What Jesus' Brother Jude Wanted Us to Know | Verse 1, Part 3 | Kept by Christ
In our previous post we camped out on the phrase: “to those who are called.” A study in that kind of theology is weighty, to say the least. In fact, some of the most sound defenders of this biblical doctrine have admitted to becoming angry about it when they were first confronted with it.
However, a right understanding always ends up with a sense of awe and wonderment as we recognize how hopeless anyone would have been apart from God first calling us out of the grave and giving us faith to believe—something we whole-heartedly embrace and now own. God’s sovereignty notwithstanding, people are in fact in willful rebellion against God, until God opens their eyes to believe. The fact that God has established the outworking of redemptive history down to an individual does not somehow nullify the responsibility or the choice of the individual to believe. It is simply that they will purposely, willfully and actively refuse to believe unless God has chosen them to be regenerated unto belief and salvation. That He would choose anyone is amazing grace.
All that said, we have thus far barely scratched the surface of Jude’s greeting! Yet, as we come to the next few words in his greeting, he paints for us a portrait of just how complete, perfect, and gracious the believer’s salvation really is.
It is so important not to limit ourselves to what we think is an acceptable depth of understanding of the Scriptures lest we miss out on the real intention of the biblical writers in writing, or the implications and ramifications of the words the Holy Spirit has moved them to use. We will actually miss out on knowing just how deep the riches of God are (Rom 11:33) if we don’t allow ourselves the opportunity to pursue the Word of God with this vigor. By taking the time to understand Jude’s intro we will be amazed at just how much more we will glean from the rest of the text that we didn’t even think possible.
As Jude writes this letter, he addresses the Christians in this way: “To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.”
This greeting is not a list of three different types of Christians, rather it is a description of the believer himself—those being possessors of all of these listed benefits. Christians are first called by God in an efficacious way and this because of God’s great love for His elect and then they are kept for Jesus Christ, which can also be read that they are kept by or in Jesus Christ.
What does it mean that we are kept by God? Why does Jude include this? What is the significance of this phrase?
Jude is under no illusion as to just how blessed he and all other believers are in the fact that they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ at all. Remember, after a lifetime of missing out on sweet fellowship with his brother—God in the flesh!—because of his hardened heart, he only came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah in the last few moments of Jesus’ life on earth. What a devastating realization, though obviously mixed with thankful repentance! Jesus “opened [Jude’s] eyes to understand the Scriptures” and from then on Jude could testify first hand as to how active and stubborn disbelief is until God intervenes.
The question, then, that begs to be asked is: If we are so unable to save ourselves in the first place, then how can we possibly make sure we don’t give up the faith along the way?
Here is where your understanding of God’s sovereignty in salvation has very real and practical ramifications on your consolation in knowing whether or not you are saved. We have all had those doubts. The gist is this: Your salvation is no more preserved by you than it was established by you. In other words you have as much power to keep your salvation as you did to ascertain it in the first place. John MacArthur has put it even more matter-of-factly, saying that “if you could lose your salvation, you would.”
It goes without saying that if God’s powerful call unto salvation could simply be lost by man’s misstep, then God’s call—indeed God Himself—is an impotent god after all—perish the thought! No, His elect are as secure as His call and promises are everlasting, meaning that His elect are in fact guaranteed eternal life (Eph 1:13–14). God saves us and God keeps us. If His salvation was somehow not an eternal one, in actuality, guaranteed upon the conferring of our adoption as sons, then it is no salvation at all. Have we been saved or haven’t we? Indeed, we have.
Jude uses the Greek word tereo where we read “keep”. It is a word that means “to attend to carefully” or “to take care of”. It means to “guard”, “reserve”, or “preserve”. The entire New Testament teaches and affirms the sovereign, preserving characteristic of God’s salvation.
Paul closes his first letter to the Thessalonian church with this encouragement, saying “may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” (5:23–24).
The fact that God’s elect will make it to the end is irrefutable. Any other position calls into question God’s omnipotence and, by extension, His omniscience, as it confounds his eternal plan of predestination. It is contrary to Scripture to believe that a true believer can truly lose their salvation—it is impossible. Salvation is not man’s work, it is God’s work.
This thought is astounding in itself, but it becomes even more personal as we remember Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer in John 17 where we have the unique opportunity to hear the God-Man, Jesus, pray to the Father, even on our behalf. As Jesus anticipates fulfilling His earthly mission and then leaving the world behind, He prays: “Holy Father, keep them in your name” (v. 11). He recounts, “while I was with them, I kept them . . . I have guarded them” (v. 12). “But now,” He continues, “I am coming to you” (v. 13), asking the Father again to “keep them from the evil one” (v. 15) (emphasis all mine). Even here, the word tereo is used where we see the English word “keep” or “kept”.
Were it not for the Father’s great love for us, the Son’s intercession for us, and the Spirit’s work in us, we would never have any chance of attaining, or maintaining, our salvation.
Jude’s affirmation of God’s sovereignty, both in calling the sinner and keeping the saint, is necessary to understand or else we would rightly be in a constant state of paralyzing fear. What happens when you sin as a Christian? Do you lose your salvation and if so, then after how many sins? How do you have any chance to “keep yourself pure” (1 Tim 5:22), or “keep the commandment unstained” (6:14), or to “keep [yourself] unstained by the world” (Js 1:27) in a way that the biblical writers command if we are still imperfect?
The Apostle Paul answers this mystery in his letter to the Philippians: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (2:12–13). As Steve Lawson once put it, “God has worked the salvation in, now you work it out.” Yet, even in this work we are called to do, Paul explains that our doing it is in fact the work of God in us both to will and to work. The point here is that God’s keeping us secure in His salvation is not an excuse to ignore how we live for God. True Christians do not operate that way. True Christians are careful to continue their efforts of obedience knowing that God is actually working in them.
Let’s remember the sobering reminder in Hebrews that without holiness “no one will see the Lord” (12:14). This is not an affirmation of some type of works-based system of salvation, it is actually an affirmation of what the true life of regeneration will look like. Only God can make us holy by His imputed righteousness that should constantly be worked out over time, yielding a holiness that sanctifies us more and more unto Him. Indeed, “this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thess 4:3).
We have to remember just how powerful God is. In Him we are a new creation (2 Cor 5:17), which means He has actually changed our way of thinking, having given us a new disposition with new inclinations and new desires (Ps 37:4). If God actually does this, then, of necessity, the outworking of this new creature will in fact look much different than the old creature that has “passed away.” There is little wonder then when we are exhorted by the biblical writers to work hard at obeying Christ because only those who are in Christ will want to or care to. This is the natural effect of regeneration.
Ephesians 1:13–14 says, “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.” The Holy Spirit of God is the seal of our salvation and the source of our sanctification, “for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10).
Friends, even Jude exhorts his readers later in his short letter to “keep yourselves in the love of God” (v. 21) and then goes on to praise “him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless” (v. 24) (emphasis mine). By God’s grace we are saved to do good works for His glory and our benefit. We are saved by grace and sustained by grace. When we see people we know and love come to a point in their lives where they seemingly abandon the faith then we have only witnessed what Jesus said would happen in his parable of the sower (Matt 13) and what the Apostle John explained later as an unregenerate person making it plain that they were never regenerate to begin with (1 Jn 2:19).
We should praise God that we, like Jude’s immediate recipients, are kept in and by Jesus Christ if we have repented of our sins and confessed Him as Lord. The proof of this regeneration will be in the fruit that the Spirit will bear as God works in us to do His will and not our own.
God’s keeping of us is what removes all fear of losing our salvation because of something we have done or what we think Satan could do to us. It is for this very reason that the Apostle John said “perfect love casts out fear” (1 Jn 4:18). When we have been “perfected in love”—that is, saved—then we have no fear of punishment. In fact, the entire epistle of 1 John is a letter to comfort the true Christian of their security though he does so after establishing what a true faith looks like. That short letter also provides a number of ways we can test ourselves to see if we have truly confessed Christ as Lord and repented of sin. Assuming the faith is real, John provides the Christian with solid truths of the power of God's keeping us in Him.
“We know,” John said, “that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit” (v. 13).
Praise God that He has called us, loved us, and kept us.
Stay tuned for our next look into Jude’s letter as we start getting into the main body of his text.
In Christ Alone,
Ben
