Jude 1:6 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters | Metropolitan Tabernacle

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Jude 1:6

Comments

The argument now moves from the children of Israel delivered from Egypt to angels, ‘the angels which kept not their first estate.’ Those who would be fallen angels were dissatisfied with their magnificent privileges and they left their office and their task, and those who were beings of radiant light and liberty are now ‘reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgement of the great day’. They had the highest imaginable privilege of being an angel of God, and yet those angels fell and went after Satan and lost their light and their liberty. Be careful in your church, is the warning; it could happen in your group of churches.Jude has gone back to the beginning of the world. The Scripture teaches that there was a fall of angels as well as a fall of man in Adam. In Revelation 12:4 and 12:9 it is said, first in symbolic language and then in literal language, that not just the devil but many other angels lost their place in heaven. Revelation indicates that he led a rebellion in which others joined. They are called his angels because they no longer held allegiance to the Lord but to Satan, and Satan himself was an angel (Revelation 9:11). Hebrews 2:16 tells us that although the angels also were in need of redemption, Christ did not choose to save them or to take their nature upon him. And of course in the Gospels we have many instances of the activity of demons.

Application

Even angels, so much holier than us, having up to that moment committed no personal sins at all, were immediately judged by God the instant they rebelled. Their dominion was so much more glorious, their view of the living God was so much closer; and yet they fell, they apostatised. How then can anyone dare to toy with sin as if it was something which could be made acceptable by the grace of God. In view of the Lord’s immediate judgement of the angels, how can anyone believe that God does not still hate sin with all his being? God's grace toward sinners is no reason to think otherwise. Yes, the grace of God is something that should amaze us, but the marvel of it is that even though God's hatred of sin remains the same, there is still peace on earth, goodwill towards men. None may reason from their privileged position or their high office or the power or the respect due to them, that it is safe for them to sin.

Questions

Where are the angels who fell now? In a parallel passage 2 Peter 2:4 says, 'God did not spare the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell [Hades] and delivered them into chains of darkness'. How then can they still be active on earth? Although these chains limit Satan’s freedom to do as he pleases, it is evident that they do not stop his activity altogether. Christ describes the powers of darkness as launching an offensive against his church: ‘I will build my church; and the gates of hell [Hades] shall not prevail against it’ (Matthew 16:18), and James warns of the tongue being set on fire by hell (James 3:6). Satan is called, 'the King over them, the angel of the bottomless pit' (Revelation 9:11), and it is said, ‘To him was given the key to the bottomless pit' (Revelation 9:1) that he might release its hordes of demons. This symbolic language makes it plain that while the demons are already assigned to the nether world and while they are destined to perish, they currently have sufficient freedom to allow them to come and trouble those who dwell on the earth.

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Introduction

Jude 1:6 Commentary and Bible Study