What Jesus' Brother Jude Wanted Us to Know | Verse 11, Part 2 | Modern Insight From the Old Test
“Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error and perished in Korah's rebellion.” | Jude 11
Immediately following Jude’s serious pronouncement of woe against the false teachers, he proceeds to give one damning accusation after another, using a combination of historical examples from the Old Testament as well as some specific metaphors that would continue to clarify just how dangerous their errors are.
We must recall that in verses 5—7 he has just given historical examples of sin being punished at a corporate level based on the culmination of a particular group’s sin: The corporate body of Israel was destroyed for their unbelief in God; A third of the angels of Heaven were kicked out for their rebellion against God; The culmination of wickedness in a cluster of cities around—and including—Sodom and Gomorrah, brought on a fiery death. All of these are examples in the Old Testament of how God dealt on a large scale with the collective sin of a large corpus.
Now, Jude gets even more specific. Starting with the macro, he is working to the micro. He is coming down from the mountain to point out the mole hill. Knowing how subtle false teachers can be, he is going to do his best to not only point out what kind of judgement awaits them—described in his first example—but he will also give Old Testament examples of spiritual error and false religion at an individual level.
Here is a very practical point that I think we need to learn from Jude today. He is a valuable model for Bible teachers and preachers at this point in his epistle. Pay attention to what he is doing. He goes straight back to the Old Testament for proof and substantiation for his modern reader of the need to believe and obey God.
This is exactly what faithful Bible teachers and preachers should do in their teaching and preaching today. In fact, the Apostle Paul said more than once that “whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” (Rom15:4).
To the Corinthians he wrote that “these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did” (1 Cor 10:6). He is saying this as he, like Jude, recounts Israel’s defection in the desert that led to their being destroyed.
Just a few sentences later, Paul says again, “These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall” (v. 11–12).
Similarly, the author of Hebrews explains entire passages of the Old Testament in order to illuminate the glorious New Covenant of Christ’s blood. At one point he, too, uses the Israelite’s desertion—good pun?—of God’s plan as an example for modern readers, explaining how even now our unbelief will keep us from entering the real Promised Land of rest—Heaven (Heb 4). Likewise, our unbelief will reap God’s wrath and incur His judgment, ultimately, in eternal Hell, made evident in Sodom and Gomorrah’s judgement, of whom, Jude has already stated in verse 7, “serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
Jude is making use of the inspired and inerrant Word of God to drive home the irrevocable and irrefutable case that the faith they have come to partake in is the same faith that people, for thousands of years before Christ, either had or didn’t have, with both outcomes clearly recorded in history. There is nothing, Jude argues effectively, that will change how God deals with unbelief now.
In verse 11 of Jude’s little letter, he now references three specific individuals who were well known to his audience. How do we know they were well known? Precisely because he didn’t need to explain them, or expound on their historical situations. He simply references them and moves on, obviously with the understanding that they already know these accounts. Details like these help us know to what kind of audience the biblical writers are writing to. More than likely, Jude has a Jewish audience in mind as your typical Roman convert to Christianity would have no clue about Israelite history.
His point, however, to the typical Jewish reader is clear in these three examples. Using Jude’s own words we can summarize them in the following way:
1) The Way of Cain
2) The Error of Balaam
3) The Rebellion of Korah
There are incredible lessons to be learned here and we will look at each one in the upcoming weeks. I pray that we can all be encouraged by Jude’s confidence in the Old Testament Scriptures as he continually uses it to exhort the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ to contend for the faith that was given to the saints once and for all.
In Christ Alone,
Ben
