What Jesus' Brother Jude Wanted Us To Know | Verse 12, Part 2 | Waterless Clouds
“[These are] waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.” | Jude 12–13
Jude continues by using metaphors that anyone can understand to identify the dispositions of false teachers and heretics. The word pictures he provides do justice to how untrustworthy, unstable and inconsistent these spiritual terrorists in the church are.
Isaiah once said, “If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all” (7:9). It is as if Jude had this statement in mind as he continued exhorting his readers with every caution, every indictment and every warning.
Nearly everything Jude writes in these two verses exudes a connotation of activity. As we pull them apart we will notice that Jude was well-versed in the faithful Old Testament prophetic writings as well as more contemporary sources in his day. We see in this brief little excerpt, references to Isaiah, Ezekiel, Solomon’s proverbs, the Apostle Paul and his own half-brother, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.
Jude’s breakdown of the false teachers’ dispositions are as follows. They are:
1. Waterless
2. Fruitless
3. Shameless
4. Restless
“Waterless clouds, swept along by winds.”
One of King Solomon’s proverbs says, “Like clouds and wind without rain is a man who boasts of a gift he does not give” (25:14).
Indeed, false teachers are boastful men and women. While they boast in their own authority they also claim to speak on behalf of God’s authority. They are accepted into the folds of many churches because too many churches are gullible for the “gifts” that the frauds claim to offer. They want the special thing. They want to be around what is popular and perhaps what might make themselves popular. They are assuaged of their desire for spirituality simply because these men claim to be spiritual and of the Lord. Of course, the true gift of a godly preacher will be seen in his sound teaching of the whole counsel of the Word of God. False teachers are characteristically void of this gift. Indeed, they boast of gifts they do not actually give.
The Apostle Paul used similar language, perhaps influencing Jude’s choice of words himself. Paul uses the language of a victor who, after defeating an enemy and plundering their camp, gives it all out as gifts to his men. In a similar vein, Christ has defeated the enemy and has been glorified in Heaven after giving gifts to mankind—Bible teachers. But not just any ordinary Bible teachers:
“He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Eph 4:11–12). These men constituted the first ripple produced by the ultimate truth bomb in history—the Lord Jesus Christ. The reason for this was then made abundantly clear:
“Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (vv. 13–14).
The tie, here, is obvious. The false teachers who agitated Jude were the “every wind of doctrine” that Paul warned about. Not only were they themselves blown around by falsities, they also perpetuated the errors further. Fittingly, Jude is doing exactly what Paul said godly teachers do, which is building up the saints by “speaking the truth in love” (vs. 15) so as not to be blown by the shifty winds of false doctrine.
The significance of Jude’s language in these verses simply cannot be lost on us. There is probably nothing worse for a farmer than when, in the midst of a drought, he notices a wall of clouds moving his direction only to discover that they offer nothing but shade. These are the false teachers of every age. With God, however, the opposite is true.
The Lord said to Israel: “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb” (Deut 32:1–2).
False teachers do not actually give anything that is helpful for true spiritual growth. Their “wisdom” is man-centered, emotional, gimmicky and anecdotal. It is not biblical wisdom from above that comes from a desire for holiness and obedience to their Creator.
James says clearly, “If you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic” (3:14–15).
Our Father in Heaven, however, provides us richly with all that we need to know the truth and to discern its absence in false men and women who purport to work on the same grounds as the apostles.
“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth” (Is 55:10–11).
Beware the waterless clouds.
In Christ Alone,
