John Calvin Commentary Jude 1:17

"But ye, beloved, remember ye the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ;" — Jude 1:17 (ASV)

But, beloved. To a most ancient prophecy he now adds the admonitions of the apostles, whose memory was recent. As for the verb μνήσθητε, it makes little difference whether you read it as declarative or as an exhortation, for the meaning remains the same: being fortified by the prediction he quotes, they ought to be terrified.

By the last time he means that in which the renewed condition of the Church received a fixed form until the end of the world; and it began at the first coming of Christ.

In the usual manner of Scripture, he calls them scoffers—those who, being inebriated with a profane and impious contempt of God, rush headlong into a brutal contempt of the Divine Being, so that no fear nor reverence keeps them any longer within the limits of duty. For, as no dread of a future judgment exists in their hearts, so no hope of eternal life does. So today, the world is full of Epicurean despisers of God, who, having cast off every fear, madly scoff at the whole doctrine of true religion, regarding it as fabulous.