These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever. (Jude 12-13, NIV)
How are we to view those who try to lead the church astray?
Some see people who bring a different teaching that isn’t orthodox as a gift to the church because they’re rescuing her from her old way of thinking. Some view these so-called teachers as doing nothing more than trying to help those trapped in a system of thought and a way of viewing the world that is abhorrent to the rest of mankind. They’re here to help; not to harm. They’re here to walk alongside; not to lead. They’re here to set free; not to control. They’re here to get the church out of her old way of thinking and shine her up a bit so she can be helpful to the world.
Jude, however, sees them quite differently.
In Jude’s short but aggressively loving letter, he doesn’t pull any punches while addressing the church and preparing her for those who have crept in and will creep in later (Jude 4). Jude doesn’t have time to minister to those who are bent on tearing the church down and rebuilding her in their image. His main responsibility is to protect. He’s their shepherd he’s exercising his shepherding responsibility by being up-front in identifying the ungodly “teachers.”
Jude ins’t content with simply calling them ungodly. He strings together a number of analogies that help them and us recognize who they really are.
Jude calls them blemishes at your love feasts because they mark up and scar what’s good and healthy. Jude calls them shepherds feed only themselves because they care not about the church and those who make her up. Jude calls them clouds without rain, blown along by the wind, because they produce nothing good and lack self-control. Jude calls them autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead—because a tree without fruit is good for nothing but to be cut down and burned. Jude calls them wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame, because shame is all that drives them and shame is all they give. Lastly, Jude calls them wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever, because even though they look bright there’s no real light in them.
Jude’s love for God and for his brothers and sisters in Christ moves him to be crystal clear about those whom like nothing more than to lead the faithful astray. Now, we could dwell on these ungodly ones and come away worried but Jesus won't have it that way and Jude doesn’t leave his readers that way. He ends his letter with maybe the greatest doxology in the New Testament.
To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. (Jude 24-25, NIV)