Jude 24-25

24To Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy-- 25to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

Jude ends his little letter in a slightly unusual way. Most New Testament epistles end with a benediction, a blessing from God towards the audience. But this epistle ends with a doxology, a blessing from us towards God. Now there are plenty of doxologies in the New Testament, but most of the time, it’s the benediction that wraps it up, because we need the grace and peace of God to help us obey the commands that usually come in the epistles. But Jude doesn’t give us that. Instead he praises God with a doxology – but it’s a unique doxology, because Jude praises God specifically for His benedictions and blessings towards us. So it’s like a benediction within a doxology. And it’s an appropriate way to end this little letter. And there are five parts to this doxology. The first part is praise to God for preservation from sin. The second part is praise to God for His perfecting grace. The third part is praise to God for His exclusive deity. The fourth part is praise to God for His sole mediation: Jesus is the only way of salvation. And the fifth part is praise to God for His inherent worthiness.

First, we are to praise God because He has the power to enable us to persevere in the faith. God alone is our hope and our refuge. It is ultimately God who keeps and guards us. We are urged repeatedly to persevere in faith, but we are also repeatedly comforted that God will preserve us. Now we need to remember here that we can slip and get off track in the race marked out for us, but we can’t fall beyond the reach of our Father. If we persevere in faith until death, then it is because God preserved us.

Second, we are to praise God because He is making us perfect. His sanctifying grace not only keeps us from falling but also presents us before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy. He doesn’t just take away our sins; He grants us His righteousness. These are two essential aspects to salvation. Jude is saying something similar. He doesn’t just keep us from falling in sanctification; He also presents us before Himself as pure and blameless in glorification. And all of this occurs with great joy – on the part of the redeemed and on the part of the Redeemer. That’s amazing!

Third, we are to praise God because He is exclusively God and exclusively our Savior. Interestingly, the New Testament refers to Jesus as Savior 16 times and God the Father as Savior 8 times. Jude is referring to the Father. But fourth, Jude adds, “Through Jesus Christ,” to remind us that God saves through Christ. Jesus is the only way to be saved. So we are to praise God because He saves through Jesus Christ. Fifth and finally, we are to praise God because He is worthy. His is the glory, majesty, power, and authority, over all the ages through history. And it’s His now – and forevermore! When we praise God, we’re not giving Him something that He doesn’t already have; we are acknowledging something about Him that He already is, exalting Him for His characteristics in their infinite perfection and proclaiming His glory with all that we are. The sole purpose of mankind is to declare that glory. We do that as everything in our lives is done for His glory, with His exaltation in mind, and we do that as every situation of our lives is understood and contemplated in the light of His ultimate glory.