James-Jude: NT227 Letters to Everyone General & Johannine ... · 2 Peter-Jude: Little Letters With...

James-Jude:

Transcript - NT227 James-Jude: Letters to Everyone General & Johannine Epistles© 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

1 of 11

LESSON 02 of 03NT227

2 Peter-Jude: Little Letters With Big Messages

James-Jude:Letters to Everyone General & Johannine Epistles

I. Introduction to 2 Peter and Jude

After 1 Peter comes 2 Peter, and we want to take together the epistle of 2 Peter and the short little epistle of Jude, even though it is separated canonically by the three epistles of John.

A. Literary Relationship

Much like the Synoptic Gospels, most scholars have believed that there is some kind of literary relationship between 2 Peter and Jude, particularly because the second and middle of the three chapters of 2 Peter is extremely close in wording, in detail, and in concepts to the body of the entire short, one-chapter epistle of Jude. In fact, it is usually assumed that Jude was written prior to 2 Peter because Jude is more tightly organized in a literary fashion. Second Peter 2 seems to draw on Jude but interrupt the sequence of illustrations, and appears slightly more disjointed. Also, it makes sense to assume that Jude is the earlier of the two epistles because as the considerably shorter one of the two, there would have been little need for Jude to have been written if 2 Peter was already in existence.

B. Date

If we assume that Peter wrote 2 Peter, though in a few moments we will notice considerable debate about this issue, then 2 Peter must be dated prior to the martyrdom of Peter, at least as church tradition describes it, under Nero, by no later than A.D. 68. That, in turn, means that Jude must precede 2 Peter, but we have few other clues as to how much earlier it may be. Given that it breathes the atmosphere of apocalyptic Judaism, is designed almost entirely around illustrations and examples from the Old Testament and intertestamental Jewish literature, it may

Craig L. Blomberg, Ph.D.Distinguished Professor of New Testament Studies

at Denver Seminary in Littleton, Colorado

Transcript - NT227 James-Jude: Letters to Everyone General & Johannine Epistles © 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.


2 of 11

Lesson 02 of 03

well go back to a very early date in the first generation of Christian history. But beyond that we cannot be any more precise. Nor can we know much about the place in which it was written or the nature of the audience for whom it was written. The false teachers who are described are described in very general terms. About the only other thing we know is the claim of verse 1 that this short letter was written by Jude, the brother of James, and therefore presumably a reference to Jude, the other half-brother of our Lord—along with James, the half-brother and author of the epistle bearing his name.

II. Analysis of Jude

Indeed, the sum total of the letter of Jude seems to be a some-what ad hoc or ad hominem attack on these unspecified false teachers, not so much in terms of the content of their teaching but of the nature of the individuals involved. After an introduc-tion that spans the first four verses of the letter and describes how Jude had originally hoped to write about more positive or edifying features, the body of the letter from verses 5-19 then continues with this tirade against the false teachers that Jude’s audience must guard.

A. False Teachers

Verses 5-7 illustrate the immorality of these false teachers by various Old Testament analogies. Verses 8-10 give Old Testament analogies again for the blasphemous nature of the false teaching. Verses 11-12a focus on the false leadership of these heretics, verses 12b-13 on their lawlessness, verses 14-16 on their certain and coming judgment, and verses 17-19 on the necessity of their existence. One exegetical item of interest that has raised eyebrows is Jude’s appeal to the book of Enoch and to The Assumption of Moses, intertestamental literature. In making these appeals he is not claiming that these books are inspired or should be treated as canonical, any more than Paul was in Athens when he quoted Greek poets. Rather, he is using select verses or portions of this literature, which he believes are true, and therefore valuable analogies, for the points he wishes to make. Verses 20-25 close this short letter with an encouragement to stand firm.



3 of 11

Lesson 02 of 03

B. Application

Jude is perhaps the most neglected book, certainly one of the most neglected books in all of the New Testament, and understandably so. But despite its strangeness and its brevity, there is one very significant application that we may derive from it for any age of Christian history or experience. That may be phrased by the statement “tolerance has its limits.” While Paul certainly gave models of bending over backwards to the outsiders to Christian life and faith, Jude, like Paul, dealing with false teachers within the church, speaks in no uncertain terms, warning Christians against them. In our modern, very pluralistic age, when at one level it is very appropriate, particularly in democracies, to have legal freedoms and exhibit toleration, indeed love and respect, for those whose religious worldviews are quite different from our own, Jude reminds us that there are certain beliefs and particularly practices that become downright dangerous for Christians’ salvation or well-being, and at this point tolerance indeed has its limits. There are times to stand fast and to stand firm against error.

III. 2 Peter

Second Peter chapter 2, as we have already noted, develops many of these same comments.

A. Authorship and Date

Second Peter also appears in a very different Greek style from 1 Peter, leading many to question its authenticity. It also contains theology, much like the Pastoral Epistles, that seems to be at a generation or so removed from the first generation of Christianity: those who are now complaining that the world carries on for a long time without any sign of God’s intervention or presence, having to deal with the concern of the delay of the parousia of Christ’s return—all of which have suggested to many commentators, both ancient and modern, that Peter perhaps is the pseudonymous product of the end of the first century or even the early second century, and therefore not authentically Petrine. On the other hand, if Silas was the amanuensis of Peter’s, the scribe in 1 Peter, that could



4 of 11

Lesson 02 of 03

account for the considerably better and more polished Greek of the first epistle bearing Peter’s name. Second Peter can, in fact, be understood as reading like what a once untutored Galilean fisherman might have been able to produce learning Greek as an adult as a second language and without complete command of its rhetorical niceties. The concerns about the delay in Christ’s coming and other issues that breathe the air of a later generation of Christian thought, we have seen earlier, are in fact issues that crop up as early as say 1 and 2 Thessalonians. We must not imagine Christianity developing in a linear or uniform fashion so that certain issues and certain debates could only have occurred in a later generation.

There is one other factor that may help us to account for both the concerns and questions about 2 Peter, questions that interestingly arose even in the early church, and that is Peter’s reference in 2 Peter 1:15 to writing in a way that will allow, after his departure, the things he has said to be remembered. If departure here refers to his death, as it does in some other New Testament contexts, Peter may know that his martyrdom is imminent. He may be writing a letter similar to what 2 Timothy was for Paul, as a kind of last will and testament and charge to the communities that he addressed in 1 Peter, to be prepared to carry on without him. It may even be the case that the form of his writings were drawn up by one of his followers posthumously. This could account, then, for some of the concerns that seem to suggest a later hand or a later generation. At any rate, we will proceed on the assumption that Peter is, in the large part, behind this writing, and therefore that the bulk of its thoughts, at the very least, should be dated to 68 A.D. or earlier.

B. Analysis and Outline

Chapter 1:1-15 provide opening remarks and illustrate that the central theological concern at hand for 2 Peter, that the false teachings and false teachers he has to combat are embroiled with, involves this issue of the delay of Christ’s return. Peter here alludes as an eyewitness of Jesus’ transfiguration to defend the certainty of Christ’s return. He has seen with his own eyes a foretaste of the way Jesus will one day be revealed to all humanity, and the way in which human history will climax. And therefore,



5 of 11

Lesson 02 of 03

however long or short the seeming delay is before Christ’s appearance, the parousia can be defended, to be certain. This occupies particularly verses 16-21 of chapter 1.

Then chapter 2 turns to the denial of the parousia that the false teachers seem to be caught up with, and, much as in Jude, not so much outlining a refutation of their theology as an attack on their person and character and the warning of the severe judgment that the false teaching brings. The issue about the seeming delay of Christ’s return then is addressed most directly in 3:1-10, where Peter quotes Psalm 90:4, that a thousand years are “like a day in God’s sight.” The Lord is not slow as some count slowness, but is not wishing that any should perish. However long God tarries before sending Christ to return and to sum up human history as we know it, there is one primary reason for this apparent delay. Once the end comes, there will no longer be a chance for anyone to turn to Jesus and to be saved. As long as He delays, there is still time for more to come to repent. Chapter 3:11-18 then conclude with some resulting implications for Christian living.

C. Problem of Evil

Although it is a short letter, 2 Peter is perhaps the most significant New Testament document to address questions of what philosophers call “theodicy”—that is to say, the problem of evil. Why does an all-powerful and all-loving God continue to allow evil and suffering, particularly among His people in this life? There are a number of important scriptural answers to this question, but the one that Peter points us to, particularly in 3:8-10 of 2 Peter, may be the most significant one of all. Evil and suffering is bound up with the fallen life of free agents in this world, and therefore can never be eradicated apart from Christ’s return and the complete obliteration of fallen humanity as we know it now and the complete transformation of those who are God’s people. In other words, the suffering and evil that is here is a necessary part of life in this fallen order. When it is eradicated, there will no longer be a chance for anyone to repent. However long God gives us, therefore, the evangelistic mandate—the mandate to share our faith, to make our lives count for the kingdom in everything that we do—is surely the most pressing need as we wrestle with life in these fallen times.



6 of 11

Lesson 02 of 03

IV. 1 John

We turn now to the three General Epistles, or at least so they have historically been called, that are attributed to John: 1, 2, and 3 John. Although, as we have mentioned earlier, it is only 1 John that is apparently a general letter addressed to a variety of Christian congregations. Early church history attributes these epistles, like the gospel and like the book of Revelation, which we will survey in the coming two lessons, to the aged apostle John, now an old man living and ministering as he has for a number of years in and around the Christian communities of Ephesus in western Asia Minor.

A. Date and Authorship

By the time we reach the epistles of John we are at least into the late 80s if not even the early 90s of the first century. We mentioned earlier, briefly, in our discussion of the gospel of John, that there is testimony from the second-century Christian Papias preserved later in the writings of the third-century Christian historian Eusebius, that there may have been a second John, a disciple of the apostle by that name, who is called the “elder John.” This would account for the references in 2 and 3 John, in the opening verses, to the author as one who is simply called the “elder,” or another translation of the word is the “presbyter.”

On the other hand, it is not entirely clear from Papias’ testimony that he is referring to two different men named John. He may be referring to the apostle in two different roles, as both an apostle and an elder or leader in the local church in and around Ephesus. At any rate, 1 John appears without any ascription of authorship or title at the beginning at all, but its style and themes are so close to those of 2 and 3 John that almost all scholars, whatever their position on authorship is, attribute the three epistles to the same hand. The style is also very similar to the gospel and, with a few differences, relatively close to the author of the book of Revelation.

B. Background

If we assume that the sequence of writings attributed to John occurred in their canonical order, we may trace interesting developments in the Ephesian community at the end of



7 of 11

Lesson 02 of 03

the first century. We mentioned briefly that the gospel of John seems to have been written to combat Docetism, or, to put it another way, to contextualize the Gospel in an arena in which Gnostic thought that had trouble with the humanity of Jesus, that believed that Jesus only seemed to be human (the Greek work dokeo, meaning “seem,” is the one from which the term Docetism is derived).

It may be, just as we saw 1 and 2 Thessalonians balancing each other out, and in a sense the latter letter correcting a misinterpretation or exaggerated emphasis on the themes of the former, that we may see a similar progression in the letters attributed to John. John’s gospel, contextualizing the Gospel for a community caught up in Gnostic thought, may at some points have made the points so well that certain themes needed to be corrected in John’s later epistles. Four of these may be mentioned: (1) the emphasis on Christ’s deity; (2) a strong dichotomy between law and grace; (3) an emphasis on eternal life beginning here and now; what scholars call realized, or imminent, eschatology; (4) and a less or smaller amount of emphasis on Christ’s atoning death. All of these features of the gospel of John seem to be balanced out by opposing emphases in 1 John. One can be even perhaps a bit more precise. Early Christian tradition says that by the time John was writing the epistles that bear his name one particular Gnostic teacher by the name of Cerinthus was proving particularly troubling to the Christian community in and around Ephesus. And this teacher was known for three particularly distinctive doctrines of first-century Gnosticism: a perfectionism that believed that Christians could attain to a sinless state in this life; an antinomianism—that is, a reaction against the law that allowed room for few, if any, moral or ethical absolutes; and, as we just mentioned, a Docetism, a belief that Jesus only seemed to be human, rather than being fully human.

C. Analysis and Outline

There are three themes that seem to characterize 1 John, which is otherwise about as difficult to outline as the letter of James. And these three themes are that the true disciple of Jesus will keep the commandments, the commandments as understood in the eyes of Jesus’ teaching; will love one another; and will believe in Christ’s full humanity, as well



8 of 11

Lesson 02 of 03

as His deity. These are the natural emphases, if indeed John is opposing incipient Gnosticism.

One possible way to outline 1 John, then, is to notice how it appears that he cycles through these three key themes. One commentator, writing on 1 John has entitled the book “The Tests of Life.” And a helpful way to understand what John is doing in this first and most prominent of his epistles is to compare him with both James and Paul. Paul, of course, majored on the theme of justification by faith alone in Jesus as the one who was completely human and completely divine. James, on the other hand, stressed the works that flowed from faith. We mentioned earlier that Paul was not in contradiction with James, because he talks too about the works that are demonstrated in love—“faith working through love,” as Galatians 5:6 puts it.

It seems that John, in essence, is combining all of these emphases of both Paul and James in his concern to have a correct Christology—to believe in Jesus as the God-man; to have that faith issuing in love—love for one another particularly within the Christian community; and to stress that love has a moral content to it that involves obeying ethical commandments. John may not have been consciously trying to harmonize the apparent tension between James and Paul, but it is clear that he affirms all of the teachings of his two canonical predecessors. We may think, then, of the outline of 1 John as cycling through each of these three tests of life, though not always in the same sequence.

D. Cycles

Chapter 1:5-2:6, following an introductory prologue reminiscent of the prologue of John, introduces the theme of keeping the commandments, and stresses, on three different occasions, the impossibility of anyone legitimately to claim to have been without sin—an appropriate reminder against the perfectionism of the Gnostics. Chapter 2:7-17 introduces the theme of loving one another, and contrasts that with the famous lusts of the flesh and of the eyes and of the pride of life that characterize human temptation, in 2:16. Chapter 2:18-27 then introduces the third key theme of believing in Jesus as the God-man, and points to the Gnostic heretics who have begun to leave the community,



9 of 11

Lesson 02 of 03

in 2:19, as an example of the behavior that is to be avoided or shunned. First John 2:19 is also an important theological passage for those who believe in the doctrine of eternal security. John says that those who left, seemingly having been Christians previously, “went out from us because they were not of us. For if they were of us, they would not have gone out from us.”

This cycle of three key themes, then, repeats, 2:28-3:10, again referring back to the commandments. In this context, particularly in verses 6 and 9 of chapter 3, it seems at first glance that John is contradicting the point that he stressed so strongly in the opening section of the body of his letter. Here he makes statements to the effect that those who are in Christ do not sin. We must understand this, however, as the characteristic Greek use of the present tense to refer to consistent, ongoing patterns of behavior. Christians, John is saying, are not characterized by a lifestyle of sin. When he says, “no one who is born of God sins,” we must translate it with some modern translations that no one who is born of God “continues” or “keeps on” sinning. He is not contradicting the point that he made in chapter 1.

Chapter 3:11-24, then, reintroduce the theme of loving one another, and use this in a context of assurance. There are people in John’s day and in many other times and places who wonder if they really have believed properly in Jesus. Perhaps there are various intellectual doubts that come to mind. It may not help to go back and ask what they did when they first placed their faith in Christ; it is that very experience they are questioning. Sometimes it is much more reassuring to point to ways in which people’s lives have been transformed. If they are now demonstrating love and obedience that they did not earlier, this may be an important mark of their true Christian faith. Chapter 4:1-6, then turn again to correct Christology, and includes the famous command to “test the spirits,” recognizing that not all that professes to be Christian truly is. If either the full humanity or deity of Jesus is denied more particularly, we do not have genuine Christian belief.

The final cycle of tests follows a different sequence. Chapter 4:7-21 deal with love, including the famous definition of God as love in 4:8. Chapter 5:1-15 return to the issue of correct Christology, and includes a statement that also



10 of 11

Lesson 02 of 03

impinges on the issue of Christian assurance, namely that we who currently remain faithful in believing in Jesus as the Son of God can be assured that we have eternal life. And 5:16-21 round out the letter by returning to the theme of keeping God’s commandments, introducing in this context the vexing question of a mortal sin, which probably should be interpreted along the lines of our earlier comments on the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit—not something that a true Christian can do, but rather something like the warning passages in Hebrews 6 and 10 that if one commits apostasy, one demonstrates one was not a genuine Christian initially.

V. 2 John

The short two epistles that we know of as 2 and 3 John then round out this collection of General Epistles that we have been surveying. Second John is written to someone called simply “the elect lady,” but it has regularly been understood throughout church history that this is the conventional use of the feminine to refer to an entire Christian congregation, probably one specif-ic house church somewhere in or around Ephesus. It seems here that the false teachers who were leaving the church in 1 John are now coming back from the outside, trying to infiltrate it and take more people away. It is in this context that the teachings of vers-es 9 and 10 of this letter must be taken—welcoming false teach-ers into their home. John’s prohibition against such activity is not a command that we slam the door in the face of someone witnessing from another faith or refuse to enjoy fellowship with them. How else would they ever hear of the Christian message or see the love of God in us? Rather, if we understand the “home” of 2 John to be a house church, we are not to welcome false teach-ers into Christian congregations or give them platforms for their teaching.

VI. 3 John

The little letter of 3 John is written to an otherwise unknown first-century Christian by the name of Gaius, who is commended for his hospitality. Two other names appear in this short epistle: a man by the name of Diotrephes, who apparently is opposing John in what may be yet another house church, and a man by the name of Demetrius, who has stood firm despite the opposi-

Transcript - NT227 James-Jude: Letters to Everyone General & Johannine Epistles© 2019 Our Daily Bread University. All rights reserved.

Christ-Centered Learning — Anytime, Anywhere

11 of 11

2 Peter-Jude: Little Letters With Big MessagesLesson 02 of 03

tion. We know very little else about the details of the characters, especially because John, in both 2 and 3 John, says that he has more to say but he will try to do that when he comes in person. But we are reminded by 3 John of the importance of Christian hospitality, particularly in an era when public accommodation was generally not safe and Christians had to take care of one an-other, especially their itinerant ministers as they traveled about.

If 3 John is the last of the three letters bearing his name, we may also see a somewhat depressing or discouraging sequence in which now some of the false teachers have actually come back into the church, successfully infiltrated it, and are oppos-ing those who wish to remain firm to orthodoxy. Yet, in another way, this may be a backhanded reminder and encouragement that even a church that has had as much apostolic ministry as Ephesus—first Paul, later Peter, and now John—has free will, has the choice to respond to that ministry as it wishes. And in issues and in settings today when we have been as faithful as we know how in Christian ministry and yet have seen matters deteriorate, we may need to recognize the sovereignty of God and the free responsibility of human choice and not heap a huge guilt com-plex on ourselves.

James-Jude: NT227 Letters to Everyone General & Johannine ... · 2 Peter-Jude: Little Letters With...

Documents

Transcript of James-Jude: NT227 Letters to Everyone General & Johannine ... · 2 Peter-Jude: Little Letters With...