Now Get To Work (2)

But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,  keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.  Jude 1:20-21  NIV

Keep yourselves in God’s love – The literal text places “yourselves in the love of God” before “keep.”  The verb is familiar.  It’s tēréō, “to watch over, to protect, to preserve.”  Jude echoes Paul.  Salvation isn’t really a one-way street.  Yes, God’s grace descends without earning it, but the process needed to transform the recipients takes active participation.  It’s dynamic, not static.  Being “saved” requires perseverance.  I’m sorry, but Calvin got it wrong.  Grace is not irresistible.  God’s action requires man’s reaction.  tēréō occurs in the first verse of Jude’s letter.  Jude is now closing with the same thoughts he used to open the message.  The basic meaning of this word is “to keep in view,” “to note,” “to watch over”; it takes on such nuances as “to rule,” “to observe,” “to ward off,” “to guard,” “to keep,” and in a transferred sense “to see to” “to apply oneself to,” “to defend oneself.”^[1]  No matter how you decide to translate it, it requires involvement.  Even grace isn’t served as a free lunch.

There is some debate over the prepositional phrase.  Should it be read “in God’s love for us” or “in our love for God”?  Commentators side with the latter.  There are reasons for the former, however.  Compare 1 John 4:16 and Abraham Heschel’s insight about God in need of Man.  You can think about this while you’re waiting.  Oh, yes, that’s the next thought in Jude’s letter—waiting.  But not passively.  prosdéchomai (to accept, await) is here translated as “waiting anxiously for.”  A present, middle participle, plural, indicating the same sense as the Hebrew קָוָה (qāwâ), “to wait, look for, hope.”  Notice that the Hebrew includes the idea of hope.  In the case of Jude, this waiting involves the hope for mercy, something that will happen in the future.  But we need to remember that “mercy” (éleos) is the most often used in the LXX as the translation of ḥeseḏ.  Once again we are reminded of reciprocity and transitivity.  God expects you to fulfill your IOU and to pass on whatever you have received from Him.  Actually, it’s more than an expectation.  It’s a demand, a condition of gracefulness.  How would the meaning of the text change if we used the Hebrew expression rather than the Greek?  If Jude has the idea of ḥeseḏ in mind, then this is not some kind of crying out for rescue.  It is rather the confident expectation of mutual obligation.  In that case, “anxiously” conveys the wrong emotion.  Perhaps “waiting expectantly” is closer to the Hebrew concept, and fits well the real Hebrew idea of hope.

Finally, we need to look at the preposition eis (in, into, until, etc.)^[2]  The English translation seems to suggest that we wait for eternal life in Jesus.  But the preposition can mean (and often does) “into” rather than “in,” as most Greek prepositions are primarily spatial.  Thus, the text would mean that we expectantly await the revelation of the eternal kingdom, that is, of moving into the Kingdom of God, here and now.  “Thy kingdom come on earth” is the sense of it, not surprisingly.  The real question raised by Jude’s statement is this: Are you working to bring in the kingdom?  That’s what Jude assumes.  But of course, he does.  How could it be otherwise?  So, what about it?  Are your actions facilitating Kingdom arrival?  Want to keep yourself in God’s love?  Ah, then get to work!

Topical Index:  tēréō, keep, guard, prosdéchomai, expectant waiting, ḥeseḏ, Jude 1:20-21

^[1] Cf. Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (pp. 1174–1175). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.

^[2] Cf. Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (p. 211). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans.

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