Jude vs 22-23 Rescue Who You Can Presentation

verses today. And so here's 22, have mercy on some who are doubting. Verse 23, save others, snatching them out of the fire, and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. It is the case here, all the great authorities are at sixes and sevens in the testimony they give on these two verses. And William Kelly, he's an opinionated guy. So if he, in his commentary, he said, okay, I'll give my two cents, but I'm not willing to stand on that hill and die on that hill. And he's opinionated, he calls out guys. So it's surprising that he had a problem with it. And then Merriman, in his lesson on this, said, there is garbled text in the Greek, very difficult to translate and interpret.

So this is what we're looking at today. This is our, it's just these two verses, and then the rest is, you know, the rest of scripture is easy, isn't it? So, yeah. Yeah. My Bible says, and of some have compassion making a difference. Right, right, and you see that's, you have the King James version, right? Yeah. Our new King James. Yeah, so, I put down a couple of the different interpretations here on this slide. So, we have 22, have mercy on some who are in doubt. King James, and have compassion making a difference new international version, be merciful to those in doubt.

And then, finally, here's one that Wiest, when he does his expanded, and also Mayer, he says, and some convict when contending. And then there's verse 23 there, which we'll get to later, save others, matching them out of the fire. Um, okay. So verse 22, uh, and I have the new American standard. So I was working with have mercy on some who are doubting. Um, but then we, as I said, has with some convict when contending. Okay. Um, Let's go into context first.

In the context, in verses 18 and 19, Judah's saying there will be mockers in the last days, or after this apostasy, when everyone apostatizes. Unholy men causing divisions, worldly-minded men following their own lusts. So this is just in the previous few verses to today's verses. There'll be false teachers ensnaring some weaker believers and causing some to be led astray.

One popular interpretation of Jude 22 and 23 then is a weak believer will be in doubt and therefore come alongside them as like a paraclete and take pity on them, mercy on them, and shore up their faith because they're struggling with that. Another way to look at it is There's going to be some who are in doubt, and they're struggling with their faith, and they're going to express contentiousness or divisions, and they're going to be working through things, maybe lashing out a bit. at, because they have a lack of true knowledge of things of Christ, or the faith. We looked at the faith, Bob did, you know, that body of truth given to us, handed down to us about the truth of Christ.

The better word there would be, convince them of the true word of God. And Roger, you had a lesson a couple weeks ago where The word was convict, but you said it's more of a convince. Yeah, well, that's that word. If it's the same original word has the idea of when you see the Holy Spirit convicts the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Well, it also has the meaning of convincing. Convict sounds kind of sounds like we're going to court, right? Yeah, right. But the convinces isn't not a bad translation of that same word. Yeah.

And here's the difficulty, and I'm just sort of giving you, everyone this morning, what the commentators are saying without really myself interjecting a lot of an opinion in here because it is difficult, but the difficulty they see In the original text is the word for mercy, ale'a'o, which is to have pity, compassion, and aid the afflicted.

When in verse 22, it has have mercy on some, ale'a'o, but then in some In some other versions of the original text, there's the source text read ELECHCO, E-L-E-G-C-H-O, you see the word there, and that's to bring to a confession, a confession and conviction of sin. This guy Mayer, who Weiss quotes, translates it this way, reprove them because of their doubts, or alternatively convince them when they dispute with you. And then Alfred says, and some indeed convict when contending with you. So this Elecho, E-L-E-G-C-H-O is the same word as John 16, eight, when it says that when Christ says that the Holy Spirit will come and convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. So that's a convicting word.

So there, I don't know how there's a, There's a problem in the source text, but some read the electrical and some read the L.A. L.A. So there you have there's the rub. There's the crux of the matter for this morning. So what I've done here is I've just put down all the. kind of all these versions of Jude 22, and have mercy on some who are doubting, and some convict when contending, that's the second one, and then the King James Version, and of some have compassion, making a difference. Okay, McGee, I like McGee's, he gives this example of how he uses verse one time in this ministry. There's this woman who was coming to his Bible study, who would ask pointed questions. And every week after the Bible study, she would ask these questions. And he thought she was trying to entrap him. And so after a while, he got irritated with her. And one evening, he lashed out at her. gave a curt answer to this woman.

But her friend who always came with her said, oh, Dr. McGee, yeah, this is a very intelligent woman. She's just trying to, she's an unbeliever and she's just trying to come to, she's trying to understand this stuff. She's very brilliant. She's trying, and that's how her brain works. She's a little, She's a little short with people. She seems that way, but she isn't really that way. And she's in Who's Who of America. I don't know what she was a professor or something.

So then Dr. McGee, the next few weeks he would answer her more gently and kind of take the time and not get his feathers riled up when she was asking these questions. And then eventually she left moved and she'd become a Christian. She wrote to him a very nice letter several months later.

So that's, I like that example because that gives a good example on the having mercy on some who are doubting. Because I didn't have a personal example for myself, or I couldn't think of one, so I thought that was a good one. Constable, when he was giving his commentary, he takes this approach to mercy as well. He sees it as a tender verse, a loving verse.

We should help, tenderly help those of our fellow believers who are struggling and perhaps stumbling under the influence of false teachers. They're earnest believers who sincerely are trying to decide between truth and error. And so we should walk along with them. And we should restore these brothers with compassion. So, he takes this, I call it a softer reading of using the word mercy instead of convicting. And that word is a diacrino in the Greek. Oh, let me go through the context again. So we should help people tenderly who are struggling.

But before in the context, 18, 19, 20, in that area of Jude, we are beloved ones who are, we are commanded to pray in the spirit, we're praying in the spirit, we're building ourselves up in the true word of God, and then we're abiding in the love of God, right? In verses 20 and 21. So we are under the influence and the control of the Holy Spirit through all this when we decide to step into this situation with the doubting believers. Okay, verse 23.

Yeah. I was just thinking, you know, nowhere does it say anything about compromising with these people. Right. Oh, yeah. Convincing, but so much you see today with, well, man, I guess we could accept that or, you know. Or I'll meet you halfway or something. Yeah, no, that's true. That's true. The verse 22 is so sparse, isn't it? It's such a sparse verse. It is. Very sparse.

So here's where they think that Jude kind of When inspired by the Holy Spirit, he thought of this, or the Holy Spirit brought this passage up to him in Zechariah 3, 1 through 5. And that reads, then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. And the Lord said to Satan, The Lord rebuke you, Satan. The Lord has chosen Jerusalem, has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. It is not a brand plucked from the fire. Is it not a brand plucked from the fire? That means Jerusalem. So he plucked Jerusalem from the fire.

Now, Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and was standing before the angel. Then he answered and spoke to those who stood before him saying, take away the filthy garments from him. And to him, he said, see, I have removed the iniquity from you and will clothe you in rich robes. And then I said, let him put a clean turban on his head, so that they put a clean turban on his head, and they put clothes on him. And the angel of the Lord stood by.

So you can see maybe some possible influence there with verse 23. hating even the garment or the undergarment polluted by the flesh, snatching them out of the fire. In Zechariah 3, it's a bran plucked from the fire. So you can see this similarity there. So Jude moves from verse 22, believers caught up in error by false teachers, who are either being tenderly ministered to when they're in doubt, or alternatively, if you use the second words, convicted and contended with. when they need to be snatched out of this fire of judgment from God.

The word save, we are to save others. It's the usual word for safe, sozo. And there you see it, S-O-Z-O. And it's a second class of people who are being saved out of fire. And as I say, save has the usual meanings, rescuing from danger or in peril or destruction.

A likely interpretation of who the others are in first 20, because you have one group in 22 and you have another group in 23. They're believers who are down what I call a spider hole of false teaching and risk being righteously judged by God. And so Constable says, these are to be snatched out from the heresy they are under before they are completely swept away And that, again, is a constable quote there. This is important, this great warning that is in 23. When ministering to these erring believers or these struggling believers who are caught up in false teaching, use extreme caution and fear the contagion of sin, we says, or fear and respect the fire that threatens to devour them, F.B. Hull says, rescue them in a godly spirit, far removed from any self-confidence, And Hol says, only if he goes about it in that spirit will he be able to escape being burnt or defiled himself. And so the minister is able to rescue them only if they are under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and have a healthy respect for this judging fire and the contagion of sin.

I like that. I like that quote. It gave me a lot of help in understanding that part of the verse. Let me go into the, go kind of circle back here, as Jen Psaki would say, doesn't she say that all the time, this White House press secretary? Let's circle back and look at verse 22 and 23 combined. and more of this little twist with it. So Weaston Merriman, and I can't see it, but I trust them.

In these two verses, there's this small little Greek particle, men, M-E-N, not men, the noun, as in man, but just M-E-N. And it appears in verse 22. And then de, D-E, appears in verse 23. So, in Greek, when you have M-E-N and then D-E, in a context, they're little particles of contrast, they show contrast. And so, they say, this is why they give preference to the word convict, other than mercy. Because this M-E-N and D-E occur in these two verses, they say that there needs to be a contrast. So, if you use the word mercy as the new American standard, and el leo, mercy in verse 22, have mercy on some who are in doubt. And then in 23, verse 23, you have mercy with fear on some others.

There's no, there's agreement there that's parallel thoughts, that's, there's no contrast. But the existence, I struggled to write this little, bullet point, but I think it's okay now. So hopefully you know where I'm going with this. The existence of the M-E-N and the D-E particles necessitate there be a contrast.

So if you put convict in verse 23, you have have mercy on some, and then you have this, you have mercy and convict. And so there's a proper contrast there. So, in verse 23, you have, have mercy with fear, and that will contrast with convict in 22, if I have that clear.

So, Merriman gives it this way. On one hand, have mercy on those who are judging through, maybe having doubts about Christianity or doctrine. And then in contrast to these, on the other hand, rescue some out of the fire, rescue others out of the fire and showing mercy with fear. And that's how he has it. So he puts this M-E-N and this D-E in there. On one hand, do this, but on the other hand, these people do this.

So there's sort of the, there's why there's this difference with the word mercy and convict. That's good. That's good, Andrew. Yeah. Sometimes you know, if you look at the inner linear text, you can you can spot the man in the dead. Oh, really? OK. Yeah, you can.

I looked at it and I didn't see it. But of course, anyway, that occurred. I think it occurred earlier in the past. I remember going through this before. Oh, yeah. OK. Well, if it was blinking yellow, I probably even wouldn't have seen it. And I think my interlinear kind of agreed with the have mercy on some, that reading of it.

So summing from this gentleman mayor, He translates it, reprove them because of their doubts or convince them when they dispute with you. All these guys give multiple sort of transliterations, I guess. And on some, indeed convict when they are contending with you. So let's, I put up Weiss translation here. And that reads, and some indeed on one hand, and that's how he puts that men in debt in there. And some indeed on the one hand be convicting when contending with you, be saving, snatching out of the fire, others on the other hand, upon whom be showing mercy in fear, hating even the undergarment, completely defiled by the flesh.

Okay, we'll go on to this, hating the garment polluted by the flesh. And here's my commentary. That was my first thought, you know. It's a fray and it seems to be out of Zechariah. And it's just like, wow, what does that mean? But I did... Think of Romans, my mind went back to Romans 7, and I think you'll see where I'm going with this too.

Romans 7, Paul says, I'm doing the very thing I hate, and no longer am I the one doing it, but the sin which dwells in me. For I know that, and here's the key thing, for I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is my flesh. for the willing is present, but the doing is not. So that's a very similar tenor to this part C of verse 23, hating the garment even polluted by the flesh or hating our sin nature or the old man. And having a healthy fear of it or a respect of it. Psalm 23, I also thought of this. They were all going aside. They are all becoming filthy. There's none that do good. No, not one. Right, so you see that, you see the same sort of theme there of, I think, what Jude is bringing out in verse 23. So let me have Ironside sum it up.

Others need to be snatched from the fire. Energetic effort should be made to warn and deliver these souls before the evil gets so firm a hold on them that it is too late for them to seek a blessing. But in every instance, the believer needs to remember that unholy teaching is defiling and leads to unholy living. And there's that warning, that great warning in there. Care must be exercised, lest in seeking to aid another, the believer himself becomes ensnared by the evil influence.

And I guess I was thinking about, there's a new thing in churches, mainline churches. We have it up here in one of our churches, and it's called pub theology. So people go and have a Bible study at a pub or a bar and they have beers and they talk about So, I thought about this and I thought, wow, if you're trying to help someone judge through, as Marilyn says, judge through their issues with the Bible or Christ, and they usually go to a pub, you know, you don't want to go there and meet them there in a bar, because isn't that like, I think that that runs afoul of this verse 23. If you're trying to snatch them out of the fire, and you're showing mercy on them, with them, that's fine, but you're in danger of putting yourself in the same situation, you know. you know, could you end up liking to drink too much by going to one of these pub theology things, you know, and being caught up in that, being swept up in that. So, that's sort of, I came up with that, I don't know if it's a great example, but I'll leave it there with that.

What I, no, this, verse 23 does not mean, and that, Here's what it doesn't mean, and that's hating your physical body or that old Gnostic concept like in the book of Colossians, that concept of dualism, you know, the material things like the body is bad and evil and you want to hate that and hate your body, your own body. But the spiritual things, the higher things, the non-material things are pure and holy. And that led to the heresy that Jesus Christ never really occupied a physical human body because the body is this gnostic, bad and evil thing. But that verse 23, Ian, does not say that. Don't hate your garment or your body or your flesh, you know.

And the word for garment is a chiton, or C-H-I-T-O-N, chiton. And that's a tunic or undergarment worn next to the skin, so an undergarment. And that's, you know, we saw that in Zachariah, that he had a tunic on or an undergarment. Now, Constable says that the garment stands for those things that, those things affected the garment stands for those things affected by contact with fleshly behavior, such as personal habits, practices, speech, companions, and the like, like the guys in the pub theology. Scripture often speaks of garments as a symbol of what other people see, namely, our conduct.

So, that's a constable's take on it. It's a very, it's a very It really makes you think, you're like, wow, what does that hating even the garment polluted by the flesh, you know, how to decipher that. Anyone have any comments on that? I liked your first thought there about, you know, standing for something that, you know, hating when your flesh leads you into temptation or whatever, you know, We see that it can, and by succumbing to that, that's not a good thing. I wonder if it's more like a metaphor. Yeah. Yeah, and it's got a lot of that Part 23C has.

It has a flavor of Old Testament, right? And Old Testament's flavor to it very much. And so, you know, we, you know, I'm so used to Paul, who doesn't have, you know, who explains everything so well. And there's not a lot of Old Testament imagery in Paul's, except when he quotes Old Testament scripture, but he doesn't use that sort of imagery that Jude uses here.

So, well, Andrew, I was going to just offer observation here some people, you know, you look at the 22 and, and 23, it looks like. Let's talk, do we have three different people groups here or are some of the same people groups? Yeah, right. Did you go down that path at all or think about it? I did. I was going down there, but I left it because I was going after the two people or the mercy and the convict, the wording.

William Kelly, who knows everything, and who's very opinionated, said everyone interprets that there's two groups of people, but he said there's three. You see it in the text. You see Some convict when they're contending, and then others save, save others. And then in 23 part B, and on some have mercy with fear. So yeah, so he said there's three, and he kind of differentiates between the three people. So you can, but I thought, wow, if I go into that, then that's a big, you know, you could spend probably three weeks on these two universes.

I know you could. So yeah, this is true. I saw that and I just, I chose not to go there. Yeah. But anyway, the iron side says there's not much difference between these, the shades of these, or the meanings of these exhortations. Both direct that, and I like this, godly discrimination is to be used in dealing with persons taken in error. And that word contending up there, or if you do the King James version, the word difference, you know, have mercy on someone making a difference, that word is diacrino, and that That word, it means to separate or make a distinction or to discriminate. So there's where Ironside gets that concept of these verses say that the minister or the stronger believer who's helping the weaker believers to use discrimination, godly discrimination. He says that there's no hard and fast rule to treating these problems with believers having issues. Treating everyone alike is, and you can see, Roger says there's three types of believers here. Some people think there's only two types of struggling believers here, but there's no hard and fast rule of dealing with everyone. So I just concluded that I think whatever translation or version you use here, whether you use mercy or convict or the other versions, I think they're all they all kind of express God's thoughts on the matter. There's none that are wrong, you know what I mean?

The shades of difference between all these different translations and words seem to sort of give the verse a lot of lot of deeper meanings. They're so sparse, but I think maybe the Holy Spirit wanted these two verses to sort of have a multitude of meanings, right?

Because we've been discussing that this morning. But they're all kind of, they all have their strengths, right? So, maybe he wanted it to be a rich text like it is here. And so, maybe God left in that little, what do you call that, between the words and between the meanings, a little friction. There's friction there to kind of pull apart. Maybe that was his will. and not to make it so direct.

So who knows? That was my kind of view on the whole matter. So a good lens to view these two verses, I think is to see how Paul, if you read through how Paul dealt with false teachers and erring members of local assemblies, then you really see how it should be done. Like the example of 1 Corinthians 8, him helping believers through things related to eating meat sacrifice to idols, and Roger and Mike, we cover that a lot, and you see how Paul walked those lines, right?

Or he took an aggressive stance with the Galatians, right? He said, you foolish Galatians, you know, who has bewitched you, because they were down this rabbit hole of legalism. So he wasn't very merciful. He wasn't very gentle on the Galatians. Same with John, and we'll see that there's a couple people who he really dealt with in a very direct and hard manner.

Or 1 Corinthians 5, I give the example that young man involved with his stepmother, we looked at that too. And so, Paul says, throw the guy out, you know, remove, it's like he, Paul was telling them to remove the garment polluted by the flesh with him. and throw him out before he corrupted others in the Corinthian church, right? Or they got too close to that fire. They said, oh, well, this guy does it and Paul doesn't mind it. So, I'll take up with a relative of mine too.

So, I think when you look at Paul, how Paul deals with things, and then compared to Jude 22 and 23, you get a nice, you get down to it. and you'll have a rich understanding of what Jude is saying here. Yeah. Yeah, just a thought here, just paralleling what you just said. Okay.

One of the passages in Paul's writings to the Ephesians deals with those who have been darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance in them and because of the hardness of their heart, he says. And they, being callous, gave themselves over to sensuality so that they practiced every kind of impurity and greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way. And then he gives the manner that we have learned Christ. that we have put off this old man and its corrupt desires, that we're being renewed in the spirit of our minds, and that we have put on the new man.

And it is in that context that Jude is dealing here with, whether there be two or three groups, it doesn't really matter, it's contaminated by the old flesh. We are in contrast to that now, we're in Christ. Yeah, right, right. And the previous context in June 2020. this is not to be done without the guiding influence of the Holy Spirit, right, and building ourselves up in the Word of God, the true Word of God, and remaining, right, because he just commanded them to remain. uh keep on in the love of god uh so yeah that's like ephesians you pointed out roy that's the the context of it and do you think that i'm i'm i'm warm or hot with um my uh this garment polluted by the flesh is talking about um has a Has a lot of similar to the old man or the our body of flesh Yeah, because yeah, that's what that's what we have put off That's how we look at christ. Okay That that that body of flesh no longer dominates us is no longer master over us Who dominates us now? It's the new man christ himself That new nature that we have that he's given us And it's only that the Holy Spirit renews our minds to understand that It's a process of understanding now, but it's a position from God's perspective I'm being too Verbal here. Oh, yeah, you're you're Yeah, you're putting sort of my thoughts into good words here. Yeah.

I might mention that Dr. Pentecost wrote on this passage with three groups of people also. Oh, really? Yeah, he just puts in here sort of a view that the apostates were confusing the people. And that confusion, you know, would lead you to have mercy on them. Be gentle. Okay. And then he talks about the others who are saved. They're going to fall in the fire of judgment. And then he talks about the third group of believers should show mercy to that with an attitude of fear, because they're living under that old nature, under that old garment, and we don't want to be polluted by that. You've already taken it off, if you use Paul's words, okay? Oh, great, yeah.

Well, I propose that, boy, now that I know that Pentecost spoke on these two verses. Let's do this again next week and I'll do it again with Pentecost. Yeah, because I like Pentecost. I know, I miss that. Oh, that's good. That's good, Roy. Okay. Pinto, wow, he's my favorite, too. Gee. All right, now I feel... Well, Andrew, you might have time to squeeze that in with the last two verses there, but... Oh, yeah, right. Maybe I'll just touch on it next week, yeah. Sure, if you want to. That's great. Yeah, because, oh, it's so much. So there, I think, yeah. So, should we close here, or are we? Yeah, I think we should probably. Okay, great.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this lesson in June, and we just pray, we thank you that we're saved by grace, and we're... We have Christ in us, and you'll give us the wisdom to work these things out when we encounter these believers who are struggling, and just give us the wisdom to help them. And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.