Jude 1:14, commentary and pictures

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, was the first prophet among mankind, speaking as moved by the Holy Spirit of the far future he saw in vision. He foretold the second coming of Christ in power and great glory with ten thousands of His saints, a vast company of holy angels. At that coming He will raise the righteous dead to glory and render to every man according to his work in eternal reward and punishment. He comes to execute judgment upon all and convict the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds and hard speeches against Him, so that every sinner will acknowledge the justice of condemnation and the universe will honor God. The prophecy was given not only for his own corrupt age but for the last days, calling believers now to walk with God as Enoch did and to proclaim the coming judgment plainly that people may prepare.

Enoch the Prophet Identified

The speaker is Enoch, the seventh from Adam. His place in the genealogy is given as part of the identification of the prophecy of the Lord's coming with His holy ones to judge and expose the ungodly. That same coming was shown to him in vision as the coming of the Lord revealed for the last days.

He was a prophet who received the spirit of prophecy and saw far ahead through prophetic vision to the Lord's coming and the final judgments upon the ungodly. He was the first prophet among mankind, foretelling the second coming of Christ to this world and His work at that time. He spoke as he was moved by the Holy Ghost, teaching the truth and living the truth with a character in harmony with the greatness and sacredness of his mission. His prophecy belonged to the fuller plan of salvation revealed to him, in which he looked forward to Christ's second advent in power and glory and described the wickedness at the end of the world.

His prophecy is not found in the writings of the Old Testament and is known because Jude, a prophet of God, mentions the work of Enoch. The verse stands in the writing of Jude the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called, with mercy and peace and love multiplied. There Jude urges them concerning the common salvation to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints by bringing men back from transgression of the commandments of God through earnest proclamation of the gospel of Christ to arouse commandment-breakers to prepare to meet God. The verse is part of his message to guard believers against the seductive influences of false teachers, men who have a form of godliness but who are not safe leaders, at a time when false teachers arise and become actively zealous in presenting theories to divert minds from the very truth that defines the position that can be occupied with safety, when Satan is working with power upon religionists, leading them to make a pretense of being righteous but to fail of placing themselves under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

The Coming Described

Enoch's prophecy turns the mind forward to the great day of God, the second coming of Christ to this world. It is His second advent in power and great glory in the clouds of heaven, appearing in the glory of His Father. It is the great event which is the consummation of all things earthly. The Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, a vast company of holy ones. That company is a vast angelic host, a heavenly host of angels accompanying Him.

At that coming Christ comes in the clouds to raise the righteous dead and ransom them from their graves for glory and honor. Their raising and deliverance shows the righteous and the rebellious remain distinct until the second coming. That coming brings eternal decisions, with eternal rewards and punishments, when God renders to every man according to his work. Its outcome will be seen by the assembled universe, honoring God and vindicating His government.

Judgment on the Ungodly

He comes to execute judgment upon all and to judge every man's work, exposing ungodly deeds and words. That judgment falls especially on those who disregard God's commandments and obey not the gospel, for Enoch sounded the proclamation of Christ's coming and the execution of judgment upon the unrighteous. He comes with ten thousands of His saints, a vast company of holy ones, a heavenly host of angels, to carry out that work.

He comes to convince and convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds and all their hard speeches spoken against Him. His testimony warned his own generation and in prophetic vision described the wickedness and mockery of the last days, when hostility and lawlessness will grow stronger until the close of time. It presents a state of things which has been, and history will be repeated.

This judgment is a future event, not something that takes place at death, when the Lord comes with His holy ones to judge all. This judgment-coming at the second advent is distinct from His coming to His temple.

At that judgment every sinner will be brought to see and acknowledge the justice of condemnation. That judgment brings eternal rewards and punishments, and its outcome will be seen by the assembled universe, honoring God and vindicating His government.

The prophecy exposes a rebellious generation that rejects God's law and despises Christ's atonement. The righteous and the rebellious remain distinct until the second coming, when Christ comes in the clouds to raise the righteous dead and ransom them from their graves for glory and honor, while the wicked are separated from God and consumed by fire.

Enoch's Ministry Then

Enoch walked with God by faith in a deeply corrupt age no more favorable to Christian perfection than the present, knowing the Lord was with him and holding firmly to the principles of truth. The One who walked with him was the Lord Jesus Christ, the light of the world then as now, who gave him moral power to obey and gave him light and truth. Christ opened before him the future history of the earth and the scene of His second coming.

He was holy, served God sincerely, loved God and obeyed His law, and was distressed by the growing wickedness around him. He separated himself from the ungodly and lived in retirement apart from wicked cities, placing himself and his family where the atmosphere would be as pure as possible. He refused to make his abode with the wicked or to locate in Sodom in order to save Sodom. Through prayer he sought God's will and received divine instruction through angels, including the warning that God would not always tolerate human rebellion but would destroy the sinful race with a flood.

He was a public teacher of truth and a preacher of righteousness who faithfully taught the people what God revealed to him through prophecy. He plainly testified of the coming of the Son of God rather than speaking in veiled terms, and his testimony belonged with the warnings of judgment later proclaimed by Noah during the 120-year probation. He called people to turn from wickedness and from breaking God's law to fear God, worship Him, and obey His law, while reproving their wrongdoing and denouncing the wickedness of the world. His obedience to the law set him apart from the disobedient world that walked in the imagination of its own heart and corrupted its ways.

His visits to the world were painful because he saw and understood the leprosy of sin. His teaching led some to turn from wickedness to worship God, and he brought back with him to his place of retirement some who received the warning, of whom some became overcomers and died before the Flood while others could not endure righteousness and returned to former customs. Most rejected the warning because they loved sin, meeting it with unbelief and mockery. The 120 years of probation for repentance were wasted until depraved habit overcame restraint, discernment was clouded, and desire for ungodliness strengthened, and his warning was part of the call to turn from evil that the people did not heed.

Enoch was taken by God to heaven without seeing death. His preaching of the message together with his translation was a convincing argument to all who lived in his time, an argument Methuselah and Noah could use with power to show that the righteous would be translated. His being taken without dying represents those who will be alive when Christ comes and will be taken to heaven without seeing death. He was a representative of Christ as surely as John, and with Noah as Christians taught those living then the paths of life. His life was a specimen of Christian consistency showing simply what every son and daughter of Adam may do, and he stands as a representative and pattern man, a light amid moral darkness, not to be praised or exalted for himself.

Prophecy for the Last Days

Enoch prophesied not only for his own time but of events after the Flood, including the second coming of Christ and the end of the world. That coming was shown to him in vision as the great event which is the consummation of all things earthly, part of the fuller plan of salvation revealed to him. He was one of God's representatives since the days of Adam who kept alive the influences imparted from heaven, and during his life on earth he walked with God until God took him to heaven without seeing death. His prophecy of the coming of the Lord is relevant to the last days.

In prophetic vision he described the wickedness and mockery of the last days. His testimony warned his own generation, and at the same time looked forward to the hostility and lawlessness that will grow stronger until the close of time. He foretold that the Lord will come with His saints, with thousands of holy ones, to execute judgment on all and to expose and convict the ungodly for their ungodly deeds and words spoken against Him.

The corrupt condition of Noah's days, when the world was so full of wickedness that the Lord would not bear with it longer, will exist again before the second appearing of Christ. Yet one hundred and twenty years of probation for repentance was given and wasted, until depraved habit overcame restraint, discernment was clouded, and desire for ungodliness strengthened. That state of things has been, and history will be repeated, and the same wickedness is fulfilled in the great wickedness and perils now seen. His prophecy concerned Christ's second coming and the wickedness that would prevail just before it, and the great wickedness that should abound.

He preached righteousness, urging people to turn from breaking God's law to obeying it, and plainly proclaimed the coming of Christ and the execution of judgment upon the unrighteous who obey not the gospel. They rejected his warning because they loved sin, while his pure life stood in contrast to his rebellious generation. His being taken to heaven without dying represents those who will be alive when Christ comes and will be taken to heaven without seeing death. The prophecy stands for the instruction and warning of all who live in the last days of earth's history, and speaks to the last generation as well as to his own time. It encourages people in the last days to walk with God and remain unstained by the world's corruption.

Call to Faithfulness Now

Like Enoch, believers today are to earnestly proclaim the soon coming of the Lord, directing minds forward to the great day of God when Christ will come the second time with ten thousands of His saints to judge every man's work. Those who keep God's law as Enoch and Noah did are to give the world a warning message about the hostility and lawlessness that will grow stronger until the close of time. That coming is in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory accompanied by a vast host of saints to execute judgment upon all and expose ungodly deeds and hard speeches, bringing eternal decisions and rewards as God renders to every man according to his work. It is the end toward which needed truth is presented in every church, and it is to be kept distinctly and clearly before the people to make them think solemnly of duty and of the preparation essential for it.

God's servants will give the same warning in the last days that Enoch as a preacher of righteousness proclaimed, warning of the Lord's coming with a vast company of holy ones to judge the ungodly and expose their deeds. That warning concerns the great wickedness that should abound, fulfilled in the perils of the last days now seen, and most people will meet it with unbelief and mockery. Those who have the light are commissioned to continue Enoch's work with constant, aggressive effort, bearing earnest warnings and appeals to prepare people for His coming. The message of warning is to be given clear and distinct to those still in darkness and error rather than laboring only among those who already know the truth.

Enoch's walk with God and holy, obedient, personally devoted life show what those who meet Christ when He comes are to be like. He was one of God's obedient representatives in the corrupt age before the Flood, loving God and obeying His law, walking with God while Christ walked with him giving him moral power to obey and giving him light and truth. He was a public teacher of truth who taught the truth and lived the truth, a light amid moral darkness and a pattern man who walked with God by obedience to God's law. He was selected by God to denounce the wickedness of the world and to demonstrate to the universe that Satan's charge that man cannot keep God's law is false, evidencing that though man has sinned he can so relate himself to God as to have the mind and Spirit of God, be a representative symbol of Christ, and keep all the law of God. His obedience set him apart from the disobedient world that walked in the imagination of its own heart, corrupted its ways, and was swept away by the Flood.

Words of God in denunciation and judgments should be spoken only by holy lips. The one who speaks them must have a character in harmony with the greatness and sacredness of the mission, teaching the truth and living the truth. Enoch's life was a specimen of Christian consistency, standing as a representative man not to be praised or exalted, having simply done what every son and daughter of Adam may do.

As Enoch lived in retirement apart from wicked cities and came forth at times to the inhabitants of the world with his God-given message, so God's people must get away from surroundings that are as Sodom for wickedness. They are to leave the cities and place God's institutions in an altogether different place, placing themselves and their families where the atmosphere would be as pure as possible and refusing to make their abode with the wicked or locate in Sodom to save Sodom. Then like Enoch they are to come from seclusion to warn city dwellers, though such visits are painful because they see and understand the leprosy of sin. Some who receive the warning will be brought back to retirement and become overcomers, while others will not endure righteousness and will return to former customs.