Jude 1:17

‘But you, beloved, remember you the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they said to you, “In the last time there will be mockers, walking after their own ungodly lusts.” '

They need not be disturbed by these false and ungodly people who have come among them. Rather they should remember that the Apostles have continually warned them of such things, and that such warnings are on record. There is no indication in these words that the Apostles were necessarily dead, only that they were not currently present among those to whom he was writing. When we say, ‘Remember the words previously spoken by, say, Billy Graham' we are not writing his obituary. Jude's words here do, however, bring out how important the original Apostles were seen to be from the beginning. They were the final authority on everything for the early church.

Those who pay little heed to later tradition can tend to feel that apart from Paul and Peter the Apostles accomplished little. But that is to underrate them. The first few Chapter s of Acts actually reveal them as constantly active, even though the emphasis is on Peter as the spokesman in tough situations. And we have no reason to doubt that their activity continued. However they were not interested in establishing their place in history. They simply patiently went around spreading the Gospel. And they were not all accompanied by Luke. Writing was mainly not their forte.

The idea even of Apostleship was somewhat fluid. Jude clearly did not class himself as an Apostle, but that others saw him as an Apostolic man comes out in that his letter was accepted as Scripture from the beginning. The Lord's own brothers, once they had been converted, were seen as having a special position (1 Corinthians 9:5). But they did not claim it for themselves.

And what the Apostles had warned was that “In the last time there will be mockers, walking after their own ungodly lusts.” We can compare for this such statements as Paul's in Acts 20:29, ‘I know that after my leaving you grievous wolves will enter in among you, not sparing the flock'. See also, ‘in later times some will fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils ---' (1 Timothy 4:1). ‘In the last times grievous times will come, for men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, railers --- lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God' (2 Timothy 3:1). ‘Mockers' are those who mock God by what they say and what they do. Thus to live a life following the ways of the flesh is to mock Him (Galatians 6:7). Compare Proverbs 14:9, ‘the foolish make a mock at guilt'. One of the things that these people especially mocked was that Jesus Christ had intervened in history and would personally come again to bring it to its culmination (2 Peter 3:4).

‘In the last time.' That is in the period following the Messiah's coming. It has now lasted for almost 2000 years. Compare 1 Corinthians 10:11; Hebrews 1:2; Heb 9:26; 1 Peter 1:20; 1 Peter 4:7; 2 Peter 3:3 (speaking of the mockers in his own day); 1 John 2:18.