Jude 1:5-7
Kept for That Great Day
5Although you are fully aware of this, I want to remind you that after Jesus had delivered His people out of the land of Egypt, He destroyed those who did not believe.
6And the angels who did not stay within their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling—these He has kept in eternal chains under darkness, bound for judgment on that great day.
7In like manner, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, who indulged in sexual immorality and pursued strange flesh, are on display as an example of those who sustain the punishment of eternal fire.
Berean Standard Bible
Jude gives three examples in three verses, and he begins by saying his readers already know them. Although you are fully aware of this, he writes, I want to remind you. He is not delivering news. He is putting things they have known for years side by side so that the pattern is visible.
The first is a rescue that did not settle anything. Jesus delivered his people out of the land of Egypt, and afterwards he destroyed those who did not believe. Being brought out of Egypt was real and it happened to all of them, and it did not stand in for believing. Jude does not soften it.
The second example is stranger than the first. It turns on a single verb that this short letter has already used once, back in the opening line.
And the angels who did not stay within their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling—these He has kept in eternal chains under darkness, bound for judgment on that great day.
Kept is that verb. Jude used it at 1:1 of the people he is writing to, who are called and loved and kept in Jesus Christ. Here the same verb turns and does the opposite work. There is a keeping that holds you safe and a keeping that holds you until the hearing, and the letter puts both inside its first six verses without remarking on it.
The third is Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, and the verse says they are on display as an example. On display is a phrase about being seen. Jude is not settling an old score here, only pointing at something he expects his readers to be able to look at for themselves and then draw the obvious conclusion from.
Read the three together and what they share is not one sin. One group was rescued and did not believe, one abandoned the place it had, one indulged and pursued. What they share is the outcome, and Jude lines them up so that nobody reading can think their own position is the exception. The men in verse 4 crept in unnoticed. The angels in verse 6 did not creep in anywhere; they were inside their own domain and they abandoned it, and that is a different way for things to go wrong.
Questions
1 Jude says his readers already know these three examples. Why bring them up anyway?
AnswerBecause he wants them side by side. Verse 5 says he is reminding rather than informing, so the work he is doing is arrangement rather than news. Things a family has known separately for years can look different when they are laid next to each other.
2 The word kept turns up twice in this letter, at 1:1 and here at 1:6. What is different about the two?
AnswerAt 1:1 the readers are kept in Jesus Christ, which is protection. At 1:6 the angels are kept in chains, bound for judgment. The same verb holds somebody safe in one verse and holds somebody for the hearing in the other.
3 In verse 5, what happened after the rescue out of Egypt?
AnswerHe destroyed those who did not believe. The rescue was real and it reached all of them, and Jude says plainly that it did not take the place of believing. It is the hardest line on this page, and the other two examples come after it.
4 Sodom and Gomorrah are on display as an example. What does on display suggest?
AnswerThat they can still be seen. Jude is not reopening an old case; he is pointing at something he expects his readers to be able to look at, and asking them to draw the obvious conclusion about themselves.
What This Means for Us
The word Jude keeps returning to is kept, and by verse 6 it is clear that being kept is not something anybody does for themselves. The readers are kept in Jesus Christ, and the angels are kept in chains, and neither group arranged their own keeping. Verse 5 is bearable rather than terrifying for exactly that reason. The warning is real, and the safety in verse 1 was never our achievement to lose track of in the first place.
So each person names one thing they are relying on that is not actually believing, and we ask God out loud to keep us rather than resolving to keep ourselves.
Prayer
Father, you keep people, and we are asking you to keep us. Where we have been trusting a rescue we remember instead of trusting you, turn us around. Thank you that the safety of this family was never our own doing. Hold us until that great day, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.