Commentary of The Letter of Jude - Part 2
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A Commentary of the Letter of Jude - Part 2
The autumn festivals
I am awake, I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop
all day long my enemies mock me,
those who race against me
swear by me
ashes I eat
like bread and
mix my drink
with my tears
Psalm 102
Interpretation of the Epistle of Jude - Verses 8-10
The church of Laodicea is the last church before the Lord completes His work on this earth. In this section, we look at their subsequent story as told through Sardis, Pergamos, and Thyatira.
Summer is over and the first cool nights herald the arrival of autumn. Only a few fields are still being worked, while the season is in full swing for the millers. But suddenly and unexpectedly, in the midst of the hustle and bustle, something happens. Where have the employees gone? Prophetically, those from Laodicea who have returned and repented have gone through the time of first love - Ephesus - and have fought and suffered for their Lord - Smyrna - and experienced their rebirth in Philadelphia. In all that time they have harvested, threshed and ground wheat, and now they are gone. Only a few dreamers from Sardis woke up with horror.
The Autumn Feasts
First feast: The feast of the trumpet hall
Verse 8: Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. | Sardis:
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The eighth verse is addressed to the church of Sardis. We ask ourselves: What kind of dreamers are they and what dreams do they dream? In the seventh verse, Jude speaks about the church of Thyatira, where the harlot is doing her mischief. In verse 8 he turns to Sardis and says: But in like manner these also your dreamers. Jude holds up a mirror to the church when he says, Sardis, you also commit fornication, "in like manner as those." In the letter to Thyatira, the Lord warns all the churches in time: "I will throw the harlot and those who commit fornication with her into one bed." And so it happens. Then, in the fall, the dreamers from Sardis lie in the bed of the harlot. And what do they dream there? The dreamers dreamingly despise the rulers and they dream blasphemies about the beautiful. Jude calls it the beautiful Greek doxa, which we translate with glory. In English a somewhat abstract quantity, because it is hardly concrete and tangible.
The root of the word makes it understandable, goes to the heart of the matter. Let's look at the negative aspects, because they bring to light the dreams of the dreamers.
The dreamers suspect, ponder, mentally imagine something; whatever it may be, it is not good. Again in slightly different words: contemptuously they dream against rulers, dream them off their necks, want to do only what their flesh greedily desires. Furthermore, the word root reveals: they esteem - themselves or others or other - at will or let esteem - themselves or others or other - at will. The word describes, what can take shape in our thought world and bubbles it dreaming from the source of the bad heart: They think, they mean, they suppose and estimate, everything after the own Gusto, to the last. What they smell and suspect and speculate and believe, they will drink from spoiled grapes.
Who are these dreamers? From the Greek it is hypnos. Known in English as hypnosis. A dreamer under hypnosis is mentally passive, because he is in a kind of mental rigidity. In this state, dreamers become increasingly dependent, are easily manipulated, and can be abused for all sorts of things. The made C crisis has given us a bitter taste of this, and the green will not get us at all. What Sardis brings to the table in the fall and serves everywhere, cheers. The Lord loves the refreshing cool in the heat day and loves the hot drink in the freezing cold, but what Sardis in the fall …
Second Feast: The Great Day of Atonement Jude 1:9
Verse 9: But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” | Pergamos
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The ninth verse is addressed to the church of Pergamos. The Lord begins with the words, This says he who has the sharp two-edged sword. The sword is used as a metaphor for the tongue, and the Lord's tongue here literally separates razor-sharp. This is precisely what Jude alludes to when he reminds the recipients that although the archangel Michael contended with the devil, he dared not pass blasphemous judgment on him. This is extremely important for the church of Pergamos to know, for Satan's throne is in their city, indeed, more than that, he dwells there.
Paul writes to Timothy: "Take part in the tribulations as a good warrior of Jesus Christ. And if anyone does war service, he will be honored for his service in the end, if he fought lawfully. This is exactly what Jude is trying to say to the church of Pergamos: your wars of words with your enemies are pleasing in the sight of God, but still please be respectful to your opponents, no blasphemy, no insults, no honor-cutting remarks. Let's look at how God proceeds in this matter on the day of Yom Kippur. Exodus 16:5: And of the congregation he shall take two kids of the goats for a sin offering. Verse7: And he shall take the two goats, and set them before the LORD at the door of the tent of meeting. And Aaron shall bring the goat on which the lot fell for Yahweh (the Lord), and offer it for a sin offering. And the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel is to be presented alive before Yahweh (the LORD) to make atonement on it to send Azazel away into the wilderness.
As we see, there are two goats, the first one is to make atonement for the people, because it says, verse 15: And he - Aaron - slaughter the goat of the sin offering, which is for the people. Here the first goat is literally made the scapegoat for all. When Aaron has completed the Lord's instructions for atonement, then he is to bring the other goat, the living one.
Verse 21: And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the living goat, and confess upon it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions according to all their sins; and he shall lay them upon the head of the goat, and send it away into the wilderness by a man that is at hand. Now one wonders what two goats are for, when the first one has already made atonement for the people. There is an important principle in the Bible: evil returns to one. The first time this happens in Judges 9 in the story of Abimelech, which vividly illustrates what it means for evil to return to one. Judges 9:57: And so God brought back upon Abimelech the wickedness he had committed against his father by murdering his seventy brothers. Then in the next verse it is even clearer: And all the wickedness of the men of Shechem God brought back on their heads.
For Yom Kippur, this means that God brings all the sins back on Satan's head and sends him alive into the desert, and it is dry, hot and unbearable.
With the sword of his mouth, the Lord Jesus will separate his enemies from the sheep and send them, to remain in the image, into the desert. There will be sufficient judicial servants to accomplish this.
Third Feast: The Feast of Tabernacles Jude1:10
Verse 10: But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. | Thyatira
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The 10th verse is addressed to the church of Thyatira. We have already described the eyes and the flame of fire of the Lord in the first section, and the bed of the harlot further up at Sardis, so we jump straight to verse 23 in the epistle to Thyatira, where the Lord says, "And I will give you to each one according to your works." This is what he says to those whom he will put to death because they do not leave off the harlot.
Now Judas brings out for the first time something that seems to be rather unknown in Thyatira so far, at least we do not read anything about blasphemy in the Epistle. What could Judas be alluding here? Well, he writes: But whatsoever they by nature ... understand. What then do they blaspheme? They blaspheme those who walk in the path of the righteous, who walk according to the Spirit, because those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
In short, they called themselves Christians by birth but were never born again. They also recognized the way of truth, but strayed from it. The apostle John explains how to become a Christian: But as many as received him - active- to them he gave the right to become children of God - passive- to those who believe in his name - active- who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God - passive. One does not come into the world as a Christian, one must receive Jesus personally. Isn't that strange: the self-appointed supreme of Christianity warns against receiving Jesus personally. The Apostle John warns us against such a supreme: we are of God; whoever knows God - knows personally - hears us; whoever is not of God does not hear us. - Aha, Mr. Bergoglio does not know God. Well, then it is about time. - From this we recognize the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. 1 John 4:6. By the way, we have assigned the first letter of John to the church of Thyatira. Does it fit or not?
Addendum
Addendum to the Commentary on the Epistle of Jude, Part One
We have noted, in the first three verses Jude uses the word love. In the first verse as a verb, in the second as a noun, and in the third as an adjective. Assigning them to Laodicea, Ephesus and Smyrna, we realized that the Lord first testifies his love (Laodicea), then increases ( Ephesus) and then in Smyrna the church feels really loved. This love, which has become a certainty, releases forces in her as only love can do. Its power, we think, is more powerful than death.
The threefold use of the word agape may be regarded as the inspired word of the Lord to his beloved, therefore it can also be plausibly concluded with the word agape which of the handed down text variants corresponds to the original. The textus receptus belongs to the group of the majority text and this one does not use the word love (agapao) in the first verse of Jude's letter, but saints (hagiazo).
We have assigned the Epistle of Jude to the Letter to Laodicea according to the order of the feasts of the Lord. What does the Lord say to the church? "Oh if you were hot or cold, but because you are lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth." It should be clear to any reader, what Jesus spits out is anything but holy. We usually spit out corrupt and poisonous things reflexively, and so did the Lord. Nevertheless, Laodicea should be sure that the Lord loves her even in her unholy state. What should I do so that he will "eat me up" again? Hear Laodicea: "I convict and educate as many as I love. Please be zealous and give up your resistance; repent of your sins and then change your worldview. Turn away from the ruling and loud screeching agenda."
Laodicea has understood, she is not holy, but if she wants, she can return to the holy state. We hope she will allow herself to be freed and led out of the captivity of the tyrannical spirit of the times. Where Jesus is, there is real freedom.
The seven feasts of the Lord form the blueprint for the reconstruction of the original, i.e., if we apply the feast cycle consistently, as we always present and demonstrate, the original text can be restored.
How it possibly came to the slip-up?
We think it was an unintentional mistake. Why would anyone replace the word love with the word holy? It makes no sense. At best, it could have been a listening or writing error, because those who talk a lot make errors, and those who write a lot also make errors. If the text was copied, the clerical error lay with the copyist. Even if he should have checked his text again, he would not have noticed the wrong word, because he possibly only paid attention to the spelling when proofreading. Without a double check by a third party, this is still the case today, errors remain and are copied.
… τοῖς ἐν θεῷ πατρὶ ἠγιασμένοις, καὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ τετηρημένοις κλητοῖς·
… τοῖς ἐν θεῷ πατρὶ ἠγαπημένοις καὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ τετηρημένοις κλητοῖς.
Anyone who sweepingly denigrates one or the other text variant is behaving disrespectfully towards the copyists of the texts and the staff of the Institute in Münster. Moreover, he has never experienced how exciting it can be to possess both variants and to tease out of them the original words of the Lord, Jesus certainly wants us to strive for him. In this way, too, he can guide us into the whole truth or, in other words, reveal himself to us personally.
Now we, the authors, hope that we have not made any mistakes this time.
To section 3 go this way: Judas letter - part 3
Berlin, June 13, 2023
©Copyright by H. Randy Rohrer
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