Jude 1:15 Commentary and Bible Study

That ‘ungodly’ term occurs four times in this statement of that ancient prophecy, and it has a special meaning. To us it simply means impious, which is correct of course. But as used in the Greek New Testament, the word translated ‘ungodly’ means particularly scornful or irreverent towards the living God. When the Day of Judgement comes there will be no more doubt what God counts as righteousness and what he counts as ungodliness. For centuries, even for millennium, the wicked have called their wickedness by another name, have excused it, and have rejected the verdict of the righteous on their sin. Now they will be forced to admit that it is nothing other than ungodliness. Now every word that the righteous have spoken will be recalled and will receive new force. It is utterly fitting that when the Lord comes to judge the wicked, the righteous should come with him, for it is the righteous who have had to suffer at the hands of the wicked and it is the righteous who will give evidence concerning all that the wicked have done against them, and of all the warnings which the wicked have ignored, and all their resistance to the truth. Enoch repeats the word ungodly again and again, just as the wicked have sinned and justified themselves again and again. God has heard every word that has been spoken against him and his people and not a single one will be forgotten. The ungodly spoke harshly because they did not believe that the Lord heard them, but now they will be dumbstruck to be shown at the end of the world that not a single word has been forgotten. They will recall with horror that they were blaspheming God to his face while they tremble in his presence.The word ‘ungodly’ has a very special meaning. It doesn't just mean against God. It is a very technical New Testament term in the Greek. The nearest words, you can find for it is irreverence: all those who have no reverence the God. But they disdain him and despise him set him aside, choose to ridicule him and even disbelieve in him. This is what is meant here by ungodly. Christ will come to convince the most hardened atheist, who has convinced himself there is no God. In the day of judgement he will see the truth and will be confounded, so that every mouth should be stopped, and he will deeply grasp and realise his sinfulness, his wilful unbelief, and that all these things are true. That is the sense of the passage: to convince all that are ungodly among them of their ungodly, irreverent, unbelieving antagonism; there are four uses of ‘ungodly’ here. There are the people themselves, and also their deeds which they have ungodly committed. Not only what they have done, but why they have done it, the godless motive. And then there are their hard speeches, their antagonistic speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against him against God and against his Christ.