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To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him [Jude 14–15].

This prophecy of Enoch is not found in the Old Testament. In Genesis 5 we have the record of Enoch, but we are told nothing about his prophecy. Enoch is not a common name; so we may be sure that the man Jude mentions is Enoch of the antediluvian period, the man who walked with God and God took him.

The quotation is from the apocryphal Book of Enoch. This book, known to the Church Fathers of the second century, lost for some centuries with the exception of a few fragments, was found in its entirety in a copy of the Ethiopic Bible in 1773 by Bruce. It consists of revelations purporting to have been given to Enoch and Noah. Its object is to vindicate the ways of divine providence, to set forth the retribution reserved for sinners, and so show that the world is under the immediate government of God.

Enoch prophesied regarding the false teachers of the last days, and that is a remarkable thing! God apparently did not want the Book of Enoch in the canon of Scripture or it would be there—you may be sure of that. Godly men recognized that it was an apocryphal book, but here is one prophecy that God wanted put into His holy Word. It is a prophecy concerning the coming of Christ with His saints.

We know from the record in Genesis that Enoch was translated, that is, he was removed from the earth without dying. And sometime in the future the church, meaning true believers, are to be removed from the earth without dying. Of course, through the centuries since the time of Christ, believers have been dying so that at the present time most of the church has already passed through the doorway of death. And at the time of the Rapture they are to be caught up together with the living believers to meet the Lord in the air. This teaching is not in the Old Testament at all, yet Enoch is a type or a representative of the believers who will take part in the Rapture. Enoch was removed from the earthly scene before the judgment of the Flood came upon the earth. And the believers who compose the true church will be removed from this earth, will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air, before the judgment of the Great Tribulation breaks upon the earth.

Now, after the Great Tribulation, the Lord Jesus will return to the earth. However, at the time of the Rapture He does not come to the earth, but the believers are caught up to meet Him in the air. When we say that the Rapture is the second coming of Christ, we are not quite accurate if we mean that Christ is coming to earth at that time. No, the Rapture is the removal of the church. Then the visible church which is left on the earth, composed of folk who are not true believers, will totally depart from the faith and will enter the Great Tribulation Period. And at the end of the Tribulation, the Lord Jesus will actually come to the earth “to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed,” as Jude has prophesied. This is a remarkable passage of Scripture.

And there prophesied also with respect to these, the seventh from Adam, Enoch, saying, Behold, there comes the Lord with His holy myriads, to execute judgment against all and to convict all those who are destitute of a reverential awe towards God, concerning all their works of impiety which they impiously performed and concerning all the harsh things which impious sinners spoke against Him.

It is quite interesting that “holy myriads,” which has to do with the numbers of the saints, can be supernatural or natural creatures, which probably means that the church will come back with Christ when He returns to the earth. If the church does come back with Him to reign on the earth, obviously it had to leave the earth sometime before. You simply have to believe in the Rapture if you believe that Christ is coming back to earth with His saints.

“To execute judgment upon all.” When Christ returns to the earth, He is going to execute judgment. Jesus Himself said this in His Olivet Discourse. It is mentioned again and again in the Word of God, and we have seen it in the Old Testament.

“To convince all that are ungodly among them” or, as Dr. Wuest has translated it, “to convict all those who are destitute of a reverential awe towards God.” They are ungodly in the sense that they leave God out. And that is something that is quite popular today.

“Of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed.” Dr. Wuest translates it: “concerning all their works of impiety which they impiously performed.” Their works are actually anti-God.

Now this prophecy of Enoch, and it is a great prophecy, deals with the judgment upon the organized church which will be in total apostasy after the Rapture. You see, the Rapture will rupture the church—the true believers will leave the earth, and the make-believers will remain and will be here when Christ comes to judge men in that day.

McGee, J. Vernon: Thru the Bible Commentary. electronic ed. Nashville : Thomas Nelson, 1997, c1981, S. 5:865-866

Jud 14 Enoch. Following the genealogy of Gen. 5:1–24; 1 Chr. 1:1–3, Enoch was the seventh in the line of Adam. Because Enoch “walked with God,” he was taken directly to heaven without having to die (cf. Gen. 5:24; Heb. 11:5). prophesied about these men. See note on v. 4. The source of this information was the Holy Spirit who inspired Jude. The fact that it was recorded in the nonbiblical and pseudepigraphal Book of Enoch had no effect on its accuracy. See Introduction: Interpretive Challenges. Behold … Lord … saints. Enoch, before the Flood, prophesied about Christ’s second coming in judgment (cf. 1 Thess. 3:13). “Saints” can refer to either angels or believers. Since both angels (Matt. 24:31; 25:31; Mark 8:38; 2 Thess 1:7) and believers (Col. 3:4; 1 Thess. 3:13; Rev. 19:14) will accompany Him, it may refer to both (cf. Zech. 14:5), but the focus on judgment in v. 15 seems to favor angels, who are often seen in judgment action. While believers will have a role of judging during the Lord’s earthly kingdom (see note on 1 Cor. 6:2) and will return when Christ comes to judge (Rev. 19:14), angels are the executioners of God at the second coming of Christ (see Matt. 13:39–41,49,50; 24:29–31; 25:31; 2 Thess. 1:7–10).

The MacArthur Study Bible. 1997 (J. MacArthur, Jr., Ed.) (electronic ed.) (Jud 14). Nashville, TN: Word Pub.

Interpretive Challenges
Because there are no doctrinal issues discussed, the challenges of this letter have to do with interpretation in the normal process of discerning the meaning of the text. Jude does quote from non-canonical, pseudepigraphal (i.e., the actual author was not the one named in its title) sources such as 1 Enoch (v. 14) and the Assumption of Moses (v. 9) to support his points. Was this acceptable? Since Jude was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:20,21) and included material that was accurate and true in its affirmations, he did no differently than Paul (cf. Acts 17:28; 1 Cor. 15:33; Titus 1:12).

The MacArthur Study Bible. 1997 (J. MacArthur, Jr., Ed.) (electronic ed.). Nashville, TN: Word Pub.

The Book of Enoch and The Canon

Jude Code: BQ061412

It was also about these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, (14a)

These men refers to the apostates whom Jude pictured in the previous section—the false visionaries, the flouters of spiritual authority, the revilers, the brute beasts who behave by carnal instinct, the hidden reefs, the waterless clouds, the dead and uprooted trees, the wild sea waves, and the wandering stars headed for eternal blackness. Even before the Flood, Enoch (Gen. 5:21–24) prophesied that the Lord would come to judge such false teachers. By citing Enoch, Jude underscored the motivation behind God’s judgment on apostasy while also reinforcing the certainty of it.

Even though this prophecy is not recorded in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit inspired Jude (cf. 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Peter 1:20–21) to use it because it was familiar, historically valid, and supported his overall thesis. Jude extracted the quote from the pseudepigraphal book of 1 Enoch, with which his first-century readers were well acquainted. The book was part of the written history and tradition of the Jewish people, and rabbinical allusions to it were not uncommon.

Though he was not the author of the book, Enoch’s message was passed down through oral tradition until it was finally recorded in what was called 1 Enoch. That book, like other books such as The Book of Jubilee, The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, and The Assumption of Moses (from which Jude probably quoted in v. 9), was not part of the Old Testament canon; yet, since it was accurate, it was acceptable for Jude to use it to bolster his argument. None other than the apostle Paul occasionally followed the same pattern (of citing nonbiblical sources to make a legitimate spiritual point) in his teaching (cf. Acts 17:28; 1 Cor. 15:33; Titus 1:12). (For a further discussion of Jude’s use of apocryphal works, see the Introduction to Jude in this volume.)

Enoch stood in the seventh generation from Adam (Gen. 5:4–24). He was a hero to the Jewish people because, like the prophet Elijah later (2 Kings 2:11–12), he went to heaven without dying: “Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him” (Gen. 5:24; cf. Heb. 11:5). Although it was not included in the biblical record until the book of Jude, Enoch’s prophecy is the earliest human prophecy found anywhere in Scripture. (The only earlier prophecy recorded in the Bible was made by God in Gen. 3:15.) In fact, Enoch’s message predated the words of Moses, Samuel, and the Hebrew prophets by many centuries.