Jude 8-11: Beware The Error of Balaam

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan KS, 22 Oct 2017

Translation

1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,
TO: the called ones who have been loved by God the Father and who have been kept by Jesus Christ.

2 May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to y’all!

3 Loved ones, while I was making all due diligence to write to y’all concerning our shared salvation, I felt the necessity to write to y’all exhorting [y’all] to step up the fight for the faith once delivered to the saints,

4 because certain men have settled in alongside [you] who have already been prescribed to this judgment, ungodly men who are displacing the grace of our God with licentiousness and who deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.

5 Although y’all know all [these] things, I’m wanting to remind y’all that once having saved a people from the country of Egypt, the Lord subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.

6 Also he has been keeping in everlasting chains under gloom for the judgment of the Great Day the angels which did not keep their own principality but instead have left their proper home.

7 In similar manner to these, Sodom and Gomorra and the towns around them, after acting out sexual immorality and degradingly going off into abnormal physical [relations] are laid out as an example when they suffered the justice of eternal fire.

8. In a similar way, these men, through their dreaming however are both making their physical bodies unclean and also displacing authority – even blaspheming glorious beings.

9. Even Michael the chief angel, when he was hashing it out with the Devil while making an assessment concerning the body of Moses did not go so far as to bear culpability for blasphemy but rather said, “May the Lord reprimand you.”

10. But as for these men, whatever they don’t understand they blaspheme, and whatever they, like the unreasoning animals, know instinctively, by these things they are corrupted.

11. Woe to them, because they conducted themselves into the way of Cain and they poured themselves into the error of Balaam for reward, and into the controversy of Korah they were destroyed.

Introduction

· In my first sermon on the book of Jude, I focused on verses 5, 6, and 7 which described three groups of people that were punished for not trusting God, and I concluded that we need to take in God’s word to step up the fight to keep trusting God ourselves.

· John Calvin summarized it thus: “[A]fter having been called by God, we ought not to glory carelessly in His grace, but on the contrary, to walk watchfully in His fear; for if any trifles thus with God, the contempt of His grace will not be unpunished.”

· Now I want to come back to v.4 that I skimmed over and relate that to three examples in v.11 of individuals who did not keep the faith but rebelled against God:

v.4 [step up the fight for the faith] because certain men have settled in alongside [you] who have already been prescribed/designated to this judgment, ungodly men who are displacing the grace of our God with licentiousness/unbridled sensuality and who deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.

· The main verb literally translates “gone down in alongside” and it has four nominative phrases which describe the “certain men” who have “crept in unnoticed/slipped in secretly^NIV”

1) they have been marked out for judgment from of old (or already written about as to their judgment),

Some places they have “already been written about” are:

0 2 Peter 3:3&7 “…scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts… until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” (NKJV)

0 2 Tim. 3:1-9 “…in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient… slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth… men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all...” (NKJV, cf. 1 Tim. 4:1)

2) they are asebeis/ungodly/not devout/impious, they do not orient their thinking and actions around God,

3) they exchange/turn/pervert God’s grace into loose living/licentiousness,

o In my Christian High School, in the Christian college I went to, and even now in the Christian Home School association I lead, I have had occasions where I’ve had to shake my head in disbelief at students who claimed to be Christians and gave lip-service to the grace of God, but at the same time encouraged one another in sexual sin, listening to music that was blatantly anti-Christian, and watching movies that promoted all kinds of sin. This kind of casual attitude toward violations of the 10 commandments is deadly dangerous.

o John Calvin, in his commentary linked Jude to Paul’s epistles: “they abused the grace of God, so as to lead themselves and others to take an impure and profane liberty in sinning. But the grace of God has appeared for a far different purpose, even that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we may live soberly, righteously, and godly in this world.”

and 4) they deny Jesus – particularly His authority over them.

o “it was…the ruling power of Christ that was denied; they boasted of His grace, but did not submit to him as a king. Hence the word despotes is used – one exercising absolute power.” ~John Owen, 1855 AD

8. In a similar way, these men, through their dreaming, however, are both making their physical bodies unclean and also displacing authority – even blaspheming glorious beings.

· In Greek, the first in v.8 is a comparative (homoiws) just as the first word in v.7 was a comparative (hws), so this creates a chain of comparisons of the problem-persons in this church - described in v.8 to the licentious people in Sodom and Gomorrah - described in v.7, and to the rebellious fallen angels - described in v.6.

· However, in verse 8, there is an additional Greek word mentoi which, unfortunately, the NIV drops out, but which indicates that there’s a new and unexpected twist to these problem-persons in the church. The new twist is that they are doing both: defiling/polluting/making unclean their physical bodies through sleeping around like they did in Sodom and Gomorrah, while also doing what the fallen angels did by rejecting/displacing/despising authority and claiming that they don’t have to obey anyone – ultimately not even the God of glory and His glorious/celestial/angelic/dignities. The new twist is that they have combined the anarchy of Satan with the debauchery of Sodom and tried to do this in the church! No wonder Jude “lights into” them like he does!

· The only other place in the Greek Bible that this participle for “dreaming” shows up is in Isaiah 29:7, where, as Sir Lancelot Brenton translated it from the Septuagint, “…all they that war against Jerusalem, and all who are gathered against her, and they that distress her, shall be as one that dreams in sleep by night. And as men drink and eat in sleep, and when they have arisen, the dream is vain: and as a thirsty man dreams as if he drank, and having arisen is still thirsty, and his soul has desired in vain: so shall be the wealth of all the nations, as many as have fought against the mount Sion.” I believe Jude is alluding to this passage in Isaiah, where “Jerusalem/ Zion” is a type of the church. Here are men “fighting” against church leadership and “distresssing” the people in the congregation, thinking they have spiritual dreams that they want to lead the church into, but they will get no further satisfaction in their rebellion and loose living than someone who has a dream about eating and drinking and then wakes up still hungry and thirsty.

· The parallel passage in 2 Peter 2:10 says basically the same thing, but substitutes the phrase “in unclean lusts” for “in their dreaming,” which is probably where the KJV came up with the word “filthy” here in Jude.

· The Greek word for “defile/pollute/make unclean” in v.8 is also found in Paul’s warnings to Timothy about similar people: “For there are many insubordinate, both idle talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole households, teaching things which they ought not, for the sake of dishonest gain. One of them, a prophet of their own, said, ‘Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.’ This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth. To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.” (Titus 1:10-16, NKJV).

· We also see it in Hebrews: “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright.” (Hebrews 12:14-16, NKJV) – We must fight fornication and profanity with holiness and a true understanding of the grace of God – that’s the same as Jude’s message!

· The word which Jude uses to describe their “rejecting/displacing/despising authority” was used by Jesus in the Gospels[1] to describe Jewish religious leaders who “set aside the commandment of God in order to keep… tradition” (Mark 7:9), who “rejected God’s purpose” by not repenting of sin under the prophetic ministry of John the Baptizer (Luke 7:30), and who ultimately rejected Christ (Luke 10:16) by not “receiving what [He] said” (John 12:48).” How do we contend for the faith? By receiving what Jesus said, respecting God’s commands, repenting from the ways we have transgressed those commandments, and trusting Christ to bring us into a right relationship with God forever.

· The Bible doesn’t make clear what Jude refers to here.

· All we know for sure is what it says in Deut. 34:5-6 about the end of Moses’ life. “So Moses the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one knows his grave to this day” (NKJV).

· The archangel named Michael is mentioned elsewhere in Scripture as “one of the chief princes” (אחד השׂרים הראשׁנים) in Dan 10:13, and then even more explicitly in Dan. 12:1 as, “the great prince who stands over the sons of your people.”[2]

· The words in Jude 9 describing this dispute paint the picture of Michael carrying the authority to represent God’s interests and to make a “judgment” call (διακρινόμενος), after “talking a matter through” (διελέγετο) with the Devil, examining both sides of the case from every angle. This would stand to reason if Michael had some sort of position of authority to take care of the affairs of the Hebrew people, of whom Moses was a member.

· As to what exactly the issue was between Michael and Satan, we cannot be sure.

0 The early church fathers Clement of Alexandria and Origen suggested that it came from a traditional Jewish story. The closest traditional story anybody has ever found is one[3], that speaks of an argument between Michael and Samael, prince of the demons, but it doesn’t mention the body of Moses, so I don’t think Jude is alluding to that.

0 The ancient Jewish historian Josephus, together with about half the Christian commentators that I read (John Calvin, Matthew Henry, Adam Clarke, John Wesley) suggested that the Devil was trying to find the secret location where God buried Moses in order to get Jews distracted from worshipping God by building a shrine and venerating Moses[4].

0 The closest Scriptural account to what we have here in Jude is the account in the book of Zachariah, chapter 3, where the prophet Zachariah sees, in a vision, “…Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. And the LORD said to Satan, ‘The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?’”

à There is a lot of similarity: Satan disputing and someone replying with the exact words, “The LORD rebuke you.”

à The Puritan commentator John Gill suggested that Jude and Zechariah 3 could be the same, if the phrase “body of Moses” were to be taken to mean “the body of laws given to Moses” which would convict Joshua (and any other man, for that matter) under God’s judgment, but from which the Lord Jesus would save Joshua (and all His people) by grace as one might pluck a stick out of a bonfire, rescuing him from the fires of hell.

à I like that explanation best, but can’t be dogmatic about it.

· This is one of those curious passages in the Bible where scholars can waste a lot of time on rabbit trails, but we need to focus on the main point: Jude is merely citing this story as an illustration of his point that it’s wrong to “trash-talk” things and persons that are “glorious” – not even an archangel would dare to speak disrespectfully to Satan[5].

10. But as for these men, whatever they don’t understand they blaspheme, and whatever they, like the unreasoning animals, know instinctively, by these things they are corrupted.

· Cf. 2 Peter 2:11-13 “whereas angels, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord. But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, and will receive the wages of unrighteousness…”(NKJV)

· How typical it is of natural human nature to take everything familiar to us and abuse it… until it destroys us, while we make fun of everything we don’t understand!

· It’s natural to like the hormonal highs of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll. But indulgence in those things (apart from submission to the laws of God) have burned out, used up, and destroyed untold millions of lost souls, while they, all the while, speak hatefully of Christians and the Bible because they just don’t comprehend the grace and love of God.

· It’s the closest Jude comes to showing pity for them, and on these grounds, there is room for pity, to help us get past being mad merely at the actual troublemakers to fortify us in the larger war against the entire demonically-inspired fallen world system which has rebelled against the Lordship of Jesus.

· Now, three Biblical characters are compared to these problem-persons: Cain, Balaam, and Korah.

11. Woe to them, because they conducted themselves into the way of Cain and they poured themselves into the error of Balaam for reward, and in the controversy of Korah they were destroyed.

1. What is the “way of Cain”?

0 The Apostle John elaborated in his first epistle: “…love one another, not as Cain [who] was of the evil one and slaughtered his brother--and for what reason did he slaughter him? Because his works were evil, but those of his brother, good.” (3:11-12, NAW)

0 The Book of Genesis tells the story more fully: Genesis 4:5-16 “…[God] did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. So the LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.’ Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Where is Abel your brother?’ He said, ‘I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?’ And He said, ‘What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground. So now you are cursed from the earth… Cain said to the LORD, ‘My punishment is greater than I can bear!’ … Then Cain went out from the presence of the LORD and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.” (NKJV)

0 Do you see from the Genesis account that it was not just a dispute between brothers? This is about a bad relationship between Cain and God. It started with Cain’s awareness that there was something between Him and God that wasn’t right, but instead of figuring out how to get right with God, he decided to join the rebellion against God. He killed Abel because he hated God. When God gently gave Cain an opportunity to repent and be forgiven, Cain spoke disrespectfully to God, and then complained that God was unjust in His punishment, and, in the end, “he departed from the presence of the LORD.” The “way of Cain” is the way of rebellion against God.

0 But Cain should have known better! Adam and Eve were his parents; they had walked and talked with God. There’s no way Cain couldn’t have known that God punishes sin, because that’s why his parents had been kicked out of the Garden of Eden. There’s no way that Cain couldn’t have known that God gives grace to those who confess their sin, because that’s how his parents were still alive, and that’s why they offered sacrifices to God. Cain was rightfully a member of the church of his day that contained his parents, his brother, his sisters and him, but he left it all, uninterested in ever getting right with God because he preferred to nurse his bitterness against God.

0 Brothers and sisters, do not let anyone who has gone in the way of Cain sidetrack you from trusting Jesus to make you right with God!

2. Balaam is the next example of someone within the pale of the church who nevertheless joined in rebellion against God and His people, in his case, to get “reward/pay/profit/gain.”

0 According to the Old Testament book of Numbers chapter 22, the King of the country of Moab offered Balaam a “diviner’s fee” (Numbers 22:7), he offered “great honor” (v.17), and he provided the attention of the most “honorable princes” of the land (v.15) – the text even suggests that the king offered Balaam a “house full of silver and gold” (v18) in order to put a curse on the nation of Israel. These rewards tempted Balaam to defy God.

0 2 Peter 2:15 “They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness” (NKJV)

0 Balaam tried multiple times to curse the people of Israel in order to get that wealth, but was prevented by God. The Bible doesn’t tells us how Balaam came to know God, but it is clear that Balaam actually talked with God and accurately delivered some messages from God. But instead of responding in faith towards the true God, instead of joining the church in the wilderness (Acts 7:38) – the people he knew were under God’s blessing, Balaam instead chose to side with God’s enemies. He made his home with the Midianites, and made it his life-mission to subvert the people of God.

0 He sent a bunch of Midianite women into the camp of Israel, and these women threw a big party that looked like so much fun that a lot of the men of Israel joined the party, which included a forbidden barbeque outside the temple, committing adultery, and worshipping idols (Numbers 31:16). Balaam had it figured out, and God indeed got mad at the people of Israel for committing spiritual and physical adultery and killed thousands of them in His judgment.

0 This may have gotten Balaam the reward that he sought, but he didn’t live to enjoy it. He was killed shortly thereafter when the Israelites conquered the Midianites (Numbers 31:8).

0 Balaam’s name shows up again a couple thousand years later in God’s message in the book of Revelation to the church in Pergamos, Turkey. “…you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality…” (Rev. 2:14, NKJV).

0 These two temptations are still used today to move people away from trusting God, and they are exactly what Jude has already mentioned – rebellion against God and the licentious indulgence in immorality.

0 Brothers and sisters, do not let anyone who has gone into the error of Balaam sidetrack you from walking faithfully with Jesus!

0 God offers us a better reward than anything the world has to offer:
Genesis 15:1 “...[T]he word of the LORD came to Abram… ‘I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.’” (NKJV) God Himself is our reward! We also saw that in…
2 John 8-9 “Watch out for yourselves in order that y’all might not lose what we worked for, but instead y’all may get back a full reward. Every one who launches forth while not remaining in the teaching of Christ does not have God; the one who remains in the teaching [of Christ], this one has both the Father and the Son.” (NAW)

0 The same verb exechuthesan here translated “ran greedily/abandoned themselves/rushed headlong/(lit.) were poured” is used throughout the New Testament to speak of the blood of Jesus poured out for us to forgive our sins and of the Holy Spirit poured out upon Christians. There again is the real reward which is better than any amount of monetary reward – God Himself!

3. The third example is the “rebellion/gainsaying/controversy of Korah”

0 Korah was Aaron’s cousin, a Levite, so he, perhaps even more than Cain and Balaam, was “in the know” about God. He wasn’t just a member of the church, he was a leader in the church.

0 Numbers 16 tells his story: After the Israelites failed to trust God and enter the promised land and Moses had told them that they would have to wander in the desert until that generation died off, Korah pulled together an alternative government composed of 250 leaders and challenged Moses’ and Aaron’s political and spiritual leadership of the nation of Israel, saying, “Why are you exalting yourselves over the assembly of the LORD?” His buddies Dathan and Abiram said, “You have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, why should you keep acting like a prince over us?” Moses countered by suggesting that Korah and his 250-member congress try offering incense to God. Now, Korah should have known better than to accept this challenge. It hadn’t been all that long ago that his cousins Nadab and Abihu (actually Korah’s first cousins once removed) had pulled a similar stunt in Leviticus 10 (offering incense before the LORD when God hadn’t asked them to) and they had been destroyed in the fire of judgment that came from the presence of the Lord. Korah had the audacity to try it again, and the earth split open underneath him and closed back up after he had fallen in, so he perished, and then God sent fire from heaven and killed all 250 of the men in Korah’s rival government, and that was that. It started with Korah “speaking against” (anti-logia) the leadership that God had set over him.

0 Brothers and sisters, do not let anyone who has a rebellious attitude suck you into their distrust of Jesus and his authority!

Conclusion

So there we have three examples of ungodly, licentious, lordship-denying persons:

Cain (who hung on to bitterness against God),
Balaam (who purposefully tempted believers into idolatrous feasting and partying), and
Korah (who rebelled against God’s authority and dragged everyone who followed him down to hell).

Jude says that these kind of people will infiltrate churches and we must be on our guard against accepting their licentious, rebellious ways.

“let their character, course, and end, be our seasonable and sufficient warning” ~Matthew Henry

Jude 8-16 Greek Edition and Comparative translations

GNT	NAW	KJV
8 ῾Ομοίως[A] μέντοι καὶ οὗτοι ἐνυπνιαζόμενοι σάρκα μὲν μιαίνουσι, κυριότητα δὲ ἀθετοῦσι, δόξας δὲ βλασφημοῦσιν[B].	8. In a similar way, these men, through their dreaming however are both making their physical bodies unclean and also displacing authority – even blaspheming glorious beings.	8 Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
9 ὁ δὲ Μιχαὴλ ὁ ἀρχάγγελος, ὅτε τῷ διαβόλῳ διακρινόμενος διελέγετο περὶ τοῦ Μωϋσέως σώματος, οὐκ ἐτόλμησε κρίσιν ἐπενεγκεῖν βλασφημίας, ἀλλὰ εἶπεν· ἐπιτιμήσαι σοι Κύριος[C].	9. Even Michael the chief angel, when he was hashing it out with the Devil while making an assessment concerning the body of Moses did not go so far as to bear culpability for blasphemy but rather said, “May the Lord reprimand you.”	9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against [him] a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.
10 οὗτοι δὲ ὅσα μὲν οὐκ οἴδασι βλασφημοῦσιν, ὅσα δὲ φυσικῶς[D] ὡς τὰ ἄλογα ζῷα ἐπίστανται, ἐν τούτοις φθείρονται.	10. But as for these men, whatever they don’t understand they blaspheme, and whatever they, like the unreasoning animals, know instinctively, by these things they are corrupted.	10 But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.
11 οὐαὶ αὐτοῖς, ὅτι τῇ ὁδῷ τοῦ Κάϊν[E] ἐπορεύθησαν, καὶ τῇ πλάνῃ τοῦ Βαλαὰμ[F] μισθοῦ ἐξεχύθησαν[G], καὶ τῇ ἀντιλογίᾳ τοῦ Κορὲ[H] ἀπώλοντο.	11. Woe to them, because they conducted themselves into the way of Cain and they poured themselves into the error of Balaam for reward, and into the trash-talk of Korah they were destroyed.	11 Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after X the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

[Brackets] indicate the addition of a word or concept not originally in the Greek text. ~~Strikethrough~~ indicates an inaccurate meaning or inaccurate grammar in the English version compared to the Greek text. X’s are inserted where a version omitted a word present in the Greek. Underlining highlights translations where the wording that is different from all the other English versions. Where English versions are more than diverse on a key word, I colored the Greek word and its translated words with the same color. I have also used some abbreviations to identify the sources of variants based on editions of the Greek New Testament (GNT) currently in print: “Maj.” stands for the reading of the majority of all Greek manuscripts predating the printing press, “UBS” stands for critical editions of the GNT published by the United Bible Society, “T.R.” stands for the Textus Receptus editions of the GNT, and “Pat.” stands for the Greek Orthodox Patristic edition of the GNT.

[1] Mark 7:9 “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.’”

Luke 7:30 “But the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God's purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.”

Luke 10:16 “The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me.”

John 12:48 “He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.” (NASB)

[2] cf. “your prince” Dan. 10:21. Michael is also mentioned as fighting “in heaven” with the dragon in Rev. 12:7.

[3] Debarim Rabba, sec. ii., fol. 263, 1: “Samael, that wicked one, the prince of the satans, carefully kept the soul of Moses, saying: When the time comes in which Michael shall lament, I shall have my mouth filled with laughter. Michael said to him: Wretch, I weep, and thou laughest. Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy, because I have fallen; for I shall rise again: when I sit in darkness, the Lord is my light” (as quoted by Adam Clarke)

[4] Albert Barns, however, denied that any reason should be concocted, and Fausset suggested matter-of-factly that the Devil was trying to prevent Michael from raising Moses from the dead for the transfiguration, which seems even more imaginative.

[5] “a memorandum to all disputants, never to bring railing accusations into their disputes. Truth needs no supports from falsehood or scurrility.” ~Matthew Henry