Jude, The Attributes Of False Teachers

Jude 12 These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots;

The NASB and ESV employ the phrase, “hidden reefs,” in place of, “spots,” in the beginning of verse 12. A spot can be likened to a blemish, which is the term the NIV uses in its translation. But a hidden reef has an even more insidious connotation. Imagine being on your boat at sea, approaching land, oblivious to the reef hiding just below the seemingly safe and placid water you are treading. What would happen? Your boat collides with the reef and you are either marooned against it, or your boat’s hull develops a leak and sinking is inevitable.

The idea of a spot or blemish is contrary to how the Bride of Christ is meant to be adorned. The Apostle Paul wrote Jesus’ intention for the church was to, “present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish,” Ephesians 5:27. Just as the people of Canaan were not to mingle with Israel when the Jews conquered the land, so too is the church not to mix Satanic and godly together, 2 Corinthians 6:15. The church is meant to be a body of believers; unbelievers are welcome to be in A church, of course, but always with the intention that they know that they are in need of the salvation Christ offers them, so they may be born again. Until then they are not a part of THE church; only born again saints are a part of the church, and unbelievers must believe the gospel of Jesus Christ before they are added to the church. In fact, that is the very thing that adds a person to the church: believing the message of the gospel. It has nothing to do with human instrumentality; it is all of grace and all of God.

Jude says of these men that they feast with Christians without fear. There is no fear of God in them; and this notion is not a reverential fear, but the most basic servile fear of God’s presence and authority within the church and the world He created. The result is that they serve only themselves. Christians are enjoined to esteem others as better than themselves. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others,” Philippians 2:3, 4, NIV. The opposite unfortunately occurs in the false teachers. They embody what Paul warns against at the beginning of the quoted passage. The reason being is that the actions of such men are animated or energized by selfishness and vanity. To be selfish is to be full of self. A selfish child hoards his toys and can’t make friends because he values who he is and what he has too highly; he esteems himself as better than others and is unwilling to condescend to share or care.

Jude conducts the terminology further, however. First they are spots or hidden reefs, fearless in their audacity. Now he refers to them as clouds without water, carried about by the winds. Paul, addressing the importance of being grounded in sound doctrine, wrote, “that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,” Ephesians 4:14. Peter refers to such men as, “wells without water, clouds carried by a  tempest,” 2 Peter 2:17. Having no spiritual and moral anchor to hold fast to, they steer where they will, pretending at freedom but being a prisoner to the tempest and changing times. Whatever the current trend popularly dictates, so they teach to curry favor, while trying to cling to some modicum of Christian orthodoxy so they can remain in the fold and exploit the saints. Paul wants believers to become adults in terms of doctrine. Why? So we do not succumb to charlatans peddling a false gospel wrapped in a shiny veneer, preaching something that feigns at being new, but whose lie can be traced back to the serpent of Eden.

The writer of Hebrews concurs, opining that the men he was writing to had regressed to a child-like understanding of God’s word when they should have already been fellow teachers, Hebrews 5:12. Having a firm grasp of Scripture will protect us from man’s trickery, with their cunning plots and deceit. Of those who peddle such drivel, Jude and Peter agree that they are driven by the wind and are empty within. The air is Satan’s domain (see Ephesians 2:2), and these men masquerade as servants of Christ, but are slaves of the enemy. They are void of water, which is life-giving. In natural life plants and animals need it to survive; people will die within 3+ days of not ingesting water. Spiritually we are told that Christ is the water of life, John 4:14. These men are void of it, and are driven by the wind wherever it may go.

Finally, the verse states that the false teachers are late autumn trees void of fruit and twice dead since they are pulled up by the root. These men possess no root; they cannot bear any fruit and have no life flowing through them. Jude calls them twice dead. The term is used again to grim effect in Revelation, where we read, “This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire,” Revelation 20:14, 15. All people are born physically alive, being born of water, John 3:5, 6. But Jesus our Lord assured us that unless we are likewise born of the Spirit, or born again, we do not have eternal life. If physical life is all we possess, we abide in death, and God’s wrath and judgment hangs over us, John 3:18, 36. All people die once (save those who are Raptured); but the unsaved die twice. They die physically, and are already dead spiritually. Their fate is to stand before the Great White Throne and be judged for their deeds done in the flesh before being cast into the Lake of Fire. Jude warns that these false teachers are twice dead, or will be should they die without believing and being saved. They lack the water of life; they cannot bear fruit because they have been plucked up from the ground. Since it is about Christmas time, many of us have live trees, rather than fake ones. My family does. But that tree, being cut down, isn’t alive any longer; the root system that sustained it was severed and so it is already dead. But it looks so alive, doesn’t it? At least for a time. So too is the condition of these men. They appear lively and religious, but within there is nothing of spiritual substance, being bereft of the Holy Spirit.