“BUT YE , BELOVED ...”
R. Hibbert
Jude is diverted from his original intention in writing this letter (Jude 3), but what has impressed me is that while he is diverted at first, he finally returns to the main line, and finishes with the main line. It is to be noted how often he uses the word ‘beloved’, showing a link with John who in a similar way feels the conditions described in the Revelation. Jude returns to what you might call the main line, that is, the primary thoughts of God—God’s love, eternal life, and the service of God.
So these ‘buts’ Jude uses are very encouraging, and in spite of the intrusion of contrary elements, which are not difficult to identify, he says, “But ye, beloved, remember the words spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ”, and then, “But ye, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life”. While we are bound soberly to consider such contrary elements that we can readily identify (often within ourselves) that cause concern to us, and to others generally in the testimony, yet Jude returns to these ‘buts’—“But ye, beloved ...”.
Then in verse 20 he seeks to engage us with the greatest thoughts, and we are not only to be occupied with these things but we are to contend for them, as he says, “contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints”. I think that would apply to ourselves particularly now as to what through grace has been recovered to us. (?) The enemy is seeking constantly to undermine the truth that has come to us through beloved servants in the ‘recovery’, “the faith once delivered to the saints”; contend earnestly for that.
There will always be contention for the truth. The enemy will always seek to weaken it in us individually, or collectively, or universally; he will not give up. So the Revelation shows us in detail how these constant attacks are met.
But what one is concerned to encourage us with is Jude’s saying “But ye, beloved, building yourselves up”; that is what we can do. We are not to be unbalanced and over-occupied with the contentions, but we are to be on this positive line of building. David was on the conflict line, and we need that line, but Solomon was on the building line, and we can do this ourselves. “But ye, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life”.
The Holy Spirit is always ready to help us to keep ourselves in the love of God. Keep yourselves in that area; it is always open to us. No matter what the contention might be, no matter what the pressure might be, no matter what the testings might be, we can always retreat, retire, so to speak, into this impregnable area—“the love of God”—and keep ourselves in it. Someone said, ‘Well, have you been in it today?’ How much have you thought about it today? How much have we kept ourselves in it? “Keep yourselves in the love of God, awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life”. There are no ‘ifs’ about that!
Then Jude finishes with this fine doxology. What a wonderful thing! The letter is written to meet these frightful incursions of evil and ends with this doxology, you might say a special one, an incomparable one in one sense. We sang about exultation, which encouraged me to read this—“To him that is able to keep you without stumbling, and to set you with exultation blameless before his glory, to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, from before the whole age, and now, and to all the ages. Amen”. What an area that covers, “from before the whole age, and now”. It is not to be deferred or postponed, it is now; it is what we can continue with now, in the very presence of these opposing elements that the enemy would constantly seek to keep alive and seek to distract us with.
If there is a diversion, as you call them in this country, (we call them ‘detours’, which I suppose is French, but anyway it is a diversion) it gets you off the main route. The important thing is to get back on the main line and stay on it. It may seem a contradiction, but we sometimes have to divert. These matters of conflict have to be faced soberly, but we are assured of divine help in doing it. In the meantime let us not become preoccupied with them but take account of these ‘beloveds’. “But ye, beloved, building yourselves up”—that is what we can do ourselves “on your most holy faith”—that would include what we are to contend for, “the faith once delivered to the saints”. “Your most holy faith” involves keeping it in separation from evil. It is christianity held in a right way, a priestly way. Then, “praying in the Holy Spirit”—what resources we have! Then, “keep yourselves in the love of God”. May we continue, beloved brethren, in power in the service of God in this way. Solomon was engaged with building; he built the house and installed the ark and arranged the courses for the service, all on this positive line.
“But to him that is able to keep you without stumbling”—what material, what substance there is for us in these last two verses to enrich us for the service of God! We are to be set with exultation before His glory—our exultation—but I think it includes God’s exultation. In spite of the incursion of evil, in spite of the conflict, God is going to have the last word, and not only the last word, but with exultation. That is what you get in Revelation 19: 7—“Rejoice and exult”. “To him that is able to … set you with exultation blameless before his glory, to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, from before the whole age, and now, and to all the ages. Amen”. What a triumphant note on which to finish a letter of this kind, certainly a corrective letter, but finishing with this note of exultation which would greatly enrich the service of God.
But what I would specially leave with us is to keep ourselves in the love of God. “But ye, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God”, as if while that is always available to us, it is not automatic, and we are responsible to keep ourselves in it. I am sure that is the way that the victory will be maintained and the service continued in power, linking with the primary thoughts of God and going right through to the end “from before the whole age, and now, and to all the ages.
Amen”.
Word in meeting for ministry, Redbridge
31 October 1978