Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Jude · About this commentary
Contend for the Faith Once Delivered
Jude 1:3-4
3 Beloved, while I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I was constrained to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. · WEB
The faith is contended for because it was delivered — a trust to guard, not a draft to revise.
Jude tells his readers plainly that this is not the letter he meant to write. He was eager to write about the common salvation; the situation constrained him to write an appeal instead. The verb he chooses — epagonizomai G1864, the New Testament's single use of it — is the athlete's struggle intensified: contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Once for all — hapax G530 — is the load-bearing phrase. What was delivered is complete, and it was delivered to the saints, the whole believing people, not to a guild authorized to amend it. A different gospel is condemned even from an apostle's own mouth Galatians 1:8; the good deposit is guarded, not improved 2 Timothy 1:14.
Verse 4 explains the urgency. Certain men crept in secretly — pareisdynō G3921, another word used only here, picturing entry by the side door. Their sentence is older than they are, written long ago, as the next verses will show from history. Their marks are two, and they travel together: grace turned into license, and the only Master denied. Doctrine and conduct do not fail separately; a teaching that frees the flesh has already lost its Lord.
settled What this mark means