Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Do Jude 4 and Jude 19 teach that practicing immorality results in eternal condemnation? In other words, is there the possibility for the believer of losing eternal salvation and losing the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? We will have an explanation of these verses just ahead. This is Grace in Focus, and we are thankful that you’re joining us today on this ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org. You can go there and learn a lot about us. We also have many articles that you can access and research and read for free. And there is a bookstore where you can find many books, including Bob Wilkin’s latest book The Gospel is Still Under Siege. So join us on that website, faithalone.org. Now with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr:

SAM: And we have a question from Jamie on the book of Jude because Jamie noticed that we don’t have a whole lot of blogs on these particular verses. And the verses are verse 4 and verse 19.

BOB: Okay, and what does Jude 4 say? Well, what’s Jamie’s question about Jude 4 and 19?

SAM: The question is, is being sensual, ungodly, immoral, whatever word you want to supply there, only a characterization of the unbeliever or is it a characterization of the believer as well? And then a further question is, can a believer lose the indwelling of the Holy Spirit?

BOB: Okay, so let’s take the second one first. No, a believer can’t lose the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. At the moment of faith, a believer is, I remember it from the word ribs. They’re regenerated, indwelt, permanently indwelt, baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ, Spirit baptism, and they’re sealed forever, they’re secure forever. So the indwelling is permanent. The salvation is permanent. It sounds like Jamie is somewhat asking if salvation could be lost. And the answer is, no, if by that you mean regeneration. But now one’s deliverance from calamity in this life can be lost, if a believer gives into these things. Now there’s two things. In verse 4, how does it read, I think Jamie was quoting from the King James, right?

SAM: Yeah. So I think I’m in it.

BOB: What do you have, the ESV, I think?

SAM: I’m in the NIV. And it says, “For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.”

BOB: Now did they say “long ago”? Is that the word they used?

SAM: Yeah, this says “written about long ago”.

BOB: “Written about long ago.” And what is the King James that Jamie was quoting saying?

SAM: That says, “who were before of old ordained to this condemnation.”

BOB: Okay. So “before of old” or I believe the New King James has “long ago” and your NIV said what again? It says something like it says “long ago”.

SAM: “Long ago.”

BOB: So basically a couple ways to look at this. Number one, this could be referring to the Old Testament. And the Old Testament saying that those who are immoral are going to reap judgment in this life. And that what this is talking about here is not–it is true, of course, these false teachers, the ones that he was specifically talking about were not born again, because, I can’t remember the verse in Jude. But in 2 Peter 2, it’s verse 17. It says “for whom the blackest darkness is reserved forever”. What is that in Jude? Is it around verse 16 or something?

SAM: Here it is. Verse 13, “they are wild waves of the sea foaming up their shame, wandering stars for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.”

BOB: Okay. So that verse along with 2 Peter 2:17 indicate that these particular false teachers are unregenerate and are not going to believe before they die. But that’s different than saying all false teachers are that way. And Jamie’s question is–it seems to me, right–can the believer get caught up in this?

SAM: I think so. And that’s because of verse 19 is the other one that we need to read.

BOB: Okay. So read 19.

SAM: “These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and who do not have the Spirit.” So I think that’s where the question of if this verse could be talking about believers who fall away, does that mean that they don’t have the Spirit any longer? I think that’s the question that Jamie had.

BOB: Okay. So going back to verse 13, he’s talking specifically about unregenerate false teachers. The fact they’re unregenerate shows that they do not have the Spirit. Those are two ways of saying the same thing. If the blackness of darkness is reserved for them forever, these are people who do not have the Spirit. But can the believer succumb to such false teachers? That’s the whole point of 2 Peter chapter two, verses 18 through 22 and also of Jude 19 through the end of the book.

Look at how it goes here. He says in verse 20, “but you beloved, building yourselves up on the most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God.” So if a believer gets caught up in this false sensual teaching and gets caught up in immorality, that believer will no longer continue to experience the love of God in this life. He or she remains eternally secure, but notice it says what we’re supposed to do is “keep ourselves the love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” The mercy there is the soon return of Christ and the “unto eternal life” is unto the fullness of everlasting life we’ll receive when we’re glorified. And then he says, “and on some have compassion making a distinction.”

In other words, there are believers who are being duped by false teachers. And those people we should have compassion on, but there are others we’re to save with fear pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled of the flesh. There are some who not only are being duped, but have been duped. They’re not in the process of falling away, they have fallen away. And those people you ought to snatch out of the fire. The fire there isn’t hell. The fire there is judgment in this life.

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BOB: And notice verse 24, “now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling.” It doesn’t say now the one who guarantees to keep you from stumbling, believers can stumble. If we fall prey to these false teachers, we will stumble. But he’s able to keep us from stumbling, and to present you faultless. Well, the presentation there refers to the judgment seat of Christ “before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.” Well, that’s looking at verses like Matthew 16:24-27, or it’s looking at 2 Corinthians 5:9-10, or 2 Timothy 2:12. There’s a number of verses that talk about our being presented before him faultless. And then, “to God, our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever, amen.”

Basically, the point is, our Lord is coming again soon, and we want to hear Him say, “well done, good and faithful servant”. But that’s only going to be true if we persevere. So Jamie’s question or questions are excellent, but we need to realize the issue is not that we can lose the Spirit, we can’t. And the issue isn’t that we can lose everlasting life, we can’t, we’ve been sealed, we’re secure. The issue is we can fall from our own steadfastness, we can experience judgment in this life. And of course, that has ramifications for the judgment seat of Christ, because if we die away from the Lord, yes, we’ll get into the kingdom, but we’re not going to hear “well done, good and faithful servant”.

SAM: Yeah, so do you think this parallels 2 John 7? It’s similar. All of John’s epistles, I think, align with this but verse 7 says, “many deceivers who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world, Any such person is the deceiver and the Antichrist.” And then he says in verse 8, “Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that,”–and depending on your translation it’ll either say, “but that you” or “that we may be rewarded fully.” But this is a similar idea of these deceivers coming in, spreading false doctrine. And then what John is warning them about is whether they’re going to lose their full reward or not. So would you say, in Jude, is that the same warning, he’s warning against losing the full reward?

BOB: I think it is. You know, Jude talks about they came in secretly, what you have the same idea, isn’t that what you were just reading?

SAM: Well, in 2 John he’s warning against them letting these teachers come into their church, so these are the traveling teachers, ministers, whatever.

BOB: So these deceivers have gone out, right? And you should be able to discern them as deceivers, as Antichrist, but they’re going to look good on the outside, right? They’re going to be like wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Yeah, I would take the Majority Text reading in verse 8, “that we may receive our full reward”. In other words, what John is saying is, if his readers persevere and continue in the faith, that will have great impact for John and the other apostles at the judgment seat of Christ. Of course, it’ll also directly impact the readers.

And you have something similar in Galatians chapter 2, where you’ve got people who secretly came in to the meetings of the Gentiles and they were trying to distort the saving message. So all through the New Testament, there are warnings about false teachers. And that sometimes these false teachers look good. Remember in Matthew 7, verses 15-20, Jesus said, “You will know them by their fruits.” And people say, well, that’s the verse about how you know who’s born again or not. Oh, no, if you read the context, he’s talking about false prophets who come to you as wolves in sheep’s clothing. They look good on the outside, but the way you can tell they’re false prophets is by their words, because the fruit of the false prophet is the words that he or she speaks. And so He says, “you’ll know them by their fruits”, meaning by their words, by their teachings. And so yes, all through Scripture we’re to be discerning.

And we need to be careful today because you can have just about any kind of cult you want, right? There’s all kinds of false teachings out there. You don’t have to necessarily get into one of the big name cults. I’ve often heard, I grew up in Southern California, and they used to say that there were something like 50 or more cults in Southern California, little small ones. And they would have their own cult leaders and things. And who knows how many cults there are totally in the world today?

SAM: Yeah, and it’s not that hard to get a Netflix show.

BOB: Well, we do happen to have a YouTube channel. If you want to check it out, it’s YouTube, Grace Evangelical Society, but that doesn’t make it good or bad. What makes it good or bad is the content, right? So all, yeah, the fruits. So all of us need to be Bereans, Acts 17:11, we need to search the Scriptures to see whether what we’re hearing taught is true. Jude is a great book, an amazing book because it’s so small. It’s one of the one chapter books in the Bible. And yet it is a powerful warning not to stumble because if we do stumble, then we are going to reap consequences in this life and shame at the judgment seat of Christ, which by the way, that ties in with 1 John 2:28. Let’s abide in him so that when he appears, we might not shrink back in shame at His coming.

Well, thanks so much, Jamie. And thank you all. Keep sending in your questions. Keep them short. Send them to radio@faithalone.org. And we really appreciate you. And thank you for listening. And remember, keep grace in focus.

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