Jude Series: Jude 23b-The Second Command to Exercise Compassion with the Non-Christian
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Jude 19 These people are divisive, who are worldly by nature because they do not possess within themselves the Spirit. 20 However, each and every one of you beloved by making it your habit of building yourselves up by means of your most holy faith, by making it your habit of occupying yourselves with praying by means of the omnipotence of the Holy Spirit, 21 make it your top priority of keeping yourselves in the state of loving God because of God’s love for you and continue doing so by anticipating for the benefit of yourselves the manifestation of the compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ for the purpose of experiencing eternal life. 22 Consequently, on the one hand, each one of you begin to make it your habit of exercising compassion with those who are uncertain within themselves and continue making it your habit of doing so. 23 On the other hand, each one of you continue to make it your habit of saving others by making it your habit of snatching them out from the fire. However, each one of you continue to make it your habit of exercising compassion with reverence by hating even their garments, which are defiled because of their flesh. (Lecturer’s translation)
Jude 22 and 23 form a correlative clause.
The command in Jude 22 required that the spiritually mature in the Christian community in Judaea make it their habit of exercising compassion with regards to the spiritually immature in their community who were uncertain with regards to the Christian faith and thus uncertain as to how they should respond to these Zealots.
The first command in Jude 23 required that these spiritually mature individuals in the Christian community in Judaea save those in the non-Christian community by snatching them out of the fire of eternal condemnation.
They would execute this command by communicating the gospel to the non-Christian community so that they might trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior and escape eternal condemnation in the lake of fire.
Therefore, this correlative clause in Jude 22-23 is uniting the command in Jude 22 and the two commands in Jude 23.
Thus, it is uniting the concepts of the spiritually mature believers exercising compassion to those in their community who are uncertain with regards to how to deal with the unregenerate Jewish Zealots infiltrating their meetings and saving those in the non-Christian community by communicating the gospel to them.
The three commands in Jude 22-23 present the result of obeying the command in Jude 21, which we noted required that the recipients of the epistle of Jude make it their top priority of keeping themselves in the state of loving God because of God’s love for them.
Therefore, a comparison of the commands in Jude 22-23 with this command in Jude 21 indicates that the recipients of the epistle of Jude keeping themselves in the state of loving God because of God’s love for them will “result” in them manifesting compassion to those in their community who are uncertain with regards to the Christian faith.
It also indicates that keeping themselves in the state of loving God because of God’s love for them will “result” in them communicating the gospel to those in the non-Christian community which will result in saving them from eternal condemnation in the lake of fire.
In other words, obedience to these three commands in Jude 22 and 23 is the direct result of obedience to the previous command in Jude 21.
As we noted, the second command in Jude 23 required that each mature believer in the Christian community in Judaea continue to make it their habit of exercising compassion for the members of the non-Christian community but to do so with reverence for God by hating even their clothes which are defiled by their sinful nature.
They were to exercise compassion towards them because they were in danger of experiencing eternal condemnation in the lake of fire.
This compassion is a divine compassion for two reasons.
First, it is the manifestation of the love of God in the lives of the spiritually mature members of the Christian community in Judaea who are obeying the command to love their neighbor as they would themselves.
Secondly, they are obeying this command because they have and are continuing to experience the love of God the Father in their lives through faith in the Spirit’s revelation in the gospel that God loved them through the work of both His Son and the Spirit at their justification when they were His enemies and spiritually dead.
Therefore, the verb eleaō(ἐλεάω) means “to exercise compassion” rather than “to exercise mercy” since the latter has the connotation of withholding judgment whereas the former depicts a desire to fulfill a need.
This second command in Jude 23 stands in a mild contrast with the previous command, which we noted required that the spiritually mature members of the Christian community in Judaea save members of the non-Christian community by communicating the gospel to them.
Therefore, the contrast is between saving members of the non-Christian community and exercising this compassion with reverence for God by hating even the clothes of these individuals, which are defiled by their sinful nature.
The present imperative conjugation of the verb eleaō (ἐλεάω) is also a customary present which has the force of simply continuing to make it one’s habit of performing a particular activity.
Therefore, the present imperative conjugation of this verb is expressing the idea of the spiritually mature “continuing to make it their habit of” exercising divine compassion with those in the non-Christian community but to do so with reverence for God by hating even their clothes which are defiled by their sinful nature.
It is not an ingressive-progressive present imperative conjugation because everyone in the Christian community was commanded to exercise compassion when interacting with members of the non-Christian community from the beginning of their indoctrination into the Christian way of life.
Now, the means by which the spiritually mature believers were to demonstrate this reverential awe of God while exercising compassion towards the non-Christian is by even hating the garments of the non-Christian.
This means that they are to have an intense dislike and feeling of antipathy or aversion towards the clothes of the non-Christian.
This directive is out of the ordinary and unexpected because human beings usually do not hate the garments of people they even dislike.
They simply hate them because of their words and actions.
The verb spiloō(σπιλόω) pertains to something becoming stained or impaired with a flaw or defiled such as ritual impurity because of something, which is conceived of as becoming marked or discolored with foreign matter.
Here in Jude 23, the word speaks of the clothes of the non-Christian being defiled in the judgment of God.
The noun sarx(σάρξ), “their flesh” refers to the indwelling old Adamic sin nature which resides in the genetic structure of the human body.
This was the result of the Lord placing a curse upon the human body as a result of Adam and Eve’s disobeying His prohibition to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden.
Thus, this word emphasizes the location of the old Adamic sin nature.
The indwelling old Adamic sin nature of the non-Christian is the reason why their garments are defiled.
Specifically, their garments were defiled because of their words and actions, which are the direct result of obeying the desires of their indwelling old Adamic sinful nature, which resides in the genetic structure of their physical bodies.