Pages

Sunday 13 May 2012

Jude 8-10 - Angles on Angels

Verse 8 refers to dreams. It may have been that the false teachers claimed to have revelations through dreams. This is a common tactic of false teachers and charlatans, particularly in charismatic circles. Now God does speak through dreams, there are many instances of this in the Bible, and He still does this. But everything must be tested against the Scriptures. If something is against the Bible then it is to be rejected, no matter how many visions or angels someone claims to have seen. If it is neither directly against, nor directly supported by the Bible, then we have to use our judgement, and we are free to reject it, again no matter how many angels the "dreamer" claims to have seen.On the other hand, Jude may just be referring to them as "dreamers", ie using it as a derogatory term.
Whatever the case, they polluted their own bodies, and rejected authority. If we sin sexually we pollute our own bodies. Our bodies are meant to be temples of the Holy Spirit, so we must treat them properly. They then started heaping abuse on celestial beings, ie angels. Jude then quotes from the Book of Moses, another non-Biblical text. This does not mean he is assigning this book with authority, just using the incident of the angel Michael as an illustration. His point is that the false teachers have a complete lack of understanding. They know nothing about angels and demons, and they certainly knew nothing about the proper way for us to treat our bodies.

No comments:

Post a Comment