Jude 8-9

These two passages speak of false teachers, human teachers, and apostates, and both of these apostles describe them as very rash and taking rights and liberties that do not belong to them. That is, he says specifically "they despise authority." As a matter of fact, they are very full of pride and they want to be the authority. But they despise others who are a legitimate authority. So, what he says here, especially Peter says that they do not defer or respect those who are more powerful or who rightly hold a higher office or a higher position.

By the way, just as an off-handed thing, these dignitaries that it talks about, "they speak evil of dignitaries," is the word doxa in Greek, and it means "glorious ones." So they are people or beings who command recognition, respect, or honor. A term that we have used in recent times, and I mean the last few centuries, is by calling someone who is in a high office, your excellency. So the dignitaries are an excellency in terms of position or power.

Now the example that these two give, Peter and Jude, is of angels, and most specifically in Jude, the archangel Michael, who though he is powerful in his own right, he seems to be right at the top of angelic leadership, but he did not speak evil of even the Devil when they contended over the body of Moses, as it says, but he treated Satan with proper respect, deferring to the Lord to rebuke him. Righteous angels are humble. They do not go outside of their sphere of authority at all. And they treat those of high authority with great honor.