Notice what Jude claimed occurred to the angels / messengers (i.e. the patriarchs). He said they were kept by the Lord “…in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of the great Day” (Jude 1:6)! He says they were ‘kept’ (tereo; G5083) by God, which is the same word Jude used earlier in this verse for these men not keeping their first estate. What Jude is saying is that they didn’t remain in the original condition in which they were created (i.e. an image of God). Therefore, God kept them in the state they chose for themselves. In other words, unless they made a determination to repent, they were unable to return to the light that being in the image of God brought them. They simply did not have the natural desire to do so; if change were to come, it would have had to have come through a determined effort to repent. It simply wouldn’t come through guilt or shame.
The Greek word for darkness is zophos (G2217). The same word was also used by Peter of these men, saying the Lord “…delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” (2Peter 2:4). Imagination has run wild with these verses, and false teachers have completely clouded the truth, so that believers, even believing scholars, find it difficult to see beyond the picture the false teachers have painted. The Apocrypha uses this term in the book of Wisdom, and I find it interesting to see how its author has used darkness there. Speaking of God and his judgment of the wicked, he says:
“For great are thy judgments, and cannot be expressed: therefore unnurtured souls have erred. For when unrighteous men thought to oppress the holy nation; they being shut up in their houses, the prisoners of darkness, and fettered with the bonds of a long night, lay there exiled from the eternal providence. For while they supposed to lie hid in their secret sins, they were scattered under a dark veil of forgetfulness…” (Wisdom 17:1-3 – emphasis mine)
Nothing is so dark as that which is forgotten. One is unable to bring it to light, neither does one desire to bring it to light, because it is forgotten, lost in the depths of a totally black abyss, out of which it is unable to arise, unless someone in the light reminds that “unnurtured” soul of that which he has forgotten.
Paul mentions in his letter to the Romans that when folks simply don’t wish to think of God or acknowledge him by curbing their behavior when tempted to do evil, the Lord simply gives them over to do the things they desire to do, as though no one observed:
For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools… And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, (Romans 1:21-22, 28)
So, what Jude was doing in his short epistle was calling to mind what his readers already knew, but perhaps had forgotten. He was warning them of the judgment of God, if repentance wasn’t made. The false teachers were doing their work of iniquity, but it remained the responsibility of the believer to guard his first estate, i.e. his being created in the image of God, and choose to love his brethren, despite what may happen to him, if the good he does comes to the knowledge of the false teacher (cp. 3John 1:9-10). It is the responsibility of the believer to keep the Lord in his knowledge, i.e. acknowledging him in all he does. This is a personal choice we must make on our own, because such a thing is not a natural desire:
For people who live by the standard set by their lower nature are usually thinking the things suggested by that nature, and people who live by the standard set by the Spirit are usually thinking the things suggested by the Spirit. For to be thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means death, but to be thinking the things suggested by the Spirit means life and peace. Because one’s thinking the things suggested by the lower nature means enmity to God, for it does not subject itself to God’s law, nor indeed can it. (Romans 8:5-7)
This is what Jude was telling his readers in the first century. It wasn’t something difficult to understand, nor was he pointing to a mythological place clouded in a mysterious doctrine preached by the false teacher (cp. Titus 1:14; 2Peter 1:16). He is simply warning believers that, if they did not contend for the faith once delivered to them by the Apostles and evangelists (1Jude 1:3), the Gospel would sink into the sea of forgetfulness, and they would be destined for a shipwreck (1Timothy 1:18-20) without their Guide.
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