Jude 1:22Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

If some withdraw from you, rebuke them, that is, reveal their impiety before all. But if they are disposed toward healing, do not push them away. Receive them according to the mercy of your love, saving them from the fire that threatens them. Receive them with mercy and with fear. Beware that receiving them, if your disposition toward them is careless, does not become the cause of destruction for you yourselves. For they draw even those firm in the faith into the overflow of their impiety, and evil is easily imitated. Therefore receive them, but approach them with fear, that is, with caution. Join mercy toward them personally with hatred for their foul deeds.

That is, toward those who doubt the truth because of the words of false teaching. Concerning those who doubt, James says that they are like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind (Jas 1:6), because of the soul's instability.

They are pitiable and wretched, for they are carried about by every wind of doctrine.

The apostle's final instruction concerns those who have been infected, in greater or lesser measure, by the deceptions of impious deceivers. Toward some, those who have been subjected to this temptation through lack of understanding, inexperience, being carried away, and so forth, be merciful or condescending. These have not acted from an evil direction of heart, nor from stubbornness and impenitence. Yet act with discernment, carefully investigating the causes of the temptation to which they have been subjected. Then take the measures needed to heal them of their infirmities. But save others by fear. These are those who have gone farther along the path of being carried away and deceived, and are more stubborn and evil in these actions.

In conclusion (Jude 20-23), the holy Apostle Jude instructively sets forth the chief purpose of his epistle. It is that his readers, "building themselves up in their holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit," should keep themselves in the love of God. They must also protect their neighbors by every means from heretical errors. "And on some have mercy." These are those infected by heretical deceptions through lack of understanding and through being carried away, not through an evil direction of the heart. Be merciful to them, but "with discernment," that is, learning the causes of their moral illness and taking appropriate measures for its healing.

To the separation of the Gnostics from the unity of faith and the Church, the apostle opposes Christian love. In particular, he shows how this great principle of Christian life can be applied according to persons and circumstances. Thus he advises acting upon some with condescension, and upon others with threats. He also advises using rebuke with caution (cf. Gal 6:1), so as to save at least some (1 Cor 9:22) and not destroy oneself. Fear of this latter danger should remove Christians not only from every communion with heretics (see 2 Jn 10), but even from everything bearing the mark of defilement. For nothing, even something apparently very small, such as a defiled garment, is indifferent in relation to a blameless life.

Believers must guard not only themselves from being carried away by false teachers, but also their neighbors. These have not yet fallen away from the Church, but are in danger of falling away. Not all of them require the same kind of admonition. Some require meek and condescending admonition: "on some have mercy with discernment." Attention should be given to their tenderheartedness and receptivity to the word of truth. Others are coarse and hard. They must be rebuked and shaken by fear of the fire of Gehenna. "Save such with fear, snatching them from the fire" of Gehenna. They are like foolish people who climb into a fire without suspecting the danger. It is useless to persuade them quietly and meekly to spare themselves.