Study in the Epistle of Jude # 26: Verse 7

by Chris McCann

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

Welcome to the Electronic Bible Fellowship’s Bible study. We are currently going through the book of Jude. We are now up to verse 7, which says:

Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

We read about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha in Genesis 19:24-25. It says there:

Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven; And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

The Bible also tells us about these two cities before they were destroyed. In Genesis 13:7-12, we read:

And there was a strife between the herdmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdmen of Lot’s cattle: and the Canaanite and the Perizzite dwelled then in the land. And Abram said unto Lot, Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? separate thyself, I pray thee, from me: if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left. And Lot lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest unto Zoar. Then Lot chose him all the plain of Jordan; and Lot journeyed east: and they separated themselves the one from the other. Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the plain, and pitched his tent toward Sodom.

Here, the herdsmen of Lot strove with the herdsmen of Abraham, and the two men decided that it was good for them to separate. “Lot lifted up his eyes and beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered.” Great blessing of God was there; God had greatly blessed that land. Therefore, “Lot journeyed…and pitched his tent toward Sodom.” That was a land full of blessings as far as the land itself was concerned. It was a fruitful land with plenty of water.

As we see the blessed condition or relationship that Sodom and Gomorrah had, we see that, spiritually speaking, they are a picture of the corporate church. The church had at one time entered into a blessed relationship with God where they had the great privilege and honor of being the caretakers of the Oracles of God. They were entrusted with the Word of God, the Gospel, and they were blessed because of it (Romans 3:2).

As to whether they continued in that blessed state, no, they did not. However, just because they did not continue in it does not mean they were not blessed. Just as Israel was blessed to be delivered from Egypt and the angels were blessed to have that first estate in Heaven, so were Sodom and Gomorrah blessed to have such bountiful land. Spiritually speaking, the corporate church has been greatly blessed by God as He gave them the true Gospel. Yet the warning is to the corporate church, the New Testament church, that if they do not continue to maintain faithfulness towards the Word of God, then they, likewise, shall be cut off.

We saw this warning clearly spelled out in Romans chapter 11. God spoke there of national Israel being cut off, and then He addressed the New Testament churches and congregations, the Gentiles. He says, “Be not highminded, but fear…otherwise thou also shalt be cut off” (verse 20). There was the warning of God.

In Jude, God speaks of Sodom and Gomorrah. The people and cities thereof were once blessed of God. Then, the land that was well nourished and full of water became as a desolation once fire and brimstone were poured out upon it. The land became good for nothing. It became parched wilderness because the fire burned up all the green grass of the land.

We are going to look at a few verses in order to let God Himself define for us what the spiritual meaning of Sodom and Gomorrah is in the Bible. In Deuteronomy 32, we read some information about these cities. Verses 28-33 read:

For they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them. O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! How should one chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had shut them up? For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges. For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah: their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter: Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps.

God here is describing the spiritual situation of those who are unsaved in the church. “Their rock is not as our Rock.” The Lord Jesus Christ is the Rock (Deuteronomy 32:4); He is that foundation stone upon which the eternal Church is built (Isaiah 28:16). However, their “rock” is another kind of rock. Their “foundation” is not the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever they are building upon their rock, which is not the true Rock, it will be revealed on the Last Day and will come falling down (1 Corinthians 3:11-13). They do not have the Lord Jesus as their foundation, and there is none other foundation but the Lord Jesus Christ that one can spiritually build upon.

In this context, as God is speaking to Israel, He says that “their vine is the vine of Sodom.” Who does the vine represent? The “rock” typifies the Lord Jesus Christ, but what does a “vine” typify in the Bible? In John 15:1, Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.” Therefore, their “vine” is not our Vine. Their vine is another kind of a vine. It is another gospel, another Christ, another doctrine. They do not have the true Gospel of the Bible. As a result, God likens them to Sodom and Gomorrah, to the “vine of Sodom and of the fields of Gomorrah.”

Why is this tie-in here? Why is this passage connected to Sodom and Gomorrah? Sodom and Gomorrah, as God speaks of them in the Bible, are pictures of the apostate church. They are pictures of a church that has corrupted itself in its entire doings, a church that is going after other gospels, or “strange flesh” as we read back in Jude.

Let us not base what we are saying on one verse or one passage, but let us look at a few others. In Isaiah 1:9-10, we read:

Except the LORD of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah. Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.

Who is Isaiah speaking to under the inspiration of God? He is addressing Israel and prophesying to them. God is saying that unless there was a very small remnant, they would have been as Sodom and Gomorrah. The remnant is not as Sodom and Gomorrah, but the rest of the people, all the unsaved who are of Israel but are not true spiritual Jews, are “rulers of Sodom” and “people of Gomorrah.” God is again faulting Israel for not being right in His sight because they are not saved, and He likens them to Sodom and Gomorrah.

We could also look at Jeremiah 23:14, where it says:

I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies: they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.

This verse is very clearly associating false prophets who are speaking lies and involved in adultery and strengthening the “hands of evildoers” with those of Sodom and Gomorrah. They are not bringing the true Gospel of the Bible, but a false gospel that brings false assurance to those who ought not to be assured. That is, they are bringing a gospel that is something like the easy-believism of today.

It is widely taught today that all someone has to do is to accept the Lord Jesus Christ or say the sinner’s prayer or walk down the aisle or some other such thing, and then they are saved. They are given assurance and told that they are now right with God. This is all a pack of lies. It is all error, something that is coming from man’s mind. Man has developed the doctrine that he has power to bring salvation to himself; it is not found in the Bible.

Hands in the Bible represent the will. Therefore those kinds of gospels, if they serve to do anything, serve to strengthen the hands, the will, of evildoers. These people are confirmed in the way that they are going, which is away from God. They have been told that now they are right with God and that God loves them, yet they are still in their sins. Their hands are strengthened to continue on in the evil way that they have been going in. That is a terrible sin that is going on in our present day.

God likens teachers and priests and ministers and reverends and elders and deacons—whoever is teaching these types of lies—to those of “Sodom and the inhabitants of Gomorrah.” What happened to Sodom and Gomorrah? They were destroyed. Now God is identifying His people as Sodom and Gomorrah, and saying that the sins of the people of God are rising up just as the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah rose up to Heaven (Revelation 18:5). God was aware of these sins. He visited Sodom to see if the things that He heard were so, and to see if the evil report was truly the case. He visited Sodom in the appearance of two angels, and the city was destroyed.

Let us also look at Ezekiel 16:46. We read there:

And thine elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters that dwell at thy left hand: and thy younger sister, that dwelleth at thy right hand, is Sodom and her daughters.

God is speaking here to Jerusalem. We see how Sodom is related spiritually to Samaria and Judah and Jerusalem. Why does God speak of Sodom as having this relationship? Sodom is a picture of the corporate church, just as Samaria is a picture of the corporate church, and Jerusalem is a picture of the corporate church.

We go on to read in verses 47-51:

Yet hast thou not walked after their ways, nor done after their abominations: but, as if that were a very little thing, thou wast corrupted more than they in all thy ways. As I live, saith the Lord GOD, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters. Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good. Neither hath Samaria committed half of thy sins; but thou hast multiplied thine abominations more than they, and hast justified thy sisters in all thine abominations which thou hast done.

God is saying that Jerusalem has corrupted itself more than Sodom and Gomorrah, and that the Holy City has become so rebellious that it has justified its sister Sodom. He is saying that the transgressions and the evil sins that Jerusalem and the so-called people of God are doing are more numerous and a great degree more serious than Sodom and Gomorrah’s sins. Therefore, Jerusalem has justified its sister Sodom.

What about the church of our day, which Jerusalem spiritually points to? That is the point God is making here—that the corporate church of our day, the church of the Great Tribulation, has justified its sisters of the Old Testament. It has justified Samaria, Israel with its ten northern tribes, Judah, and Sodom. The corporate church of our day has transgressed God’s law to such a degree that it makes these Old Testament nations of Israel and Judah and cities of Sodom and Gomorrah look almost holy in how they conducted themselves.

We are not going to get into an itemized list of the sins of the church of our day, but if we were to sit down with pen and pencil and write down their sins, it would be a list such as the world has never seen. It would be the longest list of sins that any people of God had ever put together. It would be the grossest list of sins that a people of God had ever compiled. This is the condition of the church of our day.

Here in Ezekiel 16:49, God gives us some insight as to why He destroyed Sodom. He says there:

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

The iniquity of Sodom—that is what God was looking at. That is why fire and brimstone rained down from Heaven. That is why Sodom was utterly destroyed and taken away. What is the first sin mentioned in this verse? It is pride. “This was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride.”

What is wrong with pride? To the world, pride is a good thing. They say, “You have to have pride. You have to have confidence in yourself,” or whatever else they think pride is. You have to be a proud man in the world’s eyes. However, that is not what God desires. As a matter of fact, God indicates that He “resists the proud” (James 4:6). God is against them. He sets Himself and His face against the proud man.

As God is looking down upon Sodom, which we remember typifies the corporate church, the first offensive thing that He sees is pride. Pride has lifted Sodom up. Pride has raised them up so that they now think they are something. God warns against that. He says that it is dangerous for someone to think that they are something, when yet they are nothing (Galatians 6:3). The pride of one’s heart is a terrible sin in God’s sight.

Pride was Sodom’s number one sin. What does it mean to have the sin of pride, especially for a corporate body? How can a corporate church be proud? Let us go to Obadiah 1:3-4. God there is speaking to Edom, which is yet again another type and picture of the corporate church. He says there:

The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground? Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the LORD.

In the Bible, stars represent believers. We see this in Daniel 12:3, as Daniel writes about the wise being “as the stars forever and ever.” Edom here typifies the unsaved in the corporate church, who have exalted themselves unto where the eagles dwell and have set their nest “among the stars.” They have raised themselves up greatly.

What is this looking at? It is looking at those who try to bring salvation to themselves. They think and believe that they have done so, and they have thereby lifted themselves up. They have exalted themselves to the very heavens, the place where the Lord Jesus Christ is seated at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:12).

Once someone becomes saved, God speaks of that person as ascending into Heaven, then being commissioned by God to carry the Gospel and descending back to earth (John 1:51). We are seated in heavenly places in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:6), and that is about as high as anyone can get. However, when someone has taken this honor and this grace to themselves when they are not actually saved, then this is pride. This is lifting oneself up high, where they ought not to be. They are to recognize their sinfulness and the fact that they are under the wrath of God; they are to be lowly. God is the only One who exalts someone to Heaven. God is the only One who can exalt someone with salvation.

In our next study, Lord willing, we will continue to look at pride, the pride of Sodom, and how it brought about the fierce anger of God.