I read about something astronauts experience when they go out into space for the first time. It’s called the Overview Effect. When an astronaut looks at the earth from outer space and they see its beauty and tranquility from “way up there” it changes them. All of a sudden all the fighting and hatred and suffering going on “way down there” seems so pointless and so petty. When they come back they have a whole new perspective of life on earth. This change is called the Overview Effect.
There’s an overview effect in the Christian faith too. It happens when we can start seeing our life down here from our Lord’s view up there. One of the ways we do that is by living lives characterized by mercy. We have received mercy (v2), we are expecting mercy when Christ comes (21) and we are to be merciful.
Last week in part 1 we saw that we are to be merciful towards those who doubt – who are hesitant in the faith. This week is part 2 and we look at the next two points: mercy of the lost and mercy for the stained.
MERCY FOR LOST (23a)
Mercy for the Lost (with an asterisk!). In verse 23 Jude’s thoughts of mercy turns to include those who are in danger of fire. This is a different group than the doubters and hesitators in verse 22. In verse 23 He says, “Save others by snatching them from the fire.” I believe this has two meanings: save the lost, and also save the saved. I’ll explain in that order
First, save the lost. The greek word for “save” in verse 23 is “sozo.” It means: save or rescue or deliver from danger. So for instance, often it is used in reference to saving someone’s soul by urging them to repent and turn to God.
- Hebrews 7:25 says, “Christ is able to save completely those who come to him…”
- The same word is also used in 2 Timothy 1:9 “Christ has saved us and called us to a holy life…”
- Then the magnificent words, “Jesus came into the world to save sinners” declares 1 Timothy 1:15.
All these verses use the same Greek word as Jude for save and all have in view the idea of souls being saved.
So I would say that Jude certainly has in view the salvation of the lost – and the believers should be evangelizing the lost with the Gospel. While waiting for Christ to come and bring us mercy Jude urges us to have mercy on others by leading them to the mercy of God in Christ. He certainly wants Christians active in sharing the faith. The result would be that people who are in danger of fire – the fire of God’s judgment – would be saved from that fire. “Remember this” James 5:20 promises, “whoever turns a sinner away from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.”
The word used for “snatching” is the word harpazo, and it means to be snatched, or forcefully grabbed. The Latin translation of the word is raptere and its where we get the word Raptors, as in hawks and eagles who use their claws to forcefully grab their prey. It’s also the same word used in 1 Thessalonians 4 that says Christians will be caught up with Christ – we will be harpazo, raptured. Hence, we anticipate the future Rapture of the Church. Here Jude is saying “rapture” or “snatch” or “forcefully grab” people from the fire – as a way of rescuing them. I think its just graphic language to picture the urgency and zeal with which we work to save people.
Certainly we can’t do this physically. So how do we do snatch someone? We tell them the Gospel. We show them the way of salvation. We live pure lives and stand firm in our faith so we don’t mess our witness up. We plead, we persuade, we beg. I’ll use a quote from Spurgeon: “If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If Hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.”
All that being said, I think there is a second way to also see this verse. I think along with saving the lost Jude is indicating that in the life of the Church we have to also save Christians. Not as in they lost salvation and need to be resaved. But spiritually in the sense of they are going into error and sin and need to be turned back.Let me explain a few reasons.
First, the word for save that Jude uses, sozo, is not limited to spiritual salvation. Actually, much of its use refers to not to eternal life but to salvation from dangerous circumstances or from the suffering of disease. The idea is one’s life is about to come to an end, or it is dramatically disabled by some disease, but then by God’s intervention their life is spared or health is restored.
- Peter sinking in the water was sozo,
- the disciples afraid of the storm while in the boat want Jesus to sozo them,
- the bleeding woman touches Jesus and is sozo,
- the many touched Jesus and were sozo,
- Lazarus was sozo from death, and so on.
In none of these (or many other) instances where “sozo” is used does spiritual salvation and eternal life come into view. It has to do with deliverance from some physical danger or disabling circumstance
Now what I’m saying is I think Jude could easily have meant two things here: rescue the lost with the Gospel and rescue Christians who are going astray because of false teachers. Like the 1 sheep out of 100 that wandered off and the shepherd leaves the 99 to go after it, he went after it to save it by snatching it out of the fire and bring it back to travel with the flock of righteousness.
Secondly, because the context of Jude’s letter is the danger of false teachers to lead believers astray into deception and sinful living. Saving Christians would be referring to the idea of saving them from following false teachers down the wrong path. Taking it a little further, Jude’s thoughts have turned now away from excoriating the false teachers (3-19) and now in verses 20-23 he is instructing the believers in how they positively ought to live as faithful believers. In other words, he has believers in view. Believers should not only be saving the lost out of a mercy towards them, but believers should also mercifully help other believers by saving them and snatching them out of the wrong paths they may be going on.
A third reason I think Christians are in view, is that the specific language Jude uses actually calls to mind the OT prophets Zechariah and Amos, who used the same language of snatching from a fire. Turn with me first to Amos 4:11. Speaking to rebellious Israel God says “I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire, yet you have not returned to me.’ Says the LORD.” They were not burned out of existence like Sodom and Gomorrah, but only part of them, some of them. It was a warning to the rest of them to repent and turn to the LORD. Actually the whole chapter is filled with God saying, “But you did not return to me.” They were rebellious, unrepentant, and unresponsive. God burned them – judged them – like he judged Sodom and Gomorrah – because they were sinning like those notorious cities. But God only ruined some of them to cause the rest of them to repent. He spared them to give the chance. You could say that Israel was thrown into the same fire of divine judgment as Sodom and Gomorrah but they were snatched out, suffering but surviving, so that they could return to the Lord in obedience. But they did not return.
The same thing is seen in Zechariah 3:1-5. You have this picture of someone being snatched out of the fire for the purpose of obedience.
So I think there is a place for understanding that Christians may need to be delivered from God’s fire. Now Christians are saved, and can’t lose their salvation. But we do learn that there is the fire of CHrist’s judgment of our CHristian lives that will show what our CHristian life was really made of. Turn to 1 Corinthians 3:12-15 with me. Notice how Christians will face fire. The quality of our CHristian life will be shown for what it is on that day.
So when Jude says “snatch others from the fire” there is a sense in which that can apply to Christians. From time to time we may have brothers and sisters whose living needs confronting. And at times we will need to be confronted ourselves. A Christian can live in such a way that the kind of “Christian” life they are “building” is in danger of being burned up on the day of Christ. Connect this with the purpose of Jude’s letter: that the day of Christ would be a joyful one where there is no fault in the CHristians to be seen. In other words, the fire of His examination will prove the faithfulness of our lives to Him, the precious stones we chose to build with, and therefore result in great joy, great glory, and great reward.
APPLICATION: Do you want more reward or less reward on the day you are judged by Jesus Christ? Its up to you. Its up to you how you want to live right now which determines whether you receive more reward from your Judge, or less.
APPLICATION to the APPLICATION: Our devotion to Christ is not to keep our salvation, but to gain our reward.