JUDE: WEEK 1 DAY 3

Jude 1:6

6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—

Genesis 6:1-4

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

Whoa…things just got a little strange. 

After Jude compares the ungodly double agents to the rebellious people in Numbers 14, he goes on to compare them to the rebellious angels in Genesis 6. 2 Peter 2:4 remarks on these fallen celestial beings as well:

4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment;

When Satan rebelled against God, there were some of the hosts of Heaven who joined in. From the passage in Genesis we read today, it stated that other sons of God (a Semitic Old Testament wording for angels, see Job 1:6 and 2:1) rebelled against God not only to join the ranks of Satan, but to take for themselves women that God had created. Their punishment is to be bound in darkness until Jesus’ second coming, where they will be officially judged. 

The behavior Jude is highlighting here is sexual immorality and selfishness. The people who had wormed their way into the church Jude was concerned about were teaching that it was okay to indulge in sin because Jesus had paid for it; they were corrupting the teaching of grace. Like the fallen angels who left their heavenly posts, they were abandoning the high calling of a life faithful to Jesus, filled by His Spirit, for a selfish and wicked existence. 

Grace is an incomprehensible gift. If you are in Christ, your sins are forgiven, but don’t treat such grace with contempt for the giver.