“For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.”
For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord — these false teachers have infiltrated the community covertly (pareisaktos, 'slipped in secretly'), and Jude frames their presence as the actualization of ancient prophecy concerning apostasy in the end times. Their perversion of grace into licentiousness (aselgeia) represents a fundamental inversion of the gospel: they transform God's merciful gift into permission for unbridled sensuality and ethical dissolution. Their denial of Christ's sole sovereignty and lordship likely involves docetic or antinomian theology that severs Christ's ethical authority from his metaphysical claims, liberating followers to live according to the flesh.
Church Fathers on Jude 1:4
Jude, who wrote the Catholic Epistle, the brother of the sons of Joseph, and very religious, whilst knowing the near relationship of the Lord, yet did not say that he himself was His brother. But what said he? Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ,--of Him as Lord; but the brother of James. For this is true; he was His brother, the son of Joseph. For certain men have entered unawares, ungodly men, who had been of old ordained and predestined to the judgment of our God; not that…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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