Introduction
David Pawson opens by noting that he had written a book on Jude, and was therefore invited to speak on it — though he wryly observes he would rather people simply read the book. Nevertheless, he fulfils the request by first reading the entire letter aloud.
Jude is the last book of the Bible before Revelation. It is one of the shortest letters in the New Testament, yet one of the most important — and one of the most neglected. Pawson reflects that there is hardly a verse in this letter that anyone commonly quotes.
The Text of Jude
Pawson reads the letter in full before beginning his exposition. The following is the NIV text as read:
Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James. To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ: mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.
Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once entrusted to the saints. For certain men, whose condemnation was written about long ago, have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men who change the grace of our God into a licence for immorality and deny Jesus Christ as our only Sovereign and Lord.
Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority, but abandoned their own home — these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great day. In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.
In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings. But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’ Yet these men speak abusively against whatever they do not understand; and what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals — these are the very things that destroy them.
Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion. These men are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm — shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted — twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackest darkness has been reserved for ever.
Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: ‘See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’ These men are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.
But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, ‘In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.’ These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instinct and do not have the Spirit.
But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear — hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.
To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy — to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
Pawson’s Approach to Studying the Letter
Rather than presenting the polished fruits of his study, Pawson invites his audience into his study process — sharing how he first approached this letter when he prepared to preach it. He had not read it before, like most Christians.
His method: he reads a book of the Bible not once but perhaps ten times, always with blank paper and a pen nearby, writing down anything that strikes him. These are some of the initial observations he recorded about Jude:
Initial Observations
1. The author has a habit of writing in threes, fours, fives and sixes — grouping ideas in multiples. For example, he appeals to Cain, Balaam, and Korah (three Old Testament figures), and in one verse gives four metaphors drawn from nature: clouds, trees, waves of the sea, and stars.
2.Some of what Jude quotes cannot be found in the Bible. Where does the story of the archangel Michael arguing with the devil over Moses’ body come from? Where does the detailed account of the fallen angels come from? And what about the prophecy of Enoch — a figure the Bible says almost nothing about?
3.There are almost no quotable quotes in the letter. Of all the verses in Jude, only two are commonly known: the call to ‘contend for the faith once delivered to the saints’ and the closing doxology, ‘Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling.’
Background to the Letter
Who Was Jude?
Letters and books of the New Testament have come to us only because their authors were either apostles or direct relatives of Jesus. Jude falls into the second category — he was Jesus’ half-brother. After Jesus was born, Mary had at least six more children: four sons (whose names we know) and at least two daughters.
Jude’s proper name was Judas — the same name as the apostle who betrayed Jesus. Understandably, he preferred the shortened form ‘Jude.’ Why does he not identify himself as a brother of Jesus? Pawson suggests it is because Jude remembered with shame that Jesus’ brothers did not believe in him during his earthly ministry — they teased and mocked him right up until the resurrection. After encountering the risen Christ, they were so humbled that neither James nor Jude ever referred to themselves as Jesus’ brothers again. Both simply called themselves slaves of Jesus Christ.
Who Were the Recipients?
We have no idea. Unusually, Jude gives no name of a place and no names of people. It almost seems as if he was deliberately protecting his readers’ anonymity, aware that something shameful was happening among them that he did not wish to expose publicly.
Why Did He Write?
Jude tells us plainly: he had intended to write an encouraging letter about the salvation they shared, but felt compelled to change course. Something urgent was happening. He wrote reluctantly.
Pawson uses a vivid analogy of overhearing one side of a phone conversation. Reading a letter is like that — you hear only one voice and must reconstruct what is happening at the other end. The answer Jude gives is disturbing: certain men had secretly wormed their way into the fellowship with false teaching. Nothing destroys a church more quickly. Notice that they had not started the church — they had infiltrated it, which is one of the hallmarks of false teachers: rather than doing their own work, they take over other people’s.
The Two False Teachings
1. Cheap Grace
The first error is what has been called ‘cheap grace’ — the idea that God is so gracious that it does not really matter what we do. Grace will cover all sin, past, present and future. Therefore there is no need for repentance; forgiveness is unconditional and automatic. The logical conclusion: once saved, always saved, with no further confession of sin required.
Pawson draws on his recent visit to Singapore, where he felt called to challenge exactly this teaching, which he found spreading worldwide. He argues that grace is rightly understood as undeserved favour, but never as unconditional forgiveness. The Apostle Paul faced the same problem: ‘Shall we sin that grace may abound?’ Over-emphasising grace opens a door for sin.
2. Denial of Christ’s Uniqueness
The second error was the teaching that Jesus is not the only Saviour and Lord — that he is one among many religious founders. This is now taught through comparative religion, where children learn about Jesus alongside Muhammad, Confucius and Buddha as equivalent figures. It was the same cancer at work in the early church.
Together, these two errors were deadly. Like cancer in the body, false teaching spreads and shuts organs down. And the truth of history is that the church has never been destroyed from the outside — persecution only strengthens it. The devil knows this, which is why he works from the inside, through false teaching.
The Structure of the Letter
After repeated readings, Pawson identified a clear three-part structure to Jude, corresponding to three dimensions of human existence:
None of us can change the past, but we can and must learn from it. Jude appeals to what has already been written and recorded as a warning and a guide.
The problem is still ongoing. What should the believers do about it now? Jude gives practical guidance.
To lift their spirits above the present trouble, Jude directs his readers’ eyes to the God who was, who is, and who is to come. When the outlook is bad, try the up-look.
Part 1: Learning from the Past
Within this first major section, Jude addresses two intertwined themes: the corruption being brought in by the false teachers, and the condemnation that was written against such people long ago. He alternates between the two throughout the section, drawing from both Scripture and Jewish tradition — three from Scripture, two from tradition.
Six Things That Will Be Corrupted
1. Creed — What We Believe. False beliefs enter first. The two errors described above corrupt the foundational beliefs of the church.
2. Conduct — How We Behave. What we believe shapes how we behave. Wrong belief inevitably leads to wrong behaviour.
3. Cogitation — How We Think. The way we recognise and process reality becomes distorted. False teachers corrupt the way people think.
4. Character — Who We Are. Sow a deed and reap a habit; sow a habit and reap a character. Jude gives four vivid images of corrupted character: fleeting clouds that promise rain but produce none; fruitless trees, rootless and dead; wild waves foaming with shame; and falling stars — brilliant for a moment, then gone forever.
5. Conversation — How We Speak. The way believers talk to one another is affected. Jude identifies four types of corrupted speech: grumbling, self-centred talking, boasting, and flattery for personal gain.
6. Motivation — What Compels Us. Finally, what drives people to act changes. These false teachers are divisive — their ambition is to split the fellowship. And ultimately, Jude says, they do not have the Holy Spirit. That is the final condemnation.
Five Condemnations from the Past
1. The Exodus Generation (Scripture).Two and a half million people left Egypt. Of all those adults, only two entered the Promised Land — Joshua and Caleb, the two spies who trusted God. The rest died in the wilderness, not because they couldn’t enter, but because they stopped believing. Canaan was only a fortnight’s journey away. Instead they wasted forty years.
2. The Fallen Angels (Tradition — the Book of Enoch). God made life in three layers: angels, human beings, animals. He forbade sexual union across those boundaries. Yet in Genesis 6, approximately 200 angels descended in the region around Mount Hermon and had sexual relations with human women, producing a hybrid race the Bible calls Nephilim. It was at this point that occultism was introduced to humanity. Those angels were then imprisoned in darkness, awaiting the great day of judgment.
3. Sodom and Gomorrah (Scripture).Four cities in the Jordan Valley south of the Dead Sea, given over to sexual immorality. They were destroyed by fire — and according to Jewish records, the fire was still visible from Jerusalem in Jesus’ day, two thousand years later.
4. The Archangel Michael and Moses’ Body (Tradition).Moses died on Mount Nebo, but no grave has ever been found. Jewish tradition records that Michael was sent to bury Moses, found Satan standing over the body claiming it as his own, and responded not with argument but with: ‘The Lord rebuke you.’ This stands as a model of right attitude in stark contrast to the false teachers, who slander what they don’t understand.
5. Cain, Balaam, and Korah (Scripture).Three Old Testament figures whose paths the false teachers are following: Cain, who murdered his brother out of envy — the first murder in history; Balaam, who sought to give false prophecies for financial gain and had to be rebuked by his donkey; and Korah, who led a rebellion against Moses’ leadership, and the earth opened up and swallowed him.
The Prophecy of Enoch
Enoch was the first prophet to warn of divine judgment. His very name encodes that warning: he named his son Methuselah, which means ‘when he dies, it will happen.’ Enoch believed that on the day his son died, God’s judgment would fall. And that is exactly what happened. Methuselah lived 969 years — the longest life in recorded history — a testament to God’s extraordinary patience. On the day Methuselah died, it began to rain. The flood wiped out the whole generation.
Enoch’s prophecy is not found in our Bible. It comes from the Book of Enoch, a Jewish text that Jude clearly regarded as containing genuine and reliable tradition.
Part 2: Living in the Present
Interestingly, Jude does not tell his readers to confront the false teachers, put them out, pray against them, or leave. He says almost nothing about what to do about them directly. He leaves them to God: ‘Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.’ Instead, his concern is for the readers themselves and for those being victimised. He gives four instructions for themselves, and counsel about three categories of people they should care for.
Four Things to Do for Yourself
A. Build Yourselves Up in the Faith. Study the Scripture for yourself. Feed on the faith once delivered to the saints. Pawson thanks God that people in churches where false teaching prevails have been able to build themselves up through recorded and written teaching.
B. Pray in the Holy Spirit.Nobody can stop you from praying. Pawson believes this is likely a reference to praying in tongues — a gift of the Spirit that enables prayer when we don’t know how to pray ourselves. When you are so perplexed and troubled that you cannot express it, let the Spirit put the words in your mouth.
C. Keep Yourself in God’s Love.Jesus himself explained how: ‘I keep my Father’s commandments and I stay in his love. Keep my commandments and you’ll stay in my love.’ Keeping in God’s love is not passive — it requires obedience and submission to what God says.
D. Wait with Expectation. Look to the coming of Jesus Christ. All true Christians are eagerly waiting for him to return. Whatever misleading false teachers there have been, the true teacher is coming back. Keep your eyes fixed on that.
Three Categories of People to Care For
1. Waverers. Those who are still uncertain — sitting on the fence between the old teaching and the new. Show them mercy, give them special attention, help them back into the truth.
2. Those in Mortal Danger. Those who have gone further into the false teaching and are in genuine peril. Snatch them back — like snatching a child from a burning house. A brand plucked from the burning.
3. Those Who Have Fallen. Those who have already gone over to the false teachers and are sharing their immoral living. Even here the word mercy applies. At the same time, Jude adds a striking warning: be afraid even of contaminated clothing. Their immoral lives will have contaminated even what they wear. Be merciful — but fear contamination yourself.
Part 3: Looking to the Future
Jude closes with a doxology — the most familiar verses in the letter:
To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy — to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
The Able God
Pawson draws attention to one crucial word: able. Not certain — able. God is not certain to keep you from falling; he is able to, if you are willing. There are over 80 warnings in the New Testament against losing your salvation. The God who is able to keep you is the same God who says, ‘Keep yourselves in my love.’ Two sides of the same truth.
No one can pluck you out of his hand — but you can jump out, because those kept in his hand are defined as the sheep who hear his voice and follow him. God is able to present you faultless before his throne. That is why salvation is not yet complete — he wants to make you perfect, and he will not be content with anything less.
The Sovereign God
Alongside his ability stands his sovereignty. He is the only God — not the only wise God, simply the only God. To him belong all majesty, all dominion, all power. And alongside his sovereignty, his eternity: he was, is, and always will be.
Amen— not a question mark, not a hesitant conclusion. The strongest affirmative in the Greek language. Jesus used it constantly: ‘Amen, amen, I say to you.’ Certainly. Absolutely. This is true.
David Pawson’s Paraphrase of Jude
Pawson concludes by sharing the personal paraphrase he wrote after studying the letter — his method for confirming he has truly understood what a passage means. When you can translate a part of the Bible into your own language, you have grasped it.
This letter is from Judas, though I prefer to be called Jude, one of the bought slaves of King Jesus and a brother of James whom you all know. I am addressing all those over there who have heard and responded to the call of God our Father, enjoy the love of his family, and have so far been kept safe by your relationship with his Son, Jesus. May you experience more and more of his undeserved mercy, inward peace and loving care.
My dear friends, I had fully intended to write an encouraging note about the wonderful salvation you and I share, but I now find I must send you a solemn warning and appeal to you to fight on for the old faith which was first given to the believers once and for all. I have heard that certain men, who shall be nameless, have sneaked into your fellowship. They are not in touch with God. Their sentence of doom was pronounced and recorded years ago. They distort the amazing grace of our gospel into an excuse for blatant immorality and deny that the Messiah, Jesus, is the only true Head and Lord of all.
Now I want to remind you of some facts you are already familiar with, which warn us not to trifle with God. Remember that he brought a whole nation out of slavery in Egypt, yet destroyed most of them because they would not go on trusting him. Nor were his angels any more exempt when some of them deserted their proper place and function. He took them into custody and is keeping them in the lowest and darkest dungeon until their trial on the great day of judgment. Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah cluttered themselves with debauchery, hankering after forbidden pleasures — just as the angels had done. Their fate in the fire that burned for so long is a sober omen for us all.
In spite of such examples from the past, these interlopers abuse their own bodies, despise the authority of the Lord, and deride the angels in glory. In contrast, when the archangel Michael argued with the devil about the disposal of Moses’ body, he did not presume to condemn him for slander directly, but simply said, ‘The Lord is the one to reproach you.’ Yet these men among you don’t hesitate to malign what they don’t understand. What little they do understand, they grasp by animal instinct rather than supernatural inspiration. Woe betide them! They walk in the same way Cain went. They plunge into Balaam’s blunder for the same profit motive. Sharing the rebellious attitude of Korah, they will come to the same ruin.
They think they are shepherds, but they are not interested in feeding the sheep — only themselves. They are like clouds driven away by the wind before they drop any rain. They are like uprooted trees in the autumn with neither leaves nor fruit, dead as dead. Like crashing wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their shameful behaviour. Like shooting stars destined to disappear down a black hole forever.
It was about such as these that Enoch, in only the seventh generation after Adam, made a prophetic announcement: ‘Look out! The Lord is coming with hordes of angels to carry out his sentence on all the godless people for their godless deeds which they have done, and all the godless words they have spoken against God himself and his godly people.’
These infiltrators are discontented grumblers, always complaining, pursuing their own ambitions. Full of big talk, they even use flattery to gain their ends. But you, my dear friends, need to remember what the apostles said: that as history enters the final stages, there will be those who are contemptuous of godliness while they pursue and practice the very opposite. The result will be splits among you, initiated by those who follow their fleshly impulses, strangers to the Holy Spirit.
As for you, my dear friends, reinforce yourselves by becoming more mature in your faith, praying regularly in the way the Spirit leads you. Stay within the boundaries God’s love has set for you as you patiently wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ and the everlasting life he will bring. Deal gently with those who are wavering. Do anything you can to rescue those who have already gone over to the false teachers, as you would snatch a child from a burning house. You must even feel compassion for the villains themselves, but alongside that, keep a healthy fear of being contaminated by them, even by their stained clothing.
Now let’s praise the one God who is able to keep you from slipping into all this and enable you to stand before his glorious throne, blameless and jubilant. To the only God who can save us and bring us to glory belong radiance, majesty, all praise, and power and dominion — before all time, all through history, and forevermore. Absolutely true.
Closing
Pawson closes the lecture by noting that the last two verses of Jude were set to music by Dave and Dale Garrett, a New Zealand couple who pioneered Scripture in Song. He sings their setting of the doxology as a fitting conclusion to the evening.
© David Pawson Ministry CIO
Listen to the original teaching at davidpawson.co.uk
© David Pawson Ministry — Transcript prepared for Koinonia.nu | koinonia.nu