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| 5Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. |
| —The Book of Jude |
Jude continues his letter to Christians gathered in the portion of the world that today we call Turkey. He begins by examining a series of offences comparable to what he believes has afflicted the newly formed church. In the first example, he reaches back into the history of Israel to the time of deliverance from Egypt. You can find a representation of one such particular incident in Numbers 16.
1Korah son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and certain Reubenites—Dathan and Abiram, sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth—became insolent 2and rose up against Moses. With them were 250 Israelite men, well-known community leaders who had been appointed members of the council. 3They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the Lord is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the Lord’s assembly?”
4When Moses heard this, he fell facedown. 5Then he said to Korah and all his followers: “In the morning the Lord will show who belongs to him and who is holy, and he will have that person come near him. The man he chooses he will cause to come near him. 6 You, Korah, and all your followers are to do this: Take censers 7and tomorrow put fire and incense in them before the Lord. The man the Lord chooses will be the one who is holy. You Levites have gone too far!”
God had spoken and had given clear leadership to Moses and Aaron. God expected His people to believe Him—to take Him at His word. As a result of what has become known as the “Korah Rebellion,” they perished because of their foolishness:
28Then Moses said, “This is how you will know that the Lord has sent me to do all these things and that it was not my idea: 29If these men die a natural death and experience only what usually happens to men, then the Lord has not sent me. 30But if the Lord brings about something totally new, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the grave, then you will know that these men have treated the Lord with contempt.”31As soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart 32and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them, with their households and all Korah’s men and all their possessions. 33They went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and were gone from the community. 34At their cries, all the Israelites around them fled, shouting, “The earth is going to swallow us too!”
35And fire came out from the Lord and consumed the 250 men who were offering the incense.
This event demonstrates what happens to those who do not believe what the Lord has said. Jude wants to make a strong case for contending earnestly for the faith in order to repel corruption in the church.
“Corruption” stands as the most important concept to understand. I tried to carefully address this subject of corruption in my first blog post on this topic. In that post, I wrote the following:
…As distasteful as the message the Apostle Jude intends to communicate to the fledgling church, it remains a powerful and timely warning for us today.
We often talk about corrupt politics, corrupt government, corrupt businesses, and sometimes even a corrupt church. The etymology of the word “corrupt” greatly informs the use of the word in our society today. The word “corrupt” comes from the idea that the “core” of someone or something has become “ruptured” or “burst apart from within.”
In future blog posts, as we examine the other parts of this powerfully packed epistle, you will likely come to see that our role as soldiers of Christ remains quite complex. On the one hand, we must strive to push back against those who desire to rupture the core of the church. On the other hand, we must do so with hearts full of God’s love, with an awareness of our own inherent sinfulness, and with total reliance on the leading of the Holy Spirit. And, as I will frequently state during this series of blog posts, that represents quite a challenge.
