Jude 1

"Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,.."

(Jude 1:1a)

Now let me just ask you something, If you were a half-brother or half-sister of Jesus Christ and you were writing to other Christians, wouldn't you tell ‘em?! Wouldn't you say, “And by the way, I'm Bob, Jesus’ brother”? But this man identifies himself as ‘Jude, Jesus’ slave.’ And I think that tells you a lot about his own self-understanding. It tells you something of his humility. He's the Lord's own brother, but he views Jesus as his Master. It shows his submission to the lordship of Christ. His whole life had been put at the disposal of Jesus. He calls himself, “the brother of James,” even though others call him “the brother of our Lord.” Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:5 calls James and Jude, “the brothers of our Lord,” but this writer doesn't say, ‘I'm Jude the brother of our common Lord.’ He says, ‘I'm Jude, the slave of Jesus the Messiah and the brother of James.’

Jude acknowledges Jesus as Messiah and Lord of his life, and yet even as a servant to Jesus, it sets Jude free. Because it is one of the paradoxes of Christianity that in glad devotion to Jesus we find our freedom. And so even in Jude's self-designation in the introduction, in the salutation of this letter, we learn something about Jude's self-understanding and his view of Christ, and we learn something of what our self-understanding ought to be. We are servants of Jesus Christ. We belong to Him. We march to the beat of His drum. We follow His word. We follow His commission. We seek to go in His ways. We desire to be conformed to His image. We long for His exaltation. We want the nations of the world to come to Him. He is the center of our existence in the community of faith. And we learn, of course, from Jude's introduction that this Jesus is Master and Lord and divine. And so we learn something about the way we ought to view ourselves and the way we ought to view our Savior.

(J. Ligon Duncan)