The book of Jude contains only one chapter with 25 verses. In verse 7, Jude makes a cryptic reference to “strange flesh”:
“Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.” (Jude 1:7 ESV)
At first glance, this verse seems to condemn “sexual immorality” and “unnatural desire.” But what exactly does Jude mean by “strange flesh”? This has been a point of debate among Bible scholars for centuries.
There are a few key factors to consider when examining Jude 1:7:
1. The historical context of Sodom and Gomorrah
2. The Greek words used in Jude 1:7
3. The larger argument Jude is making in his letter
4. How other New Testament authors interpret the sin of Sodom
By carefully analyzing these aspects, we can arrive at a clearer understanding of this cryptic passage.
Historical Context of Sodom and Gomorrah
To comprehend Jude’s reference to “strange flesh,” we must first understand the historical account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah found in Genesis 18-19.
The wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah is first highlighted in Genesis 13:13 – “Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.” Genesis 18-19 then records the famous account of God’s destruction of these cities.
Two angels are sent to Sodom to investigate firsthand reports of the city’s grievous sin (Gen. 18:20-21). These angels appear as men and lodge with Lot when they arrive in Sodom (Gen. 19:1-3). That night, the men of Sodom surround Lot’s house and demand he bring out the men so they can “know them” (Gen. 19:5).
Most interpreters agree the intent of the men of Sodom was same-gender sexual relations, either consensual or forced. Lot stubbornly refuses to yield the angels to the lustful mob and even offers his own daughters as a substitute, an offer the mob refuses (Gen. 19:6-9). The angels then strike the men of Sodom with blindness and warn Lot to flee the impending judgment on the cities.
The next day, God rains down fire and sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah, destroying them completely for their grievous sin (Gen. 19:23-29).
The passage highlights how far God’s reckoning of sin had come in Sodom and Gomorrah, so much so that the men brazenly desired to engage the visiting angels in homosexual acts.
Most biblical scholars thus agree that while generalized wickedness characterized Sodom and Gomorrah, the specific occasion for their judgment was attempted homosexual rape. This historical backdrop sets the stage for understanding Jude’s reference.
Greek Words in Jude 1:7
Let’s now examine the key Greek terminology Jude utilizes.
“Sexual immorality” translates “ekporneusasai” which combines “ek” meaning “out of” with “porneia” referring to any sexual activity outside of marriage between a man and woman. But it can also refer specifically to homosexuality according to BDAG Greek lexicon.
The phrase “pursued unnatural desire” translates “apelthousai opisÅ sarkos heteras.”
“Apelthousai” means “to follow” or “go after.” It expresses that the people of Sodom continuously chased after this desire. The noun “epithymia” conveys lust or desire. “OpisÅ” means “contrary to nature.”
“Sarkos heteras” translates “strange flesh.” “Sarkos” refers to the physical body. “Heteras” is the genitive/ablative plural form of “hetero” which means “different,” “altered,” or “other.”
Put together, Jude asserts that the men of Sodom continuously lusted after and aggressively pursued sexual relations that were “contrary to nature” and involved “other flesh” that was “altered” or “different” from what was natural.
The specific deviation Jude has in mind is homosexuality according to the historical context. The angels appeared as fully human males, yet the men of Sodom lusted after them, wanting to engage in same-gender relations. This inverted the natural created order for human sexual relations.
Jude’s Larger Argument
Looking more broadly at Jude’s purpose helps us perceive why he singled out Sodom’s sexual sin.
Jude writes to exhort believers to contend for the faith against false teachers who had crept in unnoticed, likely gnostics denying Christ (Jude 1:3-4). Like the men of Sodom who brazenly inverted the created order, these heretics openly defied God’s designs.
Part of Jude’s concern is these false teachers also exhibited twisted sexual morals like the archetypal licentiousness of Sodom (cf. Jude 1:4, 8,16). They were overthrowing divinely intended boundaries.
Jude references three notorious OT sinners to bolster his point – Cain, Balaam, Korah (Jude 1:5-7,11). Sodom’s brazen homosexuality features as the capstone example of complete rebellion against God’s created moral order. Their judgment serves as a typological warning of eternal fire coming on present false teachers upending divine truth.
So Jude specifically mentions Sodom’s “strange flesh” lusts to underscore how utterly these false teachers have overturned God’s moral authority, vividly seen in their corruption of sexuality.
Other NT References to Sodom’s Sin
Jude is not alone in singling out homosexual sin as the specific reason Sodom and Gomorrah were judged. Jude’s close contemporary, the apostle Peter, references Sodom’s demise in similar fashion:
“…and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.” (2 Peter 2:7-10 ESV)
Note that the focus of Peter’s remarks about Sodom is again on sexual sin, which he labels “sensual conduct” and ties to the “lust of defiling passion.”
This corroded Lot who was tormented by having to witness it. Like Jude, Peter presents it as evidencing utter contempt for divine authority.
The apostle John similarly remarks in Revelation concerning end times Babylon:
“And he called out with a mighty voice, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons, a haunt for every unclean spirit, a haunt for every unclean bird, a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast…And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth.” (Revelation 18:2, 24 ESV)
John’s imagery associates end times Babylon with similar manifestations of demons, deep immorality, and defiance of God. Intriguingly, Isaiah 13 depicts Babylon’s fall using language echoing Sodom’s judgment:
“Behold, the day of the Lord comes…to make the land a desolation…For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.” (Isaiah 13:9-10 ESV)
These precise celestial details precisely match the hour of Sodom’s destruction:
“The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire…and overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt. And Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he had stood before the Lord…He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah…and behold, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.” (Genesis 19:23-28 ESV)
John draws on Isaiah’s depiction of Babylon’s judgment patterned after Sodom and projects it into the end times. The shared emphasis is deep rebellion against God extending to the corruption of sexuality and rampant immorality associated with demons.
Paul in Romans 1 likewise ties homosexual practices to corrupted minds serving idols and “exchanging natural relations” to “dishonor their bodies among themselves” (Romans 1:24-27). He labels homosexual acts “contrary to nature” as violations of the intentional created order.
Tying this together, 2nd temple Judaism widely recognized Sodom’s blameworthy sin as homosexuality often tied with surrounding idolatry. Jude utilizes Sodom typologically to underscore how far the false teachers had wandered into sexual and ethical rebellion like those in Noah’s day. It provides a vivid object lesson on God’s fiery eternal judgment that will come on those who arrogantly invert His created moral order.
The Shared Emphasis: Upending God’s Order
Stepping back, we see a key common denominator emerges in these passages referencing Sodom’s destruction. Yes, generalized wickedness characterized the cities. But the specific occasion centered around brazen homosexuality connected to a larger willful rejection of God’s sovereignty.
This manifested in unchecked sensual indulgence contrary to the intentional created order for human flourishing. The men of Sodom – and the false teachers of Jude’s day – embody those in Romans 1:18-27 who “suppress the truth” about God evident in nature. Having cast off God’s restraints, “God gave them over” to the dishonorable worship of idols and disordered sexuality contrary to nature.
Sodom thus becomes symbolic of human rebellion overthrowing divine sexual ethics to pursue unrestrained lust. God forcefully judged such arrogance. Jude appropriates this typology to warn the godless in his day – and to instruct the church across the ages – that God’s moral order matters. Sexuality is not a realm left to shifting human whims or orientated to idolatrous self-gratification.
Jude means to shake us awake to the wider implications of all sexual ethics. Sexuality is an integral and sacred dimension of human existence reflecting divine intent for holistic flourishing. It must be nurtured within those bounds, or else we repeat the wayward idolatry of pagan cultures given over to futile thinking that suppresses God’s natural revelation. Lusts pursued apart from God’s moral guardrails in the end are destructive.
Jude’s rhetoric seeks to rouse us to grasp how high the stakes are and recognize the dire consequences for those rebelling against the Creator’s purposes. God designed sexuality as part of a larger context cultivating human dignity, covenant faithfulness, procreation, and social shalom. When we arbitrarily overturn these interdependent points anchored in creation’s order, we curse ourselves with relational brokenness, as figuratively seen in Lot’s resulting incest and family wreckage. Jude would have us open our eyes to the tragic futility of using sexuality as an idol to elevate the self rather than worship the Creator.
Only by submitting our sexual mores to God’s benevolent authority can this potent part of human existence be sanctified and fulfilled. Anything less keeps us trapped repeating the past errors of pagan cultures that suppressed truth to follow unrestrained passions.
Jude means for Sodom’s shocking attempted gang rape of divine visitors – embodying a complete reversal of nature’s sexual order – to jar us into reverent awe of the Lord’s transcendence. God’s moral will matters. When we reconfigure creation’s boundaries, we heap judgment on ourselves.
The fiery endpoint for cultures choosing sexual anarchy apart from acknowledging the Lord’s sovereignty stands as a perpetual warning. Righteous Lot’s acute distress provides a microscope revealing how nineteenth God’s heart is for the self-destruction that results from violating His intentional design for sexuality.
In the end, “strange/other flesh” represents complete rejection of God’s created order and intent for sexuality, marriage, and human dignity and an arrogant embrace of unrestrained lust leading to dissolution and judgment. Jude points to God’s demand for sexual ethics grounded in creation and His severe punishment of cultures embracing sensuality disconnected from the Creator.
Jude means to instruct disciples in reverence and awe for the Lord’s commands concerning sexual holiness. God’s moral will for sexuality reflects His benevolent nature. When we respect these boundaries, sexuality becomes part of harmonious covenant intimacy that upholds human dignity and brings glory to the Creator. But apart from this anchoring, sexuality becomes enslaving and mutually destructive.
Herein lies the lesson for followers of Jesus from this contested passage – our embodied existence calls us to honor God’s design for flourishing sexual expression within marriage between man and woman. All other paths end in futility and invite judgment, cutoff from the source of goodness. Jude’s shocking rhetoric and harsh typology of Sodom’s judgment beckons disciples to approach sexuality with fear of the Lord and trembling reverence for God’s beautiful vision for its place among his image-bearers.
Jude means to shock readers out of casual dismissal of God’s standards into awestruck reverence for the Lord’s holiness and His transcendent moral will concerning all aspects of our shared existence.