What Jesus' Brother Jude Wanted Us to Know | Verse 5 | When God Punishes the Church
“Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe” (Jude 5).
This verse is massively significant. It would be hard to imagine that it did not carry with it the weighty gravitas that leaves one feeling self-conscious.
Jude, having explained that false teachers exist within the framework of the church and are subtle in their behaviors, thus wreaking real havoc on the spiritual well-being of the saints, gives us a general, but poignant, illustration for the outcome of these rebellious ones and any who follow them.
“Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.”
What happened here? How is this a possibility with God? The answer is understood when you distinguish the types of salvation that are taking place.
In Genesis 15, God promised Abraham that his offspring would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. It was a one-sided covenant that God made and Abraham “believed the LORD, and he counted it to him as righteousness” (v. 6).
God also told Abraham—at that time residing in the land of Canaan—that his people would be afflicted in a foreign land for 400 years until God judged the foreigners for their mistreatment. He would then bring them back to Abraham’s land—what came to be known as the Promised Land (vv. 13–14). The Israelites would then be tasked to drive them out completely—their adherence to this holy war, or not, is for another lesson.
The book of Exodus then recounts the epic events in Egypt that led to the Israelite’s exit just as God had said. So why did God then destroy some of His own people, the very ones descended from Abraham himself?
Understanding this question will help answer the modern question that many people get hung up on, namely the relationship of Israel and the New Testament church.
In a nutshell, God promised Abraham—who “was as good as dead” as Paul so eloquently asserted in Romans 4:19—a physical lineage that was, for all intents and purposes, a number that would be so vast it would be uncountable. This number will obviously grow exponentially with each succeeding generation. Now, since God did not promise immortality to Abraham’s descendants, deaths would also continue in each succeeding generation.
As we read through the history of the Israelites in the Old Testament, we see that God did not always allow some people to die of old age. In some instances He punished them with death. This does not threaten the faithfulness of God’s keeping His covenant because death is already a reality anyway and babies keep on coming!
Not only that, but even if God did want to wipe out every last Israelite because of their sin, He could. He could simply start over with a faithful few while still being faithful to His covenant with Abraham because the reproduction rate would increase quickly, not to mention that all those who have died are still included in the actual count of Abraham’s descendants. In other words, Abraham’s competition with the stars will only become fiercer because he never loses points. Not even the gates of Hades will prevail against God’s chosen people—sound familiar?
At one point in the Israelite’s trek to the Promised Land, God did indeed threaten to “strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them" and start over with Moses: "I will make of you a nation greater and mightier than they” (Num 14:12).
Disinherit them? Make a mighty nation out of Moses? How does this not contradict the Abrahamic Covenant?
Simply stated, Moses himself is a descendant of Abraham. Rebuilding the Abrahamic blood line through a more specific Mosaic blood line, would not be a departure from His promise in the least. Disinheriting those currently living was to purge the sinner from among His blessed congregation of Israelites. It was not tantamount to losing salvation, rather the rebels just proved that real faith never took root and thus were judged for it. The Apostle Paul even reiterates this need for purging evil from the church and supports his argument from the Old Testament (1 Cor 5:13).
The takeaway is this: being a physical descendant of Abraham is not what saves someone, spiritually. It is only those whose faith is truly in the living God—those who believe what God says. Paul proves that salvation is through faith alone and not by works by appealing to Abraham himself, reminding his readers, “what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’” (Rom 4:3).
John the Baptist called out those who would count on their physical, Abrahamic lineage: “Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham” (Matt3:8–9).
Listen to what Paul also said in Romans 9:
“Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring” (vv. 6–8).
It goes without saying that the visible church is not always the actual church—the regenerated elect. It is for this reason that Jude warns his readers that the visible people of God were punished and even killed at times when they rebelled. The New Testament church, Jude says, should not expect the same God to overlook the same offenses in the church today.
The writer of Hebrews spends some time expounding this exact issue: "Who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? . . . And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief" (vv. 16, 18–19).
His exhortation from the Old Testament is directly applied to those in the New Testament church: "Good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened" (4:2).
The personal takeaway, then, is for every Christian to discern the truth, contend for it, and run away from those who do not hold to it, so as not to get swept up in the heresies that would bring condemnation upon us.
“Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe” (Jude 5).
Don’t count on your church affiliation, or best-selling ministry to cover your sins. Only faith in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose life, death and resurrection satisfied the wrath of God against sin, can save us if we believe.
I’ll close with the fitting words of the Apostle Peter:
“It is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God” (1 Pet 4:17)?
May we be among those who believe.
In Christ Alone,
Ben
