The danger that prompted Jude to write this letter.
1. (1) The author and the readers.
Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, To those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ:
a. Jude: The name is literally “Judas.” But to avoid connection with Judas Iscariot, the infamous man who betrayed Jesus, most English translators have used the name “Jude.”
i. There are six people named “Judas” mentioned in the New Testament, but the best evidence identifies this as the one mentioned in Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3: Jude, the half-brother of Jesus.
ii. Jude, like the other half-brothers of Jesus (including James), didn’t believe in Jesus as the Messiah until after the resurrection of Jesus (John 7:5 and Acts 1:14).
b. A bondservant of Jesus Christ: Jude was a blood relative of Jesus, but he considered himself only as a bondservant of Jesus Christ. The fact that he wanted himself to be known this way instead of introducing himself as “Jude, the half-brother of Jesus” tells us something of the humility of Jude and the relative unimportance of being connected to Jesus by human relationships.
i. Jesus spoke of this relative unimportance in passage such as Mark 3:31-35 and Luke 11:27-28.
ii. Without a doubt, Jude valued the fact that Jesus was his half-brother and that he grew up in the same household as Jesus. But even more valuable to him was his new relationship with Jesus. To Jude, the blood of the cross that saved him was more important than the family blood in his veins that related him to Jesus. Jude could say with Paul, “Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer” (2 Corinthians 5:16).
c. And brother of James: James was an important leader of the church in Jerusalem and the author of the New Testament letter that bears his name. Both James and Jude were half-brothers of Jesus.
d. To those who are called: Jude wrote to Christians. This is not an evangelistic tract and it deals with things that believers need to hear, but often don’t want to.
i. Jude identified his readers as Christians in three specific ways:
· They were called. A person is a Christian because God has called him. The important thing is to answer the call when it comes, just as we answer the telephone when it is ringing.
· They were sanctified by God the Father. This means that they were set apart – set apart from the world and set apart unto God.
· They were preserved in Jesus. Jesus Christ is our guardian and our protector.
2. (2) Jude gives a warm and typical greeting.
Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
a. Mercy, peace, and love: This is not the same greeting as found in most of Paul’s letters (which usually begin with some variation of “Grace and peace unto you”). Yet it is substantially the same.
b. Be multiplied to you: In the mind and heart of Jude, it wasn’t enough to have mercy, peace, and love added to the life of the Christian. He looked for multiplication instead of simple addition.
3. (3) The call to defend the faith.
Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.
a. I was very diligent to write to you: Jude’s initial desire was to write about our common salvation. But something happened – Jude found it necessary to write a different letter. We might say that this was the letter that didn’t want to be written.
i. The letter of Jude is essentially a sermon. In it, Jude preached against the dangerous practices and doctrines that put the gospel of Jesus Christ in peril. These were serious issues and Jude dealt with them seriously.
ii. We should be happy that Jude was sensitive to the Holy Spirit here. What might have only been a letter from a Christian leader to a particular church instead became a precious instrument inspired by the Holy Spirit and valuable as a warning in these last days.
b. Concerning our common salvation: Our salvation isn’t common in the sense that it is cheap or that everyone has it. It is common in the sense that we are saved in common, in community. God doesn’t have one way for the rich and another way for the poor, or one way for the good and another way for the bad. We all come to God the same way. If it isn’t a common salvation, it isn’t God’s salvation – and it isn’t salvation at all.
i. An individual Christian may not know it, understand it, or benefit by it, but to be a Christian is to be a part of a community. To be a Christian means you stand shoulder to shoulder with millions of Christians who have gone before. We stand with strong Christians and weak Christians, brave Christians and cowardly Christians, old Christians and young Christians. We are part of an invisible, mighty army that spans back through the generations.
ii. “Upon other matters there are distinctions among believers, but yet there is a common salvation enjoyed by the Arminian as well as by the Calvinist, possessed by the Presbyterian as well as by the Episcopalian, prized by the Quaker as well as by the Baptist. Those who are in Christ are more near of kin than they know of, and their intense unity in deep essential truth is a greater force than most of them imagine: only give it scope and it will work wonders.” (Spurgeon)
iii. In the 1980’s a survey poll found that 70% of Americans who go to church say that you can be a good Christian without going to church. This doesn’t match with Jude’s idea of a common salvation.
c. Exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith: This was the great need that Jude interrupted his intended letter to address. The ancient Greek word translated “contend” comes from the athletic world – from the wrestling mat. It is a strengthened form of the word meaning “to agonize.” Therefore “contend” speaks of hard and diligent work.
i. The verb translated contend earnestly is (in the grammar of the ancient Greek) in the present infinitive, showing that the Christian struggle is continuous.
ii. We contend earnestly for the faith because it is valuable. If you walk into an art gallery and there are no guards or no sort of security system, you must draw one conclusion: there is nothing very valuable in that art gallery. Valuables are protected; worthless things are not.
d. Exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith: If we emphasize the word you, we see that this was something that Jude wanted each individual Christian to do. There are many ways that every Christian can contend earnestly for the faith.
i. We contend for the faith in a positive sense when we give an unflinching witness, distribute tracts, make possible the training of faithful ambassadors for Jesus, or when we strengthen the hands of faithful pastors who honor the Word of God in their pulpits. These are a few among many ways that we can contend earnestly for the faith in a positive sense.
ii. In a negative sense, we contend for the faith when we deny support and encouragement to false teachers. In a positive sense, we contend for the faith when we support and encourage faithful teachers of God’s truth.
iii. We contend for the faith in a practical sense when we live uncompromising Christian lives and give credit to the Lord who changed us.
iv. Obviously, faithful missionaries and evangelists contend earnestly for the faith. But so does the Sunday School teacher or the home group leader who is faithful to the Scriptures. People like this contend for the faith just as much as a front-line missionary does, and each one of us should contend for the gospel wherever God puts us.
e. Contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints: Here, Jude tells us what we are contending for. There is a lot of earnest contention in the world but usually not for the right things. The faith once for all delivered to the saints is something worth contending for.
i. “The faith” doesn’t mean our own personal belief, or faith in the sense of our trust in God. The phrase the faith means “The essential truths of the gospel that all true Christians hold in common.” The faith is used in this sense repeatedly in the New Testament (Acts 6:7, 13:8, 14:22, 16:5, 24:24; Romans 1:5 and 16:26; Colossians 2:7, and 1 Timothy 1:2 are just some of the examples). We must contend earnestly for the truth. “The faith is the body of truth that very early in the church’s history took on a definite form (cf. Acts 2:42; Romans 6:17; Galatians 1:23).” (Blum)
ii. Once means that the faith was delivered one time, and doesn’t need to be delivered again. Of course, we distribute this truth again and again. But it was delivered by God to the world through the apostles and prophets once (Ephesians 2:20). God may speak today, but never in the authoritative way that He spoke through the first apostles and prophets as recorded in the New Testament. “There is no other gospel, there will be none. Its content will be more fully understood, its implications will be developed, its predictions will be fulfilled; but it will never be supplemented or succeeded or supplanted.” (Erdman)
iii. For all means that this faith is for everybody. We don’t have the option to simply make up our own faith and still be true to God. This faith is for all, but today, it isn’t popular to really believe in the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Instead, most people want to believe in the faith they make up as they go along and decide is right for them. More people believe in “the faith that is in my heart” than the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
iv. In the book Habits of the Heart, Robert Bellah and his colleagues wrote about an interview with a young nurse named Sheila Larson, whom they described as representing many American’s experience and views on religion. Speaking about her own faith and how it operated in her life, she said: “I believe in God. I’m not a religious fanatic. I can’t remember the last time I went to church. My faith has carried me a long way. It is ‘Sheilaism.’ Just my own little voice.” We might say that this highly individualistic faith is the most popular religion in the world, but the idea that we can or should put together our own faith is wrong. Christianity is based on one faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints.
4. (4) We need to contend for the faith because there are dangerous men among Christians.
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
a. Certain men have crept in unnoticed: In part, this is what makes them so dangerous – they are unnoticed. No one noticed that they were dangerous. They didn’t wear a “Danger: False Teacher” name tag. These certain men probably claimed to be more Biblical than anybody else was.
i. Crept in means, “To slip in secretly as if by a side door.” (Robertson) “Satan knows right well that one devil in the church can do far more than a thousand devils outside her bounds.” (Spurgeon)
b. Who long ago were marked out for this condemnation: These certain men have a destiny – the destiny of every false teacher and leader. They are marked and destined for this condemnation, and it is enough to say that they are ungodly men. They are ungodly simply in the sense that they are not like God and no matter the outward appearances, they disregard God.
i. They were unnoticed by men, but not by God. The Lord is not wringing His hands in heaven, worrying about those who deceive others through their teaching and through their lifestyles. They may be hidden to some believers but as far as God is concerned, their condemnation was marked out long ago. Their judgment is assured. The truth will win out; our responsibility is to be on the side with the truth.
c. Who turn the grace of our God into lewdness: These certain men had received something of the grace of God. But when they received it, they turned it into an excuse for their lewdness.
i. The idea behind the ancient word lewdness is sin that is practiced without shame, without any sense of conscience or decency. Usually the word is used in the sense of sensual sins, such as sexual immorality. But it can also be used in the sense of brazen anti-biblical teaching, when the truth is denied and lies are taught without shame. Jude probably had both ideas in mind here, because as the rest of the letter will develop, these certain men had both moral problems and doctrinal problems.
ii. These words of Jude show that there is a danger in preaching grace. There are some who may take the truth of God’s grace and turn the grace of our God into lewdness. But this doesn’t mean there is anything wrong or dangerous about the message of God’s grace. It simply shows how corrupt the human heart is.
d. And deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ: These certain mendeny the Lord Jesus Christ. They do this by refusing to recognize who Jesus said He was, and therefore they also deny who God the Father is also.
i. We are not told specifically how these men deny the only Lord God. It may be that they denied Him with their ungodly living or it may be that they denied Him with their heretical doctrines. Probably both were true.
B. Three examples that show the certainty of God’s judgment against the certain men.
1. (5) The example of the people of Israel.
But I want to remind you, though you once knew this, that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
a. But I want to remind you, though you once knew this: Jude knew he wasn’t telling them anything new. They were already taught this example, but they needed to hear it again and to apply it to their present situation.
i. Ideally, every Christian would read these allusions to the Old Testament and say, “Yes Jude, I know exactly what you are talking about.” If we don’t know what Jude wrote about, it shows we need to deepen our understanding of the Bible.
ii. “As for the root facts, the fundamental doctrines, the primary truths of Scripture, we must from day to day insist upon them. We must never say of them, ‘Everybody knows them’; for, alas! everybody forgets them.” (Spurgeon)
iii. “The use of God’s Word is not only to teach what we could not have otherwise known, but also to rouse us to a serious meditation of those things which we already understand, and not to suffer us to grow torpid in a cold knowledge.” (Calvin)
b. The Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt: Jude reminds us of what happened in Numbers 14. God delivered the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. They went out of Egypt and without unintended delays came to a place called Kadesh Barnea, on the threshold of the Promised Land. But at Kadesh Barnea, the people refused to trust God and go into the Promised Land of Canaan. Therefore almost none of the adult generation who left Egypt entered into the Promised Land.
i. Think of what God did for the people of Israel in this situation, and then how they responded to Him. They experienced God’s miraculous deliverance at the Red Sea. They heard the very voice of God at Mount Sinai. They received His daily care and provision of manna in the wilderness. Yet they still lapsed into unbelief, and never entered into the place of blessing and rest God had for them.
c. Afterward destroyed those who did not believe: Those who doubted and rejected God at Kadesh Barnea paid a bigger price than just not entering the Promised Land. They also received the judgment of God. Psalm 95 describes how the Lord reacted to them: For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, “It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways. So I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest” (Psalm 95:10-11).
i. The warning through Jude is clear. The people of Israel started out from Egypt well enough. They had many blessings from God along the way. But they did not endure to the end, because they did not believe God’s promise of power and protection.
ii. This example gives two lessons. First, it assures us that the certain men causing trouble will certainly be judged, even though they may have started out well in their walk with God. Jude says, “The certain men might have started out well. But so did the children of Israel, and God afterward destroyed those who did not believe.” Secondly, it warns us that we also must follow Jesus to the end, and never be among those who did not believe. The final test of our Christianity is endurance. Some start the race but never finish it.
2. (6) The example of the angels who sinned.
And the angels who did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day;
a. The angels who did not keep their proper domain: Jude’s letter is famous for bringing up obscure or controversial points, and this is one of them. Jude speaks of the angels who sinned, who are now imprisoned and awaiting a future day of judgment.
i. “It is not too much to say that the New Testament no where else presents so many strange phenomenons, or raises so many curious questions within so narrow a space.” (Salmond, Pulpit Commentary)
b. Angels who did not keep their proper domain: There is some measure of controversy about the identity of these particular angels. We only have two places in the Bible where it speaks of angels sinning. First, there was the original rebellion of some angels against God (Isaiah 14:12-14, Revelation 12:4). Secondly, there was the sin of the sons of God described in Genesis 6:1-2.
i. Genesis 6:1-2 is a controversial passage all on its own. It says, Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. There is a significant debate as to if the sons of God are angelic beings, or just another way of saying “followers of God” among humans. Jude helps us answer this question.
c. Did not keep their proper domain, but left their own abode: This offence was connected with some kind of sexual sin, such as the sexual union between rebellious angelic beings (the sons of God in Genesis 6:2) and the human beings (the daughters of men in Genesis 6:2). We know that there was some sexual aspect to this sin because Jude tells us in the following verse, Jude 7: as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh. The words in a similar manner to these refers back to the angels of Jude 6, and the words gone after strange flesh refers to their unnatural sexual union.
i. We know some things about this unnatural sexual union from Genesis 6. We know that this unnatural union produced unnatural offspring. The unnatural union corrupted the genetic pool of mankind, so God had to find Noah, a man perfect in his generations (Genesis 6:9) – that is, “pure in his genetics.” This unnatural union prompted an incredibly drastic judgment of God – a global flood, wiping out all of mankind except for eight people.
ii. We can add another piece of knowledge from Jude 6. This unnatural union prompted God to uniquely imprison the angels who sinned in this way. They are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day.
iii. As for the specific details of this unnatural union, it is useless to speculate. We don’t know how “fallen angel” genetic material could mix with human genetic material. Perhaps it happened through a unique form of demon possession and the fallen angel worked through a human host. We know that angels have the ability to assume human appearance at least temporarily, but we don’t know more than that.
d. He has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day: God judged these wicked angels, setting them in everlasting chains. Apparently some fallen angels are in bondage while others are unbound and active among mankind as demons.
i. By not keeping their proper place, they are now kept in chains. Their sinful pursuit of freedom put them in bondage. In the same way, those who insist on the freedom to do whatever they want are like these angels – bound with everlasting chains. True freedom comes from obedience.
ii. If angels cannot break the chains sin brought upon them, we are foolish to think that humans can break them. We can’t set ourselves free from these chains, but we can only be set free by Jesus.
iii. This reminds us that these angels who sinned with an unnatural sexual union are no longer active. With His radical judgment back in the days of Noah, God put an end to this kind of unnatural sexual union.
iv. This example gives two lessons. First, it assures us that the certain men causing trouble will be judged, no matter what their spiritual status had been. These angels at one time stood in the immediate, glorious presence of God – and now they are in everlasting chains. If God judged the angels who sinned, He will judge these certain men. Secondly, it warns us that we also must continue walking with Jesus. If the past spiritual experience of these angels didn’t guarantee their future spiritual state, then neither does ours. We must keep walking and be on guard.
3. (7) The example of Sodom and Gomorrah.
As Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
a. As Sodom and Gomorrah: These two cities (and the cities around them) also stand as examples of God’s judgment. Their sin – which was most conspicuously homosexuality, but included other sins as well – brought forth God’s judgment.
i. Sodom and Gomorrah were blessed, privileged places. They were situated in a blessed area: it was well watered everywhere… like the garden of the LORD (Genesis 13:10).
b. Having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh: Jude refers to the account in Genesis 19, where the homosexual conduct of the men of Sodom is described. Ezekiel 16:49 tells us of other sins of Sodom: Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. Sexual depravity was not their only sin, but it was certainly among their sins, and Jude makes this plain.
i. The sins described in Ezekiel 16:49 show that Sodom and Gomorrah were indeed prosperous, blessed areas. You don’t have fullness of food, and abundance of idleness if you don’t have material blessings. But despite their great blessing from God and material prosperity, they sinned and were judged.
c. Suffering the vengeance of eternal fire: In Genesis 19, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with fire from heaven. But that wasn’t the end of their judgment by fire. Far worse than what happened in Genesis 19, they suffered the vengeance of eternal fire.
i. This example gives two lessons. First, it assures us that the certain men causing trouble will be judged, no matter how much they had been blessed in the past. Just as Sodom and Gomorrah were once wonderfully blessed but eventually suffered the vengeance of eternal fire, so will it be with these certain men. Secondly, it warns us that we also must continue walking with Jesus. If the blessings of the past didn’t guarantee their future spiritual state, then neither does ours.
C. More sins of the certain men.
1. (8) The character of these dangerous certain men.
Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries.
a. Likewise also: Jude connected the certain men with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah in their sensuality (defile the flesh) and in their rejection of God’s authority (reject authority).
i. When Jude pointed out that these certain men reject authority, it meant that they wanted to be in authority. Therefore they rejected the authority of God and they rejected those God put in authority.
ii. Today, our culture encourages us to reject authority and to recognize self as the only real authority in our lives. We can do this with the Bible, by choosing to only believe certain passages. We can do it with our beliefs, by choosing at the “salad bar” of religion. Or we can do it with our lifestyle, by making our own rules and not recognizing the proper authorities God has established.
iii. In the darkest days of Israel, society was characterized by a term: every man did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 21:25). Today, this is the pattern of all the world and especially Western civilization.
b. These dreamers: It is possible that Jude meant that the certain men were out of touch with reality. It is more likely that he meant they claimed to have prophetic dreams which were really deceptions.
c. Speak evil of dignitaries: Probably these dignitaries were the apostles or other leaders in the church. Their rejection of authority was connected with their speaking evil of dignitaries.
2. (9) Michael the archangel as an example of someone who would not speak evil of dignitaries.
Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
a. Michael the archangel… the devil: Jude mentioned two kinds of angelic beings. Michael is among the angelic beings faithful to God, who are the servants of God and man. The devil is among the angelic beings rebelling against God, who are the enemies of man.
i. There are invisible, angelic beings all around us. There are ministering spirits sent by God to assist us, and demonic spirits who want to defeat us. The devil can’t unsave a saved person; but through his deceptions he can corrupt and defile a Christian who is supposed to walk in purity and freedom. To the devil, we are time bombs, ready to wreck his work – bombs that he would like to defuse and make ineffective.
ii. Many people today don’t believe the devil exists, but the Bible says he does. Or, if they believe he exists, they think of him in funny images from the Middle Ages. Back then, miracle plays were a chief form of entertainment. They were sort of a pageant where religious stories were acted out on stage. The audience learned to look for one character that was always dressed in red, wore horns on his head, and had a tail dangling behind him. His shoes looked like cloven hoofs, and he had a pitchfork in his hand. The audience was amused by this silly characterization of Satan, and got the idea that he was sort of a comical character. The devil doesn’t mind being thought of this way.
b. Michael the archangel: This angelic being is mentioned by name in four passages of the Bible: Daniel 10, Daniel 12, Revelation 12 and here in Jude. Every time Michael appears, it is in the context of battle or readiness to fight. He is an archangel, which simply means a “leading angel.”
i. If the devil has an opposite, it certainly isn’t God. It is Michael the archangel – another high ranking angelic being.
ii. “Let it be observed that the word archangel is never found in the plural number in the sacred writings. There can be properly only one archangel, one chief or head of all the angelic host. Nor is the word devil, as applied to the great enemy of mankind, ever found in the plural; there can be but one monarch of all fallen spirits.” (Clarke)
c. When he disputed about the body of Moses: This is another obscure reference by Jude. The last we read about the body of Moses is in Deuteronomy 34:5-6: So Moses, the servant of the LORD died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the LORD. And He buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth Peor; but no one knows the grave to this day.
i. We don’t know where Jude received his information about this dispute. He may have received a unique revelation from God. But according to teachers in the early church, Jude referred to an apocryphal book known as the Assumption of Moses, of which only small portions survive.
ii. We don’t even exactly know why there was a dispute about the body of Moses. Some have said that the devil wanted to use Moses’ body as an object of worship to lead Israel astray into idolatry. Others have thought that Satan wanted to desecrate the body of Moses, and claimed a right to it because Moses had murdered an Egyptian.
iii. It is more likely that the devil anticipated a purpose God had for Moses’ body, and the devil tried to defeat that plan. We know that after his death, Moses appeared in bodily form at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-3) with Elijah (whose body was caught up to heaven in 2 Kings 2). Perhaps also Moses and Elijah are the two witnesses of Revelation 11, and God needed Moses’ body for that future plan.
iv. But for Jude, the main point isn’t why Michael was disputed, but how he disputed with the devil.
d. Dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” The manner of Michael’s fight is a model for spiritual warfare. First, we see that Michael was in a battle. Secondly, we see that he battled in the Lord’s authority.
i. This proves to us that Michael is not Jesus, as some heretical groups have thought. Jesus rebuked the devil in His own authority, but Michael did not. “The point of contrast is that Michael could not reject the devil’s accusation on his own authority.” (Bauckham)
ii. Significantly, Michael dared not bring against him a reviling accusation. Michael did not mock or accuse the devil. God hasn’t called us to judge the devil, to condemn the devil, to mock him or accuse him, but to battle against him in the name of the Lord.
iii. This relates to the certain men by a “how much more” line of thinking. If Michael dared not bring against him a reviling accusation against the devil, how much more should these certain men not speak evil of dignitaries.
3. (10) More of the bad character of the certain men.
But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves.
a. But these speak evil: In contrast to Michael, who would not even speak evil of the devil, these certain men spoke evil, especially when they rejected authority and spoke against dignitaries.
b. Of whatever they do not know: The certain men didn’t even know the things or the people they spoke evil about. Their evil speech was made worse by their ignorance.
i. Since they also spoke against dignitaries and rejected authority, these certain men did not know about true spiritual leadership and authority – so they found it easy to speak evil against it.
c. Whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves: These certain men pretended to be spiritual, but their only knowledge was really natural. Even what they knew naturally, they still used to corrupt themselves with an unspiritual mind.
i. Brute beasts can be smart or clever in an instinctive way, but they obviously do not have spiritual knowledge. It was the same way with these certain men.
ii. “How ironical that when men should claim to be knowledgeable, they should actually be ignorant; when they think themselves superior to the common man they should actually be on the same level as animals, and be corrupted by the very practices in which they seek liberty and self-expression.” (Green)