3 Beloved, while I was giving all diligence to write unto you of our common salvation, I was constrained to write unto you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints. 4 For there are certain men crept in privily, even they who were of old written of beforehand unto this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

While Jude was planning to write his fellow believers a letter on subjects related to the salvation which they all shared, he was confronted with the necessity of abandoning this plan, and of preparing this epistle in which he could urge his readers to a faithful defense of the great truths which had been received from Christ and his apostles, which he had been hoping to expound, which were now in grave peril. The nature of this peril was the presence and influence, within the Church, of certain men who, by their teaching as well as by their lives, were denying the Lord whom they professed to obey. Their coming had been predicted long ago, but their entrance into the Church had been unobserved, or their real nature had not been known, and their power had not been appreciated. Now, however, Jude is fully aroused to the menace which they constitute to the Christian faith, and he sounds a call to arms, he declares that the enemy is really entrenched within the camp, he Insists that believers must "contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints."

By these words he indicates that the body of revealed truth Is complete and final. There Is no other gospel, there will be none. Its content will be more fully understood, its Implications will be developed, its predictions win be fulfilled; but it will never be supplemented or succeeded or supplanted.

Jude further indicates that this truth must be defended. Even In the days of the apostles, even In the early Church where truth was held so dear, there were those who denied the realities concerning the unique person and the saving work of Christ, whose insidious teachings corrupted the pure gospel, whose impious lives were concealed by a loud profession of "advanced" knowledge. So it has ever been in all ages. The most dangerous attacks upon the truth have come from within the Church itself, and there never have been wanting those who have declared the gospel to be erroneous, defective, or at least immature, who under forms most specious and plausible have attacked "the faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints."

Jude also indicates that the best defense of the truth is found in the influence of a holy life. Of course the Christian beliefs must be carefully studied and clearly stated, misrepresentations must be denied, and false charges must be answered, but the way "to contend earnestly for the faith" is not that of physical force or bitter denunciation or social ostracism, but that of consistent living. Truth is certain to manifest itself in life. The false teachers showed their errors by the impurity of their deeds. Those who would defend the faith must show themselves "saints," by which is meant real "believers" or those who are "consecrated to Christ."