Over many thousands of years, He has lonsufferingly put up with the continual rebellion of man towards Him, patiently enduring the constant transgressions of His Law and the sins against Him, all the while slowly and steadfastly saving His people whom He has selected. “According to the good pleasure of His will,” He has chosen some (Ephesians 1:5).
That is not a fact to be ashamed of. That is not a fact that we are to hesitate to declare. He has not saved all, He has not chosen each human being, and the Lord Jesus did not die for every sinner. But God, according to His own good pleasure and His own will, did save some.
Who are we—who is anyone—to say that God is unjust because He did not throw us all into Hell, but saved some? That is like speaking of a king who has a dungeon full of filthy rebels. His dungeon is packed to the full with the worst sort of criminals, the worst lot of characters in his kingdom. He has gathered together those who are defiled and have committed all kinds of lewd acts, those who are harmful to other inhabitants of his kingdom, into the lowest dungeon. That is where they belong. They are all guilty; they are all the worst criminals possible. The king has them there and they are all sentenced to die. Certainly they will die.
However, this king is a merciful king. He is renowned for his love and kindness and goodness. Suppose that he, out of his mercy, decides to save some in that awful dungeon. Whom will he save? He will pick and choose which ones he will save. He will take that one over there and another one here. Why would he choose those? We would not know. That is the king’s choosing. He is the sovereign ruler of his kingdom, and it is his right to elect which of these filthy sinners and rebels he wants to spare from dying this certain death. Therefore, he selects some.
This king has also made it known that he is merciful to some. Others in that pit see that, here and there, one has been spared. They cannot see rightly why. They can see that the one who has been spared is just as much an evildoer as anyone else. Yet the king has spared a remnant out of that dungeon. They hear about this, and they begin to try to get the king’s attention. They learn that this king is even open to communication from these rebels. He is open, and he will consider any that will come to him humbly beseeching him for mercy. The king might even grant mercy, according to his own will, because this king will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy.
However, there are others in the prison who are going to say, “The king is not just. The king is not being fair to us in only saving some.”
How dare these renegades, these filthy doers, these ungodly wretches who are in the pit, say this! They all are deserving of death. How can they speak against the king who is merciful even to consider sparing any of them! Who dares to speak against the king in such a situation!
That is exactly what many in the churches and congregations of the world do today. They despise the goodness and mercy of God. They despise His plan of salvation and speak reproachfully against it. Yet, this is the only way to be saved. This is what God has developed. This is all there is for sinners; this is “the way” to salvation (John 14:6). If they do not like it, there is no other way. There are other gospels that men say are another way, but they are not true and faithful to what the Bible teaches. All who follow those ways will end up under the wrath of God forever (Proverbs 14:12).
As we look at the fallen angels, there is one thing we can certainly know, one thing we can realize that God is teaching us. We can see how merciful God is to man, how merciful He is to us, and we know that we do not deserve even a bit of His mercy.
In 2 Peter 2:4, it says:
For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
God “cast them down to Hell” in the sense that they are in the condition of being under the wrath of God. He has not yet created the place called “Hell”—that will not be created until the Last Day. That is why it says that they are “delivered into chains of darkness.” They are kept, they are “reserved…unto the judgment of the Great Day,” as we read in Jude. That is when God will literally create a place called “Hell.”
It is a forgone conclusion that the angels will be the first ones cast into Hell, just as we read in Revelation 20. It says in Revelation 20:10:
And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
The devil here is being judged. It is the judgment of that “Great Day.” This is the day that Satan has dreaded, the day that he has feared, the day that he has known must come, but since he is such a deceiver, he has even deceived himself. However, the day has come, as we see here in Revelation 20, and the world has ended. All the evil deeds of Satan are now being brought to light, and God is now taking vengeance upon him. Satan is cast into the pit of Hell to be tormented forever and ever. This is the justice of God.
Following this is the judgment of all the unsaved of the world, which we see in verses 11-12:
And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
In our next study, Lord willing, we are going to look a little more closely at the last part of Jude 6, which speaks about the “judgment of the Great Day.” This is something that is not looked into all that carefully or thought about very much, especially since the focus of many gospels in our day is on the positive. Their focus is on the wonderful things that we find in the Bible—the love of God and all the good things that God can do for us. However, the Bible has much to say about the “judgment of the Great Day.” We are not to overlook this. God has written it here in Jude, and we are going to take a closer look at this next time.