Jude 1:3

Jude 1:3. Whilst I was giving, or using, all diligence; either inwardly in purpose, finishing one work and postponing another; or outwardly in actually writing what was not finished (de Wette). The latter is rather favoured by the tense of ‘write' (which is present, not aorist); but the former is probably the correct view. Anyhow, it was his purpose to write on the great truths of the Gospel the common property of all who believe.

I felt constrained to write and exhort you to fight for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. A richer evangelical epistle would have been more welcome to the writer; but, like Paul, he had to meet the needs of those for whom he ministered; hence his words are full of rebuke against the teachers who were leading them astray, and of loving warning to themselves. The word to fight , or strive earnestly, means to stand over and defend to the utmost, even to agony; ‘the faith,' not quite the doctrines of Scripture, still less their belief of them, but the Gospel, as believed by Christian men. Once for all delivered points to the completeness and unchangeableness of the Gospel, and to the fact that no new revelation was to be expected. The doctrine of development subsequent to the apostles is not the doctrine of Scripture. We may gladly admit, as Boyle puts it, that ‘there are passages whose full meaning is reserved to resolve some yet unformed doubt, or to confound some error that hath not yet a name, or to throw fresh light on admitted truths.' There is, in fact, no definable limit to our profounder insight into the Gospel; but additions to the Gospel itself Scripture disowns. Traditions post-apostolic are now entitled to no other deference than is due to their intrinsic reasonableness, or to their consistency with what is already revealed.