What Jesus' Brother Jude Wanted Us to Know | Verse 11, Part 1 | The Significance of 'Woe'
In our last post, we made it through verse 10 where Jude said that ungodly people—false teachers in particular—blaspheme and slander anything that does not fall in line with their own reasoning. In fact, what they do not understand, they slander, Jude says, whereas the stuff they do understand is merely an animal-like instinct—bodily cravings. It is similar to what the Apostle Paul said of the same types of people: “Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things” (Phil 3:19) (emphasis mine). It is by these things that they are ultimately destroyed.
Jude’s holy diatribe kicks into second gear here in verse 11, making no ambiguous warnings, or soft-peddled suggestions of what will become of these men. He uses a powerful word meant for the awesome and unspeakable pronouncement of judgement that was often used by the prophets and even the Lord Jesus Christ Himself: Woe!
“Woe to them!” | Jude 11
We cannot miss the urgency in Jude’s letter—the emphatic plea to the saint and proclamation against the sinner.
No one is saved from drowning by being politely spoken to from the boat. Likewise, upon seeing a small child who is just out of earshot and about to run into a busy street, the concerned parent will not simply mumble a few words of caution between sips of their coffee. We all know exactly what we would do in that situation. We would immediately drop the coffee and start running and yelling at the top of our lungs wishing our body could move us faster toward the child! Every effort produced would not feel good enough given the consequences at stake.
How wrong we are to think that the perspectives of the biblical writers are any different when they see God’s people walking into the highway of heresy where there are many lanes. This angst is something that Paul, like Jude, felt, but Paul expressed that he felt it almost daily:
“Apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?” (2 Cor 11:28–29).
Jude is feeling the same anger against those who would attempt to deceive the church. Though he is not an apostle himself, he is a lot like King David who said more than once: “I hate every false way” (Ps 119:104, 128), going on to say, “My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law” (v. 136), even stating that “my zeal consumes me, because my foes forget your words” (v. 139).
This is not trivial. If Jude is making such an emphatic statement in his letter that he would bolster his plea with a pronouncement of ‘woe’ against the ungodly people infiltrating the church, then we ought not to act as if the threat is non-existent even today. We need to view the world and the church through the lens of Scripture.
When we see the word ‘woe’, we may be tempted to think it is nothing more than saying something like ‘whoa, that’s cool,” or “whoa, that’s terrible.” As stated above, however, it was a word specifically used as a primary exclamation of grief, most often in the context of impending judgement with no hope of deliverance in sight.
In the New Testament, it is the Greek word ouai, which is an onomatopoeic word—it sounds like it's meaning. It's phonetic spelling is oo-ah'-ee. Try saying that with somber reflection and you will sound like you are in grief and agony. That's the idea. It works the same way in Hebrew, the word being owy and pronounced o'-ee.
We see it often in the Old Testament when the prophets are denouncing the unrepentant nature of various people groups, guaranteeing their sure and inescapable destruction.
In Isaiah 3:11, the prophet declares, “Woe to the wicked! It will go badly with him, for what he deserves will be done to him.”
Jeremiah stated of his own people, the Israelites, “Woe to us for we have sinned!” (Lam 5:16).
Again, Isaiah pronounced a series of six woes against Israel’s wickedness in Isaiah 5, announcing the coming judgment of God: “He will raise a signal for nations far away, and whistle for them from the ends of the earth; and behold, quickly, speedily they come!” (v. 26).
In fact, it is this destruction that Jeremiah laments after the fact in the book of Lamentations.
Interestingly, in chapter six of Isaiah, right after his series of six woes against Israel, Isaiah said of himself, when catching a vision of just the effects of God’s glory, “Woe is me!” (v. 5) (emphasis mine). No other response is possible when facing the holy and Almighty God.
R.C. Sproul has rightly and accurately commented: “The holiness of God is traumatic to unholy people.”
This is precisely why Jude is so indignant against the arrogance of false teachers who blaspheme anything and everything but their own theological spin on life that allows for sinful habits under the guise and pretense of grace.
The holiness-driven wrath of God will one day oppose and consume them as well.
Ezekiel gave the sobering declaration against false teachers: “Thus says the Lord GOD, Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!” (13:3).
As if this constant devastating pronouncement of woe from all of the various prophets were not enough—we’ve only looked at a few of the many—Ezekiel uses a Hebrew communication device of repetition to make the sure judgement of God all the more poignant and weighty.
Just as we so often see the Lord Jesus Christ say things like “Truly, truly,” or “Martha, Martha,” in order to grab the attention of His listeners and let them know that He is about to say something very important, so does Ezekiel, but in a very negative context, utter the heavy words: “Woe, woe to you! declares the Lord GOD” (16:23). This is the only place in the Bible that this word is used together twice. However, it is not the only place that this word is used back to back, more than once . . .
In Revelation 8, we see one of the most terrifying utterances that could possibly be spoken against mankind in the final days of this old earth. Right after four of the seven angels have blown their trumpets that correspond to different forms of God’s judgement on earth, the Apostle John noticed something:
“Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead, “Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow!” (v. 13).
As R.C. Sproul once quipped, “You don’t want to be around when that bird starts to sing.”
Very few instances exist in Scripture where a phrase or word is repeated three times. In fact there are, coincidentally, only three: 1) “The temple of the LORD” is repeated three times in Jeremiah 7:4 and this in warning against the false teachers who constantly appealed to the existence of the Temple as their safety while remaining in sin; 2) “Holy, holy, holy” is the only thrice repeated characteristic of God (e.g. Is 6:3; Rev 4:8), and 3) “Wow, woe, woe” as seen in Revelation 8.
There are plenty of other examples in the Old Testament where prophetic pronouncements of woe are used, but the New Testament has similar material.
In Matthew 23, Jesus delivered a blistering denunciation against the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, the blind guides of Judaism, with seven woes. His message was specific and unmistakable: Jesus Christ was announcing their imminent judgement.
We cannot, then, read over Jude’s use of the word ‘woe’ without realizing that he is deadly serious about the damning consequences of false religion, the teachers that promote them, and the subtle nature of their existence in the Christian church.
This threat is still just as prevalent in the church today—arguably even more so. Let us then take heed and constantly remember Jude’s exhortation to contend for the faith that has been delivered once and for all as we read through his passionate and urgent letter.
Jude’s letter to the Christian church is for us today and while it is clearly full of judgement against the teachers of erroneous doctrine and theology, it is a letter of warning, encouragement, and exhortation to the Christian to stand fast with what they already have—the truth.
In Christ Alone,
Ben
