Jason Helopoulos

And Jude is saying that this we have to safeguard, we have to keep.

They were perverting this.

This faith, as he says, once for all delivered to the saints.

And we'll find this throughout the scriptures, throughout the New Testament, in these early years even in the church, that there are early confessions of the faith.

There's a core to the faith.

Paul will write this in 1 Timothy 1.15.

The statement is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.

He's referencing some words that others were already using, and he references them as the core of the faith.

This must be believed.

Many scholars believe Philippians 2, that great kenosis passage, verses 5 through 10, is an early creed of the church.

It does it in kind of a rhythmic version of putting all these things together, the incarnation and the life of Christ and the death of Christ and the glorification of Christ.

It seems to be an early creed in the church, summarizing the early Christian faith.

Or 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul is saying this is of the most importance, and then he details what is of the most importance.

Well, this is what Jude is saying.

There is the faith.

There is something that we must contend for, and they are denying the faith.

If you think about this with me, the faith, it can be denied by subtraction, and it can be denied by addition.

And both of those things have to be contended against.

If we just think about this biblically,

There are those, biblically, that denied the faith by subtraction.