“Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”

Jude 3

The famous “contend for the faith” passage is best approached by its overall structure. Notice that it has two basic parts that alert us to an alternative letter that was left to Jude’s desires. There is what he was “eager” to write about, namely, the salvation that they all shared in common; but then a more pressing need arose. Of course we must remember that the Holy Spirit is the ultimate Author of all Scripture (see 2 Tim. 3:16) so that even Jude’s sanctified agenda could not steer the slightest course correction apart from the winds of divine inspiration (see 2 Pet. 1:20). Hence this priority is first God’s and then second Jude’s. Consequently it must be ours as well. 

What exactly then is the priority? In a word—Contend. As we will see, this teaches us that a clear and present danger is oftentimes a higher priority than is the good which is endangered. Now from the perspective of ultimate ends, this is not the case. One’s family is a “higher priority” in being a greater value than the armed home invader; but for that very reason the urgent matter of the home invasion takes precedence over sitting down to dinner, family devotionals, or heading to work. These many ordinary activities are a more constant show of love, but no one in their right mind would feel very loved by the man of the house if he couldn’t break himself from these things to repel the unwanted visitor.

We can all see the logic of this. It is the reality of it that is doubted. Most professing Christians in our day simply do not believe in the existence (or perhaps the frequent occurrence) of the things into which Jude’s call to contend makes any sense. 

There are three things of note: 1. a defense, 2. a fortress, and 3. a siege. The defense and the fortress being defended are contained in verse 3; and the siege against the fortress is found in verse 4. 

The Defense of the Faith

First, note that Jude uses this word TO CONTEND (ἐπαγωνίζεσθαι), which may better have a fuller sense of “I contend earnestly” (epagónizomai). While grammatically in the infinitive, the force of it is “imperative,” in the sense of being an action item. The word is only used once in the New Testament, an example of what biblical scholars will call hapax legomena. If, for whatever reason, one is troubled by a word only appearing once, the surest remedy is to take note of parallel concepts that give the idea a wider context. This we find in Paul’s qualifications for elders in Titus 1:9-11. Though elders are to exemplify this to a greater degree, it is a trait that any mature Christian needs to grow into. He says of the shepherd of other souls, that,

“He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach.”

The link to “contend” in Jude 3 is clear. Not only is a “silencing” action called for, but he tells us why—the establishment and the care of souls are at stake. False doctrine ruins lives as surely as sound doctrine builds them up.

This means not to fight in a mean-spirited way. It is not to divide where Christ has not. But it also will not give an inch to what encroaches upon the character of God or the integrity of the gospel, as Paul was ready to oppose even Peter, “so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you” (Gal. 2:5).

Calvin wrote of this term,

“What I have rendered, ‘to help the faith by contending,’ means the same as to strive in retaining the faith, and courageously to sustain the contrary assaults of Satan. For he reminds them that in order to persevere in the faith, various contests must be encountered and continual warfare maintained. He says that faith had been once delivered, that they might know that they had obtained it for this end, that they might never fail or fall away.”1

And Henry adds to this, 

“The apostle Paul tells us he preached the gospel (mind it was the gospel) with much contention (1 Th. 2:2), that is (as I understand it), with earnestness, with a hearty zeal, and a great concern for the success of what he preached. But, if we will understand contention in the common acceptation of the word, we must impartially consider with whom the apostle contended, and how, the enlarging on which would not be proper for this place.”2

The Fortress of the Faith

An all-important distinction must be observed here, and it almost never is. That is the distinction between the objective faith and one’s own subjective faith, a distinction that I have written about in greater detail elsewhere. We have a good two generations or more who have been trained (even by the church) to take offense for themselves and for others when there is the slightest hint that error is being corrected, or that such errors are consequential to ultimate ends. To be perfectly frank, such offense taken is sin and rebellion on the part of the person offended.

The messenger himself may need to be corrected by wiser spokesman for the faith. His delivery may leave much to be desired. His emphasis may be imbalanced. But none of this excuses the devilish effeminacy that is always rising up against the pastoral mandate to contend.

The whole point of defense is that God’s own flock is under attack. The source of such error—the devil—means their great harm. So there is this relationship between the objective sense of “the faith,” and the subjective holding signified by expressions like “my faith.” What we regard to be true shapes us.

So by “fortress” here I just mean the substance of the faith, or that which is being attacked and therefore what needs to be defended. But since there are souls affected by doctrine, for good or for ill, then this fortress signifies both the objective sense of “the faith” (orthodoxy) and the subjective sense of one’s own (saving faith). So the Scriptures will alternate between one or the other, as if a city is under siege. And we would understand that to imply that both its structure and its inhabitants are endangered. 

But first things first. The walls are penetrated by the barbarian horde before a people is slaughtered, and so a church tradition rises or falls on its doctrine. Jude is treating this in the objective sense: THE FAITH. We are called to defend that system of truth that the first churches called “the apostolic teaching,” and those in the first few centuries afterwards called “the rule of faith,” and which then finally settled into the term “orthodoxy.”

Given Once for All 

Before moving on too quickly to verse 4 and what I am calling “the siege” against the walls of Christianity, we must get a sense of what Jude means by the expression “once for all delivered to the saints” at the end of verse 3. He is speaking of a finality of the inspired and inscripturated Word; he is not speaking of any finality of the systematizing and applying of that truth. This misunderstanding has long given the Reformed doctrine of sola Scriptura a bad name.

The sufficiency of Scripture, for example, does not imply that even the Apostles themselves would fully articulate the doctrines of the Trinity, or the covenant of grace, or the perseverance of the saints, or any other number of truths, in the exact same way as later formulations. Nor would the Apostles have had to in order to have recognized the substance of such truth as their own. Nor is it a strike against those later formulations, that they only existed in embryonic form, so to speak, from the beginning. 

Sola Scriptura is all about source and norm—and that about its proper scope. It does not deny other lesser authorities (e.g. reason, tradition, experience), nor does it claim an indiscriminate or universal sufficiency (e.g. never telling you the name of your future spouse, nor giving instructions in automotive repair). So this “once for all” deposit negates alternative claims to special revelation, but it never forbids (and indeed encourages) the business of theologizing in all of the forms of that intellectual discipline.

While Jude is not denying an increase in understanding throughout the course of the church age, he is at least confining the sufficient deposit of the Word of God to that generation of the Apostles. The expression, perhaps more literally rendered “once for all” (ἅπαξ) “having been delivered” (παραδοθείσῃ), ought to be included in any theologizing on the closing of the canon of Scripture along with passages like Hebrews 1:1-2. 

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1. Calvin, Commentaries XXII (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1979)

2. Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, 2460.