To Him Who Is Able
24 Now to him who is able to keep them from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory in great joy, 25 to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.
The letter of the kept ends with the Keeper — the command to keep yourselves was issued inside a confidence about who actually does the keeping.
The doxology begins where the letter's honesty requires: now to him who is able. Able to keep you from stumbling — aptaistos G679, a word the New Testament uses only here. Able to present you faultless before the presence of his glory, in great joy. The faultless presentation is the Lord's own project for his people Ephesians 5:27. And the joy is not relief; it is the exultation of the God who delights over his own Zephaniah 3:17.
So the letter closes its circle. It opened with readers kept for Jesus Christ Jude 1:1; it commanded them to keep themselves in God's love Jude 1:21; it ends praising the only one able to make the keeping hold. Between those keepings all the contending happens. The proportions are the lesson: the dangers got a paragraph each, and the doxology gets the last word — glory, majesty, dominion, and power, both now and forever. Amen.
settled What this mark means