Jude 1:4

4. For Reason for this burst of alarm.

Certain men Not, apparently, as yet a solid body, but a large number of individual leaders scattered throughout the Church of Jude’s section.

Crept in unawares Whose demoralizing teachings had circulated from the time of Simon Magus among the population outside of the Church. Their dogmas had streaked obscurely through the general atmosphere. But now, lo! their propagators have disclosed themselves in various quarters in the very bosom of the Church itself.

Ordained Fore-written or pre-described; that is, in the predictions of the apostles Paul and Peter, and in the evil types of the Old Testament, Cain, Balaam, and Korah, Jude 1:11. Thus the ancient Greek commentator, Theophylact, pertinently says: “He calls them fore-written because Peter and Paul had said concerning them that in the last times such deceivers” should come. The Greek word is sometimes used in the classics to signify the publicly, placarding the threatened death of a doomed individual. In this manner Sylla, the Roman consul, publicly advertised the names of persons whom he intended to execute. So the prophecies quoted by Jude were an advertisement that all those persons whose characters suited the prophetic descriptions were by those same prophecies advertised for death.

This condemnation The condemnation described in this epistle. Alford remarks, “It may be observed that the ultra-predestinarians, Beza and Calvin, find, as we might expect, strong defence for their views in their interpretation here. Beza, indeed, gathers from this place that ‘this eternal decree of God comprehends not only the event, but especially the persons themselves.’”

Into lasciviousness Making Christianity subservient to sexual lusts. This trait identifies them with the Nicolaitans.

Lord Greek δεσποτης , despotes, whence our word despot.

God This word is rejected by the best critics as a spurious reading. It then becomes a question whether God or Christ is here designated. The word despotes designates God in Revelation 6:10, and Acts 4:24; Luke 2:29. But in the parallel passage in 2 Peter 2:1, it designates Christ. By the usually received doctrine of the Greek article the rendering would be denying our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. This seems the more probable sense, as the heretics did not so much reject the true God as the true Christ.