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Jude
now moves on to describe the pseudo-Christian leaders who were turning
the grace of God into a license for immorality in general and the practice
of homosexuality in particular.
Jude
now homes in on the specific sins of the pseudo-Christian leaders, saying
that their immoral practices were the very same as those
of Sodom and Gomorrah -- in other words, sexual immorality in general,
and homosexuality in particular.
Filthy
Dreamers Pollute their Flesh
The
practice of homosexuality pollutes the flesh, both figuratively
and literally, which is why Jude refers to the false leaders, who may
well have claimed to receive special new revelations in dreams, as filthy
dreamers.
They Despise
Authority
Notice
that the false teachers also reject or despise authority
or dominion. Nobody is going to tell them how to live their lives. They
will set their own moral standards, as we have already seen, and not
even the plain authority of the Bible is acceptable to them.Peter describes
them as being bold and arrogant in their manner (2 Peter 2:10).
They Defame
Dignities
Jude
tells us that the false teachers were not afraid to defame dignities,
leaders -- and were no doubt skilled in the subtle techniques of character
assassination.In the same way, today’s pseudo-Christian teachers are
not afraid to accuse the apostle Paul of being homophobic and biased
against women, a naïve victim of the culture he lived in. As Paul
points out (1 Corinthians 1:26-28), God generally call out weak and
foolish individuals, and sometimes the downright odd, to do His work
-- and even the original apostles were not highly educated, cultured,
wealthy and successful men. They also had their fair share of human
weaknesses, as the scriptures make clear, and no doubt made many mistakes.
Peter, for example, had problems accepting the fact that the Gentiles
could be saved, and had to be rebuked by Paul on one occasion for his
conduct (Galatians 2:11). Paul himself admits that he was unimpressive
as a speaker and lacking in presence as leader (2 Corinthians 10:10;
11:6). Perhaps, as a result of these things, it was relatively easy
for certain charismatic and capable men to worm their way into the Church,
perhaps even having held priestly office in Judaism, and acquire positions
of influence – positions from which they were later able to criticize
and distort the teachings of Paul, as we have already seen, and introduce
permissive doctrines, possibly based on supposed new revelations and
dreams.
Things
They Do not Understand
In
spiritual matters, which they do not understand, says
Jude, the false teachers are like brute beasts -- meaning stupid or
unreasoning animals. Just as many animals can hear and see and taste,
touch and smell even better than human beings but have little or no
power of reason, so the false teachers may be able to reason very cleverly
as human beings but have no grasp of spiritual matters – which is why
an erudite scholar, even with an ability to read the original Greek
and Hebrew texts from which our Bible is translated, may possess very
little understanding of the ways of God, and possess even less desire
to follow them.As a result, instead of striving to live holy lives that
fulfill the spirit of the law of God, as Jesus taught his disciples,
the false teachers regard the Bible as a legal document in which they
hope to find loopholes and omissions to excuse their personal immoral
actions.
Homosexual
Offenders
We
saw earlier, for example, Paul’s list of those will excluded from eternal
life in the Kingdom of God -- the sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers,
male prostitutes, homosexual offenders, thieves, the greedy,
drunkards, slanderers and swindlers.Although nobody leaps to the defense
of practicing thieves, drunkards, liars and the like, today’s generation
of the false teachers, to whom Jude’s comments also apply, do take particular
issue with the phrase "homosexual offenders" -- pointing out
that the meaning of the original Greek word, arsenokoites, is
somewhat obscure. Nevertheless, the term, which is a combination of
the Greek words for male and bed, has been translated
by well informed scholars in a variety of similar ways -- including:
"abusers of themselves with mankind", "men who are guilty
of sexual intercourse with members of their own sex", "those
guilty of homosexual perversion", or simply "homosexuals"
or "sodomites". However, even if the term does mean homosexual,
claim the false leaders, it is referring to the practice as part of
pagan temple worship -- a totally different thing to the loving, caring
kind of homosexuality to that they claim to promote.
Bibliolatry
As
for the Old Testament, and the clear condemnation of homosexuality we
have already seen in both Genesis and Leviticus, the false teachers
simply claim that as Christians those scriptures no longer apply to
them -- and were, in any case, misconstrued by New Testament writers
such as Paul and Jude, leading to erroreous comments on the subject
in the New Testament.Astonishingly, some of them go so far as to suggest
that anybody who does look to the Bible, either Old or New Testament,
as a guide to Christian living is guilty of "bibliolatry"
-- the sin of idolizing and worshipping the Bible!
Interpretive
Theory
Going
one step further than that, however, theologians have now devised the
"interpretive theory" -- the notion that Christians,
being led by the Spirit of God and their own intuition and personal
revelations, should actually critique the Holy Scriptures rather than
regard them as a holy writ, accepting the bits they like and discarding
the rest. After all, they claim, although the men who wrote the Bible
in the first place may have worshipped God, they were not only superstitious,
scientifically illiterate and lacking the benefit of a modern textual
scholarship, but also prejudiced against homosexuals and women to boot
because of the culture in which they lived -- so we know better! Finally,
in the newspaper this very morning we find their ultimate pronouncement
-- namely that belief in the Bible is in fact "a complete irrelevance"
for Christians.
All Scripture
is Inspired
Although
the pseudo-Christian leaders happily reject the whole of the Old Testament,
the apostle Paul exhorted the evangelist Timothy to study the Hebrew
scriptures very carefully, saying: "All scripture is inspired by
God and is profitable for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training
in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16). In the previous letter to Timothy,
however, Paul describes a different group of false teachers who attacked
from the exact opposite direction -- wanting to impose the detailed
requirements of the Old Covenant on Christians. Of such he says, in
words echoed by Jude: "They want to be teachers of the law, but
they do not know what they are talking about or what they
so confidently affirm" (1 Timothy 1:7).
The Value
of the Law
Paul
then makes a comment that applies equally to both groups, saying: "We
know that the law is good -- if one uses it
lawfully. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous
man but for law breakers" (verse 8). Although the Christian is
not required to live by the Law, by being circumcised, for example,
observing the seventh day Sabbath made holy at Creation, paying tithes
in the way Abraham did, celebrating the Holy Days of the Hebrew Calendar,
or obeying all the statutes and ritual cleansings imposed by the Law
of Moses, all those requirements were based on right principles. As
Paul explains, for example, circumcision, which involved the removal
of a tiny portion of flesh, was an outward symbol of the true circumcision
in the heart, a turning away from the lusts of the flesh, and is no
longer required (Galatians 5:6).
The Sabbath
and Tithing
Also,
although Christians are not required to tithe their income or save a
second tithe, as Moses commanded to finance the celebration of the annual
festivals, or even a third tithe to distribute to the poor and orphans,
they should willingly use their income to honour God and help those
in need. With regard to the Sabbath, a Christian, led by the indwelling
of the Holy Spirit, is supposed to make every day of the week holy by
his conduct, by resting from sin. The unwilling Israelites, however,
under the Old Covenant, required a special day to be imposed in order
to make them stop working and to take time to worship God.
The Law
was a Schoolmaster
This
is why Paul explains to Greek Christians in Galatia, on whom a different
group of false teachers had tried to impose circumcision and also the
annual holy days, such as the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread,
that: "The law was our schoolmaster, to bring us
unto Christ" (Galations 3:24). In other words, the law taught right
principles in the form of detailed rules and regulations, as any good
parent does with their young and often unwilling children.Although other
parts of the Law, such as various kinds of sacrifices and purification
rituals, cannot be literally followed at the present time because there
is no temple, Paul says that the Christian is still required to purify
his heart and offer himself spiritually as a living sacrifice to do
God’s will (Romans 12:1).
Important
Principles
Likewise,
the many and detailed statutes such as those pertaining to building
a parapet around a flat root (safety), not eating blood or unclean animals
(health), not using mixed fabrics (quality), quarantining people with
various diseases (public health), burying excrement (hygiene), not yoking
an ox with a donkey (kindness to animals), not reaping the corners of
fields (kindness to the poor), all taught important principles, some
of which science has only discovered in recent centuries.Further, although
the ministration of death, by which the Law imposed the death penalty
for a variety of offenses, including adultery, homosexuality and bestiality,
for example, is no longer physically in force (2 Corinthians 3:6-7),
those acts are still immoral and sinful and carry an ultimate penalty
of death that will be imposed by God on those who indulge in them --
a major stumbling block to the pseudo-Christian leaders today as in
the time of Jude.
Religionless
Religion
In
summary, the Christian is called to live a righteous life -- one that
is totally free of specific rules, regulations and rituals on the one
hand, but that is also free from the immoral acts of the flesh on the
other. This is why Christianity has been called a religion-less religion.However,
some people find this responsible freedom difficult to accept, now as
in the first century -- many wanting the reassurance of a set of rigid
rules and rituals to live by, with many others wanting the unconstrained
license to indulge themselves as they sit fit.This is what Paul tries
to explain to Christians living in Galatia, Quote: "You, my brothers,
were called to be free -- but do not use your freedom to indulge
the sinful nature" (Galatians 5:13). He then goes on to list
the sins of the flesh that are to be resisted, as we have already seen
(verses 19-21), and the fruits of the Holy Spirit that should replace
them (verses 22-24).Paul also explains this same principle to converts
to Christianity in the sexual cess pit of Corinth, saying, after discussing
several problems, Quote: "Everything is permissible for me
-- but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible
-- but I will not be mastered by anything" (1 Corinthians 6:12).
Having made this sweeping statement, Paul immediately qualifies it by
pointing out that he is, of course, as a disciple of Christ, speaking
of everything that is not immoral, and sexually immoral
in particular (verses 13 and 18). He then stresses once again the need
for Christians to live holy lives, their bodies being temples
of the Holy Spirit (verse19).
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