(Continued from page 137.)
CLANDESTINE WORKERS.
"For certain men have got in unnoticed, they who of old were marked out beforehand to this sentence ; ungodly [persons], turning the grace of our God into dissoluteness, and denying our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ " (ver. 4).
From the days of Simon Magus to the present it has ever been the object of Satan to secretly introduce evil workers into the assemblies of the saints of God, that thus the simple and the unwary may be deceived and led astray. Nor have men been wanting in all ages who would stoop to so nefarious a business.
The truth of God, if not submitted to, has a hardening effect upon the one who is familiar with it. To trifle with what God has revealed is an affront to Himself, which must have dire consequences. Such would seem to be the state of the men against whom Jude here warns the people of God. They are men who have a mental acquaintance with the truth but whose ways are not in accordance with that which they profess to hold. Clandestinely they have slipped into the assemblies of the saints; but they are not unknown to God, though they have managed to deceive His people. Before, of old, they were marked out to this judgment. Ordained is too strong a word here, and fails to give the true thought. Far be it from the Holy One to ordain any man to acts of impiety and ways of deceit! But He had of old marked them out, declaring by His servants that such men should arise, giving their characteristics clearly, so that they might readily be recognized. Their end was judgment. This too He had pointed out.
They are described as ungodly men. This term "ungodly" is used five times in the epistle; the other four instances occurring in the quotation from Enoch. It means refusing subjection to God, acting independently of, and in opposition to, God. For the ungodly Christ died-all men in their sins are so called. But here we have those who are professedly delivered from their sins, but who actually are still in them, and secretly turning others into their own iniquitous ways.
The grace of God has never reached their souls or controlled their consciences. They make that very grace an occasion for lasciviousness of speech and life. Such evil-workers have abounded in all periods since the gospel was made known. But, be it noted, the remedy is never, in Scripture, legality; but a bowing to the truth of man's need of that very grace he has been misusing. The sinner who judges himself before God and finds his need met in that wondrous provision of grace will not, if walking with Him, be found turning such unmerited favor into dissoluteness. It is the unrepentant professor, who has never seen himself in the light of God's holiness, who is here referred to.
Some may ask, In what way do men turn the grace of God into lasciviousness ? The answer undoubtedly is by going on in their own ways, gratifying the lusts of the flesh, while professing to believe in the grace that does not impute sin to the justified soul. This is what has been well-named Antinomianism. Often those have been charged with holding it who with all their hearts abhor it; and who, subdued by grace, gladly seek to render willing service to Him whose loving kindness has saved them without merit of their own. Such are the very opposite to those here presented, who know not in reality the grace of which they prate.
These deny our only Master (A. V. reads Lord God) and our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not to be supposed that they definitely deny Him at all times with their lips. Often they are found professing to know Him, but denying Him by their works.
One needs not to look far to find men of this stamp. Christendom to-day abounds with them. In the seats of honor, and also among the so-called laity, they "feed themselves without fear," professing allegiance to Christ while ignoring His word and even treating with contempt and assumed superiority the Sacred Writings. Nothing is too holy for their profane reasonings to set aside. "From such turn away."
To no time in the past history of the Church have Jude's words applied with greater force than in the present latitudinarian age. With Romish emissaries making strenuous efforts to allure the unwary by presenting a softened, subdued Catholicism to non-Catholics, that emphasizes largely whatever is really Scriptural or ethically and esthetically lovely in the teachings of the Papacy, while carefully covering the grosser and more disgusting dogmas and practices of that apostate church;* with the boldest infidelity and skepticism being proclaimed from thousands of Protestant pulpits; while minor sects of all shades of heterodoxy are everywhere busy spreading their pernicious and soul-destroying errors, the man of God needs to be alert and vigilant, devotedly standing for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. *It will be noticed that the Paulists, au order of missionary priests devoted to the perversion of Protestants, always put to the fore such fundamental doctrines as the Trinity, the deity of Christ, etc., but rarely touch upon the more offensive teachings of the corrupt church that for so long drugged the nations with the wine of her fornication. Thus the simple are enticed and walk into Babylon's gates like sheep going to the slaughter.*
A mock charity would say that it makes little difference what a man believes if he live well and be sincere. The soul, subject to Scripture, knows that the gospel alone is "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth," and he remembers that the Holy Spirit has pronounced solemn curses against any, even an angel from heaven, who brings a different gospel, which is not another.
The fact is that well-living, according to the Divine standard of holiness and uprightness, is a delusion and an impossibility, apart from the sanctifying power of the truth of God. Hence it will be found that where false teaching prevails, ungodliness abounds, as witness the wretchedly low standard of Christian living maintained by Romanists; the worldliness of professors of the latitudinarian type, the overweening pride, coupled with an exceedingly poor imitation of godliness, that characterizes those professing a "second blessing" of absolute holiness-all alike evidence the baneful effects of teaching contrary to the faith of God's elect.
Indifference to evil teaching, and genuine love for Christ and His truth cannot co-exist in the same breast. Neutrality in such a case is a crime against the Lord who has redeemed us to Himself.
H. A. I.
(To be continued.)