Jude 17-18 – But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.”
Because the Bible is timeless, it never gets old but rather is always timely. Speaking to the prophetic and timeless book of Jude, Protestant Reformer John Calvin said roughly 500 years ago, “As unprincipled men, under the name of Christians, had crept in, whose chief object was to lead the unstable and weak to a profane contempt of God, Jude first shews, that the faithful ought not to have been moved by agents of this kind, by which the Church has always been assailed; and yet he exhorts them carefully to beware of such pests. And to render them more hateful and detestable, he denounces on them the approaching vengeance of God, such as their impiety deserved. Now, if we consider what Satan has attempted in our age, from the commencement of the revived gospel, and what arts he still busily employs to subvert the faith, and the fear of God, what was a useful warning in the time of Jude, is more than necessary in our age…” (1)
Today, things are certainly not better (arguably much worse). If Jude was vitally needed 500 years ago, the passage of time has only increased the degree of its timeliness.
Jude reminds us that we are living in the “last time” or last days. The Bible does not view history around years as much as around Jesus Christ. There were the days leading up to the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Then, there was Jesus’ earthly ministry and return to Heaven.
Ever since, we are living in the “last time”, which is the indefinite period of time between Jesus’ first coming to save His people, and His Second Coming to raise the dead, sentence everyone to Heaven and Hell, finally destroy the demonic, lift the curse, and bless God’s people in a perfect Kingdom together forever. The “last time” is the time between the day that Jesus went back in to Heaven and next time that He comes back to earth.
Why is it important to keep hope while we wait for Jesus’ return? What does that look like practically?
- John Calvin, Jude, electronic ed., Calvin’s Commentaries (Albany, OR: Ages Software, 1998).
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