Jude Series: Jude 22-23-The Behavior of the Recipients of Jude is being Addressed with Regards to Two Groups of Individuals
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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)
Many expositors contend that there are three different groups of people who have been influenced by the opponents described in this epistle and as we noted most believe that they are false teachers.
However, as we noted in detail I agree with Herbert Bateman IV that they are actually unregenerate Jewish Zealots.
He lists three groups who have been influenced by these Zealots: (1) people who know Jesus as Messiah and yet wrestle with uncertainties, (2) people who do not know Jesus as Messiah and may yet come to believe in him, and (3) people who do not know Jesus as Messiah and will never believe in him.”[1]
I believe that there are not three groups of individuals who have been influenced by these Zealots.
Rather, there are two different groups of people.
Peter Davids writes “The repetition of ἐλεᾶτε with οὓς δὲ is surprising if we have three different groups of people. This likely resumes the previous imperatives and advances the thought to the manner of fulfillment.”[2]
In addition to this, there are several more factors which indicate two groups and not three are being mentioned in Jude 22-23.
First of all, as we noted in Jude 22, the mature believers in the Christian community in Judaea were to exercise divine compassion when interacting with the spiritually immature among them.
Secondly, the contents of Jude 23 reveal that they were to exercise divine-compassion when interacting with the non-Christian.
The referent of the relative pronoun hos (ὅς) in verse 22 are these spiritually immature Christians who were uncertain as to whether or not these Zealots were wrong to rebel against the Roman and Jewish governmental authorities.
As we noted they were uncertain because they did not yet possess the conviction that Jesus Christ Himself would exercise His divine omnipotence to establish the kingdom of God on earth at His Second Advent.
Also, because they were immature they did not possess the conviction that they were to obey the governmental authorities.
The relative pronoun hos (ὅς) appears twice and in each instance its referent is the non-Christian.
The second time the word is used in relation to the second command in this verse, it has a demonstrative force pointing back to the first time it appears in the first command in the verse.
Therefore, the non-Christian, including those who belonged to the party of the Jewish Zealots, were to be saved from the fire of eternal condemnation and it was their garments which were to be hated because they were defiled by the function of their indwelling old Adamic sin nature.
The reference to “fire” in the participial clause which modifies this first command in Jude 23 is the fire of eternal condemnation, which is indicated by Jude 7, which speaks of fire in relation to eternal condemnation.
Also, fire is used of eternal condemnation by John and the Baptist and Jesus (cf. Matt. 3:10; 13:40–42; 18:8–9; 25:41; Mark 9:47–48 (cf. Matt 7:19; Luke 17:29) and the apostles (1 Cor. 3:13; Heb. 10:27; Rev. 20:14–15; cf. 2 Pet 3:7).
Both the Old and New Testaments employ fire as an image for eternal condemnation (Deut. 32:22; Isa. 29:6; 30:27, 30, 33; 33:14; 66:15–16, 24; Joel 2:30; Nah. 1:6; Zeph. 1:18; 3:8; Mal. 4:1; Acts 2:19; 2 Thess. 1:8; 2 Pet. 3:7, 10; Rev. 9:17–18; 16:8; 20:9).
Osborne writes “This has to be a reference to the theme of final judgment that has dominated this epistle. The emphasis on ‘fire’ refers to eternal torment in the ‘lake of fire’ (Rev 19:20; 20:10, 14–15), pictured as fiery judgment (1 Cor 3:13–15; Heb 10:27; Jas 3:6; 5:3; 2 Pet 3:7), and called “Gehenna” by Jesus (Matt 5:22, 29–30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15; Mark 9:47–48).”[3]
The mature believers in the Christian community were commanded to save the unregenerate by communicating the gospel to them in order that they might be declared justified by the Father through faith in His one and only Son, Jesus Christ.
They are then commanded to exercise compassion towards these same unregenerate individuals with reverence for God by hating even the garments of these individuals which are defiled by the function of their indwelling old Adamic sin nature.
In other words, the mature believers in the Christian community in Judaea would be demonstrating divine compassion by saving these individuals when they communicate the gospel to them.
The second command in Jude 23 is thus epexegetical in that it is explaining in greater detail how the mature Christians in Judaea were to go about saving these people.
Furthermore, the conjunction de (δέ), which introduces this second command, is marking it as presenting a mild contrast with the first command.
The contrast is mild because both commands address the proper conduct of the believers in Judaea when interacting with the non-Christian.
The first is a general command and the second develops the first in greater detail.
Thus, the second command in verse 23 like the first in this verse, addresses the conduct of the mature believers in the Christian community in Judaea when interacting with the non-Christian.
This indicated by the fact that the non-Christian in the judgment of God is defiled because they are sinners by nature and practice whereas the believer in Jesus Christ is sanctified (cf. 1 Cor. 1:2, 30; 6:11; 7:14).
Lastly, the conjunctions μέν … δέ, “on the one hand…on the other hand” in Jude 22-23 form a correlative clause which is uniting the commands to exercise compassion when interacting with the spiritually immature and to exercise compassion when interacting with the non-Christian by saving them by snatching them out of the fire of eternal condemnation.
This correlative clause presents the result of executing the command in Jude 21 which required that the Judaean Christian community make it their top priority of keeping themselves in the state of loving God because of God’s love for them.
Therefore, by executing the three commands in Jude 22-23, the mature believers in this community would be demonstrating the love of God when interacting with the spiritually immature in their community and when interacting with the members of the non-Christian community.
The latter would include the unregenerate Jewish Zealots who were rebelling against the Roman and Jewish governmental authorities because they erroneously believed that attacking the Gentiles, i.e. the Romans would prompt the Messiah to establish the kingdom of God on earth.
[1] Bateman, H. W., IV. (2015). Jude: Evangelical Exegetical Commentary(H. W. House, W. H. Harris III, & A. W. Pitts, Eds.; p. 405). Lexham Press.
[2] Davids, P. H. (2011). 2 Peter and Jude: A Handbook on the Greek Text (p. 37). Baylor University Press.
[3] Osborne, G. R. (2011). Jude. In P. W. Comfort (Ed.), Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: James, 1–2 Peter, Jude, Revelation (p. 391). Tyndale House Publishers.