"The common salvation."--Jude 3. "The common faith."--Titus 1:4.
Jude was probably one of Christ's brothers, and a man of position and influence in the Church. He is writing to the whole early Christian community, numbering men widely separated from each other by nationality, race, culture, and general outlook on life; and he beautifully and humbly unites himself with them all as recipients of a common salvation.' Paul is writing to Titus, the veteran leader to a raw recruit. Wide differences of mental power, of maturity of religious experience, separated the two; and yet Paul beautifully and humbly associates himself with his pupil, as exercising a common faith.'
Probably neither of the writers meant more than to bring himself nearer to the persons whom they were respectively addressing; but their language goes a great deal further than the immediate application of it. The salvation' was common' to Jude and his readers, as the faith' was to Paul and Titus, because the salvation and the faith are one, all the world over.
It is for the sake of insisting upon this community, which is universal, that I have ventured to isolate these two fragments from their proper connection, and to bring them together. But you will notice that they take up the same thought at two different stages, as it were. The one declares that there is but one remedy and healing for all the world's woes; the other declares that there is but one way by which that remedy can be applied. All who possess the common salvation' are so blessed because they exercise the common faith.'
"But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost 21. Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life."--Jude 20-21.
Jude has been, in all the former part of the letter, pouring out a fiery torrent of vehement indignation and denunciation against certain men' who had crept' into the Church, and were spreading gross immorality there. He does not speak of them so much as heretics in belief, but rather as evil-doers in practice; and after the thunderings and lightning, he turns from them with a kind of sigh of relief in this emphatic, But, ye! beloved.' The storm ends in gentle rain; and he tells the brethren who are yet faithful how they are to comport themselves in the presence of prevalent corruption, and where is their security and their peace.
You will observe that in my text there is embedded, in the middle of it, a direct precept: Keep yourselves in the love of God'; and that that is encircled by three clauses, like each other in structure, and unlike if building,' praying,' looking.' The great diamond is surrounded by a ring of lesser jewels. Why did Jude put two of these similar clauses in front of his direct precept, and one of them behind it? I think because the two that precede indicate the ways by which the precept can be kept, and the one that follows indicates the accompaniment or issue of obedience to the precept. If that be the reason for the structure of my text, it suggests also to us the course which we had best pursue in the exposition of it.
"Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. 25. To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.'--Jude 24-25.
I pointed out in a recent sermon on a former verse of this Epistle that the earlier part of it is occupied with vehement denunciations of the moral corruptions that had crept into the Church, and that the writer turns away from that spectacle earnestly to exhort the Christian community to keep themselves in the love of God,' by building themselves upon their most holy faith, and praying in the Holy Ghost.' But that is not all that Jude has to say. It is wise to look round on the dangers and evils that tempt; it is wise to look inward to the weaknesses that may yield to the temptations. But every look on surrounding dangers, and every look at personal weakness, ought to end in a look upwards to Him that is able to keep' the weakest from falling' before the assaults of the strongest foes.
The previous exhortation, which I have discussed, might seem to lay almost too much stress on our own strivings--Keep yourselves in the love of God.' Here is the complement to it' Unto Him that is able to keep you from falling.' So denunciations, exhortations, warnings, all end in the peaceful gaze upon God, and the triumphant recognition of what He is able to do for us. We have to work, but we have to remember that it is He that worketh in us both to will and to do of His own good pleasure.'
