Jude against the Judaizers – Part 1

The epistle of Jude is a masterfully-cut literary crystal. Beholding it as such allows it to catch the light of previous sacred texts and reveals the author’s full intentions with a terrible clarity.

Jude not only uses literary allusion but also literary structure to bring comfort to the saints and terror to the apostates. The Jews who denied Christ considered themselves to be safe in the arms of Moses, but Jude reminds his hearers that it was those who were following Christ who were the successors of Israel and the true heirs of the Old Covenant promises.

To make his point, he alludes to some of the most notorious rebels and rebellions in covenant history, and hammers home the gravity of apostasy through subtle use of the covenant-literary structure. But he also describes the false teachers of his day in terms of Creation — the saints who awaited a new heaven and a new earth were “full” while the false teachers focussed on earthly things were “void” — fruitless, futile, and empty.

As mentioned, the epistle is sevenfold in its structure (see The Heptateuch in Jude), but within these seven cycles Jude varies the format to underscore the covenantal implications of his statements — each stanza has an implicit “form” that is explicitly “filled.”

TRANSCENDENCE (Jude 1-4)

Greeting, and serpents “creeping in”
(Genesis – Creation – Sabbath – Initiation)

The first cycle (“Sabbath”) is only sixfold, missing its final stanza in order to communicate that those who denied Christ would not enter into God’s rest.

TRANSCENDENCE (Creation)

• In his initial stanza, Jude employs the pattern of the Creation Week to describe his priestly authority over his audience as a heavenly word to an earthly host of faithful representatives.
• His placement of “bondslave” in the Altar-Land of Canaan is interesting, along with “brother” as the sacrificial offering upon the Altar. Jude and James were both “lambs” in the priestly order of Jesus. In this Genesis stanza, perhaps this alludes to the strife between the brothers in Genesis 4 — kingly Cain and priestly Abel. Jude and James were at peace in their now-exalted brother Jesus, but Jude intends to condemn their “Cainite” brothers in this epistle.

HIERARCHY (Division)

• The priestly calling – a separation, a sanctification — of the saints to whom Jude writes supersedes the calling of the Israelites in Abraham and the priesthood established under Moses. In baptism, their circumcision (or uncircumcision) became an obsolete artefact of history. Soon, the entire Abrahamic “household” would also become obsolete, the promises fulfilled for those who believed and revoked forever for those who did not.

ETHICS: Priesthood (Ascension)

• This epistle of salvation is placed at Ascension as a word from heaven, corresponding to Moses receiving the tablets on Sinai, and Jesus opening the New Covenant scroll in heaven. Like Jesus, Jude’s submission as a priestly lamb allows him to roar as a kingly lion of Judah. His exhortation comes as a sword to continue the division of Israel, to cut off the Old Covenant bread of the flesh and bring miraculous perseverance to the saints with the New Covenant oil and wine of the Spirit (Revelation 6:5-6).

ETHICS: Kingdom (Testing)

• Through use of the covenant-literary structure, Jude corresponds the temptation of these saints with that of Adam in Eden, Cain in the Land, the “mighty men” before the flood, Israel in Canaan, and now the Herods — a temptation to seize kingdom before God’s time. All these eras shared the same switch in strategies against the people of God: if the Church could not be stamped out, it must instead be co-opted. The danger presented by the Judaizers was the threat of syncretism with the existing order. But like Abraham, the saints were to refuse to make treaties with godless serpent-kings, and wait patiently for the vindication promised by God.

ETHICS: Prophecy (Maturity)

• Jude’s placement of the false teachers and his warning against them in the Prophecy stanza is telling. They are false prophets and he is a true prophet. This aligns with the double Trumpets sequence in the Revelation: the true testimony of the Apostles and the resulting false testimony of a demonised Judaism. What is more, Jude states that, like Judas, these liars were predestined to this fate. In some sense, the present events were what made the past events necessary — without the “natural” signifiers we could not understand the supernatural. The Apostle Peter makes the same sort of reverse argument. Peter Leithart writes: “Scot Hafemann did a paper on 2 Peter 2, focusing especially on Peter’s treatment of Noah and the flood narratives. He began by noting the odd direction of the argument in 2 Peter 2:1: Instead of saying that things happen in the present because they were determined or foreshadowed by the past, he does the opposite, arguing that there will be false teachers and as a result there were false prophets in Israel. From this he drew the conclusion that God’s purposes in the future determine what He did in the past. This of course means that we can read the Old Testament as foreshadowings of the future, but the direction of God’s intentions works from end to beginning.”¹Peter J. Leithart, Hafemann On 2 Peter 2.

OATH/SANCTIONS (Conquest)

• The use of covenant-literary structure in this Oath/Sanctions stanza highlights the sin of the Judaizers as a rebellion against the very history of which they claimed ownership. They are liars and false brothers (Genesis); grumblers against God (Exodus); carnal sons of Aaron and Eli (Leviticus); idolaters and adulterers (Numbers); cursed covenant-breakers (Deuteronomy); thieves like Achan (Joshua); and finally, an anti-Christian witness to the nations (Judges). The key word here is “denying,” since that relates to oath-breaking. Instead of being united under the name of the High Priesthood of Jesus, our “amen,” they still regarded Jerusalem below, spiritual “Babel,” as their mother.

HIERARCHY (Jude 5-7)

Egypt and Sodom, where the Lord was crucified
(Exodus – Division – Passover – Delegation)

The second cycle (“Passover”) is fivefold, alluding to the Pentateuch, the covenant pattern, and its twofold expression in the Decalogue. However, as with the Transcendence cycle, the final step (Succession) is missing. Those who were given authority by God but had misused it would have that authority—and indeed their entire inheritance—taken away. Their kingdom would be given to those who would bring forth the fruit that God desired (Matthew 21:43).

TRANSCENDENCE (Genesis)

• The Initiation stanza of the Hierarchy cycle re-establishes both the authority of Jude and the authority of the Scriptures. The whole Bible must be not only understood but kept fresh in our minds if we are to interpret and meet contemporary challenges.

HIERARCHY (Exodus)

• Egypt and Sodom were two cities from which God rescued His people. Figuratively, they are the negative counterparts of two faithful women, Hagar and Sarah (Galatians 4:21-31). Egypt relied upon the waters below (the River Nile) and Canaan relied upon the waters above (rain from heaven). This explains the placement of the two cities at Hierarchy and Oath/Sanctions— matching each other chiastically—in this cycle.

• Revelation 11:8 uses the names of these two cities to mock first century Jerusalem, the contemporary “city of destruction,” one that was not only intent on shedding the blood of the sons of Israel but also due to receive the sorrows that come to those who desire to be rich (Ezekiel 16:49; 1 Timothy 6:9-11).

ETHICS (Leviticus)

• James Jordan identifies these “angels/messengers” as the preachers in the lineage of Seth before the Great Flood, whose ministry of sacrificial mediation was compromised and eventually failed due to the corrupting influence of intermarriages with Cainite women.²James B. Jordan, “Who Were the Angels of Jude 6?”, Biblical Horizons No. 1. However, both Peter and Jude use the word “angel” elsewhere to identify actual angels (2 Peter 2:11; Jude 9). The transgression of these spirit ministers from God’s heavenly court does resemble the sin of the fleshly ministers of His earthly Sanctuary, although it was not sexual in nature. These beings abandoned their appointed roles as servants, “keepers” in God’s court.
• The literary logic of this entire cycle (verses 5-7) is made apparent in Jude’s use of two vertical columns in this Stanza, each of which follows the fivefold covenant sequence. The first describes the past and the second describes the future. The structure is a reference to the two trees at the center of the Garden in Genesis 2,³See Covenant Structure in Genesis 2. and to the two bronze pillars of Solomon’s Temple. Both of these sacred “doors” picture Priesthood (submission to heaven: the Tree of Life) and Kingdom (dominion on earth: the Tree of Wisdom) as the gateway to Prophecy. The third “pillar” is the mobile, indwelling Shekinah. Together, these three are represented by the three items of furniture in the Holy Place. However, here there is light where there ought to be darkness, and darkness where there ought to be light.

Priesthood Pillar of Fire Light	Prophecy	Kingdom Pillar of Cloud Darkness
“The angels	TRANSCENDENCE	“unto the judgment
both not having kept	HIERARCHY	“of the great day,
their own domain,	ETHICS	in chains eternal
but having left	OATH/SANCTIONS	under darkness
their own dwelling,”	SUCCESSION	He keeps,”

• Having abandoned their station as servants of God, these rebel angels were denied even the power that they previously enjoyed (Luke 19:26). Revelation 8:10 tells us that after the ascension of Christ (as our legal Advocate), Satan (our legal Accuser) was thrown down from heaven, and took up residence in Herod’s Temple, the “Edenic” Garden-Sanctuary of the day. Instead of eyes being opened as they were in Eden, the eyes of the Jewish rebels were darkened. The reign of Israel’s Davidic kings was bookended historically by two men who lost their eyes before the pillars came down, Samson (Judges 16) and King Zedekiah (2 Kings 25). Just so, the Judaizers were the blind leading the blind, and their rejection of the priesthood of Jesus would see their “Edenic columns” razed to the ground.
• This allusion to the pillars not only reveals the logic of the cycle, but also supports the identification of these messengers as angels from heaven. The double Ethics stanza takes us from the court of heaven—the waters above—to the depths of the abyss—the waters below. The throne and the dungeon are the domains of kings, but unlike Joseph who humbled himself and was exalted (Matthew 23:12), these heavenly servants (Hebrews 1:14) exalted themselves and were thrown down (Revelation 12:9). The pillars represent an inverted “ascension,” flaming angels thrown down to earth for unfaithfulness in heaven instead of the holy angels ascending and descending upon a stairway as mediators between heaven and earth seen in Jacob’s dream (Genesis 28:12; John 1:51). Flanked by the “Egypt” stanza and the “Sodom” stanza, this “fiery pillar” sequence is an ironic take on Israel’s journey from slavery to Sabbath, from the Land of Ham (the rejected father) to the Land of Canaan (the rejected son). The exact same construct is found in the book of Revelation, which greatly expands Jude’s terrifying irony into a sequence of three extremely detailed cycles. These three steps revoke Israel’s dominion, presenting her as an idolater in Egypt, the target of plagues from God (Revelation 16), then as a woman accused of adultery undergoing the Levitical “jealous inspection” (Numbers 5) in the wilderness (Revelation 17), and finally as Jezebel, the immoral Canaanite queen (Revelation 18-19).⁴For a more detailed commentary, see Michael Bull, Moses and the Revelation: Why the End of the World is not in Your Future, 153-169. Jude and Revelation both describe first century Israel as an offering from the sulphuric “altar of the abyss,” a perversion of worship, that commands murder and adultery, and rejoices in iniquity.⁵For more discussion, see Michael Bull, Altar of the Abyss.

OATH/SANCTIONS (Numbers)

• In God’s economy, immediate judgment is not the norm. That can be observed in the atonements made for Adam and Cain, and God’s patience with the kings of Israel. Where judgment does occur immediately—such as with Israel in the wilderness, or the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira—it is intended as a warning sign. The death of Herod Agrippa in Acts 12 was also such a sign of the impending judgment of Jerusalem.
• The cities of the plain enjoyed an Edenic abundance, one that Lot desired but Abraham eschewed. God had promised Abraham a fruitful land and a fruitful womb but he would have to be patient on both counts.
• The application to the Judaizers is thus twofold: firstly, the destruction of Jerusalem would be a sign to the nations, an example of the vengeance of God against those who would persecute His people; and secondly, the Jewish rulers were guilty of setting up for themselves a utopia founded upon rebellion against God. Like Lot’s wife, they were impatient for kingdom and prosperity, and would thus be cut out of history. The saints to whom Jude was writing were being exhorted not to look back to the old cities in case they suffered the same judgment—the barrenness and sterility of a sulphuric land and a salted womb.
• The structure of this stanza is sacrificial, alluding to both the pattern of sacrifice and the Tabernacle/ Creation sequence, but it deliberately runs the pattern backwards, concluding with the Law of God. In the Revelation, this same process takes us from Revelation 8:7 to 11:19, concluding with the witness of the Church as two cherubim, Moses and Elijah, and the Ark of the Testimony opened in heaven. Not only were the Levitical sacrifices now being rejected, but Canaan itself was being repossessed. The nation now found itself back at Mount Sinai, face-to-face with the curses of the Law for worshiping an image of a beast, and suffering judgment under the swords of God’s guardians, the New Covenant “Levites.”
• The sins of the flesh, murder and adultery, are “kingly” sins, but they resulted from the corruption of the Priesthood—going after “strange” (different, other, neighbor’s) flesh. The cities of Judah were a stink in God’s nostrils just like the stink of the rivers of blood in Egypt (Exodus 7:21). Revelation describes the Judaizers as a false “bridal army,” phoney Nazirites who ascend from the pit as clouds of sulphur under a vow of “holy war” against the saints (Revelation 9:1-11). As idolaters, they were not only unable to discern the fragrance of the Gospel of Christ (Deuteronomy 4:28; 2 Corinthians 2:14-17), but also the rancor of their own self-righteousness before God (Leviticus 26:31; Isaiah 65:5; Amos 5:21). In contrast, the obedience of the saints was like the savor of the “ascensions” offered by Noah and Aaron (Genesis 8:21; Leviticus 1:17; Ephesians 5:2; Philippians 4:18).Jude was not the first prophet to use the cities of the plain to engage in “name calling” against his prophetic nemeses.

And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.” And as Isaiah predicted,
“If the Lord of hosts had not left us offspring,
we would have been like Sodom
and become like Gomorrah.”
(Romans 9:27-29)

It is worth referring the reader to a lengthy citation from the text of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:9-20) to hammer home the context of Jude’s condemnation of the Judaizers as spiritual “Sodomites.”

NO SUCCESSION – Egyptian-hearted Israel cut off

Part 2 is here.

If you are new to this method of interpretation, please visit the Welcome page for some help to get you up to speed.