Jude 1:1,2

Salutation. Jude a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who have received the divine calling, beloved of the Father, kept safe in Jesus Christ. May mercy, peace and love be richly poured out upon you!

1. Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ δοῦλος. The same phrase is used by St. James in the Inscription to his epistle, also by St. Paul in Rom. and Phil. In 1 Pet. the phrase used is ἀπόστολος Ἰ. Χ., in 2 Pet. δοῦλος καὶ ἀπόστολος. It is, I think, a mistake to translate δοῦλος by the word “slave,” the modern connotation of which is so different from that of the Greek word (cf. 2 Corinthians 4:5). There is no opposition between δουλεία and ἐλευθερία in the Christian's willing service. It only becomes a δουλεία in the opposed sense, when he ceases to love what is commanded and feels it as an external yoke.

ἀδελφὸς δὲ Ἰακώβου. Cf. Titus 1:1 δοῦλος Θεοῦ, ἀπόστολος δὲ Ἰ. Χ. See Introduction on the Author.

τοῖς ἐν Θεῷ πατρὶ ἠγαπημένοις καὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ τετηρημένοις κλητοῖς. On the readings see Introduction on the text. The easier reading of some MSS., ἡγιασμένοις for ἠγαπημένοις, is probably derived from 1 Corinthians 1:2, ἡγιασμένοις ἐν Χ. Ἰ. There is no precise parallel either for ἐν Θεῷ ἠγ. or for Χριστῷ τετ. The preposition ἐν is constantly used to express the relation in which believers stand to Christ: they are incorporated in Him as the branches in the vine, as the living stones in the spiritual temple, as the members in the body of which He is the head. So here, “beloved as members of Christ, reflecting back his glorious image “would be a natural und easy conception. Lightfoot, commenting on Colossians 3:12, ἐκλεκτοὶ τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἅγιοι καὶ ἠγαπημένοι, says that in the N.T. the last word “seems to be used always of the objects of God's love,” but it is difficult to see the propriety of the phrase, ‘Brethren beloved by God in God”. Ἠγαπημένοι is used of the objects of man's love in Clem. Hom. ix. 5, τῶν αὐτοῖς ἠγαπημένων τοὺς τάφους ναοῖς τιμῶσιν, and the cognate ἀγαπητοί is constantly used in the same sense (as below Jude 1:3), as well as in the sense of “beloved of God”. If, therefore, we are to retain the reading, I am disposed to interpret it as equivalent to ἀδελφοί, “beloved by us in the Father,” i.e., “beloved with φιλαδελφία. as children of God,” but I think that Hort is right in considering that ἐν has shifted its place in the text. See his Select Readings, p. 106, where it is suggested that ἐν should be omitted before Θεῷ and inserted before Ἰησοῦ, giving the sense “to those who have been beloved by the Father, and who have been kept safe in Jesus from the temptations to which others have succumbed,” ἠγαπημένοις being followed by a dative of the agent, as in Nehemiah 13:26, ἀγαπώμενος τῷ Θεῷ ἦν.

κλητοῖς is here the substantive of which ἠγαπημένοις and τετηρημένοις are predicated. We find the same use in Revelation 17:14 (νικήσουσιν) οἱ μετʼ αὐτοῦ κλητοὶ κ. ἐκλεκτοὶ κ. πιστοί, in St. Paul's epistles, as in Romans 1:6, ἐν οἶς ἐστε καὶ ὑμεῖς, κλητοὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, 1 Corinthians 1:24, κηρύσσομεν Χριστὸν ἐσταυρωμένον, Ἰουδαίοις μὲν σκάνδαλον … αὐτοῖς δὲ τοῖς κλητοῖς Χριστὸν Θεοῦ δύναμιν. We have many examples of the Divine calling in the Gospels, as in the case of the Apostles (Matthew 4:21; Mark 1:20) and in the parables of the Great Supper and the Labourers in the Vineyard. This idea of calling or election is derived from the O.T. See Hort's n. on 1 Peter 1:1 Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐκλεκτοῖς : “Two great forms of election are spoken of in the O.T., the choosing of Israel, and the choosing of single Israelites, or bodies of Israelites, to perform certain functions for Israel.… The calling and the choosing imply each other, the calling being the outward expression of the antecedent choosing, the act by which it begins to take effect. Both words emphatically mark the present state of the persons addressed as being due to the free agency of God.… In Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 4:37) the choosing, by God is ascribed to His own love of Israel: the ground of it lay in Himself, not in Israel.… As is the election of the ruler or priest within Israel for the sake of Israel, such is the election of Israel for the sake of the whole human race. Such also, still more clearly and emphatically, is the election of the new Israel.” For a similar use of the word “call” in Isaiah, cf. ch. Isaiah 48:12; Isaiah 43:1; Isaiah 43:7. The chief distinction between the the “calling” of the old and of the new dispensation is that the former is rather expressive of dignity (“called by the name of God”), the latter of invitation; but the former appears also in the N.T. in such phrases as James 2:7, τὸ καλὸν ὄνομα τὸ ἐπικληθὲν ἐφʼ ὑμᾶς and 1 Peter 2:9, ὑμεῖς δὲ γένος ἐκλεκτόν, βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα … λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν. The reason for St. Jude's here characterising the called as beloved and kept, is because he has in his mind others who had been called, but had gone astray and incurred the wrath of God.