Learning Divine Viewpoint - Jude 10

JD09-01

There are two attitudes of the apostates that we read in Jude 10. "But these speak evil of those things which they know not, but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves." They speak evil here in this context of the Word of God. They speak evil of sound doctrine. "But these" connects Jude 10 with Jude 9 which described Michael the Archangel and his confrontation with his majesty the devil. Michael delivered Satan to God's hands relative to the matter of the body of Moses.

Jude 10, begins speaking of the apostates, "But these" are very arrogant. They are very intellectual, and they are very confident of themselves. So they "speak evil of those things which they know not." The words "speak evil" in the Greek is "blasphemeo." You will recognize this as the word from which we get the English word "blasphemy." It means "to slander" or "to blaspheme God" or His word. These speak evil or slander those things which they know not. "Those things" refers to sound doctrine that they are incapable of knowing because they are apostates. This is in the present tense. This is their constant way of dealing with God's Word. It is in active voice which means they choose to do this. They energetically pursue slandering the Word of God. It is indicative mood which means it is a practice. It is an attitude. It is a principle of life with them to malign God and His Word.

Learning

The apostates do not understand Bible doctrine. They don't understand the very Bible doctrine that they are attacking. 2 Peter 2:12 says, "But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not, and shall utterly perish in their own corruption." Revelation 13:6 speaks of this kind of slanderous attack upon divine truth." These apostates acted this way because they're all fouled up in their thinking.

Jude 10 says they blaspheme and slander the things of God (of sound doctrine) which they know not because they're not able to learn it. Then it says, "But what they know naturally." Here we have another word for "know." What they know, or as much as they do learn, is the Greek word "epistao." "Epistao" is a word that refers to learning things through your senses; through your capabilities; or, through the provisions that you have for learning things as a human being.

This is different than the previous knowledge which comes from God through the teaching of the Spirit of God. This is what human ability and capacity can learn. So it's called "what is learned naturally," and this is the Greek word "phusikos." It means "by instinct." It is, in short, the human viewpoint knowledge which a person, very naturally with human capacity, picks up. It is present which means that these apostates are regularly well-versed in the things that the natural mind can grasp, such as the destructive higher critics. It is active again. They pursue natural learning. They are students. They are scholars. It is indicative. It's a principle. They grasp the field of learning. What they know naturally, they do something destructive with.

People tend to view those who are qualified in some field as experts to also be qualified to speak on spiritual matters. However, I remind you that there is no connection between human IQ, which is something you're born with, and spiritual IQ, which is something you develop as you learn doctrine. There is no connection between the two. Learned men who try to make pronouncements about spiritual things are usually wrong and downright ludicrous. These apostates operate entirely by natural capacities apart from any divine guidance. However, you must remember that apostasy always presents a cultured front. It always presents an intellectual appearance. But that simply hides a character of decadence. These speak evil of things which they know not.

Then Jude 10 says, "But what they know naturally (the natural realms of learning), as brute beasts." First of all, the word brute is "alogos." We can divide this word into "a" and "logos." "A" in the Greek is a negative. "Logos" is word or thought which is the idea here. It says, "these brute beasts," and by brute it means irrational; unreasonable; or, broken down in their capacity of thought. These people are functioning in their souls on emotion rather than reason. This means subjectivity in the thinking. This is where human viewpoint inevitably goes. People of the world who operate on human viewpoint point, sooner or later become subjective. Human viewpoint always ultimately leads to subjectivity within the soul. This leads to irrationality.

When you are subjective, when you look at things on the basis of how you, within your old sin nature and the structure that you have, feel about things and look at things, you move away from God's point of view and you move towards Satan's point of view. And Satan's point of view is madness. It's irrationality. That's what is meant here. This pattern of liberalism in all realms of life is subject to an irrational outlook in the face of reality. I don't care whether that's political liberalism; religious liberalism; educational liberalism; or, social liberalism of any kind. It is always irrational in reference to what the Bible teaches. It cannot be any other way.

These people are also called "irrational beasts." The word "beast" is the word "zoon." This word simply means a living creature. It can be either human or animal. This is the word which is used in Revelation 4:6-9 of angelic creatures, speaking of the four living creatures. In classical Greek, this was used of the miraculous phoenix bird that would rise from its own ashes. It is used of human beings, in our context, whose mentality is so distorted by their human viewpoint knowledge that they function on an animal creature level. Great education and a high level of culture make no difference. A person can be the most educated in the world. He can be the most refined, and still the word of God says that with human viewpoint he descends to subjectivity, and subjectivity descends to an irrational creature existence.

In the 5th century B.C., the Athenians were among the most cultured people that ever lived. Yet, while archeology uncovers for us the fantastic art products of that civilization, it also uncovers for us some of the most bestial pornography you'll find any place in the ancient world. They went from magnificent art to the most degrading bestiality. The apostates try to speak authoritatively about spiritual things, but they don't have the capacity because they don't understand what life is all about. You cannot understand what life is all about unless you understand it from God's point of view. The apostates reject the laws that God has established for society: the laws of establishment; the laws of lines of authority; and, so on. These are all rejected and, consequently, it says "in those things they corrupt themselves." That is, even in the area of their human knowledge, the things that they can learn by their natural human capacities, they corrupt themselves.

So in this verse, we briefly have two types of apostates. One is those who are ignorant and who slander what they do not understand of divine viewpoint; and secondly, those who are informed; those who are educated; and those who are cultured, but by their subjectivity they distort the knowledge they have. They are emotionally dominated in the soul. Both of these types corrupt themselves and they receive ruin because of the abuse of the Word of God. Even in the realm of truth, which they can grasp with their senses, they are irrational. They are corrupt constantly. The word means "to spoil" or "to ruin." It's passive. Once they start on this line of thinking, it takes its own effect. It's the natural man with all of his brilliant knowhow utterly ruining himself in God's site (Ephesians 4:22).

Rationalism and Empiricism

Both of these systems are rejected by God. You fortunately do not have to learn the things of God through your senses. That's empiricism. You fortunately do not have to learn things through your reasoning ability. Both of these are human merit systems. In the case of empiricism, the better your physical senses are, the better information you'll be able to secure. In the case of rationalism, the higher your IQ, the better you will be able to learn things. In both of these cases, there is merit to you for what you learn. But God says that He rejects both of these systems.

God established a totally different one--the system of faith. This is the one that believes the authority of the Word of God as a book of propositional doctrinal statements which are brought together under certain categories of truth. Because we believe the author, and because we accept what He says about His book that He has given us, we come into a knowledge of divine things. That's the only non-meritorious method. There is no credit to us in that. We're simply taking God at His word.

1 Corinthians 2:9-11

This verse says, "The eye has not seen." The word "seen" means an overall view, or a panoramic view, of spiritual things. No divine truth is observable by the human eye. God is invisible. The natural senses cannot interpret anything about God. If you were put in a room, and we were to lock the doors and tell you to learn something about God that would bring you to salvation on the basis of what you could observe, or if we let you roam the whole world for that matter, you would never come up with an approach or with an answer to God. Now you might indeed come up, as the heathen do, with an awareness from what you see that somebody made this, and that there is a God out there. They are held responsible for that knowledge--for that moment of God consciousness--and how they respond to it determines their historical destiny. But you could not come by natural senses to a knowledge of God that would lead you to the information you need in order to be saved. Doctrine and spiritual realities cannot be understood by sight. Your eye will not produce for you doctrine.

Secondly, neither will your ear produce doctrine. God is not speaking audibly to people today any more than he is giving people visions. No divine viewpoint is received in this way. Anybody who claims to have heard God speaking to him has something wrong with him. It says that these things "have not entered." What God has written and what God has given as spiritual truth has not been secured through our eyes, and it has not been secured through our ears. "Neither have entered into the heart of man." The Greek word for "entered into the heart" is "anabaino." "Anabaino" really means "to spring up" or "to pop up." "There has not popped up into the heart." That means the mind; the mentality; the thinking function of the soul; or, the understanding." "There has not popped up into man's understanding" the things which God had prepared for them that love him." The brain is not programmed so that it can come up with spiritual understanding. The things which God has prepared are the things of doctrine.

The Grace System of Perception

So here is this Christian who is sitting in his right church under his right pastor-teacher, hearing the Word of God communicated to him. He is in a receptive condition because of being filled with the spirit, and his brain (his mind, his intelligence) is able to perceive and understand what is taught. Into the perceptive side of his mind comes an understanding of a principle of doctrine, a proposition of truth. As he thinks over that proposition of truth, his will makes a decision. His will receives that or his will rejects it. He goes positive or negative toward it. At that moment, God the Holy Spirit takes what he has received (if he goes positive), and he puts it here in his human spirit which is the point of our contact with God. He stores that truth. God teaches our spirit. That's what the Word of God tells us (Romans 8:16, Job 32:8). God contacts you. Your God consciousness comes because of your human spirit.

Now only the doctrinal understanding down in your human spirit is usable in your experience because this is what God the Holy Spirit shines upon your heart and puts up to the directive side of your mind. This results in action. Everything you do in life comes from that directive decision-making side of your mentality. Now what that mind decides depends on the directions it's receiving. If it is receiving directions from your human spirit on the basis of the doctrine of the Word of God that you have stored there, you will be acting according to the will of God. But if, instead, you are receiving your directions from Satan's world, then your actions will be according to Satan's viewpoint (human viewpoint). You will then become an apostate. This grace system is non-meritorious. There is no credit to you for what you learn. God gives the insights, and all we do is simply accept what He has provided.

So we read in 1 Corinthians 2:9, "But as it is written, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love Him." The words "has prepared" is "hetoinazo," and it means to make ready. It is in the aorist tense which means that in eternity past, God the Father set up this system for you to learn His Word, and there is no other system--no other system--whereby you may learn His Word. It is active voice. God is the one who makes this work, as well as providing it. It is indicative. This is a principle--a policy line--provided by the Godhead. This is given for them that love Him--those who believe the Word of God, and those who are positive.

"For them that love Him" is present tense. It is continuous in the grace age. If you love him, you will love His Word. (John 14:23). It is active which means you will hasten to engage in the Word. You will hasten to express love for the Father. You will express love for the Father through God the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5), or through the spiritual maturity structure which you build in your soul (1 John 2:5). On the basis of what you have here, you begin constructing within your soul a pentagon of defense of various facets that constitute spiritual maturity. Without the building materials of doctrine, you can never come to spiritual maturity, and you can never progress in the Christian life. It is, instead, a life of defeat.

So for those of us who through new birth, and through the fact that we let ourselves be taught the Word, and then we are positive toward it, we express a love for the Father who has prepared all this for our use. 1 Corinthians 2:10 gives us another key feature in this system. You can see immediately that certain factors have to be involved, or the thing could not work. Now obviously here is the key right here--God the Holy Spirit. If He were not in the picture, you could just forget the whole thing. That's what 1 Corinthians 2:10 says: "But God has revealed them (spiritual things) unto us by His Spirit. God here is "the God" which refers to God the Father. He's the one who designed this grace system for learning spiritual things. He has made this plan available. He has revealed them unto us.

Spiritual Perception

It's a matter of transferring what God has said and what God knows--this book of propositional truths--to where you know them and to where they are now available to you. This transference, this revelation, is in the past tense which means that every time you sit in church, at that particular point, is when God makes this system function. Every time you sit down in your room at home, and you open the Word of God, and you start studying it, or you start listening to a tape, that's the point at which this system begins functioning. It is the active voice which means that God produces this understanding--not man. It is again indicative. It is a principle. It's a reality of a system that works apart from your human I.Q.

This word "revealed" does not have an object. You'll notice in your Bible that the word "them" is in italics. The reason the Greek word "them" is left out is because this is a way of emphasizing that the stress is on God--not the content. Now it's true that God reveals to you spiritual understanding, but the thing that is important is that the God goes into action for you on this basis and on this system. He is the one who reveals and rewards with blessing that which you receive.

Now He does all this by His Spirit, or it could be translated "through the Spirit" or by means of the Spirit. This is God the Holy Spirit. He is the one, we are told, who searches all things, yeah the deep things of the Spirit of God. Now "to search" means several things. The word actually means, among other things, "to examine." That means that under the filling of the Holy Spirit, you examine the text of the Scriptures, and you determine what those words mean. That is exegesis. Also it implies to explore the Word on the basis of your previous frame of reference--to go more deeply. It also means "to be tracing;" that is, to classify where these truths belong. This is what a pastor-teacher. He examines the text; puts it in the right category; and, then explains it.

It means to investigate. There is within the Christian the desire to investigate the Word of God. As a believer gets hold of the knowledge of the Word of God, he finds that he has a compulsion to want to investigate the Word of God on a day-by-day basis. He realizes that once he gets to the point where he starts functioning with God, he can very quickly tell when he has neglected the Word; he doesn't read it; he's not studying it; days are going by; he is not in touch with God; and, he realizes that his spiritual maturity structure is beginning to deteriorate. This includes all things. There is no limit upon what the Christian can understand in reference to the Word of God. I cannot stress that enough to you.

What God the Holy Spirit searches, He searches in order to reveal to you. It says that He will reveal to you those things which are the deep things of the Word of God. God has never produced anything in the Bible that He expects you not to understand. So I would be very careful of this attitude which is sometimes conveyed to believers. Young people like to take this attitude when they don't want to deal with absolutes and when they want things to operate on relativity. They like to take the attitude that there is a great deal in the Bible that you cannot understand. That is not true. All of the basic, strategic, major, doctrinal, informational matters are easily understood once you've had them explained.

Once the Scriptures have had the proper exegesis, we understand what they mean. But it takes time. It takes an investment of yourself to build up under the filling of the Spirit this knowledge. "The deep things of the Spirit of God" means whatever God possesses no matter how great or how extensive it is. This word "deep" is one of the dimensions to describe our own human spirits in Ephesians 3:18 and Romans 11:33. These are the deep things that God has for us. They belong to Him. They're His things. They become our things through this system of learning, and that's the only way they become ours.

So God gives us these things. Why? It's not because we deserve them, but because His grace says, "I want you to be informed." So He teaches us. So here are the mechanics. We have the indwelling Holy Spirit. He comes to live in your body at the point of salvation. He comes here to be your teacher and to be your guide (1 Corinthians 6:19). God also brings you alive in your human spirit. Until the point of salvation you're dead in your spirit. You're dead in trespasses and sins. You're spiritually dead. When you receive Christ as Savior, this spirit is activated and it comes to life. Then you are in a position to start learning spiritual things. Ephesians 2:1 tells us about that dead condition. The Holy Spirit is the teacher, and He proceeds to provide you with all of the elements that you need in the way of the Word; the teacher; the conditions for learning; and, so on. Then it is up to you to take advantage and to enter into these things.

Learning Natural Things

So 1 Corinthians 2:11 says, "For what man knows the things of a man?" "For what" introduces a contrast between the grace system of learning in verse 10 and this human meritorious perception system in verse 11. "What man knows the things of a man?" This is the Greek word "anthropos" which means man as a species. What human being--male or female knows?" This is again that word "oida," to know intuitively, apart from experience, because you have been taught. "The things of a man" is human knowledge which come from human reason which is the basis of man's judgment. This is knowledge and opinion, not influenced by what the senses observed, but simply by what a man thinks. Whatever you gain through rationalism is to your credit.

"What man knows the things of a man?" "What man has the thoughts of a human being, except the spirit of man which is in him?" The word "spirit" is the word "pneuma." The word "pneuma" was a word in the Greek language used before Christianity ever came on the scene. It simply means "breath," or to breathe. The word originally was related to this concept of breathing, and it was also related by the Greeks to the concept of taking information into the mind. The mind was viewed somewhat as a set of lungs, and knowledge was viewed as air. A person inhaled knowledge with his mentality, and he exhaled it in action through his mentality. So this expression "the spirit of man" has the basic meaning of man's rational process.

"What man knows the things of a man?" Who knows? Who understands? Who can enter into the things that relate to human viewpoint knowledge except the thinking capacity of man which is in him? That's who understands it. It's your ability to think that enables you to enter into the things that deal with human knowledge.

Learning Spiritual Things

That's what it means when it says, "Who can understand the things of God?" You can understand the things that pertain to human knowledge or to human viewpoint, but you cannot understand the things that pertain to the Spirit of God. Only the thinking capacity of God the Holy Spirit can enter into these things. Even if a Christian uses knowledge that he has gained just by his natural senses, he uses it as unto the Lord. However, he receives spiritual knowledge through the Holy Spirit. That's how we get divine viewpoint. This spiritual knowledge, as we have seen, is not usable in the mind.

And by the way, this is what happens. If after you have learned something, and you sit there and say, "No I don't accept that," you go to the negative side, and that's where it stays--in the perceptive side of your mind. You can never use what is up there to guide your life. That's why you find people who have grown up in good Christian surroundings where they have learned a great deal, but what you didn't know was while they were sitting there in the secret of their mentality within that conversation, they were saying, "No. No. No." They were filled with mental reservations. They came to adulthood, and their lives became shattered, or they went down the fool's road--the road of irrationality where human viewpoint inevitably leads a person when all he has is over in the perceptive side, and he has rejected transferring it over to where it is operational.

So this positive response to spiritual knowledge enables us to function on it. Negative response to spiritual instruction from the Holy Spirit leaves it unusable. The spirit of man is the human system of perception to gain natural knowledge and understanding. You have a brain that's got 13 billion cells, and every one of them acts like a little microcircuit. God provides you with everything you need to make that human thing function so that you can learn. There's a place for human knowledge and a place for human leadership, but it does not work when it comes to spiritual things. If a person is successful in a professional field, that does not mean he's a good Christian leader. It does not mean that at all.

"The things of God" (referring to spiritual things or things of divine viewpoint), we are told, no man knows. This is the Greek word "ginosko" which means "learning by human experience." It's perfect. We don't learn things, and then store them through our experience. It's active. We don't move in and make a decision to learn spiritual things. It says, "except the spirit of God." He is the one who is able to fill us with spiritual understanding.

Your Living Human Spirit

1 Corinthians 2:12 says, "Now we have received not the spirit of the world." Here again, the spirit of the world refers to learning situations and the procedures for gaining knowledge. What are these spirit of the world techniques? From verse 9, empiricism is out. From verse 11, rationalism is out. These make up the world's wisdom. God never uses either one of them. You can't learn doctrine through rationalism or through your experiences--only from revelation. So there is no salvation apart from a revelation which God has given.

Incidentally, remember that here is a narrow gate. On one side is salvation, and on one side is destruction. You decide that you're going to come through this gate into eternal life. You hear the gospel, and you proceed to come into that narrow gate and come out to salvation. A lot of people are going to discover that they made a great and tragic mistake. There is one thing about this small and narrow gate that leads to salvation, and that is that nothing but grace will go through it. It's just big enough to take grace through it. If you add on works in addition, there is serious doubt that you have ever been born again. If you encounter salvation and say, "Yes, I believe Christ died for my sins, and I'm going to burn candles; I'm going to pray to the Virgin Mary; I'm going to use the holy water; or, I'm going to burn incense too, so that God will be pleased and receive me into heaven," you're in a lot of trouble.

The gate to salvation will only take grace. Everywhere in the Word of God it says, "Grace. Grace. Grace." It says nothing but grace. If you try to put works in there, you have brought in an element that will not fit. The same thing is true for learning spiritual things. If you try to bring something other than grace, you're going to be devastated.

We have not received the spirit of the world and the world's way of learning things, "but the spirit," and here your text may say "who is of God." The Greek says something different. This is a strategic difference. The Greek uses a word which means "out from God." Previously, we have had the Spirit of God up here in 1 Corinthians 2:11. That's the Spirit of God. That is a different Greek setup. What this says in 1 Corinthians 2:11 is what we call the genitive case or the possessive case. This is the Spirit which God possesses. This is God the Holy Spirit. But 1 Corinthians 2:11 speaks of a spirit that goes out from God. What spirit goes out from God? What spirit does God send out from himself? It is the human spirit that is vital to our being able to learn spiritual things.

So what the verse says is, "Now we have not received the rational empirical systems of learning of the world, but we have received the faith system structured upon the human spirit from God given to us at the point of salvation." Why? "That we might know the things that are freely given to us of God." And again the word "know" here is that word "oida" for gaining spiritual knowledge apart from the human techniques. It is knowledge that we may store in this human spirit as God the Holy Spirit teaches us. This again is perfect which means that once you get it, you keep it. Once you receive it, it is yours. It is permanent.

Secondly, it is active which means it's up to you to be there to hear it. However, there is one thing that's different here. It is subjunctive in mood, and subjunctive mood means its potential. Maybe you will and maybe you won't. This is given to us. It says "freely given." The Greek word means "grace given." This is so that we may function under the things that God has freely given to us. What has He freely given to us? Bible doctrine. The whole written Scriptures. A lot of people don't understand this, so they're confused on why it's important to be in services and in communication with the Word of God. God's system of giving grace freely to us is on the basis of the grace system of perception.

Now this is the aorist tense. This is important to note. It's aorist which means that in eternity past, God established this system, the grace system of perception. It was at that point (aorist means a point action). It is passive in the voice, and that means that God reveals doctrine to the believer in order to supply the divine viewpoint to him. The believer doesn't crank it out. God provides a means for him to receive it. Then, it is a participle, but it is an aorist participle. The action of an aorist participles precedes the action of the main verb. The main verb in this sentence is "that we might know." "That we might know" is the main verb. But, in order that we might know, God had to do something first. What did He have to do?

He had to establish the grace system of perception. That's what the text is saying. In order that we might know, before we came to the point of our needing to know, God did something in preparation so that he could freely give to us the things of the Spirit of God. What He did was to provide this setup. "Of God" is actually "under God." The whole system is a spiritual reality that works under the authority and the control of God. God's authority finds expression where? In the Bible; in the local church; with pastor-teacher communication; in Holy Spirit instruction; in the preservation of the Word of God; the gathering for its communication; and, the whole thing. So if you are negative to the Word of God, you are opposing the authority of God. You're not opposing the authority of some pastor-teacher.

God has given you this system. It is a system that works. It works every time. If you hook yourself into this system, it will work; you will prosper; and, you will have what the apostate does not have. Once the soul is dominated by these emotions, rather than being given direction by the mind, then you will be devastated spiritually. Your spiritual maturity will break down; you will retrogress, and, you will come to the point where you yourself will be acting as an apostate. May God have you to appreciate what he has provided.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1973

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