BIG IDEA:
THE PEOPLE OF GOD IN THIS PRESENT AGE (BETWEEN CHRIST’S FIRST COMING TO USHER US INTO SALVATION AND HIS SECOND COMING TO USHER US INTO GLORY) NEED TO DEVOTE THEMSELVES TO PERSONAL HOLINESS AND UNSELFISH GOOD DEEDS
INTRODUCTION:
William Barclay: There are few passages in the New Testament which so vividly set out the moral power of the incarnation as this does. Its whole stress is the miracle of moral change which Jesus Christ can work.
This miracle is repeatedly expressed here in the most interesting and significant way. Isaiah once exhorted his people: ‘Cease to do evil, learn to do good’ (Isaiah 1:16–17). First, there is the negative side of goodness, the giving up of that which is evil and the liberation from that which is low; second, there is its positive side, the acquisition of the shining virtues which mark the Christian life.
Paul Zehr: Using language from the Greco-Roman world to describe the appearance of a divinized emperor, Paul says that Christians live between the two appearances (epiphaneia) of Christ. Jesus Christ manifested God’s grace (favor or benefit) in a first appearance by bringing salvation into the world for all people (2:11). In a second appearance (Christ’s second coming), Jesus Christ will manifest God’s glory. During the interval between the first and second appearances, Christians live in grace. God’s grace saves, instructs, and enables God’s people for good deeds. Interestingly, this confessional statement is one sentence in Greek.
David Platt: This passage shows us that the grace of God is the foundation for godly living in the here and now. It is rooted in Christ’s past work on the cross and the promise of His future return. Martin Luther summarized how we ought to live in light of this passage. He said, “I live as though Christ died yesterday, rose again today, and is coming again tomorrow.” Our present pursuit of godliness is sandwiched in between the death and resurrection of Christ and His second coming—the grace of His first coming and the glory of His return. Our hearts should well up with praise in response to the grace of God. It truly is amazing grace. Consider the words of this old hymn and respond in praise to our great God and Savior Jesus Christ:
Wonderful grace of Jesus, Greater than all my sin;
How shall my tongue describe it, Where shall my praise begin?
Taking away my burden, Setting my spirit free,
For the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.
Wonderful grace of Jesus, Reaching the most defiled.
By its transforming power Making him God’s dear child.
Purchasing peace and heaven For all eternity—
And the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.
The amazing grace of God! I am so glad it reaches me! Aren’t you glad it reaches you
I. (:11) CHRIST’S FIRST COMING = OUR ENTRANCE INTO SALVATION
A. The Nature of the Incarnation
“For the grace of God has appeared“
D. Edmond Hiebert: “For” marks Paul’s masterly epitome of Christian doctrine as the proper foundation for the ethical demands just made on the various groups. Christian conduct must be grounded in and motivated by Christian truth. The vitality of doctrinal profession must be demonstrated by transformed Christian conduct.
Robert Yarbrough: Here, however, the stress is on what appeared, which is “the grace of God” (v. 11), not who appeared, namely, Jesus Christ. God has shown forth his grace in such a way that it discourages certain behavior, enables uprightness, and implants a transcendent hope.
The first word (“for”) is significant. Paul is drawing an inference from the preceding section with its guidance for various social, age, and gender groupings. Why should Titus instruct people in these ways? Why should he think that, given the grim social setting and personal tendencies of many on Crete, pastoral presence and instruction will make any difference? Paul grounds his counsel to Titus in the manifestation of God’s grace (charis).
John MacArthur: Paul wanted to reinforce this central reality of redemptive purpose and therefore culminates this practical instruction with a monumental section about the saving work of God. He begins where we should always begin—with the grace of God. God’s grace is His unmerited favor toward wicked, unworthy sinners, by which He delivers them from condemnation and death. But the grace of God is more than a divine attribute; it is a divine Person, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ not only was God incarnate but was grace incarnate. He Himself personifies and expresses the grace of God, the sovereign, eternal, and unmerited divine gift of Him who has appeared, bringing salvation to all men. . .
In Titus 2:11-14, Paul condenses the eternal plan of God in Christ by grace. He gives four aspects, or realities, of God’s redemptive grace: salvation from the penalty (v. 11b), the power (v. 12), the presence (v. 13), and the possession (v. 14) of sin.
B. The Purpose of the Incarnation
“bringing salvation to all men“
William Hendriksen: Male or female, old or young, rich or poor: all are guilty before God, and from them all God gathers his people. Aged men, aged women, young women, younger men, and even slaves (see verses 1-10) should live consecrated lives, for the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to men of all these various groups or classes. “All men” here in verse 11 = “us” in verse 12. Grace did not bypass the aged because they are aged, nor women because they are women, nor slaves because they are merely slaves, etc.
Thomas Lea: Not teaching universalism … but the point is that salvation is universally offered to all without exception.
John MacArthur: To all men does not, as some maintain, refer to universal salvation but rather to the universal opportunity for salvation. In his first letter to Timothy, Paul speaks of “the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers” (1 Tim. 4:10). God “is Savior of all men” in the sense of delaying their deserved judgment for sin and of granting them countless temporal blessings that they do not deserve but nevertheless receive because of His gracious love.
Cf. 1 Cor. 10:1-5 — All of the people were guided by the cloud that went before them; all of them were saved from death or re-enslavement by the Egyptians after passing through the Red Sea; all of them were saved from thirst and starvation by God’s gracious provision of manna to eat and water to drink in the wilderness; and all of them had the blessing of knowing God’s righteous standards through the law. “Nevertheless,” Paul goes on to say, “with most of them God was not well-pleased”. Although all of the Israelites were blessed by God, most of them did not trust in Him and were not spiritually saved. . .
The gospel is good news to all men, not because they are all elected or because Christ died for each one of them in particular, but because, as Jesus promised, “anyone [who] enters through Me, he shall be saved” (John 10:9, emphasis added).
II. (:12) CALL FOR PERSONAL HOLINESS
A. Separation from Sin
- “instructing us to deny ungodlinesss“
- “and worldly desires“
B. Separation unto God
- “and to live sensibly“
- “righteously“
- “and godly“
Paul Zehr: The three virtues express relationships with self, neighbor, and God. Self-control occurs several times in Titus (1:8; 2:2, 5-6). Self-controlled persons experience God’s grace to the degree that they are in control of themselves. Upright means to live according to the standards of justice and fairness (I. H. Marshall 1999: 271), to be righteous or just in relationships with other people. Christians disciplined by God’s grace live in right relationship with other people. Godly means to live in right relationship with God by believing in Jesus and living a life of discipleship.
Grace enables us to live godly, holy lives in the present age, in which we experience “already but not yet” the reign of God in its fullness. Despite the struggles and temptations to sin that Christians face in the present, evil age, God’s grace is sufficient to train us and enable us to live godly lives.
David Platt: I would submit that Titus 2:12 deals a death blow and puts to an end once and for all “to any theology that separates salvation from the demands of obedience to the Lordship of Christ” (Mounce, Pastoral Epistles, 423). Without calling for perfection, Paul says that a new direction in a person’s life is the outgrowth and expectation of God for those experiencing His salvation.
C. Difficulty of the Challenge
“in the present age“
Wilbur Wallis: Used once in each of the Pastorals (see I Tim 6:17; II Tim 4:10). These words show the basic orientation of Paul’s thought — life consists of this world, as well as the world to come.
Thomas Lea: In stating the positive characteristics of Christian living, Paul concluded with the phrase “in this present age.” This additional thought suggests that such Christian living must be demonstrated in an evil world that is hostile to God (Gal 1:4; Eph 6:10-12). Furthermore, the mention of “this present age” presupposes another, future age for which the Christian believer hopes with assurance and perseverance. This future age, characterized by eternal life (1:2), has been inaugurated in the work of Christ during his incarnation. At his second coming the future age will be fully realized by every Christian believer.
III. (:13) CHRIST’S SECOND COMING = OUR ENTRANCE INTO GLORY
A. Our Anticipation of the Second Coming
“looking for the blessed hope“
B. The Nature of the Second Coming
“and the appearing of the glory“
C. Our Relationship to the Person of the Second Coming
- “our great God“
- “and Savior“
- “Christ Jesus“
Christopher Hutson: 3 Possible Options:
- “The manifestation of the glory [or glorious manifestation] of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Gk. “glory” as objective [or adjectival] gen.; “God and Savior” as hendiadys; “Jesus Christ” as appositional to “God and Savior”). On this translation, Pastoral Paul refers to Jesus explicitly as “God” (CEB, CEV, ESV, NET; Quinn 1990a; Knight 1992; Lau 1996, 247–50; I. H. Marshall 1999; R. Collins 2002).
- “The manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Gk. “glory” as objective gen.; “God and Savior” as hendiadys; “Jesus Christ” as appositional to “glory”). On this translation, Pastoral Paul refers to Jesus as the “glory” of God but not explicitly as “God” (NLT; Fee 1988; Towner 2006). This would be consistent with Titus 3:4–7, which celebrates Jesus as a manifestation of God’s “kindness and philanthropy” and the one “through” whom God “poured out” the Holy Spirit.
- “The manifestation of the glory [or glorious manifestation] of the great God and of our Savior Jesus Christ” (Gk. “glory” as objective [or adjectival] gen.; “God” and “Savior” as two separate objective genitives with “manifestation”; “Jesus Christ” as appositional to “Savior”). On this translation Pastoral Paul anticipates the “manifestation” of two separate persons, “God” and “our Savior Jesus Christ” (KJV, NABRE, Phillips; Dibelius and Conzelmann 1972; Edwards 2011).
The main issue is whether Pastoral Paul intends to describe Jesus as “God.” The deity of Jesus is affirmed strongly in option 1, weakly in option 2, and not in option 3.
Option 3 seems the weakest. Option 1 makes the best sense of the passage.
Paul Zehr: In favor of understanding this as a reference to one person, emphasizing the deity of Christ, are the following arguments:
- Only one definite article is used to govern the two nouns God and Savior.
- God and Savior were current in first-century writings, usually meaning one deity.
- Epiphany language in the NT refers to one person, Christ, and not to two persons. In the letters to Timothy and Titus, epiphany language is used for each appearance of Christ (1 Tim 6:14; 2 Tim 1:10; 4:8).
- Elsewhere in the NT, hope is centered in Christ and his return.
- The verse that follows (v. 14) describes the redemptive work of one person.
- Outside the letters to Timothy and Titus, Paul calls Jesus Savior in Ephesians 5:23 and Philippians 3:20. In content, Philippians 3:20 is much like Titus 2:13. And although God is called Savior in the letters to Timothy and Titus, in Titus, Jesus is also called Savior in nearby verses (1:3-4; 2:10, 13; 3:4, 6).
Therefore, one can conclude Paul is using the name Jesus Christ in apposition to our great God and Savior, meaning, according to Murray J. Harris, that Jesus Christ is called our great God and Savior (Harris: 271). Understood this way, the text means our great God and Savior—namely, Jesus Christ. Thus, Titus 2:13b is one of the rare NT texts, along with Romans 9:5, in which Jesus is designated as God, indicating the divinity of Christ (cf. Rom 9:5; John 1:1, 18; 20:28; Col 1:15, 19; 2:9; Phil 2:6; Heb 1:8-13; 2 Pet 1:1).
Yet another way to interpret the text is to place the emphasis on the glory of God that is revealed in Jesus Christ. For example, Towner thinks that a more precise interpretation based on the grammatical, syntactical, and lexical evidence equates Jesus Christ not with God but with the glory of the great God and Savior. Thus the blessed hope depicted here is the personal appearance of Jesus Christ, who is the embodiment and expression of God’s glory (Towner 2006: 758). Fee argues at length for an emphasis on the glory of God rather than the divinity of Christ (Fee 2007: 440-46). Though Towner and Fee make strong arguments for the coming of Christ as the full and final manifestation of God’s glory, I am inclined to follow the majority, who interpret the combination our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ as an appositional construction, which thus affirms the deity of Christ. I agree with Witherington: “Here it is likely, since only one manifestation and hope is referred to, that we have an example of Jesus being called both God and Savior” (2006: 144).
IV. (:14) CALL FOR GOOD DEEDS
A. Unselfish Example of Christ in His Atonement
“who gave Himself for us“
David Platt: This refers to the vicarious and substitutionary nature of Christ’s death. The purpose given for His death is “to redeem us from all lawlessness.” Here we see the costly and liberating work of redemption (cf. Matt 20:28; Acts 20:28; 1 Tim 2:6; 1 Pet 1:18-19).
Thomas Lea: The voluntary nature of his death is emphasized by the words “gave himself” (ed ken heauton). The fact that his death was for the benefit of sinners is contained in the words “for us” (hyper h m n). Whereas hyper may technically signify on behalf of, the parallelism of this phrase to that in Mark 10:45, which uses anti meaning in place of, certainly suggests the substitutionary nature of Jesus’ self-sacrifice. Paul stated that the purpose of Jesus’ self-sacrifice is twofold: redemption and purification.
B. Purpose of the Atonement
- Redemption — “that He might redeem us from every lawless deed“
- Purification — “and purify for Himself a people for his own possession“
William Barclay: Jesus can purify us until we are fit to be the special people of God. The word we have translated as special (periousios) is interesting. It means reserved for, and it was used for that part of the spoils of a battle or a campaign which the king who had conquered set apart especially for himself. Through the work of Jesus Christ, Christians become fit to be the special possessions of God.
The moral power of the incarnation is a tremendous thought. Christ not only liberated us from the penalty of past sin; he can enable us to live the perfect life within this world of space and time; and he can so cleanse us that we become fit in the life to come to be the special possession of God.
Paul Zehr: This clause uses language from Exodus 19:5-6 and Ezekiel 37:23. Exodus 19:5-6 indicates that the people God redeemed from Egypt are now God’s own possession and are to be holy. Christians are not only set free from sin through the death of Jesus; they are also set apart as God’s own possession.
- Righteousness — “zealous for good deeds“
Paul Zehr: Paul has come full circle with the theme of grace. The grace of God appeared in the incarnation of Jesus Christ (2:11), trains us to live a godly life in the present time (v. 12), transforms us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (v. 14), and enables us to walk in discipleship now (v. 14). Redemption and discipleship go hand in hand. One without the other is incomplete. In contrast to the non-Christian Cretans, who are unfit for any good deed (1:16), the author elaborates on the grace of God, which trains us to say yes to self-control, upright, and godly living (2:12b), and urges us to give ourselves energetically to virtuous living (2:14c). Christians are eager to live out the good deeds of Titus 2:1-10 made possible by participating in God’s enabling grace. Christians who are zealous for good deeds are not trying to achieve salvation. Instead, they are living out the saved life made possible by God’s enabling grace as the Holy Spirit gives them victory over sin (Rom 8:12-13; Gal 5:16-26).
(:15) CLOSING EXHORTATION: COMMUNICATE THESE THINGS WITH AUTHORITY
A. Exhortation to Communicate These Things
- Proclamation — “These things speak“
- Encouragement — “and exhort“
- Conviction — “and reprove“
B. With Authority
- Positively: “with all authority“
- Negatively: “Let no one disregard you.”
Paul Zehr: A transitional verse (2:15) moves the reader from the confessional statement to a new paragraph that draws attention to the way Christians live and relate to the larger world around them. With a threefold command, Paul tells Titus to carry out his leadership in the church in Crete. Declare these things; exhort and reprove with all authority. Let no one look down on you. Titus is commanded to promote these things with three verbs: speak, exhort, and reprove. Like Timothy, with full authority from the apostle Paul, Titus must lead the church and not allow anyone to look down on him (1 Tim 4:12). In the first century, aged men were regarded as authoritative and full of wisdom. Neither Timothy nor Titus had yet reached the customary age of having such authority in that society. Nevertheless, they are commanded to speak God’s message with authority, since their message comes from the authoritative apostolic tradition and from God.