Contending for the Faith of Jesus

The faith has come, and it has come once and for all. It is not up for debate or discussion. Paul affirms in Ephesians 4:5 there is “one faith.” It is a signed, sealed, and settled reality. Adrian Rogers said of this faith, “It is divine in its conception. It is complete in its content. . . . It is absolutely unique in its character” (“Battle for the Bible”).

It has been “delivered” (NIV, “entrusted”) once for all to the saints. In saying “once for all,” Jude suggests that it is complete. It needs no corrections and no additions. Christians need not seek any fuller revelation. It has come to us decisively in Jesus Christ. God has, as a sacred trust, passed on the precious, soul-saving faith to us. How dare we neglect it? How dare we change it? How dare we deny it?

What is the faith that has been delivered? I believe there are twelve nonnegotiables to which Scripture and the history of the church give eloquent witness.

There is a faith that has been delivered.

JUDE 4

Belief and behavior go hand in hand. Theology matters, for what you believe will determine how you live. We live in a time when far too many preachers and theologians are not content to be delivery boys of the good news. No, they want to be editors of the good news. Unfortunately, they do not always display their true colors. Like the wolves in sheep’s clothing that Jesus warned us about in Matthew 7:15-20, they slip into our churches and distort the truth and destroy the unsuspecting and ill prepared.

In light of such dangers, Jude trumpets a threefold warning we dare not neglect.

Jude warns that some have “come in by stealth,” sliding in through a side door, sneaking in over the fence, worming their way in through the crowd. These spiritual deceivers find their way into our Christian communities at all levels. They never walk proudly and honestly through the front door, declaring themselves to be a threat. Rather, they covertly slip in the back door because there is too often no rear guard.

They look like—and for a while act like—friends, but all the while they are enemies dedicated to our destruction. Much like the false prophet of Revelation 13:11, who looks like a lamb but speaks like a dragon, these foes mean to deceive and destroy, though they present themselves as tender and harmless.

These false teachers are destined for condemnation, “for the judgment on the great day” (v. 6). God was not surprised by their arrival, and neither should we be. Their end was determined long ago, and it is sure. They will suffer the vengeance of eternal fire (v. 7) as ordained by God and predicted in verses 5-16.

God’s condemnation of them is just and fair for two reasons: their character and their conduct. Their character is described as “ungodly,” a description that appears six times in Jude. The word means “without worship or reverence.” So these men failed to appropriately revere and worship the one true God.

Their conduct deserves condemnation because they turn “the grace of our God into sensuality” (NIV, “into a license for immorality”). They take the grace and goodness of God in the free gift of salvation and use it as an occasion for sin. Douglas Moo says the word “connotes especially sins of the flesh: sexual misconduct, drunkenness, gluttony”(2 Peter, Jude, 230). These are antinomians who want no rules, no restraint, and no one telling them what they should or should not do.

Sadly we are seeing a revival of such thinking in our own day even among professing evangelicals. Claiming to revel in grace, they sneer at calls to holiness, purity, and forsaking the ways of the world. “What’s the big deal about alcohol and tobacco abuse, pornography, and a little profanity? Am I supposed to believe that God cares about these things?” YES! And to think he does not is to distort his grace that saves and to transform it into a license for sin. May it never be among us (Rom 6:1-2)!

However, we must be careful. We should flee such behavior not because we have to in order to earn God’s acceptance but because we want to as those who have already been accepted! The grace of God in Christ frees us from the power of sin over us. Freedom in Jesus is not the liberty to do what I want but the power to do what I should. Pure, undiluted grace will make me fanatical not about rules but about Christ and his moral perfection and beauty!

Jude takes us straight to the question of who Jesus is and what he has done. It is and will always be the great dividing line. These dangerous men and women will not worship Jesus as Lord. “Deny” is the last word of verse 4 in the Greek text, placed there for emphasis. The one they deny is “our only [monon] Sovereign [despoten] and Lord [kurion]” (NIV).

In the context, what they deny is not his deity, his person, or his work. What they deny is his lordship. They separate his being Savior from his being Lord. By their sinful life and exploitation of grace, they deny his lordship in and over their lives. They are a law unto themselves, accountable to no one, including the Sovereign Lord Jesus Christ.

Jude justly condemns them. Deny Jesus as Lord, and you forfeit him as Savior. One goes with the other. They are a package deal, not to be separated.

My good friend and pastor James Merritt has well said, “It is right to fight when you fight for what’s right” (unpublished sermon notes). We must fight for the faith, and we must contend for the truth; but we must contend for the faith without being contentious about the faith. We fight because we must, not because we want to and enjoy it. How do we do this? Hear the wisdom of the apostle Paul in the last letter he ever wrote:

But reject foolish and ignorant disputes, because you know that they breed quarrels. The Lord’s servant must not quarrel, but must be gentle to everyone, able to teach, and patient, instructing his opponents with gentleness. Perhaps God will grant them repentance leading them to the knowledge of the truth. Then they may come to their senses and escape the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will. (2 Tim 2:23-26)