Now to Him [Dark days must be directed to God] who is able [no lack of resources] to keep you [a passionate guard] from stumbling [free from being blindsided by false teaching], and to make you stand [in confidence and dignity] in the presence of His glory [Note the contrast of destinies between the false and true.] blameless [applies to both character and pure doctrine] with great joy [the joy of divine mercies], to the only God our Savior [from hell and from error], through Jesus Christ our Lord [By worshiping Christ, we worship God], be glory [the display of his excellence] , majesty [coupled with glory], dominion [the unlimited sphere of His authority] and authority [coupled with dominion, the unlimited height of His authority], before all time and now and forever [past, present, and future – the eternity of God and limitlessness of His glory and authority]. Amen [the conclusion of a doxology of praise, an anxious desire to see its fulfillment].
God is our resource for this life. Dark days are present. The world is in darkness. Apostates abound. Blindness is ever increasing. Believers are few and far between. Where can we look? Ah, Jude directs our eyes in relief: “Now to HIM…” An inadequate view of God simply will not do, for we must look to Him. And as the world crumbles in error and Satanic oppression, we rest in a fixed gaze upon the great Preserver of His people, the Preserver who is interested in our condition in that He actively guards us. We are no better than the apostates in heart, nor are we more stable by nature than those who are doubting. But we do serve a God who can keep us from stumbling into sin and losing our way. Only confidence and joy in Him will do for the day in which we live. God alone is our resource for this life.
God is our assurance of future glory. Whereas apostates have only to weep for future judgment, our confidence is in joyously standing before God’s glorious presence in perfect blamelessness. Notice the hope of believers in this passage. God’s purposes of mercy are never incomplete, and we will be monuments of that fact in a coming day.
- It is God that makes us stand, for it was His purpose all along. In verse 1, Jude addressed his readers as “those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ.” This surely indicates a sovereign working of God in the life; therefore, how will He not make us stand in the last day?
- We stand in His presence in that He gives us a position of dignity. To stand is to be confident. To stand is to be unashamed. To stand is to belong in a place. Though our initial response will doubtless be falling at his feet as if dead, our eternal lot is confident service. How far we will have come from saying, “Woe is me, for I am ruined!” in the light of His glory. This is none other than a great salvation.
- It is the presence of His glory in that unparalleled beauty will envelop the scene. “Presence” has no meaning apart from Whose it is, and “glory” is qualified as being “His.” Therefore, God’s ultimate purpose for the believer is to see the beauty of His heart. The believer’s ultimate joy and hope is being brought unto God, seeing Him for Who He really is.
- We stand in great joy because we have seen the faithfulness of God until the end. One definition of this word is “transcendent gladness.” Finally, we will have a complete picture of God’s kindness throughout life, and we will only anticipate its unfolding throughout eternal ages (Eph. 2:7). Truly, this joy will be unparalleled and untouchable.
- We stand blameless, unaccused and untouched by the effects of sin and error, this to the extent that the holy and all-seeing God will have nothing to find. This is a tremendous contrast to the polluted garments of verse 23. This is the completeness of divine salvation.
God is our object of praise. His kindness cannot but draw out worship from our hearts, and most of our worship is simply bowing to Who He already is. Notice what Jude enjoyed of God in verse 25.
- God is alone. He is the only God. He is the only God that exists, yes, but He is the only God like Himself. Who is so perfectly holy as the God Who eternally condemns the unrighteous? Who is so perfectly kind as the God Who saves completely, making past sinners stand in dignity before His holy throne? Is such a God comparable? No, God is alone in His greatness.
- God is our Saviour. This is intrinsic to His being the unique God: “They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idol and pray to a god who cannot save. . . there is no other God besides Me, a righteous God and a Saviour; there is none except Me” (Isaiah 45:20-22). We know Him best as the God of salvation, for we are tokens of this very grace. Therefore, we have confidence to face the future, for He not only saves but also preserves. If sin and death were no match for the power of God, surely error and apostasy have no necessary hold on the Christian. Jude encourages his readers to trust again in the God they first believed, for He is their hope for dark days.
- God is praised through Jesus Christ our Lord. As the apostles are so careful to do, Jude ascribes glory to God based on the Person of the Lord Jesus. All that we know of God’s salvation, glory, majesty, dominion, and authority reside intrinsically in our Lord. God is invisible, and He has only made Himself known in His Son. Therefore, we glorify God by glorifying His Son.
- God possesses glory and majesty. Glory is His outward fame and radiant splendor, while majesty is His upward greatness and royal grandeur. He has displayed His glory in salvation and his majesty in exalting His Son. The Christian’s groaning is that the world would see God for Who He is, and we have this confident expectation.
- God possesses dominion and authority. Dominion is God’s strength to rule, while authority is God’s right to rule. No realm can resist His power, and no rank can rival His rule. Part of the Godness of God is His unsurpassability. This we willingly acknowledge to be His, and this too we desire that the world may see.
- God’s glory is comprehensively eternal. Jude tells us that God exists in an eternal present; all realities and times are equal to Him. Otherwise, why would Jude exult in and ascribe glory to God “before all time”? This must still be relevant to God’s Being. The same applies to the current time and eternity as it stretches out before us. God’s glory is a comprehensive thing. It knows no realm or time in which it is non-existent, for it fills all.
Dear believer, surely the God Who sees all and Whose glory fills all is able to guard you from stumbling throughout this life. The future is no threat to God. Rest in Him. Rejoice in Him. This is the only God. This is our God!
