While associating the memory of
Jesus with saving is not difficult, it is perhaps more surprising to see Jesus represented
as the one who destroys those who do not believe a second time. After all, in
the memory of the Gospels, Jesus is often associated with saving but is seldom
associated with destruction. We see at least one exception to this in Luke 13
where Jesus tells the crowd, ‘Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish (απολεισθε)’. But, in general, Jesus is not
heavily associated with απολλυμι
in the Gospels. Nevertheless, in Jude 5 we find the Beloved being called to
remember Jesus, the deliverance of a people from Egypt and the destruction of
that people after they demonstrate their lack of faith a second time by failing
to enter into the land of promise to which God has brought them. Here the
melding of two collective memories—the memory of the exodus and the memory of
Jesus—creates a new memory in which Jesus saves those who trust him and subsequently
destroys those who do not. Jude has already described the Others as a group
that denies the master and Lord Jesus Christ, and here he describes the date of
those who failed to believe. (Ruth Anne Reese, “Remember ‘Jesus Saved a People
out of Egypt,’” in Muted Voices of the New Testament: Readings in the
Catholic Epistles and Hebrews, ed. Katherine M. Hockey, Madison N. Pierce
and Francis Watson [Library of New Testament Studies 587; London: T&T
Clark, 2017], 96)
