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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - Jude 1:10 - 1:10
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A double crime is here charged upon these seducers by our apostle, namely, pride, in speaking evil of things they know not; and wickedness, in abusing the knowledge they had.
1. Their sin was great in speaking evil of what they did not know, (they reviled dignities and magistrates, the usefulness of whom they knew not) and possibly condemned the mysteries of the Christian faith, which they understand not, notwithstanding they called themselves Gnostics, and pretended to higher degrees and larger measures of knowledge than other men.
Learn, That truth is usually slandered by ignorant and conceited men; because men do not understand the things of God, therefore they do condemn them.
2. Their wickedness was great in abusing the knowledge that they had, and in acting contrary to it. What they knew naturally, or by the light of nature, to be sinful in those things, as brute beasts, did they corrupt and defile themselves.
Here note, 1. That where sin reigneth, it turneth men into brute beasts, Psa_49:12. Hence they are compared to dogs for filthiness, to swine for uncleanness, to wolves for cruelty; of the two it is worse to be like a beast, than to be a beast: the beast is what God has made it; but he that is like a beast, is what sin and the devil has made him.
2. That it is a sign of a man turned to a beast, to follow the lusts and passions of corrupt nature. Like brute beasts they corrupt themselves. It is just with God to leave them to be led by sense, who will not be guided by grace, and to suffer them to fall into the ditch of beastly sensuality, who forget that they are men.