For there are certain men who crept in secretly, even those who were long ago written about for this condemnation: ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into indecency, and denying our only Master, God, and Lord, Jesus Christ.
ExplanationCommentary
Verse 4. For there have crept in some men, impious men, (who were of old [2] foretold that they should fall into condemnation, by their own obdurate malice) the disciples of Simon, and the Nicolaites, who endeavour to turn the grace of our God, and the Christian liberty into all manner of infamous [3] lasciviousness; who, by their ridiculous fables, deny the only sovereign Ruler, and our Lord Jesus Christ. Some by the only sovereign, or master of all things, understand God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his divine Person, is the same God, Master, and Lord with him, and the Holy Ghost. But many interpreters think the true sense and construction is this, denying Jesus Christ, our only sovereign master, [4] and Lord. The reasons for this exposition are: 1. That this verse of S. Jude seems correspondent to that of Saint Peter, (2 Ep. 2:1) where he says of the same heretics, that they deny the Lord who bought them, or deny him that bought them, to be Lord. 2. Because the disciples of Simon denied Jesus Christ to be truly Lord God, but denied not this of the Father. 3. Because the Greek text seems to denote one and the same to be sovereign master and the Lord. See Cornel. a Lapide. Witham.