5 Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. 7 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.
8 In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings. 9 But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, "The Lord rebuke you!" 10 Yet these people 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.
Dig Deeper
Everybody has a role. This is an important concept to remember. The tricky part, however, is usually not in remembering that in whatever we do, we each have a role. The hard part is often in sticking to the proper role. We have a tendency to want to define our own role, our own place rather than the one given to me. I know this all too well. One summer I had taken a job that I absolutely loved giving tours at a major historical site in my hometown called the Lincoln Tallman Restorations. The house is the only private residence still standing in Wisconsin today in which Abraham Lincoln stayed and spent time. I loved giving tours of this incredible historical site, but one weekend they were having a fundraising arts and crafts sale on the grounds. I did not at all agree with this and thought it was exploitative. What really angered me though, if I'm being honest, was that the female tour guides were placed in the house to give tours to the many visitors that weekend, while the male tour guides were asked to be in charge of picking up trash during the event. There was no way that I was going to do this. This was not the role I wanted and so, in essence, I refused to do it. I found quickly that I was not as valuable as I thought, and refusing to fulfill my proper role got me in trouble rather quickly. When we are given a role by an authority figure, not staying in that role is simply wrong.
Jude is certainly dealing with the dangers that false teachers are presenting to the recipients of his letters, but it seems that he is particularly concerned with them going outside of their bounds. Teachers in the kingdom of God have been given a serious role with a great deal of responsibility. When teachers go outside of that role and begin to teach things that appeal to their own desires rather than the truth, a major problem results. Jude is very clear that the Lord does not stand for or take kindly to those who go outside of their appointed role or domain, and, in fact, always brings the appropriate judgment on those that reject God by rejecting their proper roles.
Looking back through the Old Testament and Jewish traditional literature, one thing becomes quite clear. When people rebel against God and go outside the roles that Has has laid out for them, the only sure thing that will ensue is appropriate and just punishment. Jude makes this point quite clear as he again shows his affinity for describing things in threes. Here he describes three historic and well know, at least at the time, examples of rebellion against God and the subsequent punishment.
Jude makes clear that he is going to talk about things that he expects his readers already know, but he wants to remind them of these things. They need to be on their toes and not think that because they have entered into Christ that their subsequent behavior doesn't matter. It will matter for the false teachers and it would matter for them if they step outside of their domain, which is the life of Christ. At one time, God delivered His people out of Egypt, and that might have seemed like the end of things, but it wasn't. This wasn't, we should note, because of some failing on God's part, but because they did not believe. Their appointed role was as the people of God but when they stepped outside of that role, they received the just punishment of not being able to enter into God's promise land. Indeed the whole generation was kept out of the promised land, save for Caleb and Joshua.
For the second example, Jude turns to something mentioned briefly in Genesis 6:1-4, but is expounded upon in the book of 1 Enoch, a very popular book during the first century. Jude refers to the sons of God of Genesis 6, the fallen angels who left their appointed domain and went in and had offspring with human women. The angels that are in heaven (that is those that remain in God's presence and loyal to their appointed role) were not to marry (Matt. 22:30; Mark 12:25), but these angels did and were punished with everlasting chains, being kept for judgment on the great Day. These angels rebelled, motivated by pride and lust, and did not keep their positions of authority that had been given to them by God. Instead, they abandoned their proper dwelling. And so, they discovered the same thing that the Israelites of the Exodus did. Those who rebel against God and step outside of their proper domain will suffer the consequences of those choices.
Jude's third example also comes from the Old Testament, the account of Sodom and Gomorrah. In a similar way that the angels previously referred to stepped outside of their proper domain due to arrogance and lust, so did the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. As the account in Genesis 19 makes clear, the men of these towns went outside of their proper domain and gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. The stepped outside of God's created domain by engaging in the unlawful behavior of homosexuality and, although they didn't know it, were so full of lust that they attempted to have sex with angels. Because of this, the punishment of these towns by fiery destruction stands to this day as an example of the eternal fire that awaits those who rebel against God.
In the very same way that the beings in the three examples Jude has given rejected God and stepped outside of their proper domain, so have the false teachers. Jude is not claiming that the sins are the exact same, although, there certainly are similarities. He is saying that just as they rebelled against God, so have the false teachers. His charges against them are threefold, which at this point, should come as little surprise.
First, Jude says that these ungodly people pollute their own bodies on the justification and strength of their dreams. They certainly would not have thought of themselves as ungodly or in rebellion against God, false teachers rarely do. Often part of their appeal is that they appear so sincere and are always so confident. Why would they be so confident and what does Jude mean when he talks of their dreams. The term he uses clearly refers to spiritual visions. These men were evidently claiming to have had revelatory visions that served as the basis for their teachings which included sexual freedom.
Second, they rejected authority and slandered angels, particularly fallen angels. We simply don't know how they were slandering celestial beings, but it may have had to do with either a denial of their existence or a denial that they would ever find themselves in the situation of judgment that these beings did. Even the archangel Michael, Jude says, wasn't so foolish as to slander the devil when they were in dispute over the body of Moses. Again, with this story, Jude steps outside of the Biblical testimony and appeals to the Jewish traditional book, The Assumption of Moses, that has since been lost to history. It is from there that Jude draws the point that the great angel Michael would not slander Satan, but left that for the Lord to do. Jude's point is that Michael wouldn't slander things that he well understood, but these men are so ridiculous that they slander things about which they clearly do not understand. If the greatest of the archangels would not speak evil of the most evil of beings, then any human should tread lightly when thinking of speaking evil of any angel.
Third, these men have so given into their own desires and unthinking lusts that they have reduced themselves so far below the standard of being a human being that they can be compared to nothing more than unreasoning animals that live by instinct. Their preference for their own base lusts over their God-appointed domain will lead to their own judgment and destruction.
Devotional Thought
What are the roles in your life that God has placed upon you. We have many roles and domains that stretch from our roles in marriage, to the moral and ethical restraints God has placed on His people. Do you embrace those roles or do you constantly seek to subvert and get around those roles? Spend some time thinking about the roles that God has given you and how you can bet fulfill them?
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