I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. Jude 1:5
Today we are going to take a look at maybe one of the most interesting verses in the entire New Testament. The Apostle Jude under the influence of the Holy Spirit makes reference to the Exodus of the Israelites, however Jude gives us a deeper revelation, as He reveals it was Jesus Christ who actually led the Israelites out of Egypt and through the wilderness.
This little detail brings so much confirmation to our essential doctrines of Christianity, such as the Trinity and the Deity of Christ. Yes Jesus Christ is God incarnate, if there is any doubt of that, you would have to reject text such as this from the Apostle Jude. If you actually look at the original Greek, its actually the name of Jesus (Lesous) instead of Lord (Kyrios) There is no doubt , it was our Lord Jesus Christ that was with the Israelites throughout the entire Exodus and beyond
So lets get into the heart of the text, what is the point the Holy Spirit is trying to make here? Some would suggest this text supports the idea you can “lose your salvation”, as if somehow you earned your salvation and then somehow you lost it. As you can probably tell, I reject this idea of losing your salvation, because first of all you never earned your salvation to begin with. The grace of God is something we can’t earn , its a gift of God , so none of us should boast (Ephesians 3:8-9) This idea that we did something to gain favor with God, and then lost it, in my opinion is a complete lack of understanding of the grace of God
So what is the Apostle Jude talking about? And how did these Israelites become destroyed? The late Dr. Michael Heiser made an interesting point, and I’m paraphrasing from the top of my head. But he suggested election and salvation are not the same thing, just because someone is an elect doesn’t mean they are automatically saved. And we can apply this to even todays world, there are alot of people who are born of Jewish descent, does that mean they are automatically saved? No, the only way to salvation is to be Born Again in Christ, so the fact that these are Israelites and they were still destroyed shouldn’t be a big hurdle for us to wrap our minds around.
What is the difference between the Israelites that were saved or anyone who is saved? As the Apostle Jude state here “afterward destroyed them that believed not” Again if we look at the Greek, we can see the root word “Pistis” which is primarily translated as faith, that is translated as believed. These people didn’t truly have faith in Christ for salvation, this is what separates all of us from salvation. We can’t save ourselves or earn our salvation, its genuine faith in Jesus Christ that can only save us, Amen!
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