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Saturday, 12 May 2012

Jude 5-7 - Warnings from history

Jude draws on the lessons of the Old Testament. As Paul says in 2 Tim 3:16, all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for training. So Jude reminds his readers that though God delivered the people out of Egypt, many of them died in the desert through unbelief. "Once saved always saved" is a contentious and misunderstood idea. It is absolutely true in the sense that we can be 100% certain of our salvation. It is absolute nonsense if it is understood in the sense of it doesn't matter what you do after you "believe", for that is entirely unbiblical.
Jude draws some of his analogies from non-Biblical Jewish writings, such as the Book of Enoch. These had various tales of what happened to angels.
After that we are back to another Biblical example, this time from Sodom and Gomorrah. Some are keen on pointing out that Ezekiel 16:49 says that lack of concern for the poor was the primary sin for which Sodom was judged. This is not true, if you read Ezekiel 16:49 and 50 you see that it is one of the sins for which she was judged. Jude here makes it clear that sexual immorality was a major reason for the judgement that came upon her.
Sexual immorality was a danger facing the churches that Jude was writing to, this is why he cites the example of Sodom and Gomorrah.

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