Jude 1:18

How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:17-23 Sensual men separate from Christ, and his church, and join themselves to the devil, the world, and the flesh, by ungodly and sinful practices. That is infinitely worse than to separate from any branch of the visible church on account of opinions, or modes and circumstances of outward government or worship. Sensual men have not the spirit of holiness, which whoever has not, does not belong to Christ. The grace of faith is most holy, as it works by love, purifies the heart, and overcomes the world, by which it is distinguished from a false and dead faith. Our prayers are most likely to prevail, when we pray in the Holy Ghost, under his guidance and influence, according to the rule of his word, with faith, fervency, and earnestness; this is praying in the Holy Ghost. And a believing expectation of eternal life will arm us against the snares of sin: lively faith in this blessed hope will help us to mortify our lusts. We must watch over one another; faithfully, yet prudently reprove each other, and set a good example to all about us. This must be done with compassion, making a difference between the weak and the wilful. Some we must treat with tenderness. Others save with fear; urging the terrors of the Lord. All endeavours must be joined with decided abhorrence of crimes, and care be taken to avoid whatever led to, or was connected with fellowship with them, in works of darkness, keeping far from what is, or appears to be evil.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

But, beloved, remember ye ... - There is a striking similarity between these two verses and 2 Peter 3:1-3. It occurs in the same connection, following the description of the false and dangerous teachers against whom the apostle would guard them, and couched almost in the same words. See it explained in the notes at the similar passage in Peter. When Jude (Jde 1:17) entreats them to remember the words which were spoken by "the apostles," it is not necessarily to be inferred that he was not himself an apostle, for he is speaking of what was past, and there might have been a special reason why he should refer to something that they would distinctly remember which had been spoken by the "other" apostles on this point. Or it might be that he meant also to include himself among them, and to speak of the apostles collectively, without particularly specifying himself.

Mockers - The word rendered "mockers" here is the same which in the parallel place in 2 Peter 3:3 is rendered "scoffers." Peter has stated more fully what was the particular subject on which they scoffed, and has shown that there was no occasion for it 2 Peter 3:4, following.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. mockers—In the parallel, 2Pe 3:3, the same Greek is translated, "scoffers." The word is found nowhere else in the New Testament. How Alford can deny that 2Pe 3:2, 3 is referred to (at least in part), I cannot imagine, seeing that Jude quotes the very words of Peter as the words which the apostles used to speak to his (Jude's) readers.

walk after their own ungodly lusts—literally, "after (according to) their own lusts of ungodliness."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Told you; whether in their preaching or writing.

Ungodly lusts; Greek, lusts of ungodliness; a Hebraism; the vilest lusts.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

How that they told you that there should be mockers in the last time,.... See Gill on 2 Peter 3:3.

Geneva Study Bible

How that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Expositor's Greek Testament

Jude 1:18. ἐπʼ ἐσχάτου χρόνου ἔσονται ἐμπαῖκται. The parallel in 2 Peter 3:3 is ἐλεύσονται ἐπʼ ἐσχάτων τῶν ἡμερῶν ἐν ἐμπαιγμονῇ ἐμπαῖκται, where see note on the use of the article with ἔσχατος, etc. For ἐπί, cf. Arist. Pol. iv. 3, ἐπὶ τῶν ἀρχαίων χρόνων.

The prophecy of this mocking, as a mark of the future trials of the Church, has not come down to us. An example of it in the very beginning of the Church is given in Acts 2:13, ἕτεροι χλευάζοντες ἔλεγον ὅτι γλεύκους μεμεστωμένοι εἰσί. In the O.T. we have such examples as 2 Chronicles 36:16 (the summing up of the attitude of the Jews towards the prophets) ἦσαν μυκτηρίζοντες τοὺς ἀγγέλους αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐξουθενοῦντες τοὺς λόγους αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐμπαίζοντες ἐν τοῖς προφήταις αὐτοῦ, Jeremiah 20:8, ἐγενήθη λόγος Κυρίου εἰς ὀνειδισμὸν ἐμοὶ καὶ εἰς χλευασμὸν πᾶσαν ἡμέραν. Cf. also the mockery at the crucifixion, and the declaration in Matthew 10:25 f., εἰ τὸν οἰκοδεσπότην Βεεζέβοὺλ ἐπεκάλεσαν, πόσῳ μᾶλλον κ.τ.λ. In 2 Peter the purport of this mockery is explained to be the unfulfilled promise of the Parusia. Here we must gather its meaning from the account already given of the libertines. If they turned the grace of God into licentiousness, they would naturally mock at the narrowness and want of enlightenment of those who took a strict and literal view of the divine commandments: if they made light of authority and treated spiritual things with irreverence, if they foamed out their own shame and uttered proud and impious words, if they denied God and Christ, they would naturally laugh at the idea of a judgment to come. On the form ἐμπαίκτης and its cognates, see note on 2 Peter.

τῶν ἀσεβειῶν. I am rather disposed to take τῶν ἀσεβειῶν here as a subjective genitive, “lusts belonging to, or arising from their impieties,” cf. Romans 1:28, καθὼς οὐκ ἐδοκίμασαν τὸν Θεὸν ἔχειν ἐν ἐπιγνώσει, παρέδωκεν αὐτοὺς ὁ Θεὸς εἰς ἀδόκιμον νοῦν. The position of the genitive is peculiar, and probably intended to give additional stress. We may compare it with Jam 2:1, μὴ ἐν προσωπολημψίαις ἔχετε τὴν πίστιν τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, τῆς δόξης, where some connect τῆς δόξης with κυρίου in a qualitative sense.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. there should be mockers in the last time …] The word for “mockers” is found in 2 Peter 3:3, but the general character of those described agrees with the picture drawn in 1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Timothy 3:1. St Jude, it will be noted, does not dwell on the specific form of mockery, the taunts as to the delay in the second coming of the Lord, on which St Peter lays stress.

walk after their own ungodly lusts] Literally, after the lusts of their own impieties. The last word adds a special feature to the description already given, in nearly the same words, in Jude 1:16.

Jude 1:18

Vincent's Word Studies

Mockers

See on 2 Peter 3:3.

Ungodly lusts (ἐπιθυμίας τῶν ἀσεβειῶν)

Lit., lusts of ungodlinesses.