as that is to be revealed at His Messianic coming (vv. 16-18). A new light is therewith, on the one hand, thrown on the way in which the prophetic word (by means of Christ's Parousia; comp. also iii. 4) is fulfilled; and, on the other hand, this fulfilment has itself received a new security, so that we now possess the prophetic word as more sure (i. 19). If the prophetic word has, through the knowledge of Christ above everything else, become clearer and surer, then is hope, just as with Peter (§ 51), put into the central point of the Christian doctrine.

(c) If the prophetic word has received new light and new certainty by the appearance of Christ, it follows à priori that the knowledge of God, as of Him who has given us afresh these promises, must be at the same time a knowledge of Christ (i. 2), in whom He has given us them afresh, and it is hence expressly designated as such (i. 8, ii. 20, iii. 18). But Jesus is thereby acknowledged in His Messianic quality, in the first place, as our Lord (i. 2, 8; comp. vv. 14, 16; Jude 4, 17, 21, 25), or as the divine Lord simply (ó kúρios, iii. 2; comp. ii. 20), even as the only Lord (ó póvos deσtóτns, Jude 4; comp. ii. 1).5 As such is He praised by a doxology, iii. 18, as Jude refers it, to the only God (ver. 25); and His power, as the apostles proclaim it (i. 16), is a leía Súvaμis (ver. 3), because it can provide to us all that is needful for salvation. But as the Messianic Lord He is also the Messianic Saviour (ὁ κύριος ἡμῶν καὶ σωτήρ, i. 1, 11, iii. 18; comp. ii. 20, iii. 2: ó kúpios kaì σwrńp), and even therein is the security to the Christian for the con

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5 He can be Lord in the fullest sense, namely, as exalted to divine Lordship, since núpos here also occurs very often of God (ii. 9, 11, iii. 8, 9, 10; Jude 14; comp. vv. 5, 9 : ὁ κύριος ; iii. 15: ὁ κύριος ἡμῶν), as $ 50, α. Elsewhere in both Epistles Jesus is only Ἰησοῦς Χριστός ; the reading "Ιησοῦς (Jude 5) and Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς (ver. 1) are, without doubt, incorrect. According to the common reading, He would be called even esés; but then the reading ought to be xúpios. He is never called by Peter å viòs esoũ (i. 1); only in i. 17, with reference to the divine voice declaring Him the Son of God in the Messianic sense (note b), is God called Tarp (comp. 1 Pet. i. 2, 3, and therewith § 50, a, footnote 1). On the other hand, esos warp, in Jude 1, refers to the sonship of Christians (footnote 3).

• Even by Paul Christ is called our wrip, especially in the Pastoral Epistles (§ 108, a), where also God is so called (comp. Jude 25: i owing speño dice Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ), while here He is uniformly called simply σωτήρ, which for the thing agrees with the Petrine teaching (§ 50, d; comp. also Acts v. 31, and therewith § 40, d).

summation of salvation, which is throughout given with salvation from destruction. How far we have this security in Him is clear from i. 9, when it is presupposed that the Christian has cleansing from his former sins, and from ii. 1, where Christ is designated as the Lord who bought us.'

(d) With the knowledge of the promises given us through Christ, promises to whose fulfilment God has called us (i. 3, 4), there is connected, as is presupposed, ver. 5, faith, which here also, as with Peter (§ 44, a, footnote 2), and especially in the Epistle to the Hebrews (§ 125, 6), is regarded essentially as confidence in the fulfilment of the promise. If Jude 3 exhorts to contend for the faith, then the whole Epistle, in which doctrinal questions are nowhere dealt with, shows that we are not thereby to think of any doctrine of faith, but of an earnest striving, by which the temptation of morally falling away, rendering the common σwrηpía (ver. 3) in the end in vain, and therefore making the confidence on the consummation of salvation illusory, is overcome (v. 4). Faith is here, therefore, thought of as a blessing (as 2 Pet. i. 1), and even an irreparable one, because this blessing, once delivered by the apostles to the Christian Church of the present (Tois ȧyíos), if it comes to be lost, cannot be replaced by any other of equal value. Only as the most precious blessing, and

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7 As the consciousness of being cleansed from sin appears, according to i. 8, as a part of the knowledge of Christ, the thought is evidently of that cleansing from the guilt of sin (comp. § 123, a), effected by the sprinkling with the blood of Christ (1 Pet. i. 2; comp. § 49, c), as also ii. 1 reminds one of the Petrine airpwors (§ 49, d), i.e. of the deliverance from the dominion of sin, which salvation secures to us. Hence Schenkel, p. 371, asserts quite arbitrarily that the emphasis does not here lie on the sacrificial death of Christ, but on the value of His life, and that cleansing from sin is brought about only by baptism. Then, too, faith is regarded as a gift given through Christ (comp. 1 Pet. i. 21), and in so far as it conditions the consummation of salvation, as a most precious gift. The passage is only to be explained in this way, that the JewishChristian author writes to the Gentile Christians, who, on the ground of the appearance of Christ, have attained a confidence of the same consummation of salvation as the Jewish Christians, a confidence therefore equally precious, and that this is traced back to the righteousness of Christ, which gives salvation to Jew and Gentile with equal impartiality (read τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν καὶ σωτῆρος; comp. Gess, p. 421). On the other hand, there is no ground to take is here or in the Epistle of Jude in an objective sense, as Schmid, ii. pp. 216, 142, wishes; at the same time μn TVTs designates, without doubt, the want of trust on God, on account of which the murmuring generation of the desert perished (comp. Num. xiv.).

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hence one to be protected with the holiest earnestness, is faith also called, Jude 20, ayıóTATOS; and if it is here designated as the foundation on which the whole Christian moral life is built, there is in this implied only the fundamental thought of our Epistle, according to which knowledge or faith, for the sake of their objects, are the impelling motives for all striving after Christian virtue.

§ 128. The Striving after Christian Virtue.

Christian knowledge is shown as fruitful, when the proclamation of the salvation given in Christ stirs up zeal to strive after Christian virtue (a). That is to say, while this knowledge presents to us the promises, for the attainment of which we are appointed, it makes that attainment dependent on this, that we keep ourselves unspotted, and so by means of the promising and commanding word of God, it stirs up zeal to secure their fulfilment for us in the way pointed out (b). The essence of Christian morality consists partly, in general, in piety and righteousness springing from the fear of God, and partly, in particular, in love, especially brotherly love (c). The exhortation to strive after Christian virtue was all the more pressing at a time, when a libertinism in principle had made its appearance, a libertinism which in its false doctrine of liberty showed already the germ of an un-Christian heresy (d).

(a) He who lacks zeal to contribute his own moral energy (apern) with his faith, to what the divine ȧperý (i. 3) has done for his complete salvation (ver. 5), proves himself to be dull and unfruitful in reference to the knowledge of Christ (ver. 8), like an unfruitful tree (Jude 12). True knowledge must

9 Everything which comes from God is primarily designated in our Epistle as holy, as § 84, d, footnote 14, such as the Spirit of God (Jude 20; 2 Pet. i. 21) and the divine commandment (ii. 21); so also everything which belongs to God in a special sense, as His angels (Jude 14; comp. § 64, a), His prophets (iii. 2; comp. Luke i. 70, § 106, a), and Christians (Jude 3), whose walk must therefore be holy (iii. 11). But as even the Mount of Transfiguration is called, i. 18, holy because it has received a higher consecration through the experience of the apostle there (comp. Acts vii. 33, xxi. 28, vi. 13; Matt. xxiv. 15), so also, Jude 20, the predicate of dyiórns appears as the designation of a higher consecration, which this incomparable blessing is to have in the eyes of Christians.

therefore bear fruit for the moral life. One must be quite blind, or else very short-sighted and forgetful, if the knowledge that he has been cleansed from sin through Christ does not move him to avoid sin (i. 9). Whoever gives himself up to the false doctrine of liberty has denied the Lord, as though he had never known that He had delivered him from the dominion of sin (ii. 1). By the knowledge of the calling given us is everything bestowed on us which pertains to a true life, i.e. a life acceptable to God (i. 3; comp. Luke xv. 24, 32). Such a life is therefore the fruit of knowledge required, ver. 8. So far now as the preaching of the gospel with its promises produces this fruitful knowledge, these promises may be designated as that by which we are (born again, and so) made partakers (ver. 4) of the divine nature (that is to say, of God's peculiar ayıóτns; comp. § 45, d, footnote 6). Here also, as by Peter (§ 46, a), an immediate divine power must be ascribed to the word of the gospel proclamation, if, according to ver. 3, the Oeía dúvaμs of Christ, by the knowledge of our calling, gives us all that pertains to a true life; for this knowledge is imparted to us only by that proclamation.

(b) In consequence of the operation of God, which made use of the preaching of the gospel to evoke the knowledge that is both fruit-bearing and renewing, Christians have escaped from the stains with which the world, by quickening sinful desires in men, pollutes them (ii. 20: ȧTopVyóνTES Tà μiáoμата тоÛ Kóσμov év éπiyvwoel; comp. ver. 18), and also the destruction which rules in the world in consequence of these sinful lusts (ἡ ἐν κόσμῳ ἐν ἐπιθυμίᾳ φθορᾶς, i. 4).

1 Even in the First Epistle of Peter, it was stated how deliverance from the guilt of sin (ii. 24), and along with that the death of Christ Himself (i. 19), has actually also delivered us from sin and made us free (§ 49, d). Whoever is confirmed in Christian truth must know, according to 2 Pet. i. 12, that for the consummation of salvation there is need of striving after Christian virtue, by which knowledge is shown to be fruitful (vv. 5-11). But the unfruitful trees are said (Jude 12) to be twice dead, because they, being rooted up, can never again come to life.

2 The idea of the xóruos does not here designate, as with Paul (§ 67, a), the world of men under the dominion of sin, but, as in the early apostolic system of doctrine (§ 46, b, footnote 3; 55, a), the totality of creaturely existence, the present condition of the world (comp. also Heb. iv. 3, ix. 26, x. 5), so far as the enticing allurement to sin proceeds from it. The old condition of the world

Christians, therefore, no doubt in virtue of the destination to complete salvation given them by their calling, know themselves to be elected from the total mass of sinful men; but their calling and election has to be made sure (ver. 10) by zeal in the manifestation of that fruitful knowledge (ver. 5), i.e. the realization of the end thereby intended has to be assured.3 This happens, that is to say, in that the view of the promises given therewith quickens zeal to keep oneself even now holy and unspotted (comp. § 123, b), after one has by the power of God been once made partaker of His divine nature, i.e. become holy (i. 4), so that one may look for the final decision in peace, i.e. without anxiety, the decision which definitely settles the obtaining of what is promised (iii. 11, 14; comp. Jude 21). If this keeping, in virtue of which alone we can draw near joyfully to God's judgment-seat (Jude 24), is referred to the power of God (comp. ver. 1), then our Epistles give ground enough to understand this, with Peter (§ 46, a), of the work of God by His word. In the knowledge of Christ (ii. 20) we have received a holy command (i.e. one coming from God), which points out to us the way of righteousness (ver. 21). This command of Christ, the Messianic Lord and Saviour, which has been delivered to us by the apostles (iii. 2), and which likewise has been enjoined by Paul, according to the wisdom given him, in all his Epistles (vv. 15, 16), requires us to keep ourselves unspotted, in view of the expected final consummation (ver. 14).*

which perished with the flood (ii. 5, iii. 6), is expressly designated as the xócuss doßay (ii. 5), in order to characterize it as filled with godless men. As for bringing into prominence sinful lust as the characteristic quality of pre-Christian life, comp. § 46, b; 56, a; but also § 66, c.

3 This placing of xλñ, first, shows that the ideas of election and calling have not been put in the Pauline way (§ 88), but in the Petrine way (§ 45, b, footnote 2), to designate the same divine act from a different side. As here it is knowledge of the promises given to us in our Christian calling, so with Peter it is (§ 51, d) hope, which is the motive for all striving after Christian virtue.

If this commandment, transmitted in writing by Paul, is put into a position of equal authority with the word of the Old Testament Scriptures (iii. 16), then, according to ver. 2, the Lord's commandment, transmitted by the apostles agreeing therewith, is put side by side with the prophecies of the prophets; and from both passages it is clear, that here, as with Peter (§ 46, a), the preaching of the apostles is ever such a word of God, as is the word of God of the Old Testament (comp. also § 89, a; 116, b). As such, that commandment is likewise regarded as working with the power of God, like the word of the perfect law in VOL. II.