¹²These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water, carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; ¹³wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever.

Five metaphors describe the pseudo-believers that Jude extensively and acerbically denounces. We must remember that he wrote this letter so his readers would “contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints” (Jude 3). It wasn’t just that some people in the church were acting immorally, but they were connecting their behavior to their theology, which was to pervert the doctrine of grace. This is just as serious as the legalism which Paul refutes in his Galatian letter.

First, the men who pervert the true teaching of grace are like reefs lying just below the ocean surface: all seems well until the ship runs into one, damaging or even sinking the boat. False teaching can work in the same way, presenting itself in sufficiently obscure wording to seem innocuous, but surfacing as a full-blown heresy over time. In particular, these men distorted the “love feasts,” which we understand to be the meals that the early Christians had in relation to the Lord’s Supper. Self-centeredness prevailed during the church’s times of remembrance of the Lord and worship. These men Jude denounces feared nothing—not angelic entities, not the existing church leaders, not even the Lord Himself. They mocked the Lord’s Supper (here referred to as “love feasts”), which the Lord Himself had emphatically commanded for His followers to observe (Matt. 26:26–28). They sound like the Corinthians who were guilty of the same thing (1 Cor. 18:18–22).

Jude further describes pseudo-believers as clouds without water—floating around the sky for show, doing nothing to help food production. These men are all about appearances but provide nothing of value for the Christian community. Next comes a comparison with fruitless trees at harvest time. Jude describes them as twice dead, essentially saying there is absolutely no life in the barren trees. A man’s behavior will prove or disprove genuine faith.

Pseudo-believers are like “wild waves” on the ocean, and their shame is like the foam of the crashing, destructive waves. Like stars, they are visible, but their destiny is to remain in darkness forever. Would that they would hear this judgment and repent of their hypocrisy and lies, and come to genuine salvation through grace.

Lord, I reaffirm that Your grace produces in me true freedom to follow You.