D. Scott Meadows

¹² These are spots in your feasts of charity when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; ¹³ raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

Physically, they look like anyone else. They are often quite friendly. Perhaps earnest, or funny, or smart, they can make quite an impression. They have a high opinion of themselves but they may hide that very well. Today they spread their influence by social media, using expertly-produced and slickly-presented videos, podcasts, and blogs. Yet false teachers are a plague of the church. Real Christians, gracious to others by the grace of God, need a jolt of reality through warnings about the deadly danger of these satanic seducers.

Jude had intended to write about the “common salvation” shared alike by all Christian believers (Jude 3). However, for this letter, it was even more urgent and important to warn them about certain men who had snuck in among them and were a poison to their souls (v. 4). Using extremely vivid language, Jude evokes five mental images as metaphors to sensitize the good but slightly naive believers whom he loves for the sake of Jesus Christ. Jude’s message is still the wisdom and voice of the Holy Spirit for us today

1. Spots in Your Feasts

Plenty of food shared together in a climate of fervent brotherly love was customary in the religious life of the early Christians to whom Jude was writing. Their gatherings were beautiful: a sister in the Lord recently converted and baptized out of her degraded lifestyle, amazed by the kindness in her new circle of Christian friends, and a brother growing strong in the faith, learning solid truths about God and His ways, and a matron of proven wisdom and worth alongside them both, accompanied by many other genuine saints, diverse in most respects but united in faith.

But the all-discerning eye of God beholds a few unsavory people without the beauty of Christ, mere pretenders and carriers of unseen immorality in their souls. They are the rotten brown spots on the apple, the infected blemishes on an otherwise pretty face, the cancer cells endangering the body. And there they are, as if they were a proper part of the holy congregation, partaking of the food so generously offered even while lurking among the benefactors! Heaping sin upon sin, they have no idea about the severe judgement awaiting them when they will finally give an account to Christ, the Church’s loving Savior. Dear people of God, be aware of their presence among you. Do not give these purveyors of licentiousness in the name of grace any respect as your teachers (v. 4).

2. Clouds Without Water

Sufferers of drought understandably pray and pine for life-giving rains. Oh, how their hopes rise when, after months of hot, dry weather, clouds appear on the horizon! Could these be the showers of blessing in answer to our holy pleadings? Imagine the disappointment when no rain falls and the hot sun comes out to bake the earth again. False teachers are like those clouds, Jude says. They promise fair and profit no one. They are unstable and undependable like clouds scattered by winds.

3. Trees Without Fruit

Fruit trees sustained human life and were to be preserved according to God’s law (Deut 20.19, 20), but if they proved fruitless too long, they only wasted the precious ground where they were planted and should be cut down (Luke 13.6, 7). Jude heaps scorn on the false teachers using a tree metaphor. Whatever little fruit they seemed to produce withers and is worthless. It is hard to know what “twice dead” might have meant in the analogy, but these false teachers are spiritually dead now (1 Tim 5.6) and headed for the second death later (Rev 21.8). A tree being ripped out of the ground by its roots is a powerful image of their coming exposure and punishment by Christ on the Last Day.

4. Raging Waves of the Sea

In many instances throughout Scripture, the sea is mentioned with ominous overtones. It can symbolize the unrestrained, restless forces of evil (e.g., Isa 57.20). Beachgoers have seen foam and debris wash up on the shore. Jude compares that to the shame and dishonor carried by false teachers. They may not feel ashamed of themselves as they should, but their “ministry” truly is a shameful thing in the sight of God, as Judgment Day will finally show.

5. Wandering Stars

The ancients observed a fixed pattern of the stars, but among these countless points of light there were bright heavenly bodies which moved around against a stable background. Now we know they were seeing planets in orbit around the sun, but they called them “wandering stars.” These became proverbial for unreliability. One could navigate by the rest but woe to the mariner mistaking a planet for a star!

Besides their own unbelief and impenitence, false teachers sin by misleading others. They are worse than ordinary sinners because of their more widespread influence. “My brethren,” James warns the members of Christ’s church, “let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment” (Jas 3.1). These antinomians described by Jude are among the worst. In holy justice God has appointed fire and brimstone for Sodom (Gen 19), a hungry fissure for Korah (Num 16), and “the blackness of darkness for ever” for these blind guides. That eternal doom is “reserved” by God with them in mind as a fitting punishment for their profane, presumptuous, and perilous ways.

How we need Jude’s counsel today! In the name of tolerance, openmindedness, and unearned respect, everyone is supposed to be patiently heard. It is considered audacious and unloving to mark anyone who deviates from the apostolic doctrine and to avoid them with their smooth words and flattering speech (Rom 16.17, 18). Instead, we should thank God for those who, like Jude, earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints (v. 3), and alert us to our most infernal enemies. Ω