For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
E. Pentecost:
III. Warnings concerning the Peril of Apostasy (vv. 5–16).
Jude first warned his readers of the peril of apostasy by citing three examples from the past of apostates who were destroyed (vv. 5–7), and then by describing the upcoming judgment on present apostates (vv. 8–16).
A. Examples of apostates in the past (vv. 5–7).
1. EGYPT (v. 5)
Egypt is mentioned as a reminder of the fact that most Israelites who left Egypt were not faithful. An entire generation perished in the wilderness because of their unbelief (cf. Heb. 3:16–19).
2. angels (v. 6)
Among the angels were those who had remained in their first abode and had been obedient to God. But others rebelled and left their first positions of authority and are now in darkness, bound … for judgment on the Great Day.
3. SODOM AND GOMORRAH (v. 7)
V. 7. Jude’s third illustration, of Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns, serves as a dreadful example of what happens to those who turn from God to follow their own lustful natures. The fate of the unbelievers in those two cities (Gen. 19:1–29) foreshadows the fate of those who deny God’s truth and ignore His warnings. The punishment by fire on the perverse inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah illustrates the eternal fire of hell, which will be experienced by false teachers.
(Source: Pentecost, E. C. (1985). Jude. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 920). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.)
Treasury of Scripture:
Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
These things are written to remind us of what happens to the ungodly, they serve as an example.
The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, John Martin, 1852.
if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; (2 Peter 2:6)
I am pondering the rapid acceleration of individual, national, and global apostasy. It is a great and terrible thing to love the living God. It is a great and terrible thing to hate the living God. Our God is great in mercy and in wrath.
