Will God Present You Blameless Anyway, Regardless Of What You Do? - Anastasios Kioulachoglou

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This is part of the book: "The Warnings of the New Testament".

Misusing Jude 1:24-25: "God will present me blameless anyway, regardless of what I do."

Another one of the passages used to support the same view is also Jude 1:24. There we read:

Jude 1:24-25
"Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen."

So people basically say: "you see, God is able to keep me from stumbling and to present me blameless". Thus, they conclude, "it does not really matter what I do. God will present me blameless anyway". But this is clearly a misinterpretation of the passage. And to understand this better, again we have to take the context into account. So let’s read it:

Jude 1:20-25
"But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen."

"Keep yourselves in the love of God" Jude says. If his understanding was that we will be kept anyway by God, regardless of what we practice, why does he tell us to keep ourselves in the love of God? If there is no possibility to NOT keep ourselves in His love, to not continue in His kindness, then there would be no point for the instruction. In a similar tone Peter said:

2 Peter 3:17
"Therefore, beloved, knowing beforehand, beware lest being led away with the error of the lawless, you fall from your own steadfastness."

Is there a possibility that a "beloved", a true believer, be led away and fall from being steadfast for the Lord? Yes there is. That is why we should beware. Who is to beware, be alerted? Who is to keep himself in the love of God? Will God do this for us or we do this? It is clear that we do this. Will God help us in this? Of course! He will help us to be kept, if we really want to be kept. How are we then to understand Jude 1:24? We are not to understand it as God coercing people not to fall away but as God helping people who want to keep themselves in the love of God to actually do it. If we want to be kept in the love of God, He will help us to do so and we will for sure succeed. But if somebody does not want to continue with Him any longer, God will not force him to continue.

Author: Anastasios Kioulachoglou

Please check out Anastasios's book "The Warnings of the New Testament". Purchase at Kindle and Amazon or download for FREE at:
http://www.jba.gr/Articles/pdf/the-warnings-of-the-New-Testament.pdf