1 John 1:1 Although the early church attributed this “letter” to the apostle John, the author nowhere identifies himself by name in the text. For a long time, scholars at least thought that the letters John 1, 2, and 3 were written by the same hand as wrote the gospel of John, whoever that might be. But more recent scholarship has cast doubt on that theory as well, due to differences in vocabulary, style, and theology, some of which will be noted in the comments below. These differences “are so significant as to weigh against the tradition that equates the fourth evangelist with the author of 1 John.” (Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol.3, p.907.) There is, however, near universal agreement that the author of 1 John at least belonged to the same tradition as the author of the gospel, and makes use of many similar words and themes.
The “we” of these introductory verses is ambiguous. It is uncertain whether the author is using it as an editorial “we” meaning “I”, or “we” as in all Christians, or “we” in the sense of the apostles who witnessed the ministry of the living Jesus and who are now passing on this knowledge to “you” the reader.
1 John 1:5 The contrast between light and darkness is one of the recurring themes in 1 John. The author will also introduce other pairs of opposites, such as love vs. hate, truth vs. falsehood, sin vs. righteousness, and children of God vs. children of the devil. The effect of this “dualistic style [is] to stress the limitation of choices for the reader—alignment with one or the other side without recourse to a moderate position.” (Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol.3, p.903.)
The theme of light vs. darkness hearkens back to the creation story in Genesis, where God created light (Genesis 1:3), which he called day, and separated it from night, which was “a remnant of uncreated darkness.” (The New Oxford Annotated Bible, p.1, note.) By the time 1 John was written, the concept of darkness had been transformed from the mere absence of light into a positive force representing evil. (e.g., John 12:35; Romans 13:12; Ephesians 5:11) But if God did not create darkness (according to Genesis) and if darkness is a force which acts upon people, then God did not create everything which exists – contradicting Jeremiah 10:16, Psalm 146:6, Ecclesiastes 11:5; and John 1:3. See also the comment to 1 Timothy 4:4 for the ethical dilemma this poses for the Christians.
1 John 1:6 Introducing another pair of opposites: lies vs. truth.
1 John 1:7 There are two items worthy of note in this verse. First of all, it is the blood of Jesus which cleanses us from sin. This suggests a sacrificial role for the blood of Jesus, where the shedding of the blood atones for the sin which has been committed. 1 Peter 1:18-20 speaks of this redemptive effect of the shedding of Christ’s blood. See also Hebrews 9:22, which declares that “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” However, the gospel of John assigns a different role to the blood of Christ. There, it is not the shedding of blood, but the drinking of Christ’s blood which is the important act, and while the blood of Christ is said to bring eternal life, there is no mention of it washing away sins. (John 6:53-56)
As a second point, note that this verse tells us that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin, and this assurance is repeated in v.9. However, we read elsewhere that not all sins will be forgiven. Specifically, blasphemy against the holy spirit is an eternal sin which cannot ever be forgiven. (Mark 3:29; Matthew 12:32.)
1 John 1:8 The author warns his readers that if they claim to have no sin, they are not speaking the truth. The same message is given in v.10. Yet in 3:9 he tells them that no one born of God commits sin. Since he addresses his readers as “children of God” (3:1-2) there should be no sin in them, in contradiction to his claim here in 1:8.
Christians cannot get out of this contradiction by claiming a distinction between those who are “born of God” and those who are “children of God.” They may argue that those addressed were not originally born of God, but are nevertheless children of God through their conversion to Jesus Christ. But we read in 4:7 that whoever loves is “born of God,” and that includes the community he addresses, as we see in 3:14 and 4:19.
1 John 2:1 If they do sin, they have Jesus Christ as an advocate with God. But how could they ever sin, if indeed whoever is born of God cannot sin? (3:9)
Casting Jesus Christ in the role as advocate distinguishes 1 John from the gospel of John. In the gospel, the proclaimed advocate is the holy spirit. (John 14:26) According to the gospel, the advocate will not be Jesus Christ, but will be sent by him (John 15:26), and we see that the advocate envisioned in the gospel cannot possibily be Jesus Christ, because Jesus must go away in order for the advocate to come. (John 16:7) This difference in the identity of the advocate is one of the distinguishing features that leads scholars to conclude that 1 John and the gospel of John were written by different authors.
The Greek word for advocate is parakletos, which appears in both 1 John and in the quoted passages from the gospel of John. However, English translations obscure this fact by translating the word differently in the two sources – as “counselor” (RSV), “comforter” (KJV), or “helper” (NASB) in the gospel, and as “advocate” in the letter of 1 John.
1 John 2:2 Jesus is said to be the redeemer of the sins of the whole world. But Jesus himself saw his role as limited only to the Jews. (Matthew 15:24; 10:5-6; Mark 7:27)
1 John 2:3-4 Being a true follower of Christ means obeying his commandments. But Ephesians 2:15 claims that Jesus abolished the law of commandments. The importance of keeping Christ’s commandments is emphasized throughout this letter (3:22,24; 5:2-3), perhaps in rebuttal to the teaching of Paul, who de-emphasized obedience to commandments, and even assigned the commandments a role in producing sin (Romans 7:8-11) (See also Romans 3:28). Paul, of course, was speaking of the commandments of the Hebrew scriptures, but Jesus also commanded that these be kept. (Matthew 5:19; 19:17)
1 John 2:7-8 “I am not writing a new commandment to you” is immediately contradicted in the next verse by “I am writing a new commandment to you.” What the new commandment is is not stated. The contrast is so stark that we are naturally tempted to give the writer the benefit of the doubt and assume that he had some metaphorical meaning in mind which would resolve the contradiction, but from a literal standpoint, one of the two statements must be false. The gospel of John does quote Jesus as giving his followers a “new commandment” to love one another (John 13:34) But Matthew’s Jesus took love of one’s own for granted, and instead commanded his followers to love their enemies. (Matthew 5:44) Jesus continued by asking rhetorically, “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” (Matthew 5:46)
1 John 2:12-14 These assurances are intended to stimulate confidence among the author’s readers and to steady them in their faith, in light of the threat of competing doctrines and the split within their community, to which the author will refer explicitly in v.19.
1 John 2:16 Here we are told that the world and the things in it are not from God the Father. (“From” is more accurate than “of” to translate the preposition ek.) But this contradicts Acts 17:24 where we find that God made the world and all things in it. See also Exodus 20:11, where we read that God made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all things in it. According to Proverbs 16:4, even the wicked have been made by God for his own purpose.
1 John 2:17 The author writes that the world is passing away, but 1 Chronicles 16:30 tells us that “the world is firmly established; it will not be moved.” (NASB) (Also Psalm 93:1 and 96:10.)
1 John 2:18 The author believes that he and his readers are living in the end times, and that it is now the “last hour.” He clearly believes that the end of the age is upon them, which causes embarrassment for Christian apologists, because the world did not end as predicted. It is common for Christians to try to stretch the concept of time to make it cover at least the 2000 or so years since these incorrect predictions were made, but the use of “hour” obviously indicates a very short period of time, whether or not an exact 60-minute hour is understood.
A characteristic of the end times, according to Jesus’s words in Matthew 24:24, was to be the appearance of “false Christs and false prophets.” And the events enumerated by Jesus in describing his second coming were to occur before the generation he was speaking to passed away. (Matthew 24:34; Mark 13:30) Thus, the warning here in 1 John against antichrists, fits with the expectations that Jesus set forth, although the end never actually arrived.
The word “antichrist” occurs only in 1 John and 2 John. It appears nowhere else in the New Tesament, not even in Revelation. Note that the author does not speak of the antichrist, but of many antichrists. As we learn in v.22, anyone who denies that Jesus is the Christ is an antichrist. (See also 4:3.) Also note that the author declares the antichrists have already come, and does not portray the antichrist as a distant millenial figure.
1 John 2:19 In this verse we learn the motivation for writing the letter, and the context in which it was written. “They went out from us” points to a group that has split from the Christian community which is addressed in the letter. “The general purpose of 1 John, then, was to preserve a Christian community from dissolution, to protect the identity and composition of that community, and to arrest a movement which threatened the very heart of what the author understood to be a genuine faith and life.” (Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol.3, p.906.) The author’s response to this factional split foreshadows the response of modern revolutionary groups when faced with similar circumstances, in that he reviles them as traitors who were never truly a part of the community in the first place.
1 John 2:23 The same idea is expressed in John 14:6, as well as Matthew 10:33 and Luke 12:9. The theological point is that God is not directly accessible by mankind, but can only be reached by going through Jesus.
1 John 2:24-27 The author exhorts his readers to remain true to the doctine they were originally taught. Because they have already been taught the truth, they no longer have any need to be taught by anyone else (v.27). Thus, there is no room for any spirit of curiosity or learning for those who have already received the ultimate truth.
1 John 3:1-2 The author addresses his readers as God’s children, which according to 3:9 means that they do not-indeed cannot-sin. As noted earlier, this conflicts with 1:8, where it is denied that they are without sin.
1 John 3:4 Here sin is identified with lawlessness. But Paul declared that sin is founded upon the law, “for without the law, sin is dead.” (Romans 7:8) This contradiction is not due to loose translation, because the same Greek root for “law” is used in both cases.
1 John 3:5 The claim that Jesus was without sin has already been shown to be false. See the comment to 2 Corinthians 5:21 for examples of how Jesus sinned by violating God’s commandments.
1 John 3:8 There is no Old Testament support for this statement that the devil “has sinned from the beginning.” Sin is mentioned many times in the Old Testament, but “devil” occurs only in the New Testament. Even the name Satan, which appears only three times in the Old Testament outside the book of Job, is not connected with sin except in the New Testament. The dualistic thinking portrayed in 1 John, where the world is a cosmic battleground between God and the forces of the devil, is totally foreign to the ancient Hebrew concept of God, who had no rivals.
1 John 3:9 As noted previously, there is a fundamental contradiction between this verse and 1:8. See the comment to 1:8.
1 John 3:11 Again the commandment to love one another is presented as though it is the essence of Christian teaching. However, we have already seen that Jesus had a different emphasis when he told his followers to love their enemies. (Matthew 5:44, 46) See also the comment to 2:7-8.
1 John 3:12 There is no support in the Old Testament scriptures for this claim that Cain was of the evil one. The Genesis story of Cain does not mention the evil one, the devil, or Satan. (Genesis 4:1-16) There is one reference to the threat of “sin crouching at the door,” but it is not connected with the devil and is not even applied to Cain after he kills Abel.
There is just as little support for the author’s assertion that Cain killed Abel because “his own works were evil.” On the contrary, Genesis portrays God as arbitrarily rejecting Cain’s offering of the fruit of the ground, and giving no reason why Cain’s offering was deemed unacceptable. Perhaps God simply preferred sheep to grain, but if so, this was no fault of Cain’s.
1 John 3:15 Again the author contradicts the teaching of Jesus himself. Hating one’s brother did not disqualify a person from being a follower of Jesus. It was actually required by Jesus for those wishing to become his disciples. “If any man comes to me and does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)
1 John 3:20 If God indeed knows everything, then why did he ask Adam, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9), and why did he ask Eve, “What is this that you have done?” (Genesis 3:13), or to Cain, “What have you done?” (Genesis 4:10)
1 John 3:22 John 14:13 also promises that God will grant whatever one asks, provided that it is done in Jesus’s name. However, “God does not hear sinners” (John 9:31), and “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). So if all are sinners, and God does not hear sinners, how can it be that God will grant whatever we or anyone else asks from him?
The author tells his readers that “we keep his commandments,” but Paul wrote, “If you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law” (Galatians 5:18), implying that there is no longer any need to obey commandments of the law. That Paul considers “commandment” to be synonymous with “law” is seen in Romans 7:8-9. Note that the reference here in 1 John is to God’s commandments, not to any new commandment that might be supposed to have come from Jesus Christ.
1 John 3:23 Perhaps a hint of this alleged commandment to “believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ” is found in John 6:29, although the words there come from Jesus, and not from God, and are not expressed as a commandment. There is, however, no expressed commandment recorded anywhere in the Old or New Testament to “believe in the name of his son Jesus Christ.”
1 John 4:1 This order to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God” is in direct conflict with the commandment “You shall not put the LORD your God to the test,” (NASB) quoted in Matthew 4:7 and Luke 4:12, from Deuteronomy 6:16. Note that the advice here in 1 John is similar to that offered by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:21 (“test everything”), but Paul takes a harder line toward competing doctrines in Galatians 1:8, recommending that they be rejected outright, without first subjecting them to a test.
1 John 4:2 And this is the test that will determine whether a spirit is from God or not: if they proclaim that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, then they are from God. A different method is given in Deuteronomy 18:22 to determine whether a prophet really speaks in the name of the LORD: “When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word which the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously, you need not be afraid of him.” (RSV) As we have noted, Jesus himself spoke words that did not come to pass in predicting his return within the lifetime of his listeners. So if we apply that test, we must reject Jesus himself as a false prophet. See the comments to Matthew 24:34 and Mark 13:30 for a discussion of this failed prediction.
1 John 4:5 “They are of the world.” Another reference to the separatists (see 2:19), who have left the author’s community, apparently due to doctrinal differences.
1 John 4:6 Another test: Whoever listens to the author and his supporters are of God. Those who do not listen to them are not of God. They are of the devil (3:8,10). Thus, the author dismisses his opponents by literally demonizing them. This is a far cry from the advice in 2 Timothy 2:24-25, where Christians are urged to treat their opponents with gentleness.
1 John 4:8 The assertion that “God is love” seems very familiar and one is tempted to think that it represents a widely held view among early Christians. However, the phrase occurs only twice in the whole Bible, both of them here in 1 John. (The second occurrence is in v.16.)
1 John 4:12 To say that “no man has seen God at any time” echoes John 1:18, but contradicts what the rest of the Bible tells us. Jesus told the crowds, “He who sees me sees him who sent me.” (John 12:45) Also, there were many sightings of God in the Old Testament. See, for example, Exodus 24:11; Isaiah 6:1; 1 Kings 22:19.
1 John 4:14 The author claims that Jesus was sent to be the savior of the world, but in the Hebrew scriptures, only God (i.e., the LORD – Yahweh) is the savior. “I am the LORD, and besides me there is no savior.” (Isaiah 43:11) See also Hosea 13:4.
1 John 4:18 Allegedly there is no fear in those who love, but 1 Peter 1:17 presents a different view: “Conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth.” (NASB) The author of 1 Peter goes on to say “Fear God, honor the king.” (1 Peter 2:17) To fear God is actually expressed as a commandment in Deuteronomy 6:13 – “You shall fear the LORD your God.” So it appears that casting out fear does not necessarily make one more acceptable to God.
1 John 4:20 On hating one’s brother, see the comment to 3:15.
1 John 4:21 Contrary to the author’s claim, there is no commandment in the Old or New Testament to love one’s brother. If this alleged commandment to love one’s brother is intended to refer to Matthew 22:39, then the author’s memory is faulty. The passage from Matthew refers to loving one’s neighbor, not one’s brother. Since “brother” had come to refer to fellow Christians, the command to love one’s brother would have been less inclusive than loving one’s neighbor. As we have already noted, Jesus took loving one’s own for granted, and instead stressed loving one’s enemies. (Matthew 5:44, 46)
1 John 5:2 A good deal of uncertainty arises in connection with the requirement to “keep his commandments.” Does the author mean God’s commandments as recorded in the Old Testament scriptures? Or does he mean the “new commandment” referred to in 2:8? The commandments in 3:22 seem to be those of God, but the point of view in 2:7-8 muddies the water. And Paul released Christians from the Old Testament law altogether. (Galatians 5:18) See also the comments to 2:7-8 and 3:22.
1 John 5:3 The author claims that God’s commandments are not burdensome, but again Paul has a different view, declaring that the law is a “curse” (Galatians 3:13) and that it brings “wrath” (Romans 4:15).
In this verse, the author’s view is that loving God depends on keeping his commandments. But in Matthew 22:37-40 the relationship is reversed: keeping the commandments (“all the law and the prophets”) depends on loving God – and one’s neighbor.
1 John 5:6 Most often the “water” in this verse is taken to signify Christ’s baptism, and the “blood” refers to the crucifixion. However, to say that Christ “came by” water and blood “would be obscure ways of expressing this.” (The Oxford Bible Commentary, p.1280.) What the author intended to convey is, however, not entirely certain.
1 John 5:7 The KJV has an additional verse here, which is not in the modern English translations: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one.” However, “this verse in the KJV is to be rejected . . . It appears in no ancient Greek MS nor is it cited by any Greek father; of all the versions only the Latin contained it, and even this in none of its most ancient sources.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.12, p.293.) The addition is a reference to the trinity, which was not a concept familiar to the authors of the New Testament.
1 John 5:14 This is a very watered-down promise, because of the condition “according to his will.” Essentially, it says that if we ask God to do what he already wanted to do anyway, he will do it. By contrast, the promises in 3:22 and in John 14:13-14 have no such restriction. However, we have already noted the contradictory view that no prayer can be effective because all have sinned (Romans 3:23) and God does not hear sinners (John 9:31).
1 John 5:16 This verse makes the distinction between sin which is “unto death” (i.e., mortal), and that which is not “unto death.” Unfortunately, the author offers no guidance on how to distinguish the two. For those who commit the latter type of sin, it is possible to pray for them, and God will give the sinner life in response to this request – despite that fact that Paul declared “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), making no allowance for any non-mortal category of sin.
It is clear that the author here is referring to sins committed by fellow Christians, since “brother” generally is the term used to refer to fellow members of the Christian community. But his lenient point of view is contradicted by a stricter standard found elsewhere in the New Testament in passages that deny any possibility of forgiveness for Christians who return to a life of sin. See, for example, 2 Peter 2:20-21 and Hebrews 10:26-27.
1 John 5:17 Again the author states that there is sin which is not “unto death.” Not only is this in conflict with Romans 6:23, as already noted, but also with Romans 5:12, which tells us that death spread to all men because of the sin of one man, Adam. Thus, according to Paul’s teaching in Romans, the sin of Adam brought death for all men, and there is no room in his theology for any type of sin which does not bring about death, and thus the need for salvation through Jesus’s crucifixion. See also James 1:15, where we are told that “when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.” (NASB).
1 John 5:18 To say that “whoever is born of God does not sin” not only contradicts the expectation in 5:16 about fellow Christians committing mortal or non-mortal sin, it also conflicts with 1:8, which with 4:7 asserts that Christians, though born of God, do indeed sin.
1 John 5:19 To say that the whole world is under the power of the evil one echoes the sentiment in John 12:31, where the “ruler of the world” who is to be cast out is certainly to be understood as the “evil one.” But if the world is under the power of the evil one, it can only be because God wanted it that way, because “there is no power except from God.” (Romans 13:1) And if the whole world is under the power of the evil one, how can Jesus say that God has given Jesus himself “power over all flesh”? (John 17:2)
2 John v.1 The author of this second letter of “John” was almost certainly the same who wrote 3 John, but whether he also wrote 1 John is subject to debate. Brown judges that he “probably” did. (Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, p.396.) There is, however, no dispute that all three letters, as well as the gospel of John, belong to the same tradition and share many common themes, even if the authorship is uncertain.
Unlike 1 John, the author here identifies himself (although not by name) as “the elder.” Presumably the author is well enough acquainted with his audience that this title is sufficient to identify him. The “elect lady” to whom the letter is addressed, may refer to a local church, while in v.13 the “elect sister” refers to another congregation and the “children” signify the members of that congregation. (The Oxford Bible Commentary, p.1281.)
2 John v.4 This rejoicing on the part of the author seems somewhat muted, since only some of the congregation's members were found to be walking in truth.
2 John v.5-6 The “lady” is urged to follow the commandment that was given from the beginning to love one another. As we will find in v.10, this does not extend to loving those who have separated from the author’s community. (See the comment to 1 John 2:19.) On the alleged commandment to love one another, see the comment to 1 John 2:7-8.
2 John v.7 A warning against the members who have seceded from the author’s community, and who are now vilified as “deceivers.” “It would appear that 2 John was evoked to protect individual congregations from the threat posed by the separatists more fully described in 1 John. It was written because those separatists were being received by the congregations in the name of Christian hospitality and were hence able to exert the influence of their views. The purpose of 2 John is to suggest that the preservation of ‘true Christian doctrine’ is a higher value than the extension of hospitality to all who claim Christian commitment.” (Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol.3, p.906.)
2 John v.10-11 The point of the letter. Not only are the separatists to be rejected, but anyone who greets them takes part in their evil deeds. Contrast this advice with the words of Jesus, who was less concerned with doctrinal purity: “If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?” (Matthew 5:47)
2 John v.12 Apparently the transmission of the word of God is restricted by the supply of paper and ink. What inspirational words might we have missed because the author was low on supplies? And why didn't Jesus just multiply the paper and ink as he did the loaves and fishes when he fed the multitudes? (Matthew 14:19-20)
3 John v.1 This is the same “elder” who wrote 2 John to a neighboring church, but now he writes to an individual, Gaius, to ask his assistance in dealing with the rejection of his followers by a rival congregation.
3 John v.5 The “brethren” to whom services are to be rendered clearly are the elder’s own followers, and not the members of the group which has separated. These latter are not to be welcomed, according to the request in 2 John v.10.
3 John v.10 Apparently, the elder has received a taste of his own medicine. After urging the “elect lady” in 2 John to turn away those who disagree with him, the elder now finds that the congregation under Diotrephes has done the same to the elder’s own followers.
The dispute between the elder and Diotrephes is yet another example of how the early church was not a unified movement of like-minded members. Instead, it was characterized by competing factions and the usual squabbling and bickering that exist in most associations. For additional examples, see the comments to Acts 21:20-21; 2 Timothy 2:18; 1 Corinthians 1:11-12; 16:1.
3 John v.11 “He who does evil has not seen God.” The author of 1 John went farther, saying that no one has ever seen God. (1 John 4:12. See also John 1:18.) But even this is contradicted elsewhere. See the comment to 1 John 4:12.
v.1 The author describes himself as “Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ and brother of James.” As is often the case, the Greek word doulos, whose literal meaning is “slave,” is translated as “servant” in many of the English translations, in order to avoid the negative connotations of slavery. “Slave,” however, is the literal and correct translation, and accurately reflects the intended relationship between the author and Christ his master.
There is no evidence that the letter was actually written by Jude, the brother of Jesus and James. (See Mark 6:3.). Jude (= Judas) and James were also the names of two of the twelve disciples. (Luke 6:15-16) Also, both Judas and James were very common names in the Hellenistic world, and it is entirely possible that the letter was written by some other Jude, the brother of some other James, otherwise unmentioned in the New Testament. In other words, the author could be telling the truth about his name and his relationship to “James” without implying any family relationship to Jesus himself.
In Greek, the name is “Ioudas” and is identical to the name of the disciple who betrayed Jesus to the authorities. Of course, it would not do to have a book of the New Testament share the name of Jesus’s betrayer, so most English translations refer to the author of this letter as “Jude” as distinct from “Judas,” the betrayer.
v.2 The author addresses himself to those who are “called” by God. This theme of calling or predestination is common throughout the writings of the New Testament, and indicates that individuals cannot control their own destiny, but are foreordained to salvation or doom, depending on God’s arbitrary choice of whether to call them to the ranks of the faithful. On predestination of the called, see also the comments to Galatians 1:15; Romans 8:29-30; 1 Peter 1:2.
v.4 The congregation has been infiltrated by enemies, who also were predestined for condemnation long ago. This dehumanizing of dissenting voices is common throughout the proto-orthodox writings that made it into the New Testament. Those who espoused a different view were not simply mistaken, they were evil, ungodly, and perverse, and never really part of the elect in the first place. The same view of dissenters as traitors and enemies is seen in Galatians 2:4 and 1 John 2:19.
v.6 If these rebellious angels who are chained up include Satan, how is it that Satan was free to enter into Judas and cause him to betray Jesus? (Luke 22:3; John 13:27) Or how could Satan prevent Paul from visiting the Thessalonians? (1 Thessalonians 2:18) Possibly the author does not have Satan in mind here, but if he does, the verse conflicts with Satan’s freedom of action elsewhere in the New Testament.
v.8 Jesus himself was known to defy authority on occasion, as when he disrupted proceedings in the Temple. (Mark 11:15; John 2:14-15)
v.9 This reference to the archangel Michael and his dispute with the devil is based on an account in the Assumption of Moses, a 1st century apocryphal work which survives in fragmentary form. Citation of non-canonical works led some church authorities to question whether the epistle of Jude should even be a part of the New Testament canon. See the comment to vv.14-15.
vv.10-13 The author proceeds to heap up scorn and vitriol against those fellow Christians whom he sees as enemies of the faith.
vv.14-15 This citation is from the non-canonical book of Enoch, an intertestamental apocryphal book written in the 2nd century B.C. “Certain of the early fathers took Jude’s quotation as a guarantee of the inspiration of Enoch. Later, the canonicity of Jude was itself questioned because of its quotation of an apocryphal book.” (The Interpreter’s Bible, vol.12, p.334.)
v.18 The gospels refer to false Christs and false prophets who will arise in the last days (e.g., Mark 13:22; Matthew 24:24), but do not mention anything about “scoffers” or “mockers.” Thus, it is questionable where the author got the idea that these scoffers were predicted by the apostles. The author of 2 Peter also warns against “scoffers” who will arise in the last days to question whether Jesus will really return. (2 Peter 3:3)
Whatever the source, the author clearly believes that he is writing in the end times and wants his readers to believe so as well, fearing to stray from the approved faith lest Jesus appear unexpectedly and catch them behaving badly.