Jude 1:24Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Likewise, when the Apostle Jude says, "To Him who is able to keep you from falling and to set you blameless before His glory with joy," does he not show most openly that the ability to endure well to the end is a gift of God?

"Before His glory," for he is speaking before the angels, since the angels became those before whom they must be set blameless.

When Daniel says of the people, "and he came in the sight of the Lord," he does not say this because one sees God. It is impossible for anyone with an impure heart to see God.

Rather, he says this because everything the people did was in God's sight.

Here Jude speaks admirably. The more carefully we guard our deeds in the present, the more we shall rejoice in the grace given to us in the future.

At the conclusion of the epistle, the Apostle offers doxology to God the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. This doxology is like the doxology in the Epistle to the Romans (Rom 14:24-26).

"To Him who is able," as almighty, "to keep you without stumbling," or falling, and to set you before His glory. This glory will be revealed especially on the dread day of judgment.

He sets them blameless, not only without stumbling or falling, but also without blemish. Therefore they are pure and innocent, or fully justified, before the impartial judgment of God's righteousness.

He sets them "with joy," or in that spirit of gladness in which the faithful will be at His coming. See 1 Pet 4:13 and the note.

The Apostle ends his epistle with a doxology to the Lord God, "who is able to keep us from falling and to set us blameless before His glory with joy."

To Him, "the only wise God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory and majesty, power and authority unto all ages. Amen."

The Apostle Jude ends his epistle with glory to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ. To Him belongs incomparable divine dignity, glorified by all, which is glory. To Him belongs the wondrous manifestation of it in creation, which is majesty. To Him also belongs eternal dominion in all things and over all, which is power and authority. The Apostle sets this doxology against the blasphemous words and absurd teaching of the Gnostics. According to that teaching, they stripped all glory from our Lord Jesus Christ. They claimed that they were saved by their own powers and not by the grace of Christ. They allowed an indifference between good and evil actions, rejected the universal judgment, eternal torments, and the like.

In conclusion, the Apostle Jude raises a doxology to God the Father, who has saved us, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord. He glorifies His majesty, dominion, and eternal authority. Here he calls God the Father the only wise God, meaning the incomparable superiority of His wisdom over every wisdom proper to creatures, which they receive from Him. He confesses that by His grace God can keep believers from falling into sin and from defilement by false teaching. He can set them blameless before His glory with joy. This means that when Christ comes in the glory of His Father (Mt 16:27), surrounded by the same glory in which God the Father dwells, to judge the world, they will stand before that judgment with joy and boldness.