Jude 1

"...To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:"

(Jude 1:1d)

We are kept. Jesus keeps those who trust in Him. Do you remember Him saying in the gospels, “No one will snatch you out of My hands”? Paul revels in the reality that God causes us to persevere in grace and faith when he says in 2 Timothy 1:12, “For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.” Paul is saying he is confident that he will be kept by the power of God, by the power of Christ. Calvin once put it this way, “At any moment Satan might snatch us a hundred times over into his ready clutches were we not safe in the protection of Christ.” And Jude is asking you to revel in that for a moment. Satan might snatch you at any time a hundred times over into his ready clutches…but you are safe in the protection of Christ. You are kept. You’re called; you’re loved; you’re kept.

But you’re not only kept; you’re not only protected; you’re not only caused to persevere–you are kept for Christ, Jude wants to say. We are kept safe until Jesus’ coming. We are kept safe with the view to being God's own possession. We are kept safe with a view to being presented to Christ. In Ephesians 5:25-27 Paul tells us something like what Jude is telling us here. As Jude tells us that we are “kept for Christ,” Paul tells us that truth this way, “Christ,” he says, “loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her…that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory.” Jesus keeps the church in order to present the church to Himself, and He keeps us that we might be for Him, Jude says.

(J. Ligon Duncan)