Jude 1:14 Commentary and Bible Study

Jude records here a very ancient prophecy. It is a prophecy that was made by Enoch before the Flood. Enoch looks forward to the return of Christ, even from that distant position. It is not in the book of Genesis; it is not recorded anywhere else in the Bible, and we have to assume either that Jude, who is a half-brother of the Lord Jesus Christ, received this information by special revelation, or that there was even at this time still an oral or written tradition in the Jewish literature of this particular prophecy. It is very unlikely that he got it from the so-called Book of Enoch, the uninspired apocryphal book, not part of the canon of Scripture. Nevertheless that book, for all its faults, may have recorded something that was true and correct in Jewish tradition, but it is long since lost. Here it is, however, in the Letter of Jude.The context is the danger of those evil people who get into churches. Enoch prophesies the return of Christ: this is before 3000 BC. It is a prophecy of the final return of the Lord coming with thousands of his saints to bring about judgement. You don't come across this again until the Psalms of David, about 1000 BC, so for 2000 years this prophecy of Enoch stood as the only revelation. It stood as the only explicit prophecy of a return of God, the Incarnate, promised Messiah to the earth with his saints to bring about judgement. So there was light, even in the very earliest days on such things as these. What a privilege to be instrumental for such a revelation. Of course ‘he pleased God’, he walked the walk of faith and God disclosed something to him and he preached it. He lived in very godless times because the earth was becoming increasingly sinful – it would lead to the flood – and yet he preached these great warnings.