Study in the Epistle of Jude # 66: Verse 12

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. We have spent quite some time in verse 11 looking at God’s admonitions against those who follow in the way of Cain and in the way of Balaam for reward and who ultimately perish in the gainsaying of Core. Now it is time for us to move on in our study of Jude. We want to go on to verse 12, which again is continuing with the same theme that Jude has been emphasizing. That theme is those who have crept in unawares, the ungodly. It is the unsaved within the churches and congregations who have never been born again, yet have risen to posts of authority and have become leaders—pastors, elders, and deacons—in many, if not all, of the congregations today. Verse 12 says:

These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

Let us continue reading into verse 13, since this follows what verse 12 is saying. We read:

Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

God is continuing His examination of those who are inhabiting the churches and congregations of the world, and He is continuing His condemnation of these men. He says in the first part of verse 12, “These are spots in your feasts of charity.” This same type of language is used in a parallel chapter to Jude, 2 Peter 2. 2 Peter 2:13-14 says:

And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you; Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:

This passage goes on, but we see that God is indicating that these false prophets, these false teachers, these false believers, are presenting a false witness as they claim to be children of God. They are spots and blemishes while they feast with you, 2 Peter 2 says; and as Jude says, they are “spots in your feasts of charity.”

What is meant by these “spots” and “blemishes”? We know that in the Old Testament sacrificial system, as the lamb would be chosen to be the offering unto God, it was to be a lamb without spot and without blemish. We also know that this spiritually pointed to the fact that the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ, would be without sin; He would be perfectly holy and righteous. He would not offend in breaking the law of God at any point. The lamb, the spotless lamb without any blemish, was a representation of that truth. It was a picture of that fact that God was trying to get across to His people—that Jesus would be pure and perfect in every way.

Using that same kind of idea, we see that God is looking at those who are in the church. Now we are not speaking of the eternal church, but the corporate church—the church that we find on just about every street corner in America. In that church, historically, believers and unbelievers have gathered together. There has been this gathering of the saints in the congregations of the world. Yet in this collective gathering, there are some who, as God examines their hearts and looks upon their inward man to see if they have truly been born again, He sees their sin. He sees their unchanged heart of stone, and He sees their wickedness and their deceitfulness. Therefore, He calls them “blemishes,” and He calls them “spots in your feasts of charity.” They are a stain upon this body that is purporting to be the body of Christ, and God is not pleased with them at all.

Let us turn to the Song of Solomon, that wonderful love story. It is rather complicated to read because of the way that God has written it, and we know that God has hidden much truth in the book of the Song of Solomon. In chapter 4:7, we read:

Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.

This is a picture of the bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking of His bride, the body of believers—”Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.”

God has elected a people for Himself and decided to save a remnant of mankind (Romans 11:5). The Gospel has been going out into the world throughout every generation to gather that eternal church, the true bride of Christ, together, and in that bride, there is no spot. There are no blemishes of any kind because once Christ has saved an individual, He has forgiven all their sins and all their transgressions and all their iniquities. Every evil deed has been cleansed and washed away by the blood of Christ (Revelation 1:5). Therefore, as God looks upon that beautiful bride, as He views that eternal, holy church, they are all fair. Each one whom God has saved and who is part of the body of Christ, each one whom Jesus died for and paid for the sins of—they are all fair. He calls them “My love.” There is no spot in them at all.

This is the same teaching that is in Ephesians 5. There, God is setting forth the mystery of the relationship between the husband and the wife, and He relates it to the eternal relationship between Christ and His church. Now this is not the corporate church—we have to stress this because some fail to see this truth. They think when God says that the gates of Hell will not prevail against His church (Matthew 16:18), that it is talking about all the churches in the world, all the outward visible churches; yet that is not it at all. He is talking about that invisible church that is a collection of each and every child of God who has ever been saved and who ever will be saved.

That is the church that the gates of Hell will not prevail against. That is the church that will always be victorious. That is the church that is without spot, not the corporate church. The corporate church has failed miserably time and time again throughout its history. It has fallen away to false doctrines and false teachings and false gospels. God has had to rise up again and again in judgment and remove the candlestick, even throughout the Church Age. Therefore, the gates of Hell certainly did prevail against many congregations and many churches that have fallen away from the truth.

This, however, was never in view by that statement. Rather, the gates of Hell have never prevailed against the one true church. If you are a saved person, then you are a member of that church. Your citizenship is in Heaven; you are a citizen of the New Holy Jerusalem.

In Ephesians 5:25 God commands:

Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church…

Again, we have further confirmation that Christ loved the church. Then it says:

…and gave himself for it;

Does Jesus love every single person who attends church or is a member of the church? The answer is no; there is no way that He loves every single person. If He loved every single person who is in the church, then why in Matthew 7:22 does He say that there will be many in that day, meaning Judgment Day, who will cry out, “Lord, Lord, did we not do many wonderful works in Your name?” Christ will say, “I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity” (Matthew 7:23). If Christ never knew those people, then, of course, He never loved them. As He casts them into Hell, it is further proof that He never loved them but hated them. It is just as He says in Romans 9:13, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”

There are some in the churches who are part of that eternal church that Christ loves, but there are others in the churches, many of them as Matthew 7 says, who are not part of that eternal church. They trust that their membership or participation in the earthly church will guarantee them an entry into Heaven. This is error and this is a tremendous mistake that they are making. Christ does not love each member of the Lutheran church or the Baptist church or the Presbyterian church or any church. He loves His people, and they are called by God “the church,” which is God’s good pleasure and privilege to do. If He wants to call His eternal bride “the church,” then who is any man to say that God is constrained to include every person that is in the outward, visible church. God is not obligated to do that at all. Christ gave Himself for His people; He died for His elect—the Bible is very clear about that. We know from Ephesians 5:25 alone that when God speaks of the church, He has in mind the eternal church.

Then it goes on to say in Ephesians 5:26-27:

That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

We see exactly what God is saying in Jude. As people become saved, as they become part of that glorious church, they are no longer a spot. They are no longer a wrinkle or a blemish that God cannot see and that He wants removed from His sight because they are still sinful—their sins are upon them, and they are bearing their iniquity. No, the sins of the true believers have been washed away. They have been cleansed with the “washing of water by the Word.” Their spots have been washed away, their wrinkles have been washed away, and their blemishes have been washed away. All their sins, the Bible says, have been cast into the depths of the sea (Micah 7:19). God has removed the sins of His children, as far as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12). He has put them from Him, out of His sight, never to be seen again. Therefore, there is no spot in that bride. There is no spot in that sinner. As God looks upon him, He sees the complete and total righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. He sees perfection; He sees something that is spotless.

However, as God looks upon the churches and congregations, especially in our present day, and as He views these people, He could say, as He does in Jude verse 12, “These are spots in your feasts of charity.” They are spots. Their sin remains; it is upon them. The wrath of God is hanging over their heads because of their sin. They have not been cleansed by the washing of water by the Word, and they have not become truly saved people. They have not, therefore, become part of that church that Christ loves and gave Himself for. Here we have a “feast of charity,” and they are spots in it.

What is meant by this feast of charity? Let us turn to Luke 14. The word “feast” is most often translated as “supper.” It is the same word that is used when we read about the Lord’s Supper, as it was instituted in 1 Corinthians 11. In Luke 14:12-14 it says:

Then said he also to him that bade him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper [that is the word feast], call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompence be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: And thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.

This short passage here is written in parabolic form. It is laying out the Gospel call that goes out into the world. God has made a dinner. He has made a supper, and it is full of the grape juice or the blood of Christ. The table is set with the bread, which is the Lord Jesus Christ’s body that has been broken for those whom He came to save. This is the supper, the table, that God has prepared. He is saying, “Do not call thy friends or kinsman or neighbors; but when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind.”

Let us keep in mind that God often uses the poor, maimed, lame, and blind to typify those who will receive salvation. He speaks of the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3). Jesus often healed the maimed and the lame. A lame man who could walk again was a figure of salvation. Blind Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was passing by and cried out, “Thou Son of David, have mercy upon me” (Mark 10:46-47). Again, to be blind points to the spiritual blindness of man due to their sin.

This is the feast that God has made, and He has given an instruction call out to those who are poor and maimed and lame and blind, and they shalt be blessed. He has given instruction to send forth the Gospel into the world that His elect might be called to the supper, the feast. That is how God is viewing all that respond to His Gospel message. That is how He views those who have entered into the churches and congregations of the world. That is how He views those who have heard the Gospel and have responded, as if they were poor and lame and blind, as if they were needy and in need of salvation.

However, these men typified by Cain and Balaam and Korah are “spots in your feasts of charity.” Charity is another word for love. This is a love feast, a feast of love, because God has so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son (John 3:16), the Lord Jesus Christ, to die for the sins of each and every one of the whole company of His elect (Matthew 1:21). It is the great love of God whereby He has provided salvation for this remnant of individuals in the world, this certain portion of mankind. It is only by God’s love that this salvation is available to man. Yet these men have come in unawares, as we read earlier in Jude. They have crept in; they have come in deceitfully. God is now examining them and looking closely at their spiritual condition, and His analysis is that they are “spots in your feasts of charity.”

Jude 12 goes on to say:

…when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear…

When they feast with you, they feed themselves without fear. That is a very curious way that God has said this. What does He mean when He says, “They feed themselves without fear”? This word “feeding” is often associated with feeding sheep. It is the same word used when Jesus said to Peter in John 21:15-17, “Feed My sheep.” Three times Christ emphasized to Peter that he must feed the sheep of God. It is also the word that we find in Acts 20:28. We read there:

Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

Again, it is the same idea—feed the church. It is the same thing as feeding sheep. Therefore, this word has to do with spiritual feeding, with feeding the truth of the Word of God to the hearers of the Word. This is, of course, that feast of charity. As we have seen, everyone is called. The Gospel call goes out for a feast where the Lord Jesus has been laid out with His sacrificial death and His blood has been spilled and His body has been broken. Those who respond spiritually are to feast upon Him and partake of His blood, in a spiritual sense, and to partake of His body which was broken for them, in a spiritual sense, as God saves them. That is the feast

Yet, these men who are spots in your feasts of charity feed themselves without fear. The idea is that they are not feeding the flock, but they are feeding themselves of the flock. That is really what God is indicating here. These men who are typified by Cain, Balaam, and Korah are leaders in the churches. They are false prophets; they are the teachers and the instructors who are teaching the congregation. They ought to be feeding the congregation with the Word, but instead they are feeding themselves of the congregation.

God says this very definitely in Ezekiel 34:2, which says:

Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?

That is the accusation in Jude—that they are feeding themselves. It does not say that they are feeding themselves of the flock, but that is the implication. They ought to be feeding the flock. The focus ought to be on feeding the sheep and on ministering the Gospel, but they are concerned with their own bellies. They are concerned with their own situation and they are feeding themselves. They are not taking care of the people of God; they are not concerning themselves with the sheep in God’s flock. Their focus is upon themselves, though they ought to feed the sheep. We go on to read in verses 3-6:

Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them. And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd: and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.

This is the judgment of God; this is the condemnation of God upon these unjust men who profess the name of Christ and say that they are believers. Yet, when you get right down to it, their occupation is to minister the Gospel and to feed those who are under the hearing of the Word of God, but they do not accomplish this. Instead, they feed themselves without fear. They do not fear the Holy God of the Bible, the God whom we read about in the matter of Korah, who was such a false prophet. They do not fear the judgment of God, just as Korah was bold and brazen in confronting Moses and Aaron. He refused to come up but stood in his tent door with his whole family trusting that God was in his midst and that they were the holy people. God brought judgment quickly upon Korah and he went down into the heart of the earth. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed him up (Numbers 16:32).

So will it be at the end of this world. Many have trusted that God is with them, that they are holy people, and that they are the ones whom God’s face shines upon, yet they do this without the fear of God. We remember that the Bible says, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). Therefore, they are not wise, but fools.

In our next study, Lord willing, we are going to go on in Jude 12 and look at the next part of the verse, which is also very interesting. It says, continuing to speak about these men:

…clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;