Peter Barnes | Jude 8-11
SERMON NOTES
THE LAWLESS ARE GRACELESS
(Jude 8-11)
– grace is being turned into immorality (vv.3-4)
1. The false teachers are immoral, selfish and arrogant.
– v.8; Jude thinks in triplets: they defile the flesh, they reject authority, and literally ‘they slander the glories’
– sodomy and sexual immorality (1 Cor.6:18); authority must be apostolic authority (Matt.10:40), slandering the glories refers to church officers in Thomas Manton’s view (note 2 Cor.8:23), but more likely is rejecting the angels who gave the law of Moses (Heb.2:2).
– vv.9-10; they abuse what they cannot understand; the fox in Aesop’s Fables who could not reach the grapes so pronounced them ‘sour’.
– Deut.34:5-6; did Michael not slander the devil or not slander Moses? Zechariah 3:1-5 may help.
2. All truth is God’s truth.
– vv.9-10; refers to a now lost part of the Assumption of Moses; Jude cites the Book of Enoch in vv.14-15.
– we can cite non-biblical writers when they speak the truth, in part at least (cf. Num.21:14; 2 Tim.3:8; Acts 17:28; 1 Cor.15:33; Tit.1:12). Quote the Qur’an against the Muslim; George Orwell against the socialist.
3. Modern false teachers imitate ancient false teachers.
– v.11; Cain (Gen.4); Balaam (Num.31:16); Korah (Num.16:1-3, 28-35)