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Jude’s real name is Judah. Judah starts his short, urgent and intense letter by introducing himself and letting us know to whom he is writing. This letter is from Judah, a slave of Yeshua the Messiah and a brother of James. I am writing to all who have been called by God the Father, who loves you and keeps you safe in the care of Messiah Yeshua. He prays a short prayer. May God give you more and more mercy, peace, and love.

Now we come to the main part of this letter: Dear friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to His holy people.

Judah lets us know that he had been eagerly planning to write about the salvation we all share, but because false teachers had been infiltrating Messiah’s community and corrupting the faith, he wrote about the need to defend the faith. Since Judah was diverted from his original purpose and didn’t write about the salvation we all share – I will.

What is salvation? It is help, intervention, deliverance, rescue, victory.

There are various ways God saves us – but the greatest way is by what Messiah Yeshua has done, is doing and will do for us. He is saving us from the things that we can’t save ourselves from – the control of Satan and the fallen angels, the control of sin and our sin nature. He saves us from condemnation on the Day of Judgment, followed by punishment in Gehenna, Hell, the Lake of Fire.

What does salvation mean? What does salvation include?

We are completely forgiven. All of our sins are fully atoned for by Messiah’s sacrifice. We will not be condemned on the Day of Judgment. Acquitted! Not guilty! Innocent of all charges! Case dismissed!

We are not just forgiven, we are justified. God considers us to be righteous because of our faith in Messiah Yeshua. Whereas we were in a wrong relationship with God, we are now in a right relationship with God.

We are reconciled to God. We have a restored relationship with God. We have peace with God. Our relationship to God is characterized by shalom – wholeness, completeness, well-being. The veil has been torn. We are welcome in His presence. We have direct access to God. We are able to come before Him with confidence.

We have been redeemed, ransomed, bought, purchased out of the slave market of sin and death. We have been delivered from the control of Satan and the other fallen angels. We have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.

We have been born again. We are no longer slaves to our old sin nature and its corrupt desires but have been given a new nature that loves God and loves doing what is right.

The Spirit of the Father and the Son lives in us, making us His temple. He empowers us to live godly lives – not by our own strength but by His power working within us. He teaches us. He guides us.

We are being sanctified. We are in the process of becoming more holy. We are being transformed into the image and character of our holy Messiah.

We are safe, secure, protected by God’s power – not by our ability to hold on. We are sealed by the Holy Spirit of the Almighty God, guaranteeing that we will arrive at our final destination.

And we have an even greater salvation to look forward to in the future. We will be resurrected and transformed and made into glorious creatures who will live forever with the Eternal God.

This is the salvation that we share. There is nothing comparable to it – all made possible by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Because this salvation is so great, it’s worth defending. Dear friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to His holy people.

What is the faith that we are to defend? “The faith” is the truths revealed by God – the core teachings of the Bible.

There is one God in three Persons – not three modes or manifestations, but three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – distinct and separate Persons, yet perfectly one in essence and nature.

The Father is in the place of highest honor and has supreme authority.

Yeshua the Messiah is God’s unique Son and our Lord – worthy of our full allegiance. He sits at the right hand of the throne of God the Father and carries out the word and will of His Father.

Yeshua was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He is fully God and fully man – absolutely unique in this way. He did many great miracles, lived a perfect and sinless life, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended to the realm of the dead, fully entering into death on our behalf. On the third day He rose again from the dead, conquering sin, death, and the grave.

He ascended into Heaven and is reigning over all things – full of love and power and grace and life and glory.

He will come again to judge the living and the dead, bringing final justice and establishing His kingdom.

The faith teaches the reality of sin and the sin nature – that all humanity is fallen and separated from God by nature and by our actions.

The faith teaches that salvation comes from God’s grace and our response of faith, belief, loyalty, allegiance – not by our works, human efforts, good deeds, religious activities, or sacraments.

The faith teaches that there is one holy, set apart, worldwide people of God.

The faith teaches the reality of the spiritual realm, including faithful angels who serve God and fallen angels who oppose Him.

The faith teaches that the Bible is the divinely inspired and trustworthy Word of God, authoritative in all it teaches, and is to be believed and obeyed. The Bible includes what is known as the Tenach – the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures – and the New Testament, the New Covenant writings. It does not include the Apocrypha.

The faith teaches the resurrection of the body – that we will not remain in the grave but be raised and receive a new body that is able to live forever.

The faith culminates in the promise of living eternally with God in His kingdom.

The faith affirms the ongoing importance of Israel in God’s redemptive plan, and that God will ultimately bring about Israel’s salvation according to His promises.

The faith – these core truths revealed in the Word of God, is precious, is amazing. The faith, if believed, fills us with peace and joy and hope. It results in salvation and eternal life. How sad for those who don’t have faith, who don’t share this faith – which is the only true faith that saves.

Judah lets us know that the faith has been entrusted to us. God has placed something extremely valuable into our care. I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to His holy people.

To be entrusted with the faith means we have a great responsibility – not just to believe the truth, but to protect it, teach it, and pass it on. We must preserve it faithfully, not alter it in any way, not add to it or take away from it.

We are able fulfill this responsibility by knowing the faith. We can’t defend what we don’t understand. And not only must we know the truths of the Bible but we must consistently live according to those truths, because truth is defended not only by words but by actions.

Judah urges us to defend this precious faith that has been entrusted to us. I am urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to His holy people.

We must defend the faith because it is not automatically preserved. It can be distorted, diluted, corrupted, perverted if left undefended.

We must defend the faith because false teachers and false teaching are pervasive and aggressive and subtle.

We must defend the faith because the gospel, the good news, which is central to the faith – is God’s power to accomplish our salvation. If the faith is not defended, it will be redefined, twisted, corrupted, and once that happens, it no longer saves.

Judah describes the faith as something that God has entrusted once for all time to His holy people. That little phrase, “once for all time” is very significant. “Once for all time” means that there are no new teachings that can be added to the faith that were not already present in the first century when Judah wrote this. The faith was fully formed, was complete and final when Judah wrote this. The faith is not evolving. It isn’t changing. There’s no upgrade. There no faith 2.0. There’s no new gospel coming. There’s no new revelation that can make any changes to the faith. The faith is not subject to cultural revision.

And yet in spite of the fact that the faith was fully formed when Judah wrote this, new teachings were introduced centuries later that have no foundation in Scripture. Here are some examples of teachings added by the Catholic Church.

The Immaculate Conception of Mary: The teaching that Mary was conceived without original sin. This teaching is entirely absent from Scripture. The Bible is clear that all humans, apart from Yeshua, are born in a fallen condition.

The Assumption of Mary: The teaching that Mary was taken bodily into Heaven at the end of her life. There is no biblical text that records or predicts this event.

Papal Infallibility: The teaching that the Pope, when speaking formally on matters of faith and morals, is preserved from error by God. This claim has no support in Scripture and contradicts the biblical pattern of all leaders being accountable to God’s Word – including Peter (see Galatians 2).

Purgatory: The teaching that most souls undergo a period of purification after death before entering Heaven. However, the Word of God teaches that we are saved by faith in this life, not by suffering after death, and that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. There is no biblical basis for a post-death cleansing process.

Prayers to saints: The practice of directing prayers to believers who have died so they will be our mediators before God. Scripture teaches that there is one mediator between God and humanity – Messiah Yeshua – and that we are to pray directly and only to God. We are not to be praying to angels or human beings who have died – including Mary. “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” Wrong. Wrong. Wrong!

Transubstantiation and the sacrifice of the Mass: The Catholic Church teaches that the substance of the bread and wine is changed into the actual body and blood of Messiah, and that each Mass re-presents – makes sacramentally present – His once-for-all sacrifice. But the Word of God teaches that the Lord’s Supper is a memorial, a proclamation – not a physical transformation or a sacrificial re-presentation of any kind. “It is finished” means exactly what it says. The letter to the Hebrews makes clear that Messiah’s sacrifice was offered once, its work is complete, and no further offering for sin remains – nor is any needed.

Each of these doctrines was introduced centuries after the apostolic age – doing exactly what Judah warns against: the addition of teachings beyond those that God entrusted once for all time to His holy people.

We should not think this danger comes only from the Papists. There are others today who are guilty of adding too, subtracting from and redefining the faith.

The Mormons number roughly 17 to 18 million people globally. They claim Christian identity and use Christian language, but have added teachings, like the Book of Mormon – that were never part of the faith of Judah and the apostles.

Liberal theology often redefines sin, calling what God calls wrong acceptable or even good. It tends to treat Scripture as evolving, placing cultural interpretation over its fixed authority. It often reinterprets Messiah, emphasizing Him as a moral example more than the divine Savior who atones for sin. It tends to redefine salvation, shifting from repentance and new birth to acceptance, inclusion, or social transformation.

The prosperity gospel has turned faith into a means to get wealthy while removing the call to suffer and take up one’s cross. It equates material wealth with God’s favor while overlooking faithfulness in hardship. It misuses Scripture, lifting promises out of context to guarantee outcomes God never promised. It minimizes repentance, focusing on receiving rather than being conformed to holiness. It treats God as a means to an end, rather than the end Himself.

In all these cases, the faith is not openly rejected – it’s distorted until it no longer resembles the faith that God entrusted once for all time to His holy people.

Defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to His holy people. Holy means set apart – set apart for God, set apart to accomplish God’s special purposes. Being holy is both a position and a calling. We are holy right now because of our union with Messiah Yeshua, who is the Holy One. That is our position. Set apart. Special. God sees us as holy. But being holy is also our calling. God is asking us to live according to our position. He wants us to live holy lives now, lives that reflect His holiness.

We must live holy lives if we are going to faithfully defend the faith that has been entrusted to God’s holy people once for all time. Defending the faith is not only about standing for the truth but also about how we are representing it. We represent the holy God who gave the truth. When our lives are unholy, our message loses credibility and spiritual authority.

Holiness and truth are connected. Sin doesn’t just affect behavior – it dulls spiritual awareness. Over time, it reduces our ability to see truth and how strongly we stand for it. A community that abandons holiness will drift from truth, and a community that abandons truth will eventually begin to justify unholiness.

As we end, let’s ask ourselves these questions: what am I doing to know the faith more deeply? Am I in God’s Word regularly, building the kind of understanding that equips me to recognize error when it appears? Am I growing in my understanding of what has been entrusted to me, or am I on autopilot, coasting on what I learned years ago? Have I tolerated false teaching because confronting it felt uncomfortable? Have I stayed silent when someone I know embraced a version of faith that deviates from what the apostles, the Lord’s representatives, gave us?

Know the faith. Defend the faith. Live the faith.

Let’s pray:

Heavenly Father, thank You for the great salvation we share – purchased by Messiah’s blood and sealed by Your Spirit. You have entrusted us with a faith that is complete, final, and worthy of our full devotion. Forgive us for the times we have not defended it as we should have, when we were silent when we should have spoken. Give us hearts that love Your truth deeply, minds that recognize error clearly, and voices that defend the faith humbly and courageously. Amen.