To Those Who Are Called

                                                                 “Jude…to those who are called”

Jude v 1 (NASB)

 

We have already looked at the identity of the author of this book, that being Jude. Now the author turns his attention unto his audience. He describes the people he is writing to as “them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called”. Thomas Manton says “they are described by their condition, called; and by the effects and manifestations of it, which are two, sanctification and preservation”. The preserving and sanctifying aspects are consequences of their condition of being called. For this reason, and due to the fact that all new translations has a different sentence structure than the King James, I will deal with the concept of being “called” first.

                Jude designates his readers by the term “called” but this could not always be applied to them. There was a time before they were known in such a manner. Scripture tells us that we are all born sinners and separated from God. We are described as being “dead in trespasses and sins” Eph. 2:1. Man is completely depraved having no desire for the one true God. “There is none righteous, no, not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one” Romans 3:10-12. It is evident both by scripture and our own consciences that we are sinners. Are souls were as good as dead, belonging to darkness and deserving only death and punishment. “For the wages of sin is death” Romans 6:23

                “In a word, we are called from a state, not of darkness only, and blindness, but slavery, rebellion, poverty, pain, ignominy, banishment, nakedness, filthiness, deformity, sickness, the company of lions and leopards, death, perdition and everything that is miserable. All the woes of the world, were they a thousand times greater, are but a faint representation of the misery of wicked men; they are miserable within, without, here, hereafter, in life, in death, after death; liable to the loss of the glorious and soul-ravishing presence of God to all eternity” – William Jenkyn

                But, they were not left in this condition they were called out of it. Who did this calling? It was God Himself, but the question is, who is this God? God is described to us in a variety of different ways. For instance we know that “God is love” I John 4:8 and that “God is light” I John 1:5. But we are also told many other marvelous things about God, such as His being all knowing, all powerful, all wise and ever present. The God that is described to us in the Bible is an amazing God. He is also described to a God who is Holy. He is described as being “of purer eyes than to behold evil” Habakkuk 1:3. It was His holiness that was praised the consecutive times being the angel in Isaiah’s vision “One cried unto another, and said, holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory” Isaiah 6:3. This repetition is found again in the book of revelation. Scripture is very clear in this point, God is a God who is holy and will always do what is right. He will not and cannot overlook sin. To overlook sin would be wrong and unjust, and God cannot do that. We are told that “it is impossible for God to lie” Hebrews 6:18. It is so against the nature of His holiness that He is incapable of sinning or doing anything unjustly.

                That leaves us with a problem. We are sinners and God is holy. How can He therefore call us unto salvation? The amazing answer is that God placed our sins on the person of Jesus Christ and placed His righteousness upon us.  The concept of being declared righteous because of the righteousness of Christ is what scripture calls “justification”. “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” Romans 5:1. Christ took upon Himself the sins that we would never be able to pay for, not even in an eternity, and his in exchange given us His right standing before God. Because God “hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” II Corinthians 5:21. This is the Gospel, this is our hope, this is our salvation and the only way in which God can call us unto Himself.

                Hopefully, to hear the Gospel again is not boring or monotonous to you. To think about who we once were, who God is, who Christ is, what He has done for us and the glories and salvation that He has called us unto, what can we do now but praise is wonderful name? Salvation teaches us about the blessed grace and mercy of God and He will receive the praise both now and forever. “No flesh should glory in his presence. But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption: That, according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord” I Corinthians 1:29-31. We are to receive no honor or praise, but Christ’s work is made to known to us because God has called us out of dark and dead state of sin and trespasses into a glorious light of salvation. “Show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” I Peter 2:9. Never allow the gospel to cloy to your taste, may it ever be unfathomably ravishing to our hearts and souls. It is for this that we will praise God for all eternity, and when ten thousand years have passed, and all the redeemed and elect angels have sang glories to Him every moment we will have been touched only drop of the ocean due to the worthy adoration of His name.

                “But why attempt I to give you an inventory of the benefits by vocation, when eternity shall be little enough to contemplate them? Who can think what it is to be called to sanctification, to have of every grace, the least dram or drop of any one whereof is infinitely more worth than an ocean, a world of wealth and treasures? To be called to the privileges as well as the graces of a Christian, justification of our persons, freedom from the wrath of God, and all those millions of mountains of sins that before lay upon us, to be called out of a dungeon of woe, as Joseph out of prison, to be favourites of the King of glory, to be called to the adoption of sons, liberty of children, comfortable enjoyment of all blessings, admission with boldness to the throne of grace, exemption from the least drop of curse in the greatest deluge of crosses. In a word, to be called to the full fruition of God in heaven from not only corruption by and with sin, the world, and the devil, but even from their very company; not only from curses, but even crosses too; to have the perfection of all happiness in our God, in whom all delights are concentred, and in comparison whereof the world's ocean of pleasure is not a drop and to see and have all this to eternity, without either intermission or amission? Psal. xvi. 11. This, and ten thousand times more, is not a shadow of that substantial happiness laid up in the consideration of this to which a Christian is called.” – William Jenkyn