The only wise God our Saviour
The letter of Jude climaxes in a famous doxology.
To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy - to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and for evermore! Amen (vv 24-25).
What can we say about this doxology?
1. It is a paean of praise to the only God. The Triune God of the Bible, Jude says, is the only God. Now that may not be politically correct, but it is good, Christian theology, and it’s right out of the New Testament, and if you are a regular reader of this magazine then the chances are you already believe that. The challenge for us is to live in the light of this truth. Do we worship the one true and living God or does our life say that we worship our jobs, or our families, our popularity, our power, or our money?
2. This God is the Saviour. Then there is something else that Jude draws our attention to here. He’s not just the only God; he is God the Saviour. Now it’s true that the New Testament refers to Jesus the Son as our Saviour fifteen or sixteen times, but it also refers to God the Father as our Saviour on at least eight occasions. And that’s the focus of Jude here. He is reminding us that the Father is the source of our salvation. You know what John says in John 3:16? He says it’s the Father who sent his Son into the world. 'God so loved the world that he gave his own Son' and so the focus is on the salvation of the heavenly Father. Jude is just reminding us that we must look to God the Father for our salvation. We must trust completely that he is able to deliver. It’s God and God alone who saves. It’s our perversity that takes us anywhere else for salvation other than in the one, true God. Who can love us more than him, the one who delights in salvation? So we must trust in him if we are to experience eternal life. So Jude praises God for his exclusive deity and because he is God our Saviour.
3. Salvation comes through his Son Jesus Christ. Again Jude blesses God because he saves us by his Son Jesus Christ (a phrase omitted in the familiar King James translation but in the oldest manuscripts). The focus moves from Father to Son and his mediation, his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension and his session in glory. This one is the only mediator between God and his people.
The very phrase 'through Jesus Christ' Christianizes this doxology. It makes it a word of praise to the Triune God. Jude’s attitude is thoroughly Trinitarian. It indicates the importance of the work of Jesus Christ, because in this fallen world we’re only able to glorify God as he intended to be glorified, through us, in Jesus Christ. If we want to participate in the glory which Christ is giving back to the Father, then we must believe on him.
Now we need to search ourselves and ask whether we are trusting in Jesus Christ? And are we coming to God in Jesus’ name? In other words, are we resting the whole hope of our salvation here and hereafter on Jesus Christ? It would be an enormous mistake to turn the attractive pages of a magazine and scan the final article and be failing in our chief end in life of knowing and worshipping God. So how do you know that you’re going to praise God for eternity? If you have a Saviour whose name is Jesus Christ. He is the Son of God and Saviour of sinners. We must trust in Jesus alone to secure our acceptance with God. And that means believing who he claims to be in the Bible and trusting in him for the forgiveness of sins, and confessing him and identifying ourselves with his people.
Douglas MacMillan
The late Douglas McMillan taught Church History at the Free Church College in Edinburgh for many years, but he was the greatest evangelist that the British Isles had known in the final three decades of the 20th century. The boy Douglas had come under the influence of Marxist teachers when he was in junior school and he had abandoned the faith. He had grown up in a godly, Christian home, his father an elder and his mother a praying Christian. But Douglas had fallen away from the faith, and he lived a wild life. In his early twenties, his mother was dying of cancer, and in the last few weeks of her life, she was in such pain that she couldn’t sleep. So she would stay up all night long, read her Bible and sing. Douglas tells that there were many times when he would come home in the wee hours of the morning from his carousing and he would walk through the back door of their house and hear his mother singing by herself.
One night, just a few days before she died, she asked Douglas to read the Bible to her. Now she had two purposes in mind in doing this: she wanted to hear the comforting words of Scripture, and she wanted Douglas to hear those words of Scripture. She had a question she wanted to press home to him, so she said, 'Douglas, would you read the Bible?' and he was anxious to do something for his mother. He loved his mother deeply, and so readily acceded to her request. 'Douglas, would you read from John 14 to me?' So he began reading some of those precious words from Jesus to his disciples on the night that he was betrayed. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives, give I unto you. Do not let your heart be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in Me. She said, 'That’s enough, Douglas’. He said, 'I can read more, Mother’. She said, 'That’s enough, Douglas. Now I just have one question I want to ask you. “In just a few hours I’m going to be with Jesus. Will you meet me there?” ‘
The question was finally answered some time later when David Patterson came to take some evangelistic meetings in that Highlands village. He talked to Douglas after one service and was pressing him with the duty of submitting to Christ as Lord and Saviour. 'Hear me Douglas, imagine that on this hand I have Jesus Christ in all the glory of his person and in the perfection of his finished work, and there on my other hand I have all that you long for in the world. Which one will you take?' There was a very, very long pause and finally Douglas blurted out, 'I’ll have him!' Douglas received the Lord; he acknowledged the one God to be the only God, and henceforth would live for him, his Saviour. And you? Choose this day whom you will serve.