We have seen in verses 22 and 23 Mercy for the doubters and mercy for the lost. Today we look at the 3rd point, from verse 23, mercy for the contaminated.
MERCY FOR CONTAMINATED (23b)
Then we come to the last half of verse 23, where Jude urges us to have mercy for those who are contaminated. “…to others show mercy mixed with fear – hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.”
Jude has several things going on there. Who are these “others” Jude is talking about? What is it about them that they need mercy? Why does our mercy towards these people need to be mixed with fear? What is “clothing stained by corrupted flesh” all about? And why are we supposed to hate it?
It appears these others are involved in sin. It may be that there are believers who have been led off track by these false teachers and they’ve gone into sexual immorality or some kind of sin. Probably sexual immorality since that is the sin repeatedly brought up by Jude. READ verses 4-7 again.
That it is probably sexual sin is seen further in the companion passage of 2 Peter 2:18. Turn there with me. Look at how these false teachers are leading believers astray, “For they mouth empty boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error.” Peter says these false teachers lead people astray by appealing to the lustful desires of their flesh. Jude talks about those who are led astray saying their clothing is stained by the corrupted flesh. Jude and Peter are talking about the same scenario: weak or young believers vulnerable to false teaching get led down the wrong path by false teachers.
Paul warned about living this way in 1 Thessalonians 4:3-8…. False teachers call people to live immoral and sexually defiled lives, but God calls us to holy and pure lives.
So why do these believers need mercy? Remember mercy is helping someone who is in need. A believer who has gone into sin is in need of other believers who are willing to come get them. What if a believer in this church were to get caught up with a false teacher’s teaching and start down the path of immorality? The Bible gives us instruction for what to do. Matthew 18 gives us the 4 step process. This is supplemented by Titus 3. Then our attitude for going through the process is described in Galatians 6. First Corinthians 5 describes the rationale. All of these passages and more are actually instructions for mercy. They show us God’s plan for carefully, humbly, lovingly, leading someone back to the right path.
Here’s the thing: when it is done right by the church and the sinning brother responds the right way – humble repentance – the process serves as an amazing catalyst for spiritual growth of the person and the church. Here the words of Daniel 11:35 seem to have another application, “Some of the wise will stumble, so that they may be refined, purified and made spotless until the time of the end…” Its the idea that God allows the stumbling in a person’s life because out of that failure He is going to work greater purity and righteousness. “I discipline those whom I love” Jesus said in Revelation. “He who began a good work in you will continue it on until the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1 says). And that good work is not necessarily to always prevent failure, but to incorporate it into the believer’s life so that believer learns greater lessons that lead to greater sanctification. Think of examples in the Bible:
- Jesus told Peter, “Satan has asked to sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you. After you have returned strengthen your brothers
- John Mark abandoned the mission trip with Paul and Barnabass in the book of Acts, and Paul refused to ever take him on a mission trip again. But Barnabas and Peter mentored John Mark and we see later in Paul’s life he worked with John Mark again and held him in high esteem.
- David sinned with Bathsheba and then killed her husband. But Nathan finally confronted him and David gloriously confessed and repented. And we have the fruit of that repentance in Psalm 51 – a Psalm that blesses all of us.
Jude tells us that our mercy should be mixed with two things: fear and hate. First, fear. Fear in the sense of we must be careful that in detangling someone from their sin we ourselves don’t get tangled. Fear that while trying to help someone purify their life we don’t end up defiling ourselves. That the stain we are trying to clean in someone else doesn’t stain us. “If someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently” Galatians 6:1 says. Then it immediately says this: “But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.”
You may be tempted by the same sin they are doing. Or you may be tempted to be harsh and judgmental because you’re impatient and merciless towards them in their sin. Either way, rather than leading someone out of sin you now have added sin to the situation in God’s eyes. So when someone is staining themselves with sin we must gently restore them and yet be humbly careful – letting our fear of getting caught in sin ourselves keep us attentive so that we don’t get caught in sin ourselves.
APPLICATION: Don’t automatically assume you’re the right person to correct someone else. There is a sense in which we are all accountable to all of us. But be careful that you carefully and humbly examine yourself before examining someone else. Some people spend 99 percent of their energy examining others and have all the energy in the world for correcting others but they only ever spend 1% of their time examining themselves.
Second, notice now Jude says we are to mix our mercy with hatred: “hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.” What does that mean?
Gnostics would love this verse. They would say “See, our physical bodies are evil and there is nothing good about them and so therefore our whole goal is to escape these bodies to reach purity.” Echoing Cicero who said, “we’ll surely attain happiness once we leave these bodies behind.”
As a sidenote, understanding this was a battle in the early days of the Church will shed light on certain passages. For instance, in Act 17 when Paul had the Greek philosophers on the edge of their seats with his preaching, it says as soon as he brought up the resurrection they sneered and lost interest in his message. And again in 1 John 4 it says “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not is not from God.”
But the idea Jude is getting at is not as though my Levi jeans now have to be washed because they touched my defiled skin. No – in the bible clothing is often symbolic of our deeds. How we “clothe” ourselves is how we choose to act and behave. Turn with me to Revelation 3:4, “Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes.” Their clothes are their conduct and stain means sin – they don’t have sinful conduct.
You’ll remember from last week we saw that in Zechariah 3:1-6…
“Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Take off his filthy clothes.’ Then he said to Joshua, ‘See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you.” Then the angel went on to charge Joshua to walk obediently before the Lord. I’ll note that he was given clean clothes first – and then he was to live up to those clean clothes!
APPLICATION: Get your filthy clothes removed and get the fine clean clothes from Jesus Christ.
APPLICATION: Get dressed with Christ! Turn to Romans 13:11-14 with me. Clothe yourself with Christ means that you behave and act like Jesus in your conduct.