“These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots;”
Jude now gives six more illustrations of apostasy from nature (vv. 12-13).
These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear,
Apostates came to Christian “love feasts.” These love feasts were times of close fellowship among Christians, followed by the Lord’s Supper. Apostates exploited believers by joining with them in fellowship.
These apostates are described as “spots.” There are two meanings: (1) stains or (2) shoals, rocks covered by water. The waters may look safe to the ship captain, but he may be in danger of treacherous reefs. A captain of a ship might not see the shoals or rocks just beneath the surface. Hidden theological rocks that lie underneath the surface undetected are of great danger and can sink a local church.
Pastors of local churches must be aware of possible incursions of false doctrine in the church. False teachers come into the church “without fear.” They have no fear of reprisal theologically because Christians naively accept them into their midst. They participate in evangelical circles without fear of being called on their false doctrine. No one dares to expose them.
…having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck… 1 Ti 1:19
serving only themselves.
These apostates were self-centered. They participated in love feasts for their own ends. They fleeced the flock.
They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds;
Clouds promise refreshing rain but produce nothing but wind. False teachers promise religious blessings but are without content. When people see clouds, they anticipate rain. If rain does not come, then the cloud only promises but does not deliver. False teachers appear to have something to say from the Bible, but they are void of content. They promise much but do not deliver.
Whoever falsely boasts of giving Is like clouds and wind without rain. Pr 25:14
late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots;
Late autumn trees normally would have no leaves, much less fruit. Like barren trees, the barrenness of promises from false teachers is nothing but empty promises. They teach doctrines totally valueless from God’s point of view.
When these trees (1) did not produce fruit in autumn and (2) were uprooted for lack of production, they were “twice dead.” These apostates were dead when they were non-Christians, and now they are dead as apparent Christians by asserting false doctrine. These are trees with the roots exposed. Christianity is filled with people who deny the Bible as the Word of God and the deity of Jesus Christ. Many seminaries and professors in seminaries deny the verities of evangelicalism today.
PRINCIPLE:
Theological error always comes to the church in a sneaky way.
APPLICATION:
Wolves come in sheep’s clothing. They do not come as wolves, for they would scare the sheep to death. False teachers do not come stating what they believe, for that would scare Christians. Theological wolves have to deceive their way into the church and theological circles.
We are to be careful not to follow that which is evil.
Your statement “These apostates were dead when they were non-Christians and now they are dead as apparent Christians by asserting false doctrine.” An apostate is by the word one that once knew truth and was a believer, he is apostate from what? I think you have missed the point of twice dead.
tony
Tony,
Thanks for your contribution to understanding his passage.
It is always difficult to interpret figures in the Bible without considering context, therefore, it is important to keep the argument of Jude in view. The apostates in this book were people who denied the deity of Christ and they crept in alongside true believers but they had denied the essence of Christianity (Jude 4).
The basic idea of this symbolism is that if a tree in late autumn does not bear fruit, it is considered dead. When it is pulled out of the ground, it is considered twice dead. These false teachers never had spiritual fruit. They were doubly dead. They were both dead in appearance as well as their inner state. This figure does not prove that these men had once been spiritually alive but apostatized unto death. The argument of the entire book of Jude is that these men had never been regenerated. It is a possible picture of their coming “second death” in hell (Re 2:11; 20:6; 21:8). These men were like “uprooted” trees in a hopeless state. The aorist passive participle indicates that this uprooting had already taken place. God judgment was already upon them. The picture here is that it was autumn and the tree still had borne any fruit at all. The idea of “twice dead” indicates that they were dead before their so-called conversion and had died again by virtue of their apostasy (on the other hand the idea might be that they will face their second death in hell whereby they will die eternally). The Greek is every emphatic—they were totally dead. The Greek for “uprooted” following “twice dead” may indicate they were dead from no fruit and dead from being pulled up from the ground. No one expects fruit from uprooted trees.
The word “apostasy” in the New Testament does not always mean that a person was actually converted and then turned from the truth but it can mean one who came to understand the truth but rejected or apostatized from that knowledge.
Grant, an excellent explanation.
Joseph, thanks for the encouraging statement.