The Warnings of the New Testament by Anastasios Kioulachoglou #7

The Warnings of the New Testament #7

The message of many frequently 

avoided New Testament passages.

by Anastasios Kioulachoglou

5.25. JUDE: “TURNING THE GRACE OF OUR GOD INTO
LASCIVIOUSNESS” - A MUCH RELEVANT WARNING

Jude is a very short epistle, just 25 verses all in all. But it is
both powerful and with an evident urgency. Verse 3 starts right
away on the subject:

Jude 3
“Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our
common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you
to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the
saints.”

The “faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” was
in danger and the believers had to fight, to contend, for it. What
was wrong, what was happening? The next verse says it:

Jude 4
“For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were
designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the
grace of our God into lasciviousness and deny our only Master and Lord,
Jesus Christ.”

These people were doing two things:

1. They were perverting the grace of our God into lasciviousness.
2. They were denying our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.

But how did they do that? As Jude says: they had crept in
unnoticed. This then indicates that they were not explicitly and
loudly saying that “Jesus Christ is neither our Lord nor our
Master”. Else they would immediately be noticed. Instead they
“crept in unnoticed”, perhaps by transforming themselves the
same way Paul says that the servants of Satan transform
themselves into ministers of righteousness:

2 Corinthians 11:13-15
“For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming
themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan
himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no
great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of
righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.”

Satan’s workers are not coming, presenting themselves as
wolves, because then they would be noticed. Instead they come
camouflaged as sheep. They appear as “ministers of
righteousness”, but their very works show that they are not.
The fruit, the life that somebody lives, what he is
practicing is the clearest and I would say the only true indicator of
whether he is a real sheep or a real wolf in sheep’s clothing. The
Lord said this very clearly in Matthew 7:15-20:

"Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing
but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their
fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?
So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears
bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased
tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut
down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will
know them. ”

Despite the camouflage, the fruit, the works of these
people – and not the sheep’s clothing they are wearing - is the
unmistakable indicator of whose servants they truly are.
In addition , as Jude 12 says: “these are hidden reefs at
your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear”. In other
words these people were taking part in the common meals – the
love feasts - the believers were having as a church.

Now let’s summarize:

i) These people had crept in unnoticed. This indicates that they
had camouflaged themselves to look like sheep while in fact they
were ravenous wolves.

ii) They were participating together with the true believers in the
common meals they were having as a church.

iii) the believers had no idea that these were really wolves and the
danger they posed. If they knew the danger, they would already
be contending for the true faith once delivered to the saints and
there would be no need for Jude to urgently ask them to do so.

I believe these facts tell us that these false teachers were
presenting themselves as Christians. In fact Jude is very similar to
2 Peter 2, which also speaks about false teachers who, before they
turned away becoming false teachers, were indeed of the family of
the believers. I do not know whether they both speak about
exactly the same situation but the only way I see that these people
got unnoticed, despite the corruption they were spreading, is by
posing themselves as Christians.

Turning into what they were doing, they were: perverting
the grace of God into lasciviousness and denying our only Lord
and Master Jesus Christ. Let’s now get into each of these.

“Perverting the grace of God into lasciviousness”

Concerning the word lasciviousness, this is a translation of
the Greek word “aselgeia”. This word is used 10 times in the New
Testament and shows up in the related lists of the works of the
flesh (see Mark 7:21-22, Romans 13:13, Galatians 5:19-21).
According to Vine’s dictionary it denotes:

"excess, licentiousness, absence of restraint, indecency,
wantonness;"

Perhaps the NIV has the best translation of Jude 1:4 when
it says:

“They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a
license for immorality”.

These people had perverted the grace of God into a license
for immorality. But how did they do this? I believe through
perverted teaching, in word and in deed. In the “grace” they were
teaching there was also a place for living in lasciviousness and sin.
Was somebody living in sin? Well, not such of a problem. Their
“grace” covered also this. It is difficult to understand what was
happening exactly and I do not want to read more into the text
than what it really says, but it is a fact and written in the text that
they were indeed perverting the grace into a license for
immorality, sin.

“Denying our only Lord and Master Jesus Christ”

Furthermore, it is written in the text that these people were
denying our only Lord and Master Jesus Christ. The word
translated as “Master” is the Greek word “Despotes”, from which
the English word “Despot” derives. It means absolute Lord. In
other words, Jude is using two very similar words, one of them
very strong, to point out the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ,
which these people were denying.

But can it really be? Can such people creep into the church,
fellowship with the believers, practically deny the Lordship of
Jesus Christ, pervert the grace of God into a license for immorality
and yet get unnoticed? Unfortunately it can happen. In fact I
believe it happens today. Many are those today who teach a
message of cheap grace. A grace according to which Jesus is more
our servant than Lord. A grace in which somebody is saved once
and for all the minute he believed and what he will do after that
minute, whether he will stay in the faith, whether he will stay in
the vine, in Christ, is not that relevant. What is relevant is that
moment of faith. The beginning rather than the end. Do you want
to live according to the world? It would be good not to do it, they
may tell you, but if you do it, it is not that of a problem! The grace
is grace! To summarize it in one phrase: you can, according to
them, to be the following oxymoron: a Christian but not a disciple
of Christ. But as Acts 11:26 tells us:

“and in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians”

It is the disciples that were called Christians. To tell it
differently: there is no such thing as Christians who are not
disciples of Christians. Whoever is not a disciple, a follower of
Christ, is not a Christian.

As the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer summarized it:

“cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring
repentance … Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace
without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”

Unfortunately such is the grace that many teach and their
teaching has been very popular. It is however a fake grace, a
distortion of the true grace of God and we should be alerted so
that we do not fall victims of it. And as Peter closes his second
epistle:

2 Peter 3:17-18
“You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that
you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose
your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to
the day of eternity. Amen.”

6
DO WE LOSE OUR SALVATION EVERY TIME WE SIN?

Some people claim that once a person sins then he loses his
salvation and he needs to repent, till he sins again and then loses
his salvation again and so on. I do not think that this is so. We can
be in the faith and unfortunately sin, stumble (but still be on the
way) and then get up and move on. As 1 John says:

1 John 1:5-10
“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you,
that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we
have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and
do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the
light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son
cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a
liar, and his word is not in us. My little children, I am writing
these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin,
we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also
for the sins of the whole world.”

I want to point out verse 7: “But if we walk in the light, as he
is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood
of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” Why would there be any
need for the blood of Christ to cleanse us from any sin since we
are walking in the light? It seems to me that walking in the light
does not necessarily mean that we are not going to sin. What I
mean is that sin is a possibility also in this case, but it is an
“episode”, something that we put behind us and move on. We are
not practicing sin; we are not living in sin. It comes on our way
and rather easily8 but we do not practice it i.e. do it willingly,
habitually and as a way of life. And as we confess our sins the
blood of Christ cleanses us from all of them.

Now walking in the light is one scenario but not the only
one for a believer. There is another one also and this is walking in
the darkness. As the apostle said:

“If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness,
we lie and do not practice the truth.”

“Practice the truth” is something that stands out for me
here. When we walk in the darkness we do not practice the truth,
which turned the other way around also reads: when we do not
practice the truth then we walk in the darkness. 1 John 2:9-11
gives a direct application of the above:

1 John 2:9-11
“Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in
darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him
there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is
_______________________
8 As Hebrews 12:1 says: “let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so
easily ensnares us”. The phrase “so easily ensnares us” is one word in the Greek
text, the word “euperispaston”. According to Barnes: “it properly means,
“standing well around;” and hence, denotes what is near, or at hand, or readily
occurring. So Chrysostom explains it. .. Tyndale renders it “the sin that hangeth
on us.” 

in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know
where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”

and 1 John 4:20
“If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for
he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love
God whom he has not seen.”

Furthermore, 1 John 3:14-15
“We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we
love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone
who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no
murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”

We see here what we have seen in all previous cases: as far
as the Bible is concerned, it is not that important what we say that
we are but what our fruit shows that we really are i.e. what we are
practicing. As Apostle John says: somebody who hates his brother
is a murderer and has no eternal life abiding in him. If he says he
loves God, John says, do not believe him, for if he does not love
his brother whom he saw, how can he love God whom he has not
seen? Now let me ask something: do we, based on the above,
really think that a brother hater who has not repented, i.e. an
unrepentant murderer, will end up in the Kingdom of God, just
because he says he loves God, and because he is a “brother” (that
is how he is called)? I believe the answer of John is a clear no. “No
murderer has eternal life abiding in him” he tells us, and the
context does not speak about heathen murderers but Christians
that hate their brothers. I believe in the Kingdom there will be
many repented murderers, but there will not be even a single
unrepentant one.
As Paul warns in Galatians 5:19-21:

Galatians 5:19-21
“Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality,
impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy,
fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness,
orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that
those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

The Greek word translated as “do” (in the “do such things”
phrase) is the word “prasso”, from which we get in English the
verb “to practice”. According to Strong’s dictionary it means,
among others:

“to “practice”, that is, perform repeatedly or habitually”.

Now why would Paul need to warn the Galatian believers
that those who practice these things will not enter into the
Kingdom (that is what “inherit the Kingdom” means – just do a
search on the word “inherit” in the New Testament and it will
become evident), if they were already in the Kingdom from the
moment they believed, regardless of what happened after that?
Obviously, if this was really so, he would have no reason to give
them this warning. But he did, which means there was a reason
for this. And the reason is very simple: whether we live out our
faith, whether we practice it or not practice it, proves really
whether we are really in the faith or not. To say it differently:
those who say they are believers (and perhaps once they were true
believers), yet habitually and repeatedly practice sin by hating
their brother (which is equal to murder) or by practicing any of
the other things described in Galatians 5:19-21 and do not repent
of this behavior, will find the door of the Kingdom shut. They will
not inherit the Kingdom of God Paul said. Also Hebrews 10:26-27
is very clear:

“For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge
of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful
expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the
adversaries.”

Going back now to 1 John 1:5-7 and reading it again:

1 John 1:5-7
“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you,
that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we
have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do
not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light,
we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his
Son cleanses us from all sin.”

There is walking in the light and walking in the darkness.
Those who walk in the light may fall here and there but they do
not practice – habitually, repeatedly and as a way of life - sin.
Instead they habitually and repeatedly (as a way of life) practice
the truth i.e. they strive to live what the Word of God says in
practice. They may sin here and there but they are on the way.
They will find the door of the Kingdom open.

In contrast to these, there are those who walk in the
darkness, and this means they practice sin, repeatedly and
habitually. Sin is their way of life. These are walking in darkness
and their fruit is the proof of this. If they do not repent they will
find the door of the Kingdom shut.

So, it is not sinning while walking in the light that marks
that somebody is out of the faith but sinning as a way of life;
practicing sin willfully and habitually. However, we should be
careful here as all habits have a start. Therefore, if we fell and
sinned let us not take it with a light heart but after we confess it to
the Lord let us be alerted, lest we give place to sin and then what
was just an episode becomes a habit.

Posted January 10, 2015
To be continued on next post...
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