What Jesus' Brother Jude Wanted Us To Know | Verse 16, Part 1 | Grumblers
In a final critique of the “these” of Jude’s urgent and passionate letter (i.e. the false teachers that ran incognito within Christian circles), he gives this first half of his correspondence a summarizing capstone. It is not one that exhausts all descriptions of heretics, but neatly accents what he has already taken the time to say. In his own words:
“These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires; they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.” | Jude 16
“These are grumblers,” Jude observes. But more than just offering his observation, Jude connects them to a massive group of rabble-rousers that have gone down in Jewish history as epitomizing rebellion and unbelief—the Israelites. His illustration of them in verse five seems to show that this is the case. A straight-through reading of Jude’s epistle, especially from a Jewish perspective, would undoubtedly recognize the grumbling descriptor that was so characteristic of the nomadic Israelites in the pre-Promised Land era. With his illustration still fresh on their minds, the connection is unmistakable.
In verse five he warns his readers, “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.”
In Hebrews 3, the author tells us plainly that the Israelites’ sin was unbelief, which led to God’s rebuffing them and not allowing that generation into the Promised Land. The descriptive language in this portion of Scripture uses words like rebelled, sinned, disobedient and 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” (Heb 3:16–19) (emphasis mine).
Again, the writer of Hebrews states, “those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience” (4:6).
The Apostle John makes the same connection between belief and obedience in John 3:36: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
In other words, the rebellion, sinfulness and disobedience of the people was a direct outworking of their unbelief in God. And so it is with any modern day false teachers of our own. False teachers still hear, yet rebel; they still provoke God with their sin; they still forfeit the rest of eternal life by, instead, clamoring after their own sinful desires. They are, in a word, grumblers.
A review of Exodus and Numbers will help as it gives us a sweeping view of the Israelites’ grumbling character. While they sometimes feigned belief and obedience, they proved they were only happy to express any sort of positive faith when things were going well for them. They were the seeds that fell along the rocky path that Jesus taught about in the Parable of the Sower—when the sun came up, their quick profession of faith withered and died (c.f. Mk 4:1–9).
Immediately following the victorious crossing of the Red Sea, the people arrive in a place with water that is substandard—it was bitter. “The people grumbled against Moses” (Ex 15:24). The very next stop in their journey resulted in more of the same behavior: “The whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (16:2–3). The LORD then graciously provided the manna.
In chapter 17, “the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” (vv. 2–3).
The LORD, then, graciously provided water from the rock.
Moses had warned them that their grumbling was not against him, ultimately, but against God (Ex 16:8). Time and time again, however, they succumbed to the temptation to grumble in God’s face. The LORD Himself said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?” (14:11).
Even after the divine, climactic and epic earth-swallowing event of that rebel Korah who dared rise up to usurp the rule of Moses after they were turned away from the Promised Land, the people actually grumbled again! This, to me, is one of the most astonishing verses in Scripture in light of all that has gone on: “The next day all the congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron, saying, “You have killed the people of the Lord” (Num 16:41).
What is acutely recognized in this point of Israelite history, though, is that the grumbling of the people is a result of unbelief and it is for these reasons that they are refused entrance to the Promised Land. That said, one more thing must not escape our attention: Though all grumblers were judged, the grumbling leaders were dealt with more severely than the grumbling followers. God’s message to them was very clear:
Judgement of Congregation:
“Of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun” (14:29–30).
Judgement of Leaders:
“And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land—the men who brought up a bad report of the land—died by plague before the Lord. Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive” (vv. 36–38).
Here, we see the judgement on all unbelief, but with a stricter judgment on those who orchestrated, spearheaded and encouraged the unbelief and rejection of God’s promise. Juxtaposed to the condemnation is the life that was preserved for only two men out of hundreds of thousands. Their faith was credited to them as righteousness.
What a picture of the narrow road that the Lord Jesus warned us about. So much can be gleaned here, but let’s allow the New Testament writers to give us some application.
“Not many of you,” James warns, “should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (3:1). Interestingly, he writes this in the context of taming the tongue.
Now Jude—the brother of James—gives a similar warning of the damning nature of the grumbler. It is never used in a positive sense in Scripture and is always used to identify false believers and false teachers.
The Greek word Jude uses is a derivation of the verb gogguzo, which means to murmur or mutter; to discontentedly complain. To be more specific, Jude’s particular use is unique in Scripture, rendered as a noun, goggustes, which identifies someone murmuring and discontentedly complaining against God.
The Pharisees and scribes grumbled at Jesus for eating with sinners (Lk 5:30; 15:2; 19:7). The Jews grumbled when Jesus said He was the bread that came down from heaven that must be eaten (Jn 6:41).
The Apostle Paul warns about this very sin, telling us to take heed and learn from it: “We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction” (1 Cor 10:9–11).
He tells the Philippians to “do all things without grumbling” (2:14) and James, again, exhorts the Christian: “Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing at the door” (5:9).
Finally, Jude identifies the unbelieving, false teachers as those very grumblers that Scripture is replete with. We must not be like them, nor should we align with them, which is Jude's point in this part of his letter. We must faithfully endure the tests of faith and strive for godliness and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord (Heb 12:14).
Far be it from the believer to grumble. This would be a self-contradictory existence. Instead we can offer up a doxology as we recall with confidence that God is sovereign over what appears to be negative in our life as well as positive. Our submission to His will rules out all reasons to grumble like those who do not know God.
In Christ Alone,
Ben
