JUDE 1:1

The Bible says in Jude verse 1, “Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called.” Jude identified himself in two ways: first as the servant of Jesus Christ and then as the brother of James. Like other human beings Jude had a human lineage and human family, but Jude mentioned his relationship to Jesus Christ before Jude mentioned his family relationship. That is the way it should be. Your relationship with Jesus Christ should be the most important of all relationships. Do not make the mistake of putting your family first. Your priorities will be wrong and you will commit many errors because of it. For you to serve Jesus in truth, Jesus must be first.

Jude called himself the “servant of Jesus Christ.” Everyone who has been saved should consider himself a servant of Jesus Christ. Jesus died for us to give us eternal life. We owe Him everything. Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords. Whatever He says, we must do. Wherever He leads, we must follow.

After Jude identified himself, he identified the ones to whom he was writing. Notice the general nature of those to whom he was writing. This is a good example of how the Bible applies to believers of all ages. The Bible is different from any other book. Like the rest of the books of the Bible, Jude is not the real author. The real author is the Holy Spirit. These writings are from God and are intended for every believer. That is why the writings were given from God and that is why the writings have been preserved by God without error.

Jude said that he was writing “to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called.” What a great reminder of the wonderful spiritual condition that believers in Christ are in. Three great things are mentioned here that are benefits of believers in Christ. The first is that we are “sanctified by God the Father.” To be sanctified means to be made righteous. It means to be made holy. It means to be set apart. The word “sanctified” comes from the same word as “saint.” The Bible says that every true believer is a saint. Anyone who calls only certain believers saints has departed from the teaching of the Bible on how a person becomes a saint. Notice how the Apostle Paul began the book of Second Corinthians. He wrote in Second Corinthians 1:1, “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia.” All believers are saints in God’s eyes because we have the righteousness of Christ freely credited to our account.

True believers are sanctified by God the Father, and “preserved in Jesus Christ.” To be preserved means to be kept and guarded. If you are in Christ, then you are kept and guarded by Jesus Christ. When the Bible says “preserved in Christ Jesus,” it is talking about a past action that has continuing results. If your soul has been preserved by Jesus, then it will always be preserved. That sounds like eternal security to me. Jesus loves His own to the end, and Jesus keeps His own to the end. Of all that the Father gives to Him, none shall be lost.

Jude verse one says that we are sanctified, preserved, and “called.” No one can be sanctified or preserved until they are called. To say that a believer is called goes back to what really takes place spiritually at the time of salvation. “Many are called, but few are chosen.” In my opinion God calls every human being at some time in their life, and then that person decides just how they will respond to the calling. When a person is called, will they turn from their sins and turn to the Lord in order to find forgiveness and in order to start doing the right thing? That is what John 3:20-21 is talking about. It says, “For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.”

When a person gets saved this appears to be the sequence of events: first God works in the heart and life of that person to bring them to the point of seeing their need of God. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit and Jesus said in John 16:8, “And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” Once the heart of a person is properly prepared, then God calls that person to turn and start following the Savior. For example, Jesus passed by James and John while they were fishing and said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Obviously their hearts had been prepared in advance for the coming of the Messiah, and they responded positively to the calling that Jesus gave to them. We know that a very similar thing happened to Saul of Tarsus when he was on the road to Damascus to persecute Christians.

You become one of the “called,” once you respond positively to God’s calling. But the fact is that you could not have responded to His calling until He called you. That shows that God initiated your salvation. “You are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” The work that God started by calling you, He will complete by seeing that you end up in heaven. That is also the message of Romans 8:28-30 that says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.” God calls you, God justifies you, and God glorifies you. You will be glorified when you arrive in heaven. That part of your salvation has not yet happened, but it will happen because it is dependent upon what God will do.

In verse 1 Jude lists three things that are the current state of each believer, and then in verse two Jude lists three things that he hopes will be multiplied to each believer. Jude wrote, “Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.” We have already received mercy, and peace, and love through Jesus Christ our Savior in regards to our eternal salvation and our eternal destiny; but in regards to our current life on this earth we really need to have those three things multiplied to us. We certainly need a lot of mercy each day because we are great sinners. God is a holy God who must punish sin. Therefore, we rely upon His mercy that is found in Christ Jesus. Just because you are already saved, does not mean that you do not need more mercy. Every Christian must rely upon the mercy of Christ just to walk in fellowship with Him. That is the message of First John 1:9. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Do not ever think that you have merited blessings from God. No man can merit blessings from God because “there is none who doeth good and sinneth not.”

We also need to have peace multiplied to us, especially in these last days. These are troubling times, and we live in the midst of a fallen human race. Bad things are going to happen, especially to those who truly desire to follow Christ. “They who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Jesus said in John 16:33, “In the world you shall have tribulation.” But then Jesus also said, “But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

When the tribulations and the sorrows and the difficulties and the persecutions come against us, we will need the peace of God to be multiplied to us. Without the peace of God we will be troubled or sorrowful more than is proper for the situation. Jesus told us how to face the difficulties of life. He said, “Be of good cheer.” But then He said, “I have overcome the world.” Our ability to face the problems of life the way that we should face them will be directly associated to our faith in His power and His promises. So we need to be blessed by God in regard to the scriptures. We need to have Him open up the scriptures for us so that we will know and remember the promises that apply to the situation that we are in. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. Only Jesus can give us the peace of mind that we need. To have the peace that we need, we must have faith and we must be focused on Jesus Christ. To have faith we also must be repentant of our sins. “There is no peace, saith the Lord, for the wicked.” If you want peace, make sure that you have truly turned from all of your sins.

The third spiritual characteristic that Jude by the Holy Spirit said that he wished would be multiplied to believers is “love.” We certainly need more love. We need to understand more completely just how much God loves us. He loves us with an eternal love. “God is love.” “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…” “Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the children of God.” If only we realized more just how much God loves us, then we would love Him more. “We love Him because He first loved us.” If God loves us, then everything is going to turn out just right. If God loves us, then He is going to take care of us. If God loves us, then He is going to answer our prayers. We need to have “love” multiplied to us. A lost and dying world needs love. There is a lot of hatred in the world. There is a lot of selfishness and cruelty, but there is not much love. The world needs to see love. They will be attracted to that. Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, that ye have love one for another.”

Perhaps to remind us that we are the special objects of God’s love, Jude calls us in verse 3, “beloved.” Jude writes, “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” Jude had a short introduction in verses 1 and 2, and now he gets right to the main purpose of this letter that he was writing: the purpose is to counteract false teachings and false teachers who had already begun to infiltrate into the Christian churches. This is why Jude is giving “all diligence.” This is a very important subject. Christians need to be on their guard against false doctrine. True doctrine needs to be defended. True doctrine is defended by understanding and believing that which is true, and then proclaiming that which is true in order to keep the truth clean and pure and separated from that which is false.

In verse 3 Jude calls the truth “the common salvation,” and then Jude says that the truth is “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” The phrase “the common salvation” tells us that every true believer has the same salvation. There is only one salvation and that salvation is found in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. “There is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved.” “There is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” If you have truly been saved, in the essential elements of salvation you were saved the same way that anyone else has been saved since the day of Christ: you turned from your sins and you called upon the name of Jesus Christ to save you. “Except you repent, you shall all like wise perish.” “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” If someone claims to be saved, but says that they were saved without calling upon the name of Jesus Christ then we know that such a person does not have the Biblical salvation in Christ that we are talking about. They do not have “the common salvation.” There are many people who claim to be of God, but who have not had “the common salvation.” All ways do not lead to heaven. Of all the ways possible, only one leads to heaven. Jesus said, “Narrow is the way that leads to life, and few there be that find it.” Jesus also said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father but by me.”

Something else needs to be said about this “common salvation.” It has to do with “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” The faith in this context refers to the body of truth. The faith was once delivered. It is not delivered many times. It was once delivered. This idea immediately reveals the false nature of any claims that someone may have that they have a new revelation or an additional revelation to add to the truth. If anyone adds another book to the Bible or other teachings to the Bible, then they have departed from “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” Of course, people will try to add to it. They always have and they always will. That is the point that Jude is making. That is why Jude says that believers should “earnestly contend for the faith.” The phrase “earnestly contend” comes from a very strong word that means to put forth a great effort, even an effort in which one agonizes by the energy and the stress and the strain that one is making. It is a big task. It is an important task. This task of contending for the faith has been given to believers from God. He has given us His truth, His Word: what is called here “the faith.” Now in this life and in this age, He wants us to earnestly strive for the faith. In other words He wants us to put forth a great effort to preserve and proclaim the pure truth as it has been given to us from God. The faith was “once delivered to the saints.” It is certain that the false teachers are going to be doing their work, but are the Christians going to be doing theirs?

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