CONTENDING FOR THE FAITH
Barely had Christianity established in the first century when it was bombarded by heresies that threatened to destroy it. Jude the brother of Jesus, writing in AD 65 urges the church to contend for the faith, a message that is relevant today much the same as faith gets increasingly polluted.
I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. (3,4)
A polluted faith is one where Christ’s sole lordship is rejected and immorality is incorporated into the faith. The Bible declares unequivocally that Jesus was fully God and fully human; and when he died on the cross after a sinless life and rose again, he paid for the sins of all mankind, becoming the only way for man to be saved and gain eternal life. Denial of this doctrine in its totality makes way for immorality to slip in to the faith, where it works its way to become part of the faith over time. And while heresies might look similar to classical Christianity, it is deceptively dangerous and leads many astray. Today we live in a world where the lordship of Christ is often matched by the lordship of many other things and people, including money, power, positions, leaders, organized church, Biblical figures, societal norms and so on. Unless Christ rules as the only Sovereign and Lord, faith is compromised as Jude says,
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. (v11)
A compromised faith is one where something else gets in the way of total devotion to God. For Cain it was a half-hearted desire to please God, being unwilling to give his best for God. For Balaam, the greed for money led him down the dangerous path of disobeying God’s word and attempting to stand against the will of God. Korah was driven by personal ambition and a desire for power, and met his death when he rebelled against God’s chosen vessel and his plans. Every one of them was deceived into thinking that he was doing the right thing when he was not, because they had settled down to an instinctive life. Jude’s words remind us of the world we live in today,
‘ …there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.”These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit (v19, 20).
An instinctive life is one where instincts rule and the Spirit of God does not have the freedom to control over one’s decisions. The instinctive life is easy whereas a spiritual life can only be made possible with painful denial. The former rarely acknowledges the possibility of error, whereas the latter involves a breaking of one’s pride and development of humility that God desires in man. The former clings to power and divides, the latter embraces love and unites. Jude exhorts the church not only to publicly call out heresies, but also to personally build one’s faith.
But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying 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 (v20,21).
Nurturing the faith, praying constantly, keeping oneself in the center of God’s love and awaiting eternal life helps one orient to the truth. And never forgetting that God is able and his grace is sufficient.
To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen (v24, 25).
