Jude provided 3 well known acts of apostasy from the OT as brief reminders (v. 5) to illustrate their damnable outcome as declared in v. 4. Another thing I want to bring out now is that Jude assumed his readers were familiar with the OT—this should teach us that we need to study the whole Bible, not just the NT. Paul told the Corinthian church that the OT was “written for our example.”
I think that we, today, think that those living in the First Century Church did not have the problems that surfaced later—but one only has to look again to Acts 20:28 where Paul spoke to the Ephesian Elders at Miletus on his way to Jerusalem at the end of what we call the Third Missionary Journey
28 “So guard yourselves and God’s people. Feed and shepherd God’s flock—his church, purchased with his own blood over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you as elders. 29 I know that false teachers, like vicious wolves, will come in among you after I leave, not sparing the flock. 30 Even some men from your own group will rise up and distort the truth in order to draw a following.
Verse 5: The importance of the word “remind.” Jude points out that the false teachers deserved divine judgment and would receive it in the future. He wanted to remind his readers that God had acted decisively in the past against those who opposed Him. (HCSB Notes)
Aubrey Johnson, in “Spiritual Patriots, Jude’s Call To Arms,” writes the following: “Jude wrote to his friends to remind them of things they once knew with certainty but had come to doubt. Most preaching is like that. Sermons seldom provide startling new principles for life. They are, for the most part, reminders to heed what is already known but in danger of being forgotten or neglected. “
In verse 5-7 Jude mentions 3 examples from the Old Testament of God’s judgments. What impresses me is that Jude expected his readers to be familiar with the Old Testament. Paul told the Corinthian Church that the Old Testament was written “for our instruction.”
