On Day 2, I had shared that I used to be afraid of backsliding, but found reassurance in the fact that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness. These ″very great and precious promises″ that enable us to overcome sin can be found in 2 Peter 1:3-4. There is another passage which has sustained me in my Christian life: Jude's magnificent doxology in Jude 1:24-25.

Jude praises God because He is the One who is able to keep us ″standing upright″.²⁸ While the translation of verse 24 is rendered in many Bible versions as ″to keep you from stumbling″ (NIV) or ″to keep you from falling″ (KJV), New Testament scholar Tom Wright argues that the word Jude uses ″is a bit more positive: 'to keep you unstumbling'. The image is of someone walking along who might have tripped over, but has not done so in fact.″²⁹ God is able to keep us ″standing upright″.

Jude is reiterating what he has said at the beginning of his letter, when he described his readers as those ″kept for Jesus Christ″ (Jude 1:1). So he begins and ends his letter with this wonderful truth: God is able to keep us ″unstumbling″. But this does not mean that we can live our lives any way we want; we must do our part to keep ourselves in God's love (v. 21).

God seeks to keep us ″unstumbling″ so that He can present us to himself without fault and with great joy. On the day of judgment, everyone has to stand before God and give an account. For the false teachers, their end is eternal condemnation. But not so for those who reject the false teaching and who continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18). For these Christians, God will enable them to appear before His glorious presence without fault–not through their own efforts, but through what Christ had accomplished in His death and resurrection (Jude 1:24). These believers will not dread the day of judgment, because it will be a day of great joy for them. Even in this glorious doxology, Jude is warning against the false teachers who deny Jesus Christ as the only Sovereign and Lord.

Our God is the only God. He is our Saviour. To Him be ″glory, majesty, power and authority″ (v. 25). These four attributes speak of God's honour and power, and His sovereign rule, both now and forevermore. And all this is mediated ″through Jesus Christ our Lord″ (v. 25). Jude's doxology reminds us of Paul's doxology in Romans 16:25-27: ″To the only wise God be glory for ever through Jesus Christ!″

How apt it is for Jude to end his letter with this magnificent praise to God. What a glorious day that will be, when we are presented without fault and with great joy before the only God our Saviour!