Jude 1:9-10 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses… The sentence immediately preceding represents the persons described in it as defiled with gross immoralities, as despising the dominion that would have restrained them, and treating in contemptuous language the most dignified of the powers which had been set up in defence of purity and good order. The text is meant to apply, more or less directly, to all these views. But you will not fail to notice that it begins with what in the previous statement is last mentioned, and exposes the crime of "evil-speaking," when the malignancy of its revilings is turned against the sacred institutions of moral authority. And surely it may be allowed that this end is answered with a peculiar degree of force, owing to the extreme case of forbearance which the text sets before us. It represents two spirits of high order, but of opposite character, engaged in controversy. The one, in his designs, ever actuated by a base and malevolent principle. The other, the special messenger and servant of God, ever employed in advancing the purposes of truth and righteousness. Wrong is altogether on the one side. Right, without a sinister motive to tarnish it, is altogether on the other. And in setting these before us, the apostle would lead us to mark the quality of that resistance alone, which, even in these circumstances, the pure spirit felt himself justified in making. Was it distinguished by violence, by the opprobrious and furious language of rage? Was the accusation (so justly to be brought by the archangel) a railing accusation? The reverse in every respect. In accusing, he mixed not abuse with his just condemnation. His reverence for God and his regard to the solemnity and holiness of truth kept him back from it. His cause was good and required not adventitious support. His own nature was pure, and would have been essentially defiled had the evil passions in another been resisted by the indulging of similar passions in himself. Above all — God is the Judge "unto whom vengeance belongeth" — and therefore to God the appeal must be made. Hence, by every motive, the "archangel" abstained from bringing the "railing accusation against" his adversary. Now the apostle's peculiar argument, as introduced in application to the persons whom he had such cause for reprehending, stands thus: — If no boisterous or reviling language was employed in controversy even with a fallen and perverse spirit — the acknowledged foe of God and goodness — it was said simply, yet still with dignity, "The Lord rebuke thee" — if thus the archangel committed himself to God and left the final decision to be passed by the supreme authority; in such a cause, and with such an adversary, if "Michael" thus proceeded, say how aggravated must be the guilt which "rails against" sacred things themselves and vilifies all whose influence is employed for their support? It has been found, in the greater number of instances, that where men carrying on any controversy are fully possessed of their subject, and have the clearest knowledge of its nature, they will have a collectedness proportioned to their knowledge. This remark may form the tie by which we may associate the tenth with the ninth verse. The persons who are there rebuked were "speaking evil of those things which they knew not." Having their understandings darkened they saw not the beauties of righteousness. Becoming, through their immoral lives, obdurate to the sense of what was pure, they brought themselves to contemplate iniquity without aversion. Having their inclinations turned in a direction the opposite of what the law required them to follow, they gathered hostility to the curb of the commandment. By persisting in criminal courses they formed in themselves an utter disrelish of the habits of godliness. In this state they "spoke evil" against its sanctions. The dominion of civil power they stigmatised as tyranny. The dominion of the religious principle as the trick of priesthood. The dominion of conscience as prolonging the sway of superstition and perpetuating the influence of childish terrors. But they "spoke evil of those things which they knew not." How otherwise, except in a state of the grossest ignorance, could they have ventured to deduce from the blessed doctrines of grace the occasions, the incentives, or the cloak for immorality? Is there one portion of the Christian plan of salvation that does not bear, with the mightiest influence of moral power, against the love and practice of iniquity? Can there be a purer law than what the gospel reveals for enforcing righteousness? Above all, what motives to righteousness are derived from the Cross of Christ! I ask, then, if in these circumstances it proceeds not from ignorance the most culpable, that any should venture to draw from the doctrine of Divine grace an inference which is even in the slightest measure favourable to sin? — And yet the persons whom St. Jude was confuting did so. Surely, therefore, they were "speaking evil of things they knew not," or of things the nature and tendency of which they refused to acknowledge. But still, I must bring you back once more and in doing so I would connect the last clause of ver.10 with all that precedes it to the real source of this perverseness. The origin of the whole, we must repeat, was moral pollution. The speaking evil of the sacred things, of which these men refused to acknowledge the sanction and the use, arose from their "corruption in those very things" with which they were familiarly and fully conversant. They knew (led as the inferior creatures are by instinctive propensities) the use of the appetites. "The natural man," according to the language of St. Paul, is thoroughly qualified to "discern" that. But among all who are "unrenewed in the spirit of their minds," and to whom consequently a spiritual discernment belongs not, how is it that the objects of this natural knowledge are most frequently employed? Are they not oftener abused than rightly employed? The desires and propensities of nature are wilfully corrupted. The lawful desire of personal good degenerates into selfishness. The allowable desire of human esteem swells into the insatiable longing after "the praise of men." The sensualities of the world are chosen as the chief good. The vitiated heart grows impatient under restraint. By a thousand acts of hostility does the "carnal" mind show itself to be "enmity to God," till the foe of the "Cross of Christ" chooses the lowest desires as his ruling divinities, glories in his shame, and is at last altogether sunk in earthly things. Thus it took place with the persons whom the apostle was called to withstand. Having corrupted themselves in what they knew the use of, by means of their natural senses, they were soon led to oppose those things of which they had no spiritual discernment, or for which, at least, they had no relish — and hence they were prepared to "despise the dominion of righteousness" and to "speak evil" with "railing accusations" of the supporters of that dominion however dignified their office and venerable their authority. Would that the condemnation which the Epistle conveys were considered by the multitudes who still labour to bring contempt upon religion and morality, whose hatred to the Christian truth is even greater than their opposition, and whose invective is as coarse as their arguments are weak! Mark the bearings of their character their likings and their aversions — in order that you may be convinced how utterly unworthy of reception are the objections which they utter against the purity and the majesty and the usefulness of Christian truth. Fix in your minds this principle — that aversion to so precious a system of moral "dominion" as Christianity is, arises, and must arise chiefly from "corruptions" of the heart. (W. Muir, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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