Rebellion
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| English: The Discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, Laing Art Gallery (Tyne and Wear Museums) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
On the evening of the 5th of November 1605, Guy Fawkes and a band of conspirators were arrested for attempting to blow up the British Houses of Parliament. It was difficult for Fawkes to deny his intention, for he was found guarding 800kg of gunpowder in the cellar underneath the Parliament buildings, holding a flaming torch!
Guy Fawkes was a Catholic whose plan was to kill King James 1st in order to overthrow the Protestant monarchy. He was tortured for days without revealing any information not already known, and then sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. He cheated the executioner by jumping from the gallows and breaking his own neck, thus avoiding the gruesome execution to follow.
Many Catholics saw him as a hero, the perfect example of bravery, willing to die for the cause he believed in. Many Protestants saw him as the perfect example of what happens to villains who try to overthrow God’s king. And thus a national holiday was born, in which people all over the world light giant bonfires, set off fireworks, and burn effigies of Guy Fawkes. And since it is unclear if the holiday is celebrating the deliverance of the King and the punishment of the traitor, or if it’s celebrating the bravery and attempted revolution of the hero, Catholics and Protestants alike celebrate the same holiday with equal gusto, but without knowing exactly why.
3 TYPES OF REBELLION AND THEIR PUNISHMENT SO WE WILL SEE FALSE TEACHING AS GOD SEES IT
In building his case that false teachers are to be considered a grave danger to the church, Jude introduces three examples: Exhibit A, B, and C, as it were.
His point is there are myriad shades of rebellion, from unbelievers grumbling, to an angelic uprising, to sexual perversion but Jude is trying to warn us that preachers who stray from the faith once for all delivered to the saints, are not harmless, juvenile delinquents, who deserve a slap on the wrist. They belong on the same shelf as unbelievers, demons, and the sexually immoral.
1. REBELLION OF UNBELIEVING DISSENT
Jude 5 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.
The first group of perpetrators is the Israelites who grumbled and complained against God and Moses, and who, out of unbelief, rejected God’s authority. Eventually God just destroyed thousands of the grumblers (Num 14:29-30, 21:4-6).
Jude is saying that when sneaky preachers introduce new and strange teachings, that is tantamount to, and as serious as, the rebellion of unbelief. And the consequence is dire.
2. REBELLION OF UNLAWFUL DIVAGATION
Jude 6 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—
The word divagation means to “wander off into someone else’s territory.”
Here, for Exhibit B, Jude dusts off a fascinating little chapter of history to make his point that God has the authority to appoint you to a particular role, and when you stray out of that role you will suffer the consequences, even if you are an angel.
The incident Jude adduces here is the story of a group of rebellious angels who divagated from their assigned realm into the territory meant exclusively for humans.
Peter says the same thing in 2 Peter 2: 4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;
Now, who are these angels?
We have to do some theological sleuthing. A biblical CSI, if you will.
Gen 6: 1 When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
If we go with the interpretation that these “sons of God” were angelic beings, and put this passage together with Jude 6, 2 Peter 2:4 and one other passage…it begins to make sense.
1 Pet 3: 18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, … made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.
So, Peter was referring to a group of spiritual beings, like angels/demons, from the days of Noah, who disobeyed God and are locked in a prison.
When you piece these four passages together it creates a frame for the theory that some demons somehow (through possession or other means) copulated with human women and produced offspring, which prompted God to destroy every living creature on the planet, save those he drew into the Ark.
And even if you don’t go with my conclusions, Jude’s point is still clear. Rebellion has massive consequences and that false teachers are as destructive as these angels who rebelled against God.
3. REBELLION OF UNNATURAL DESIRE
Jude 7 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.
The last example Jude uses is another incidence of the rebellion of unnatural desire, this time humans rebelling against God’s design for sexuality.
Sodom and its sister city Gomorrah were notorious for their perverse sexual immorality, homosexuality, and rape (see Gen 19:4-5 for a bitter taste of how vile these people were).
And what did God do? He nuked both cities and cauterized them off the face of the earth like a planter wart burnt off your skin.
Why? Because God invented sex, and drew boundaries in order to keep it natural, beautiful, and honoring to him. Humans rebel against that by ignoring his boundaries. They pervert and twist what is natural and normal, making it base and sordid. (Rom 1:26-38)
And Jude’s point is this is what false teachers are like… 8 Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
And Jude wants you to know that the rebellion of false teaching is just as bad as the rebellion of unbelief, demons, and sexual deviants.
So, beware of the many ways Satan will try get you to rebel against your Master, your Lord, and your Savior, Jesus Christ.
It’s one thing for Guy Fawkes to rebel against the King of England. It is another for humans to rebel against their Creator, their Lord, and their Judge.
But praise is to God that Jesus died to make us right with him once for all. No matter your sin, no matter the awfulness of your rebellion, if you turn to God in repentance, Jesus’ death is enough to take God’s wrath and to cleanse us from all our sin.
