What Jesus' Brother Jude Wanted Us to Know | Verse 6 | What Fallen Man and Fallen Angels Have In
Having already set forth his reason for writing and establishing the sobering reality that God will judge the disobedient unbelief even in the professing church, he goes on to list examples in history of when He has done just that.
In verse 5, Jude reminded us that even though God saved the entire nation of Israel from the hands of their Egyptian oppressors, He later destroyed most of them for their unbelief.
Make no mistake, though God continued to preserve Israel nationally, He still required repentance and faith in Him, individually. Merely being born into the nation of Israel was not salvific in itself. Though they were in fact God’s chosen nation to be a blessing to the world via the coming Messiah, true salvation in the Old Testament was always through faith in God alone as it still is today through God the Son, which is why the Apostle Paul spent so much time drawing this out in Romans.
The author of Hebrews even draws out the significance of God’s chosen people—nation—being judged at the individual level for unbelief: “who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 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” (3:16–19).
God did not allow a single person from the entire Egyptian exodus generation to enter the Promised Land, except for two who remained faithful to the Lord—Joshua and Caleb (Num 26:65). These two led a completely different generation into the land. Again, we see the judgment of God coming down on unbelief while maintaining his preservation of the nation itself.
Jude does not want anyone thinking that there are no consequences for entertaining alternative viewpoints and teachings in the church. The Word of God has been delivered once and for all. This he stated so clearly in verse 3. To believe false teaching is to actually be in a state of unbelief towards God, hence Jude’s urgency in exhorting his readers to stay faithful so as not to reap the condemnation that is designated for the spiritual hucksters and those that follow them (v. 4).
Now, in verse 6, Jude gets to his next example of how God has judged those who we might otherwise think were incapable of unbelief and consequent judgement—the angels of Heaven itself.
It is at this point we should be reminded of Jude’s borrowing from—and affirmation of—Peter’s warnings in Peter’s second epistle. We should not raise our eyebrows at this for any reason, but rather be encouraged by it. Nearly all of the New Testament writers quoted from other sources of Scripture, so this is nothing unexpected. Even Peter himself said he would “make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things” (2 Pet 1:15). Jude was fulfilling what Peter hoped would happen—further edification for the church.
Furthermore, it must be noted that when Peter wrote, it was in the future tense in expectation of what is to come. Jude, on the other hand, is dealing with what is now present. In other words, Peter’s warnings were now Jude’s reality, so an urgent reminder of what the apostle had already written about was extremely practical, relevant, and helpful.
That said, while Jude uses the framework of Peter’s argument throughout his short epistle, he is not merely copying a word for word transcript, so some other details are brought to light in Jude’s letter that we do not have in Peter’s—such is the superintending work of the Holy Spirit over both men.
Consider it borrowing from Peter to pay all.
Peter wrote:
“God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment” (2 Pete 2:4).
Jude now writes:
“The angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6).
While Peter simply stated that the angels “sinned”, Jude actually elaborates on the sin, in that some angels “did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling.”
What is this referring to?
When God created the angels and both Adam and Eve, he created them with a perfectly free will. No other humans in history have ever had a completely free will like Adam and Eve, or the angels. Meaning, Adam, Eve, and the angels were not created with hearts pre-disposed to sin like we are. Once Adam and Eve did sin, the rest of mankind that were born to them were born into their sinful likeness.
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,” Jesus told Nicodemus (Jn 3:6). In other words, natural procreation will never produce a pure, sinless being—only the Holy Spirit can cause someone to be born again—spiritually—much like it took the supernatural work of God to create a perfect man and woman in the first place.
Like Adam and Eve, there were angels who also rebelled—along with Satan—and were consequently kicked out of Heaven. What many people don’t realize is that God’s sovereign plan of election actually extends to angels as well, so it is obvious that those angels that were of God’s elect were not a part of the rebellion. The Apostle Paul actually makes an explicit reference to the “elect angels” when writing to Timothy (1 Tim 5:21).
There are a few places in Scripture that refer to this angelic rebellion.
Genesis 6 recounts how the “sons of God”—angels—being attracted to the “daughters of man,” took them for their wives and bore children (vv. 1–2). This could only happen by way of possession. At this point it is proper to refer to these fallen angels as demons who were possessing men and seeking unnatural relationships.
This is supported explicitly by Jesus who said that in Heaven, people “neither marry nor are given in marriage . . . they are equal to angels and are sons of God” (Luke 20:35–36).
Another reference to the rebellion in Heaven was made by the Apostle Paul to Timothy when he listed the qualifications for church leaders. He warned that they “must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil” (1 Tim 3:6). Obviously, the devil’s sin was manifested in his conceit—something invisible, yet leading to drastic results, which should be a warning to us all.
In Luke 10, Jesus said to the seventy-two evangelists he had selected, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (v. 18). With Satan, Revelation 12 tells us, “a third of the stars [angels] of heaven” went with him in a massive rebellion against Holy God (v. 4).
It is worth quoting what transpired:
“Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (vv. 7–9).
This is what Peter and Jude were talking about. In order to come back around to their warning surrounding this epic example of rebellion against God, we can take note of what Jesus said would happen to these rebellious creatures—it will be the exact same outcome for rebellious men and women.
“He will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt 25:41).
The warning that Jude is making here is that we must not find ourselves on the same side of the devil, being full of conceit and unbelief, or we will be judged just like him. There will be no room in Heaven for such as those. The devil is not waltzing around Hell with a red pitchfork in his hand and in complete control of its fiery surroundings. No, he is “going to and fro on the earth . . . walking up and down on it” (Job 1:7) and he “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet 5:8). When God does condemn Satan to Hell, he will be gnashing his teeth in torment like every other unbelieving man and woman. This is the frightful reality of the consequences of sin, which is why false teaching cannot be tolerated in the church.
Jude loves the church and seeks to save them from this potential.
Many may wonder at the reference to the “gloomy darkness” that precedes the final day of judgement that both Peter and Jude refer to. This is a place that Scripture teaches is a spiritual holding place for demons who have severely overstepped God’s boundaries and are no longer allowed to afflict the Earth—a powerful testimony to the sovereignty of God.
It is little wonder the apostle John said “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 Jn 4:4).
Peter elsewhere mentions the “spirits in prison” who were there “because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah” (1 Pet 3:19–20). Where in Scripture do we read about rebellious angels in the days of Noah? That’s right—Genesis 6.
Another fascinating aspect is that the demonic forces apparently cannot stand the thought of being incarcerated in this gloomy dungeon. In Luke 8, when Jesus was going to cast a multitude of demons out of a single man, “they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss” and then “they begged him to let them enter [the pigs]” instead (vv. 31–32) (emphasis mine).
Finally, the Apostle John tells us in his revelation that Satan will be bound up for a thousand years in the bottomless pit—the abyss (Rev 20:1–3).
Jude’s warning is clear: God destroyed the unbelieving people in His own chosen nation and He condemned the rebellious angels for their sin as well. If they did not escape the judgement of God, do we think we will when we rebel and believe things that are contrary to God’s Word, thus putting us at enmity with Him?
What we believe and love has eternal consequences. May we heed Jude’s warning and take hold of the sound doctrine that has once and for all been delivered to the saints and may we then be a source of truth for others who are also in need of it.
In Christ Alone,
Ben
