Jude 1:22-23

Jude 1:22-23. Of the false teachers the writer has spoken. Their condition is hopeless (Jude 1:12). But in the treatment of those who have been exposed to the influence of these ungodly men (Jude 1:4) great care is needed, and the treatment must vary with the character of each class. The classes are three. And on some have mercy (the reading ‘rebuke' has not preponderating authority), being, as they are, in doubt; the common New Testament meaning of the word (Romans 4:20; James 1:6; Matthew 21:21). ‘Contending, as they do,' is the meaning of the same word in this Epistle (Jude 1:9), but it is not appropriate here.

on others, whose condition may be gathered from the conduct that is to be observed toward them, who have almost yielded to seduction, not through doubt but through fellowship with these false teachers, and partly through their own corrupt taste, and who therefore are to be snatched out of the fire into which they are already entering. Sharp and vigorous interposition is our only hope for them; and if we succeed, their deliverance will be as of ‘brands plucked out of the burning' (Amos 4:11; Zechariah 3:2).

on others have mercy (the word is always used in the sense of active compassion, not, therefore, as Luther interprets it, Feel for them; only, Turn aside in fear lest you yourselves share their ruin) with fear; a third class, and needing special caution. The disease of the first class, the doubters, is not specially infectious; the condition of the second class is not likely to tempt us their punishment seems already begun, and we naturally shrink from it, thinking only, moreover, of their need of prompt deliverance; the third class call for watching, and kindly fellowship, which may itself prove dangerous; we are therefore exhorted to attend them with fear, hating even the garment spotted (i.e defiled, James 3:6) with the flesh. ‘The garment' is the inner one worn next the person, and is itself soiled by the sin. It is therefore a fitting symbol of whatever, by means of external conduct, may make others sharers in the moral destruction we are seeking to avert. Our saving love for sinners must not be suffered to lessen our hatred of sin; and further, we must beware lest through the deceitfulness and the virulence of sin we ourselves, all unconsciously, catch the contagion. The mere contact of garment with garment, of things in themselves indifferent though belonging to the habits and the outward acts of the life, may do mischief. The well-meant attempts of one man to save another, end sometimes in the ruin of both.