(Continued from page 277.)
THE DIVINE INDICTMENT OF EVIL WORKERS.
"These are spots in your love-feasts, feasting together [with you] without fear, pasturing themselves; clouds without water, carried along by [the] winds ; autumnal trees, without fruit, twice dead, rooted up; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame ; wandering stars, to whom has been reserved the gloom of darkness for eternity" (vers. 12, 13).
There is something unspeakably solemn in this severe indictment of those who, professedly followers of Christ and servants of God, really walk in a self-chosen path, and are elsewhere described as "enemies of the cross of Christ:whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things " (Phil. 3:18, 19). Be it carefully remembered that, throughout Jude's warning letter, the evil-workers referred to are not those who, outside the circle of profession, are confessedly the opponents of Christ and of the truth of God; but they are a self-seeking, worldly-minded, mammon-actuated class, inside the nominal church; who make their profession of faith in the Lord Jesus a cover for their own selfish ends. They are often looked upon as leaders of Christian thought and champions of truth and righteousness. But underlying all they say and do, there is the open, or covert, denial of everything that really makes for godliness. To the heavenly calling they are strangers; hence their aim and object to advance their own interests in this world. They dwell upon the earth. Pilgrimage in the scriptural sense they know not of. Their place and portion are in this scene, not up there, where Christ as man glorified sits, rejected by earth, but accepted of heaven, at the right hand of God.
Metaphor after metaphor is used by the Holy Spirit to describe these false apostles and ministers of unrighteousness. Every phrase is important, and demands careful consideration.
"These are spots in your love-feasts." Perhaps, in place of "spots," it will be clearer if we read, "Sunken, or hidden, rocks." Such are these apostate teachers. Clearly-marked charted rocks are not of great danger, as a rule, to the mariner. It is those that are hidden, over whose jagged edges roll the deceitfully-peaceful waters, that are most to be dreaded. Were these false guides to publicly proclaim themselves as opposed to what the godly hold sacred, their influence would be speedily nullified, save with a few whose senses have never been exercised to discern between good and evil. But, posing as advocates of the truth, soft-spoken and affable, with their good words and fair speeches they deceive the hearts of the simple.
The expression, "feasting themselves together [with you] without fear," shows how fully they have gained the confidence of the mass. Participating fearlessly in the most hallowed seasons of Christian communion, they never enter into the spirit of those happy expressions of love and fellowship, but observe the form, pretending to piety and devotion, while all the time looking but to their own interests, as the next expression strikingly emphasizes.
"Pasturing, or shepherding, themselves" in place of shepherding the flock of God-what could more vividly express the conception of the clerical position in the minds of many who trade upon its privileges ? They, who should feed the sheep and lambs of Christ's flock, fleece them instead, and look upon them as those whose place it is to contribute to their honor, wealth, and dignity. Scripture knows of no distinction between clergy and laity. All believers are God's kleros*-His allotted portion. *The root of the word "clergy."* If of their own number there are those raised up to act as pastors, by guiding and caring for those weaker or less instructed, it is as doing a service to the Lord, the Chief Shepherd; "not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over possessions, but being ensamples to the flock" (i Peter 5:1-4).
To this single-eyed and true-hearted devotedness these deceitful workers are utter strangers. Their true characters are even more graphically depicted in the metaphors taken from nature that immediately follow.
"Clouds [they are] without water, carried along by the winds." Big with promise, pretentious and impressive, all knowledge and all mysteries seem to be in their keeping; but their utterances are a disappointment to any who know the mind of God as revealed in His word. In place of refreshing showers of spiritual blessing accompanying their ministry, there are but empty vaporings and idle threatenings. In place, too, of divine certainty because based on the Holy Scriptures, their fanciful theories and ever-changing notions manifest the fact that they themselves are carried about by every wind of human teaching, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
They are further described as "autumnal trees without fruit, twice dead, rooted up." Having a fair outward appearance, they are like trees which in the season of fruit bear only leaves; like the fig-tree cursed by the Lord, which dried up from the roots. These indeed are "twice dead"; for they are "dead in trespasses and sins," and dead too in a false profession, having a name that they live, but actually lifeless. "Every tree," said the Lord Jesus, "that My heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up." So these are seen already, in God's estimation, as plucked up by the roots. In man's eye they may make a fair show in the flesh, and tower skyward in loftiness and apparent beauty; but in the sight of Him who seeth not as man seeth their judgment is already come.
Impatient of restraint or rebuke of any kind, they are next likened to "raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame." It is not that they feel shame or remorse because of what they say or do; but by their very speech they manifest the true condition of their lawless wills when confronted with the word that exposes the hollowness of their contentions. "The unjust knoweth no shame"; but they proudly glory in what might well abase them before God and man. Blessed it is for those who seek to cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart that He has set bounds to this sea, as to that in nature, beyond which its angry waters cannot go. He makes the wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He restrains. See Ps. 76:10.
The last awful figure portrays the doom yet awaiting these impious triflers in holy things. They are "wandering stars, to whom has been reserved the gloom of darkness for eternity." Like lost planets hurled out of their natural orbit, they flare brilliantly for the moment, then plunge off at a tangent into ever-deepening darkness as they rush through the fathomless depths of space farther and farther from the Source of light. Such shall be the end of all who now refuse the Light of life, and prefer instead to kindle their own fire and compass themselves about with sparks (Isa. 50:11).
Solemnly the Holy Spirit says to every child of grace, "From such turn away" (2 Tim. 3:5).
H. A. I.
(To be continued.)