For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
Parallel Translations
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For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men,
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For the grace of god that bryngeth saluacion vnto all men hath appered
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For that grace of God, that bringeth saluation vnto all men, hath appeared,
Cross-references (47)
Passages linked to Titus 2:11 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Ephesians 2:8 for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
- 1 Timothy 2:4 who desires all people to be saved and come to full knowledge of the truth.
- Isaiah 45:22 “Look to me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.
- Hebrews 2:9 But we see him who has been made a little lower than the angels, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God he should taste of death for everyone.
- Ephesians 2:5 even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
- 2 Thessalonians 2:16 Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace,
- John 1:16-17 From his fullness we all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
- John 1:14 The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
- Romans 5:15 But the free gift isn’t like the trespass. For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound to the many.
- Ephesians 1:6-7 to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he freely gave us favor in the Beloved, in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace,
- Isaiah 52:10 Yahweh has made his holy arm bare in the eyes of all the nations. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
- Psalms 84:11 For Yahweh God is a sun and a shield. Yahweh will give grace and glory. He withholds no good thing from those who walk blamelessly.
- Acts 20:24 But these things don’t count; nor do I hold my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to fully testify to the Good News of the grace of God.
- Isaiah 60:1-3 “Arise, shine; for your light has come, and Yahweh’s glory has risen on you. For, behold, darkness will cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but Yahweh will arise on you, and his glory shall be seen on you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.
- Acts 11:23 who, when he had come, and had seen the grace of God, was glad. He exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they should remain near to the Lord.
- Psalms 117:1-2 Praise Yahweh, all you nations! Extol him, all you peoples! For his loving kindness is great toward us. Yahweh’s faithfulness endures forever. Praise Yah!
- Luke 3:6 All flesh will see God’s salvation.’ ”
- Romans 5:2 through whom we also have our access by faith into this grace in which we stand. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
- Romans 11:5-6 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.
- 1 Timothy 1:14 The grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
- Psalms 96:1-3 Sing to Yahweh a new song! Sing to Yahweh, all the earth. Sing to Yahweh! Bless his name! Proclaim his salvation from day to day! Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples.
- Psalms 96:10 Say among the nations, “Yahweh reigns.” The world is also established. It can’t be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity.
- Zechariah 12:10 I will pour on David’s house, and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplication; and they will look to me whom they have pierced; and they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for his only son, and will grieve bitterly for him, as one grieves for his firstborn.
- Romans 4:4-5 Now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed. But to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.
- Galatians 2:21 I don’t reject the grace of God. For if righteousness is through the law, then Christ died for nothing!”
- Titus 3:4-5 But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love toward mankind appeared, not by works of righteousness which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,
- Psalms 98:1-3 Sing to Yahweh a new song, for he has done marvelous things! His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. Yahweh has made known his salvation. He has openly shown his righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his loving kindness and his faithfulness toward the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
- Isaiah 49:6 Indeed, he says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give you as a light to the nations, that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth.”
- Zechariah 4:7 Who are you, great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you are a plain; and he will bring out the capstone with shouts of ‘Grace, grace, to it!’ ”
- Matthew 28:19 Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
- Mark 16:15 He said to them, “Go into all the world, and preach the Good News to the whole creation.
- Luke 24:47 and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
- John 1:9 The true light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world.
- Acts 13:43 Now when the synagogue broke up, many of the Jews and of the devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas; who, speaking to them, urged them to continue in the grace of God.
- Acts 13:47 For so has the Lord commanded us, saying, ‘I have set you as a light for the Gentiles, that you should bring salvation to the uttermost parts of the earth.’ ”
- Romans 5:20-21 The law came in that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace abounded more exceedingly; that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
- Romans 15:9-19 and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will give praise to you among the Gentiles and sing to your name.” Again he says, “Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.” Again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles! Let all the peoples praise him.” Again, Isaiah says, “There will be the root of Jesse, he who arises to rule over the Gentiles; in him the Gentiles will hope.” Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit. I myself am also persuaded about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish others. But I write the more boldly to you in part, as reminding you, because of the grace that was given to me by God, that I should be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving as a priest of the Good News of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. I have therefore my boasting in Christ Jesus in things pertaining to God. For I will not dare to speak of any things except those which Christ worked through me, for the obedience of the Gentiles, by word and deed, in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of God’s Spirit; so that from Jerusalem, and around as far as to Illyricum, I have fully preached the Good News of Christ;
- 2 Corinthians 6:1 Working together, we entreat also that you do not receive the grace of God in vain,
- Colossians 1:6 which has come to you, even as it is in all the world and is bearing fruit and growing, as it does in you also, since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth,
- 2 Timothy 4:17 But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and that all the Gentiles might hear. So I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
- Isaiah 2:2-3 It shall happen in the latter days, that the mountain of Yahweh’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it. Many peoples shall go and say, “Come, let’s go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.” For the law shall go out of Zion, and Yahweh’s word from Jerusalem.
- Romans 10:18 But I say, didn’t they hear? Yes, most certainly, “Their sound went out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”
- Ephesians 3:6-8 that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of his promise in Christ Jesus through the Good News, of which I was made a servant according to the gift of that grace of God which was given me according to the working of his power. To me, the very least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
- Colossians 1:23 if it is so that you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the Good News which you heard, which is being proclaimed in all creation under heaven, of which I, Paul, was made a servant.
- Hebrews 12:15 looking carefully lest there be any man who falls short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and many be defiled by it,
- 1 Peter 5:5-12 Likewise, you younger ones, be subject to the elder. Yes, all of you clothe yourselves with humility, to subject yourselves to one another; for “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time, casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you. Be sober and self-controlled. Be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Withstand him steadfast in your faith, knowing that your brothers who are in the world are undergoing the same sufferings. But may the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen. Through Silvanus, our faithful brother, as I consider him, I have written to you briefly, exhorting, and testifying that this is the true grace of God in which you stand.
- 1 Peter 1:10-12 Concerning this salvation, the prophets sought and searched diligently. They prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching for who or what kind of time the Spirit of Christ, which was in them, pointed to, when he predicted the sufferings of Christ, and the glories that would follow them. To them it was revealed, that they served not to themselves, but to you, in these things, which now have been announced to you through those who preached the Good News to you by the Holy Spirit sent out from heaven; which things angels desire to look into.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (27 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 11 For the grace of God hath appeared He…
11 For the grace of God hath appeared He argues from the design of redemption, which he shews to be a desire to live a godly and upright life. Hence it follows, that the duty of a good teacher is rather to exhort to a holy life than to occupy the minds of men with useless questions. “He hath redeemed us,” says Zacharias in his song, —
“that we may serve him in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life.” (Luke 1:74, 75.)
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For the same reason Paul says, the grace of God hath appeared, teaching us; for he means that it ought to hold the place of instruction to us to regulate our life well. What is proclaimed concerning the mercy of God is seized by some as all occasion of licentiousness; while others are hindered by slothfulness from meditating on “newness of life.” But the manifestation of the grace of God unavoidably carries along with it exhortations to a holy life.
Bringing salvation to all men, That it is common to all is expressly testified by him on account of the slaves of whom he had spoken. Yet he does not mean individual men, but rather describes individual classes, or various ranks of life. And this is not a little emphatic, that the grace of God hath let itself down even to the race of slaves; for, since God does not despise men of the lowest and most degraded condition, it would be highly unreasonable that we should be negligent and slothful to embrace his goodness.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain The eighth admonition belonging to all the godly, that…
The eighth admonition belonging to all the godly, that seeing God calleth all men to the Gospel, and Christ hath so justified us, that he hath also sanctified us, we must all of us give ourselves to true godliness and righteousness, setting before us a sure hope of that immeasurable glory: which thing must in such sort be beaten into their heads, that the gainsayers also must be reproved, by the authority of the mighty God.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation…
11 For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
Ver. 11. For the grace of God, &c.] This is rendered as a reason why servants should be faithful, because to them also belongeth the promise of salvation, yea, the reward of inheritance, as if they were sons, and to them the gospel is preached as well as to others.
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Hath appeared] επεφανη. As the sun in heaven, or as a beacon on a hill.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The gospel of our Lord Jesus, which containeth the…
The gospel of our Lord Jesus, which containeth the glad tidings of salvation, is not now hidden, and obscurely delivered, as in the times of the Old Testament; but is risen up as the sun, or some bright star, directing all men their duties in their several stations, that is, all sorts of men amongst whom it cometh.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain As if the apostle had said, Let all sorts…
As if the apostle had said, Let all sorts of men, servants and masters, children and parents, old and young, discharge their duties faithfully to God and one another; for the grace of God, discovered in the gospel, has appeared to all men, teaching them to deny all doctrines and practices which are ungodly, and all wordly lusts of sensuality, and that we should live soberly, with respect to ourselves, righteously and charitably towards our neighbour, and holily towards God, in this present world.
Note here, 1. A choice and excellent description of the gospel; it is the grace of God, that is, the doctrine of God’s free grace and gratuitous favour declared in Christ to poor sinners.
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Note, 2. The joyful message which the gospel brings, and that is, salvation: the gospel makes a gracious tender of salvation, and that universally, to lost and undone sinners.
Note, 3. The clear light and evidence that it doth hold forth this message in and by; it has appeared or shined forth like the day-star, or the rising sun.
Note, 4. The extent of its glorious beams, how far they reach, to all indefinitely, The grace of God bringing salvation has appeared unto all men; that is, it is tendered to all without restriction or limitation.
1. As to nations, Jew or Gentile; 2. As to persons, rich or poor, bond or free; 3. Without restriction, as to the number and greatness of their sins; 4. Without restriction in reference to the degree of their graces.
Note, 5. The great lesson which the gospel teaches, negative and positive;
1. Negative, To deny ungodliness and worldly lusts; where,
by ungodliness, understand all sins committed against the first table;
by worldly lusts, all sins committed against the second table; called worldly lusts, because the object of them is worldly things, and because they are the lusts of worldly men.
2. Positive, to live,
1. Soberly: he begins with our duty to ourselves, then to our neighbour, and last of all to God, and so proceeds from the easier to the harder duties: and observe the connection, soberly, and righteously, and godlily, not disjunctively; as if to live soberly, righteously, or in pretence godlily, were sufficient. A sobriety in speech, in behaviour, in apparel, in eating and drinking, in recreations, and in the enjoyment of lawful satisfactions.
2. Righteously, exercising justice and charity towards our neighbour: he that is uncharitable, is unjust and unrighteous, and the unrighteous shall no more enter into the kingdom of God, than the unholy: and all a person’s pretences to godliness are but hypocrisy, without righteousness toward our neighbour.
3. Godlily; godliness as an internal and external part; the internal and inward part of godliness consists in a right knowledge of him, in a fervent love unto him, in an entire trust and confidence in him, in an holy fear to offend him, in subjecting our wills entirely to him, in holy longings for the fruition and enjoyment of him. The external and outward part of godliness consists in adoration and bodily worship; this is due to God from us; he was the Creator of the body as well as of the soul, the Redeemer of the body as well as of the soul, and will glorify the body as well as the soul; therefore we are to glorify God with our bodies, and with our spirits, which are the Lord’s.
Note, 6. The time when, and the place where, this lesson is to be learnt, in this present world. Here is the place, and now is the time when this duty of living soberly, righteously, and godlily in this present world, is to be performed by us.
Learn, That a sober, righteous, and godly life, in this present world, is absolutely necessary in order to our obtaining the happiness and glory of the world to come.
Inference: if so, what a cheat doth that man put upon his soul, who trusts to a death-bed repentence? Be it never so sincere, how can it be said to be a living soberly, righteously, and godlily, in this world, when just stepping into eternity?
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain Here we have the grounds or considerations upon which…
Here we have the grounds or considerations upon which all the foregoing directions are urged, taken from the nature and design of the gospel, and the end of Christ's death.
I. From the nature and design of the gospel. Let young and old, men and women, masters and servants, and Titus himself, let all sorts do their respective duties, for this is the very aim and business of Christianity, to instruct, and help, and form persons, under all distinctions and relations, to a right frame and conduct. For this,
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1. They are put under the dispensation of the grace of God, so the gospel is called, Eph 3:2. It is grace in respect of the spring of it - the free favour and good-will of God, not any merit or desert in the creature; as manifesting and declaring this good-will in an eminent and signal manner; and as it is the means of conveying and working grace in the hearts of believers. Now grace is obliging and constraining to goodness: Let not sin reign, but yield yourselves unto God; for you are not under the law, but under grace, Rom 6:12-14. The love of Christ constrains us not to live to self, but to him (Co2 5:14, Co2 5:15); without this effect, grace is received in vain.
2. This gospel grace brings salvation (reveals and offers it to sinners and ensures it to believers) - salvation from sin and wrath, from death and hell. Hence it is called the word of life; it brings to faith, and so to life, the life of holiness now and of happiness hereafter. The law is the ministration of death, but the gospel the ministration of life and peace. This therefore must be received as salvation (its rules minded, its commands obeyed), that the end of it may be obtained, the salvation of the soul. And more inexcusable will the neglecters of this grace of God bringing salvation now be, since,
3. It hath appeared, or shone out more clearly and illustriously than ever before. The old dispensation was comparatively dark and shadowy; this is a clear and shining light; and, as it is now more bright, so more diffused and extensive also. For,
4. It hath appeared to all men; not to the Jews only, as the glory of God appeared at mount Sinai to that particular people, and out of the view of all others; but gospel grace is open to all, and all are invited to come and partake of the benefit of it, Gentiles as well as Jews. The publication of it is free and general: Disciple all nations: Preach the gospel to every creature. The pale is broken down; there is no such enclosure now as formerly. The preaching of Jesus Christ, which was kept secret since the world began, now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith, Rom 16:25, Rom 16:26. The doctrine of grace and salvation by the gospel is for all ranks and conditions of men (slaves and servants, as well as masters), therefore engaging and encouraging all to receive and believe it, and walk suitably to it, adorning it in all things.
5. This gospel revelation is to teach, and not by way of information and instruction only, as a schoolmaster does his scholars, but by way of precept and command, as a sovereign who gives laws to his subjects. It directs what to shun and what to follow, what to avoid and what to do. The gospel is not for speculation only or chiefly, but for practice and right ordering of life; for it teaches us,
(1.) To abandon sin: Denying ungodliness and worldly lusts; to renounce and have no more to do with these, as we have had: Put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man which is corrupt; that is, the whole body of sins, here distributed into ungodliness and worldly lusts. "Put away ungodliness and irreligion, all unbelief, neglect or disesteem of the divine Being, not loving, nor fearing, nor trusting in him, nor obeying him as we should, neglecting his ordinances, slighting his worship, profaning his name or day. Thus deny ungodliness (hate and put it away); and worldly lusts, all corrupt and vicious desires and affections that prevail in worldly men, and carry out to worldly things the lust of the flesh also, and of the eye, and the pride of life, all sensuality and filthiness, covetous desires and ambition, seeking and valuing more the praise of men than of God; put away all these." An earthly sensual conversation suits not a heavenly calling. Those that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. They have done it by covenant-engagement and promise, and have initially and prevailingly done it in act; they are going on in the work, cleansing themselves more and more from all filthiness of flesh and spirit. Thus the gospel first unteaches that which is evil, to abandon sin; and then,
(2.) To make conscience of that which is good: To live soberly, righteously, and godly, etc. Religion is not made up of negatives only; there must be doing good as well as eschewing evil; in these conjunctly is sincerity proved and the gospel adorned. We should live soberly with respect to ourselves, in the due government of our appetites and passions, keeping the limits of moderation and temperance, avoiding all inordinate excesses; and righteously towards all men, rendering to all their due, and injuring none, but rather doing good to others, according to our ability and their need: this seems a part of justice and righteousness, for we are not born for ourselves alone, and therefore may not live to ourselves only. We are members one of another, and must seek every man another's wealth, Co1 10:24; Co1 12:25. The public, especially, which includes the interests of all, must have the regards of all. Selfishness is a sort of unrighteousness; it robs others of that share in us which is their due. How amiable then will a just and righteous conduct be! It secures and promotes all interests, not particular only, but general and public, and so contributes to the peace and happiness of the world. Live righteously therefore as well as soberly. And godly towards God, in the duties of his worship and service. Regards to him indeed should run through all. Whether you eat, or drink, or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God, Co1 10:31. Personal and relative duties must be done in obedience to his commands, with due aim at pleasing and honouring him, from principles of holy love and fear of him. But there is an express and direct duty also that we owe to God, namely, belief and acknowledgment of his being and perfections, paying him internal and external worship and homage, - loving, fearing, and trusting in him, - depending on him, and devoting ourselves to him, - observing all those religious duties and ordinances that he has appointed, - praying to him, praising him, and meditating on his word and works. This is godliness, looking and coming to God, as our state now is, not immediately, but as he has manifested himself in Christ; so does the gospel direct and require. To go to God in any other way, namely, by saints or angels, is unsuitable, yea, contrary to the gospel rule and warrant. All communications from God to us are through his Son, and our returns must also be by him. God in Christ we must look at as the object of our hope and worship. Thus must we exercise ourselves to godliness, without which there can be no adorning of that gospel which is according to it, which teaches and requires such a deportment. A gospel conversation must needs be a godly conversation, expressing our love and fear and reverence of God, our hope and trust and confidence in him, as manifested in his Son. We are the circumcision (who have in truth what was signified by that sacrament) who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. See in how small a compass our duty is comprised; it is put into few words, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, and living soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world. The gospel teaches us not only how to believe and hope well, but also to live well, as becomes that faith and hope in this present world, and as expectants of another and better. There is the world that now is, and that which is to come; the present is the time and place of our trial, and the gospel teaches us to live well here, not, however, as our final state, but with an eye chiefly to a future: for it teaches us in all,
(3.) To look for the glories of another world, to which a sober, righteous, and godly life in this is preparative: Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. Hope, by a metonymy, is put for the thing hoped for, namely, heaven and the felicities thereof, called emphatically that hope, because it is the great thing we look and long and wait for; and a blessed hope, because, when attained, we shall be completely happy for ever. And the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. This denotes both the time of the accomplishing of our hope and the sureness and greatness of it: it will be at the second appearing of Christ, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels, Luk 9:26. His own glory which he had before the world was; and his Father's, being the express image of his person, and as God - man, his delegated ruler and Judge; and of the holy angels, as his ministers and glorious attendants. His first coming was in meanness, to satisfy justice and purchase happiness; his second will be in majesty, to bestow and instate his people in it. Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto those that look for him will he appear the second time, without sin, unto salvation, Heb 9:28. The great God and our Saviour (or even our Saviour) Jesus Christ; for they are not two subjects, but one only, as appears by the single article, tou megalou Theou kai Sōtēros, not kai tou Sōtēros, and so is kai rendered Co1 15:24, When he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; tō Theō kai Patri. Christ then is the great God, not figuratively, as magistrates and others are sometimes called gods, or as appearing and acting in the name of God, but properly and absolutely, the true God (Jo1 5:20), the mighty God (Isa 9:6), who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, Phi 2:6. In his second coming he will reward his servants, and bring them to glory with him. Observe, [1.] There is a common and blessed hope for all true Christians in the other world. If in this life only they had hope in Christ, they were of all men the most miserable, Co1 15:19. By hope is meant the thing hoped for, namely, Christ himself, who is called our hope (Ti1 1:1), and blessedness in and through him, even riches of glory (Eph 1:18), hence fitly termed here that blessed hope. [2.] The design of the gospel is to stir up all to a good life by this blessed hope. Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ, Pe1 1:13. To the same purport here, Denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world, looking for the blessed hope; not as mercenaries, but as dutiful and thankful Christian. What manner of persons ought you to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hastening to the coming of the day of God! Pe2 3:11, Pe2 3:12. Looking and hastening, that is, expecting and diligently preparing for it. [3.] At, and in, the glorious appearing of Christ will the blessed hope of Christians be attained; for their felicity will be this, To be where he is, and to behold his glory, Joh 17:24. The glory of the great God and our Saviour will then break out as the sun. Though in the exercise of his judiciary power he will appear as the Son of man, yet will he be mightily declared to be the Son of God too. The divinity, which on earth was much veiled, will shine out then as the sun in its strength. Hence the work and design of the gospel are to raise the heart to wait for this second appearing of Christ. We are begotten again to a lively hope of it (Pe1 1:3), turned to serve the living God, and wait for his Son from heaven, Th1 1:9, Th1 1:10. Christians are marked by this, expecting their Master's coming (Luk 12:36), loving his appearance, Ti2 4:8. Let us then look to this hope; let our loins be girt, and our lights burning, and ourselves like those who wait for their Lord; the day or hour we know not, but he that shall come will come, and will not tarry, Heb 10:37. [4.] The comfort and joy of Christians are that their Saviour is the great God, and will gloriously manifest himself at his second coming. Power and love, majesty and mercy, will then appear together in the highest lustre, to the terror and confusion of the wicked, but to the everlasting triumph and rejoicing of the godly. Were he not thus the great God, and not a mere creature, he could not be their Saviour, nor their hope. Thus of the considerations to enforce the directions of all sorts to their respective duties from the nature and design of the gospel. And herewith is connected another ground, namely,
II. From the end of Christ's death: Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works, Tit 2:14. To bring us to holiness and happiness was the end of Christ's death, as well as the scope of his doctrine. Here we have,
1. The purchaser of salvation - Jesus Christ, that great God and our Saviour, who saves not simply as God, much less as man alone; but as God - man, two natures in one person: man, that he might obey, and suffer, and die, for man, and be meet to deal with him and for him; and God, that he might support the manhood, and give worth and efficacy to his undertakings, and have due regard to the rights and honour of the deity, as well as the good of his creature, and bring about the latter to the glory of the former. Such a one became us; and this was,
2. The price of our redemption: He gave himself. The Father gave him, but he gave himself too; and, in the freeness and voluntariness, as well as the greatness of the offering, lay the acceptableness and merit of it. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself, Joh 10:17, Joh 10:18. So Joh 17:19, "For their sakes I sanctify myself, or separate and devote myself to this work, to be both a priest and a sacrifice to God for the sins of men." The human nature was the offering, and the divine the altar, sanctifying the gift, and the whole the act of the person. He gave himself a ransom for all, Ti1 2:6. Once in the end of the world hath he appeared, to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. He was the priest and sacrifice too. We are redeemed, not with silver and gold, but the precious blood of Christ (Pe1 1:18, Pe1 1:19), called the blood of God (Act 20:28), that is, of him who is God.
3. The persons for whom: For us, us poor perishing sinners, gone off from God, and turned rebels against him. He gave himself for us, not only for our good, but in our stead. Messiah was cut off, not for himself, but for us. He suffered, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, Pe1 3:18. He was made sin for us (an offering and sacrifice for sin), that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, Co2 5:21. Wonderful condescension and grace! He loved us, and gave himself for us; what can we do less than love and give up ourselves to him? Especially considering,
4. The ends of his giving himself for us, (1.) That he might redeem us from all iniquity. This is fitted to the first lesson, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts. Christ gave himself to redeem us from these, therefore put them away. To love and live in sin is to trample under foot redeeming blood, to despise and reject one of the greatest benefits of it, and to act counter to its design. But how could the short sufferings of Christ redeem us from all iniquity? Answer, Through the infinite dignity of his person. He who was God suffered, though not as God. The acts and properties of either nature are attributed to the person. God purchased his church with his own blood, Act 20:28. Could payment be made at once, no need of suffering for ever. A mere creature could not do this, from the finiteness of his nature; but God - man could. The great God and our Saviour gave himself for us: this accounts for it. By one offering he hath for ever perfected those that are sanctified, Heb 9:25, Heb 9:26; Heb 10:14. He needed not to offer himself often, nor could he be holden of death, when he had once undergone it. Happy end and fruit of Christ's death, redemption from all iniquity! Christ died for this: and, (2.) To purify to himself a peculiar people. This enforces the second lesson: To live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world. Christ died to purify as well as to pardon - to obtain grace, to heal the nature, as well as to free from guilt and condemnation. He gave himself for his church, to cleanse it. Thus does he make to himself a peculiar people, by purifying them. Thus are they distinguished from the world that lies in wickedness; they are born of God, and assimilated to him, bear his image, are holy as their heavenly Father is holy. Observe, Redemption from sin and sanctification of the nature go together, and both make a peculiar people unto God: freedom from guilt and condemnation, freedom from the power of lusts, and purification of soul by the Spirit. These are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and so a peculiar people. And, (3.) Zealous of good works. This peculiar people, as they are made so by grace purifying them, so must they be seen to be so by doing good, and a zeal therein. Observe, The gospel is not a doctrine of licentiousness, but of holiness and good life. We are redeemed from our vain conversation, to serve God in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life. Let us see then that we do good, and have zeal in it; only looking that zeal be guided by knowledge and spirited with love, directed to the glory of God, and always in some good thing. And thus of the motive to the duties directed, from the end of Christ's death.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Looking for that blessed hope,.... Not the grace of…
Looking for that blessed hope,.... Not the grace of hope; though that being a good hope through grace, and a hope of blessedness, may be called a blessed hope; yet this the saints have already implanted in their hearts in regeneration, and cannot be said to look for it: rather Christ, the object and ground of hope, who is our hope, and Christ in us the hope of glory, who is blessed for evermore; and in the enjoyment of whom the happiness of the saints hereafter will greatly consist; and whom they look for, and expect from heaven, and who is expressly mentioned in the next clause: but as this may be something distinct from that, it may be best, by this blessed hope, to understand the thing hoped for, eternal glory and happiness; called elsewhere the hope of righteousness, and the hope laid up in heaven, Gal 5:5 and which will lie in the beatific vision of God and Christ; in a perfect knowledge of them, in communion with them, and conformity to them; and in the society of angels and glorified saints; and in a freedom from all evil, outward and inward, and in the possession of all good: and to be looking for this, is to be desiring it with the heart and affections set upon it, longing to be in the enjoyment of it, and yet waiting patiently in the exercise of faith and hope; for looking includes all the three graces, faith, hope, and love; and particularly the former, which is always attended with the latter; for it is such a looking for this blessedness, as that a man firmly believes he shall partake of it: and there is good reason for a regenerate man so to look for it; since it is his Father's gift of free grace, and is laid up for him; Christ is gone to prepare it by his presence, mediation, and intercession; yea, he is gone, as the forerunner, to take possession of it in his name: this man is begotten again to a lively hope of it; he is called by the grace of God unto it; he is a child of God, and so an heir of it; he has a right unto it, through the justifying righteousness of Christ, and has a meetness for it through the sanctifying grace of the Spirit; and who is in him as the earnest and pledge of it: now such a firm expectation of the heavenly glory does the Gospel, the doctrine of the grace of God, teach, direct, and encourage to; for these words must be read in connection with the preceding, as a further instruction of the Gospel, as well as what follows:
and the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ; not two divine persons, only one, are here intended; for the word: rendered "appearing", is never used of God the Father, only of the second person; and the propositive article is not set before the word "Saviour", as it would, if two distinct persons were designed; and the copulative "and" is exegetical, and may he rendered thus, "and the glorious appearing of the great God, even our Saviour Jesus Christ"; who, in the next verse, is said to give himself for the redemption of his people: so that here is a very illustrious proof of the true and proper deity of Christ, who will appear at his second coming; for of that appearance are the, words to be understood, as the great God, in all the glories and perfections of his divine nature; as well as a Saviour, which is mentioned to show that he will appear to the salvation of his people, which he will then put them in the full possession of; and that the brightness of his divine Majesty will not make them afraid: and this appearance will be a glorious one; for Christ will come in his own glory, in the glory of his deity, particularly his omniscience and omnipotence will be very conspicuous; and in his glory as Mediator, which will be beheld by all the saints; and in his glory as a Judge, invested with power and authority from his Father, which will be terrible to sinners; and in the glory of his human nature, with which it is now crowned; and in his Father's glory, in the same he had with him before the world was, and which is the same with his, and in that which he will receive from him as man and Mediator, and as the Judge of the whole earth; and in the glory of his holy angels, being attended with all his mighty ones: to which may be added, that saints will be raised from the dead, and with the living ones appear with Christ in glory, and make up the bride, the Lamb's wife, having the glory of God upon her; so that this will be a grand appearance indeed. Now this the Gospel directs, and instructs believers to look for, to love, to hasten to, most earnestly desire, and yet patiently wait for, most firmly believing that it will be: and this the saints have reason to look for, with longing desire and affection, and with pleasure, since it will be not only glorious in itself, but advantageous to them; they will then be glorified with Christ, and be for ever with him.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The saving grace of God - So it is…
The saving grace of God - So it is in its nature, tendency, and design. Hath appeared to all men - High and low.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 11. The grace of God that bringeth salvation…
Verse 11. The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men] Επεφανη γαρ ἡ χαρις του Θεου ἡ σωτηριος πασιν ανθρωποις· Literally translated, the words stand thus: For the grace of God, that which saves, hath shone forth upon all men. Or, as it is expressed in the margin of our authorized version: The grace of God, that bringeth salvation to all men, hath appeared. As God's grace signifies God's favour, any benefit received from him may be termed God's grace. In this place, and in Col 1:6, the Gospel, which points out God's infinite mercy to the world, is termed the grace of God; for it is not only a favour of infinite worth in itself, but it announces that greatest gift of God to man, the incarnation and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Now it cannot be said, except in a very refined and spiritual sense, that this Gospel had then appeared to all men; but it may be well said that it bringeth salvation to all men; this is its design; and it was to taste death for every man that its author came into the world. There is a beauty and energy in the word επεφανη, hath shined out, that is rarely noted; it seems to be a metaphor taken from the sun. As by his rising in the east and shining out, he enlightens, successively, the whole world; so the Lord Jesus, who is called the Sun of righteousness, Mal 4:2, arises on the whole human race with healing in his wings. And as the light and heat of the sun are denied to no nation nor individual, so the grace of the Lord Jesus, this also shines out upon all; and God designs that all mankind shall be as equally benefited by it in reference to their souls, as they are in respect to their bodies by the sun that shines in the firmament of heaven. But as all the parts of the earth are not immediately illuminated, but come into the solar light successively, not only in consequence of the earth's diurnal revolution round its own axis, but in consequence of its annual revolution round its whole orbit; so this Sun of righteousness, who has shined out, is bringing every part of the habitable globe into his Divine light; that light is shining more and more to the perfect day; so that gradually and successively he is enlightening every nation, and every man; and, when his great year is filled up, every nation of the earth shall be brought into the light and heat of this unspotted, uneclipsed, and eternal Sun of righteousness and truth. Wherever the Gospel comes, it brings salvation - it offers deliverance from all sin to every soul that hears or reads it. As freely as the sun dispenses his genial influences to every inhabitant of the earth, so freely does Jesus Christ dispense the merits and blessings of his passion and death to every soul of man. From the influences of this spiritual Sun no soul is reprobated any more than from the influences of the natural sun. In both cases, only those who wilfully shut their eyes, and hide themselves in darkness, are deprived of the gracious benefit. It is no objection to this view of the subject, that whole nations have not yet received the Divine light. When the earth and the sun were created, every part of the globe did not come immediately into the light; to effect this purpose fully there must be a complete revolution, as has been marked above, and this could not be effected till the earth had not only revolved on its own axis, but passed successively through all the signs of the zodiac. When its year was completed, and not till then, every part had its due proportion of light and heat. God may, in his infinite wisdom, have determined the times and the seasons for the full manifestation of the Gospel to the nations of the world, as he has done in reference to the solar light; and when the Jews are brought in with the fulness of the Gentiles, then, and not till then, can we say that the grand revolution of the important YEAR of the Sun of righteousness is completed. But, in the meantime, the unenlightened parts of the earth are not left in total darkness; as there was light
"----------------------ere the infant sun
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Was rolled together, or had tried his beams
Athwart the gloom profound;"
light being created, and in a certain measure dispersed, at least three whole days before the sun was formed; (for his creation was a part of the fourth day's work;) so, previously to the incarnation of Christ, there was spiritual light in the world; for he diffused his beams while his orb was yet unseen. And even now, where by the preaching of his Gospel he is not yet manifested, he is that true light which enlightens every man coming into the world; so that the moral world is no more left to absolute darkness, where the Gospel is not yet preached, than the earth was the four days which preceded the creation of the sun, or those parts of the world are where the Gospel has not yet been preached. The great year is rolling on, and all the parts of the earth are coming successively, and now rapidly, into the light. The vast revolution seems to be nearly completed, and the whole world is about to be filled with the light and glory of God. A heathen poet, apparently under the inspiration of God (for God has his witnesses every where) speaks of those glorious times in words and numbers which nothing but the Spirit of God can equal. It gratifies myself to refer to them, and it will gratify my reader to find them entered here: -
Ultima Cumaei venit jam carminis aetas:
Magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo. -
Talia saecla suis dixerunt, currite, fusis
Concordes stabili fatorum numine Parcae. -
Aspice convexo nutantem pondere mundum,
Terrasque, tractusque maris, coelumque profundum:
Aspice, venturo laetentur ut omnia saeclo!
The last great age, foretold by sacred rhymes,
Renews its finish'd course; Saturnian times
Roll round again; and mighty years, begun
From their first orb, in radiant circles run.
Majestic months, with swift but steady pace,
Set out with him on their appointed race. -
The Fates, when they their happy web have spun,
Shall bless the clew, and bid it smoothly run. -
See labouring nature calls thee to sustain
The nodding frame of heaven and earth and main;
See, to their base restored, earth, seas, and air,
And joyful ages from behind appear
In crowding ranks. DRYDEN.
Hasten the time, thou God of ages! Even so. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Tit 2:11-12. For the grace of God — The…
Tit 2:11-12. For the grace of God — The free, unmerited favour of God, which is the primary meaning of the word grace, see on Rom 11:6, and the influence of the divine Spirit, which the word grace also signifies; see 2Co 12:9; Heb 13:9; which bringeth salvation — The original expression, η χαρις του Θεου, η σωτηριος, is literally, the grace of God, the saving grace; that is, which is saving in its design and tendency, and which actually saves all who truly receive it, even in the present world, from the ignorance and error, guilt and depravity, weakness and wretchedness, in which they formerly lay involved, into the favour and image of God, and a state of fellowship with him, hereby giving them a title to, a meetness for, and an anticipation of, eternal salvation; hath appeared — Επεφανη, hath been manifested, or hath shone forth, even like the luminaries of heaven, as the word signifies; namely, in and by the gospel, which has not been kept concealed in a corner, as the Jewish law was, being confined to one particular people of little note in the world, but was commanded by its author to be preached to every creature, Mar 16:15; and even in the apostle’s days, had been made known in a great measure to all nations, for the obedience of faith, Rom 16:26; or to men of all nations and conditions, to barbarians as well as to Jews, Greeks, and Romans, to servants as well as masters, to bond as well as free. As if the apostle had said, (connecting this verse with the preceding,) It concerns all persons, in whatever situation or condition, and especially all members of the visible church, to perform their several duties faithfully and diligently, because the doctrine of the gospel, (which is the effect of God’s grace, and in a peculiar manner displays, offers, and invites men to receive it, and is the means whereby that grace is communicated, and whereby it saves men,) is published indifferently to all nations, as well as Jews, and therein to persons of all ranks and conditions. Or, if this interpretation be not thought to answer fully to the universality of the apostle’s declaration, the grace of God hath appeared to all men, there is no sufficient reason why we may not understand him as speaking of that unmerited love and favour he hath manifested by the works of creation, (which display his goodness, as well as his wisdom and power, to the whole universe,) and by the dispensations of his providence, and of those enlightening, awakening, convincing, quickening, and drawing influences of the Spirit of grace, which certainly are not entirely withheld from any child of man. See on Joh 1:4-9. Teaching — As a master his pupils, as they are able to receive his instructions, (so the word παιδευουσα signifies,) even all who are unbelieving and disobedient; that denying — Αρνησαμενοι, having renounced; ungodliness — Whatever is contrary to the knowledge, fear, and love of God; and worldly lusts — Επιθυμιας, desires, such as are founded in worldly men, and have the things of the present world for their object, as riches, honours, pleasures, including not only desires of unlawful things, but those which, though fixed on lawful objects, are inordinate and excessive. These must be resisted and renounced, as contrary to the sobriety and righteousness enjoined in the next clause, and utterly inconsistent with that spiritual and heavenly mind which Christianity is intended and calculated to produce. This is the negative part of religion. It has also a positive part, which Isaiah , 1 st, To live soberly — Greek, σωφρονως, temperately, prudently, and in all purity and holiness. “Sobriety, in the Scripture sense, is rather the whole temper of a man, than a single virtue in him. It comprehends all that is opposite to the drowsiness of sin, the folly of ignorance, and the unholiness of disorderly passions. Sobriety is no less than all the powers of the soul being consistently and constantly awake, duly governed by heavenly prudence, and entirely conformable to holy affections.” — Wesley. Righteously — Righteousness, distinguished here from godliness, consists in abstaining from injuring any one in his person, reputation, or fortune; in discharging all the duties belonging to the relations in which a man stands to others, and to the station in which he is placed; in being true and just in all his dealings; in performing his covenants and promises faithfully; and, in short, in rendering to every man his due, and doing to all as he would they should do to him; and godly — Or piously, as persons devoted to God in heart and life, fearing him with a reverential, awful, filial, and watchful fear; loving him with a love of esteem, desire, gratitude, and complacency, because of his loveliness and loving-kindness; being zealous for his glory, and doing every thing in order to it; obedient to his will in all things, great and small, and that from a sense of duty to him; resigned and patient under the dispensations of his providence; aspiring after, and earnestly pursuing, a conformity to him, and the everlasting enjoyment of him; and, in order to all this, using every means of grace he hath appointed, and waiting upon him in all his ordinances; in this present world — Notwithstanding the many snares, difficulties, and dangers, the temptations, trials, troubles, pains, and pleasures of it. Or, in this present age, as εν τω νυν αιωνι properly signifies; that is, we must be thus godly and righteous in this ungodly and unrighteous age, and sober, as above explained, in this age, in which examples of intemperance, imprudence, and the disregard of such sobriety everywhere abound. No wonder that the apostle attributes this religion, in these various branches of it, to the free grace of God!
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain For the grace of God - The favor of…
For the grace of God - The favor of God, shown to the undeserving; see the notes at Rom 1:7.
That bringeth salvation - Margin, to all men, hath appeared. That is, in the margin, “the grace which brings salvation to all men has been revealed.” The marginal reading is most in accordance with the Greek, though it will bear either construction. If that which is in the text be adopted, it means that the plan of salvation has been revealed to all classes of men; that is, that it is announced or revealed to all the race that they may be saved; compare the notes at Col 1:23. If the other rendering be adopted, it means that that plan was fitted to secure the salvation of all men; that none were excluded from the offer; that provision had been made for all, and all might come and be saved. Whichever interpretation be adopted, the sense here will not be essentially varied. It is, that the gospel was adapted to man as man, and therefore might include servants as well as masters; subjects, as well as kings; the por, as well as the rich; the ignorant, as well as the learned; see 1Ti 2:1-2 notes; Act 17:26 note.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain For the grace of God, our Saviour, hath appeared…
For the grace of God, our Saviour, hath appeared to all men. In the Greek: For the saving grace of God, &c. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain An urgent enforcement of all the preceding exhortations, by…
IV
An urgent enforcement of all the preceding exhortations, by an exhibition of the high end of God in the revelation of His grace.
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Tit_2:11-15
11For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men 12[bringing salvation 5 to all men, hath appeared], Teaching [and traineth] us that, denying [we deny] ungodliness and worldly lust [lusts], we should live [and should live] soberly, [temperately and] righteously, and godly in this 13present world [in this world] ; Looking [waiting] for that [the] blessed hope, and the glorious appearing [the appearing of the glory] of the [our] great God and our [omit “our”] Saviour Jesus Christ; 14Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity [unrighteousness], and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of [in] good works. 15These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority [energy]. Let no man [one] despise thee.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Tit_2:11. For. After mentioning the duties of these different classes, the Apostle enforces his exhortation by referring to that revelation of salvation, which alone gives strength for a godly life, and also, on account of its aim and tendency, lays believers under the most endearing obligations to follow it.—The grace of God, the absolute foundation of the whole work of redemption, which is now brought to light not only through the doctrine of Christ, but in His person and entire manifestation. So far as the incarnation of the Son constitutes the beginning of the revelation of salvation, this passage was rightly selected by the ancient church as the fixed pericope for the festival of Christmas; although, on the other hand, it is also true that the appearance of the grace of God here mentioned does not refer exclusively to the history of the nativity.—Bringing salvation to all men,σωτήριος. [This construction, adopted also by De Wette, Huther, Wiesinger, Afford, and Ellicott, instead of that of the A. V., “hath appeared to all men,” is recommended by the consideration that the latter construction seems to be forbidden by the phrase, “teaching us,” which immediately follows. “Saviour of all men” is a genuine Pauline expression; and the universality of the provision and offer of the gospel was a dear thought to the Apostle. See 1Ti_4:10; 1Ti_2:4. Ἐπεφάνη is here used absolutely, as in Tit_3:4.—D.] Since ἡ very probably should be omitted, we must regard the adjective as a more particular description of χάρις (as bringing salvation; De Wette). The Apostle refers here, as in other passages in the Pastoral Epistles (1Ti_2:4; 1Ti_4:10), to the universal extent of the Divine provision of salvation revealed in the gospel. (To prevent misconception, compare the notes on these two passages.)—Appeared,ἐπεφάνη, an expression which, in other passages, is used concerning the sun (Act_27:20; comp. Luk_1:79); so that it is not improbable that the Apostle, who elsewhere compares the revelation of the New Covenant to a clear day (Rom_13:12; 1Th_5:8), selected precisely this expression to make prominent the revelation of salvation on its bright and glorious side.
Tit_2:12. And traineth us,παιδεύουσα ἡμᾶς, κ.τ.λ. With the higher sweep which the language of the Apostle has sensibly taken, and with his heart captivated and inflamed by the revelation of the grace of God in Christ, it is not to be wondered at that one figure follows another. Grace, which just before rose like the sun, he now displays as a tutor who trains boys, by nature stubborn and unruly, to live a life acceptable to God. He speaks of a training in which, according to the true force and full import of the word, the idea of correction and punishment is by no means excluded, and, along with the distinction between the law and the gospel, brings to view their higher unity. In what this Divine training consists, and to what it should lead (ἵνα), he states in what immediately follows.—That we deny, &c. The true learning for heaven must begin with the un learning and laying off (A b lernen und A b legen) of all which stands in the way of the development of the new man. The building cannot be carried up until the old rubbish is removed. By “ungodliness” we are to understand not only idolatry in the literal sense of the word, but the whole inner and outer life of those who live without God, and in opposition to His law.—Worldly lusts are those which are cherished by the children of the world, who are in hostility to God, and which (in consequence of this) are exclusively directed to this present, transitory world, with what it has and what it gives (1Jn_2:16). In distinction from all this, grace teaches us that we should live temperately and righteously and godly. Wolf: “The opinion of those is to be preferred, who think that by τὸ εὐσεβῶς (godly) are meant duties towards God; by τὸ δικαίως, duties towards our neighbor; and by τὸ σωφρόνως, to ourselves.” It may indeed be questioned, whether the Apostle has quite so strictly connected the ideas with these several words; but, on the other hand, it is highly natural that, in speaking of the universality of the grace of God, and of its moral tendency, he should expressly mention how it guides and sanctifies tie life of man in all directions. By subjoining in hills world, he makes prominent the necessity and difficulty of such a life as he has just described, and at the same time paves the way for speaking antithetically (Tit_2:13) of the future and eternal life, towards which, as being the final and complete perfection of their sanctification, the hope of believers is ever directed. Calvin: “In this world, because the Lord has appointed the present life for the trial of our faith.”
Tit_2:13. Waiting for,προσδεχόμενοι, expecting (“with joy,” Bengel); a more particular form of the preceding verse, with a statement also of what it is that gives to believers strength and cour age to lead a life of such self-denial and conscientious godliness as is there described.—The blessed hope. The strangeness which, at the first glance, the phrase “to wait for hope” may seem to have, disappears, when we remember that hope does not so much designate subjectively the form or the act of hope, as rather objectively, its contents and object, the thing hoped for, as the aim of believing expectation (comp. Act_24:15; Gal_5:5; Rom_8:24-25). Epexegetically, this hope is more particularly described by the clause, and the appearing of the glory. The living as Christians, soberly, righteously, and godly, is thus grounded in faith in the appearing of grace (Tit_2:11, and is strengthened by the hope of another appearing, viz., of glory. The Apostle means simply what he elsewhere calls the “revelation” or “appearance” of Jesus Christ, the final appearing of the Lord at the day of judgment, toward which, also, in 2Ti_4:8, his eye was directed. The only question is, whether, in the next clause, τοῦ μεγάλου θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ , one independent subject is to be understood [so that it shall read, of our great Gad and Saviour Jesus Christ.—D.], or whether, with most [or rather several—they hardly appear to be the majority.—D.] recent interpreters, it should be rendered, “the appearing of the glory of the great God, and of our Saviour Jesus Christ.” For our part, we decide in favor of the first, and believe he words may, should, and must be understood as giving the name “great God” not to the Father, but to the Saviour Jesus Christ. On purely philological grounds, the position of Bengel will hardly be questioned: “It may be referred to Christ.” Even Winer, § 11, does not deny that σωτῆρος ἡμῶν may be regarded, consistently with grammar, as a second predicate depending upon the article τοῦ. The only ground on which he feels obliged to prefer the other view, adopted by De Wette, Huther, and others, is the doctrinal opinion, derived from the writings of Paul, that this Apostle could not have styled Christ the great God. But in view of 1Ti_3:15-16; Rom_9:5; Col_1:15-20, and other passages, we cannot regard this objection as valid. Equally arbitrary with the position that Paul regarded Christ as a mere man, and nothing more, is the Arian view, that Paul did not recognize Christ as God, yea, as μέγας θεός. Whoever will simply read and translate the words without doctrinal prejudice, will have as little hesitation in referring them to one and the same subject, as in understanding, e.g., in 2Pe_1:11, the words βασιλείαν τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν καὶ σωτῆρος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, as relating to the same subject. He, who is there called κύριος (Lord), is here called μέγας θεός (the great God); as is clear also from the fact that Paul ascribes an “appearing” to the Son (comp. 1Ti_6:14; 2Ti_4:1; 2Ti_4:8), but not to the Father, who is “invisible.” Taking all things into the account, we believe that the sense of the words, and the connection, speak decidedly in favor of one and the same subject (Christ). We cannot, therefore, but regard the use which the Church fathers very early made of this passage as a weapon against the Arians as entirely legitimate. [Ellicott has come to the same result with Dr. Van Oosterzee, which is that also of Calvin, Matthies, Usteri, Wiesinger, Tholuck, and Ebrard. He says: “It must be candidly avowed that it is very doubtful whether, on the grammatical principle last alluded to (in respect to two substantives closely united, and under the vinculum of a common article), the interpretation of this passage can be fully settled; see Winer, § 18, 5 Obs., p. 148. There is a presumption in favor of the adopted interpretation, but, on account of the (defining) genitive ἡμῶν (Winer, p. 142), nothing more. When, however, we turn to exegetical considerations, and remember (1.) that ἐπιφανεία is a term specially and peculiarly applied to the Son, and never to the Father; (2.) that the immediate context so specially relates to our Lord; (3.) that the following mention of Christ’s giving Himself up for us—of His abasement—does fairly account for St. Paul’s ascription of a title, otherwise unusual, that specifically and antithetically marks His glory; (4.) that μεγάλου would be uncalled for, if applied to the Father; and (5.) lastly, observe that apparently two of the ante-Nicene (Clem. Alex. and Hippolytus), and the great bulk of the post-Nicene writers, concurred in this interpretation—when we candidly weigh all this evidence, it does seem difficult to resist the conviction that this text is a direct, definite, and even studied declaration of the divinity of the Eternal Son. It ought not to be suppressed that some of the best versions (Vulg., Syr., et al., not, however, apparently Æth.), and some fathers of undoubted orthodoxy, adopted the other interpretation.” So also Erasmus, Grotius, De Wette, and Huther.—D.] Even if, however, a difference of subjects should be assumed, this passage bears testimony, not directly, indeed, but indirectly, as Huther, among others, admits. [This view is strongly expressed by Alford, who, without considering the question closed, prefers to regard “the great God” as describing the Father; but adds: “Whichsoever way taken, the passage is just as important a testimony to the divinity of our Saviour: according to one way, by asserting His possession of Deity; according to the other, even more strikingly, asserting His equality in glory with the Father, in a way which would be blasphemy if predicated of any of the sons of men.”—D.] So Calvin: “But we may refute the Arians briefly and solidly: for Paul, having spoken of the revelation of the glory of ‘the great God,’ immediately added ‘Christ,’ that we might know that the revelation of glory will be in His person; as if he had said that, when Christ shall appear, the greatness of the Divine glory shall then be revealed to us.”
Tit_2:14. Who gave himself, &c. With these words the Apostle returns to what he would specially point out, viz., the sanctifying aim of the redemption bestowed in Christ.—Gave = ἔδωκεν Gal_1:4; Eph_5:25); here, as well as in those passages, expressing the genuine Pauline thought of a voluntary sacrifice, the issue of obedience and love.—For us. We cannot agree with those interpreters who think that ὑπέρ does not signify in our stead, but merely for our good. There is certainly a distinction between the original significations of ὑπέρ and ἀντί; but that here, at least, the idea of substitution cannot be set aside, is evident from what immediately follows: that he might redeem us, &c. For when Christ gives Himself as a ransom (λύτρον), He gives His soul as a ransom in the stead of those who otherwise would not be redeemed from the enemy’s power.—From all unrighteousness. The ἀνομία is here regarded as the power, from whose control believers are bought and freed through Christ. Since, therefore, they are released from the service of this hard master, he can require nothing more of them; and it is therefore but just that they refuse to obey him, in order henceforth to live soberly, righteously, and godly.—And purify unto himself a peculiar people,λαὸν περιούσιον (occurring only here in the N. T., the same with λαός εις τεριποίησιν in 1Pe_2:9). Beza: Populum peculiarem. Luther: A people for possession [“a people peculiarly His;” Alford.—D.]. In the spirit of Paul, the means of purification can be no other than the price with which the people was bought, namely, the blood of Christ. “How can ἔδωκεν ἑαυτὸν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν be understood otherwise than of the atoning death?” Wiesinger. Here also, as in Eph_5:25-27, Paul brings forward the thought, that atonement for sin in itself, although the first, is by no means the last and highest end of the sacrifice of Christ, but becomes the means, further, for the attainment of a higher, yea, the highest end, the sanctification of the pardoned sinner, and his renewal after the glorious image of God.—Zealous in good works. Calvin: “His grace necessarily brings along with it newness of life, because they who are still the servants of sin make void the blessing of redemption. But now we are released from the bondage of sin, that we may serve the righteousness of God.”
Tit_2:15. These things speak, and exhort; making emphatic the whole of the preceding section—not only Tit_2:11-14, but also Tit_2:1-10—by the decisive command to lay all this, not exclusively, indeed, but yet predominantly, upon the hearts of the hearers, and thus to hold up grace and duty before them as inseparably united.—Let no one despise thee (comp. on 1Ti_4:12).
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. This section is one of the loca classica for Biblical Theology, and one of the comparatively few places in the Pastoral Epistles which furnish important contributions to our knowledge of the doctrinal system of Paul. We here find most perfectly fused together, and penetrating each, faith and life, doctrine and duty, theory and practice.
2. On the unlimited extent of the Divine plan of salvation, see on 1Ti_2:4-6.
3. Whoever denies the doctrine of an objective atonement for sin, made through the offering of Jesus Christ, contradicts Paul to the face. It is downright rationalistic arbitrariness to maintain (De Wette), that, in passages like these, what is spoken of is not atonement, but exclusively moral purification. Paul knows of no other purification than that which comes from faith in the atonement, and through the actual appropriation of it. On the other hand, it must by no means be overlooked, that this atonement paves the way to holiness, and that Christ, because He is our “righteousness,” is also now our “sanctification,” and only in consequence of this can He become our full “redemption.” The same thought, that forgiveness does not follow upon holiness, but leads to it, is also expressed in 1Jn_2:1; Rev_5:9.
4. “The blessed hope, for which we wait, is the appearing of Jesus Christ in glory. The saving grace of God has already appeared to us; the work of salvation, which it has begun, is perfected by the appearing of the Saviour in glory, who, in His state of humiliation here, wrought out our redemption. The appearing of the kingdom of God in Christ gives us the earnest of its appearance hereafter in glory, quickens our desires after it, and draws us away from worldly lusts;” Von Gerlach.
5. The preacher who exclusively preaches duties, and holds back the announcement of the grace of God, which is alone able to make us, through faith, new men, consecrated to God and truly moral, discharges his trust no better than he who is zealous only for doctrine merely, without insisting upon the renewing and sanctifying power of the truth. The exhortation of Paul to do the one, and not to leave the other undone, is strongly enforced by his own example.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The gospel revealed in Christ: (1.) Its origin—the grace of God; (2.) its character—saving grace, in contrast with the law; (3.) its extent—hath appeared to all men; (4.) the way and manner of its efficacy—training us, &c, Tit_2:12; (5.) its triumph, Tit_2:13; (6.) its final end, Tit_2:14.—The Christian life a blessed position intermediate between two revelations of salvation, the one behind, the other still before us.—The sun of the Divine revelation of salvation, a source: (1.) Of light; (2.) of warmth; (3.) of fruitfulness.—The connection of forgiveness and sanctification: (1.) No strength for seeking after holiness without faith in forgiveness; (2.) no enjoyment of forgiveness without striving after holiness.—Christ the true Redeemer, because He redeems us not only from the guilt, but also from the dominion of sin.—How the Christian, because he is redeemed from the curse of the law, fulfils the precepts of the law under the promptings of gratitude and love.—“These things speak” (for ordination or installation): (1.) What the servant of the gospel, according to the teaching and example of Paul, is to preach, and what not to preach; (2.) why just this and how herein he is to discharge his duty.
Starke: Mülleri Opp.: We cannot make a long search for God’s grace, for it has appeared to all men; we cannot buy it, for it is presented to us as a free gift; we cannot run after it, for it runs after us with all its saving power.—Augustine: “It is a great and general fast, to abstain from iniquities and the unlawful pleasures, of this world; this is a perfect fast, that, denying impiety and worldly desires, we live temperately, justly, and piously.—Starke: For this reason does the grace of God appear to the sinner, that he may forsake darkness, and walk in the light; Tit_2:11; Rom_13:12-13.—Three words express the whole of Christianity: to be strict towards one’s self, just to one’s neighbor, and pious towards God, If thou livest thus, dear Christian, thou livest right.—Mülleri Opp.: When the world, with its glory, shall pass away, the glory of Jesus Christ will be revealed; 1Co_15:23-24.—Christ Himself shall be condemned, before sin shall condemn him for whom He hath given Himself, and who believes in Him; Rom_8:1.—Boast not of thy merit: it is of mere grace.—Thou art in error, if thou supposest that thy Saviour giveth thee freedom to sin.—Hedinger: Mere doctrine is not enough. Thou must exhort and rebuke with all earnestness, and not suffer thyself to be despised. Away with timidity and temporizing! Gentleness, mildness, and quietness of spirit are beautiful; but a holy zeal, also, is not to be proscribed. Moderate one by the other; this is thy special adornment, O minister of Christ! Tit_1:13; 2Ti_4:2.
Lisco: In the mission of Jesus, the grace of God is revealed: (1.) In its essential character; (2.) in its aim; (3.) in its means.—On the appearing of the great God at the festival of Christmas.—God’s grace urges us to holiness, and leads us to blessedness.—The joyousness and solemnity of Christmas.—Fuchs: Christmas joy: (1.) Its object; (2.) requirement; (3.) its effect.—Couard: The communion of man with God destroyed by sin, and restored by Jesus Christ.—Kapff: The birth of Christ our new birth.—Staudt: The grace of God has appeared: (1.) To whom; (2.) for what; (3.) how it is to secure its end.—Gerok: The heavenly Christmas festival which the children of God enjoy: (1.) The noble Christmas gift; (2.) the great Christmas table; (3.) the right Christmas thanks.—Palmer: The education of grace.—The preaching of the appearing of the great God.—Harless: The training of the saving grace of God in Christ.—Florey: The voice of Divine grace in the hearts of believers at the present day: (1.) An earnest; (2.) a holy; (3.) a loud; (4.) a comforting voice.—W. Löhe: “The manger and the cross, the manger and the import of the incarnation and the cross, the manger and the final salvation of all believers, the manger and the grace which trains men for final blessedness, we behold here combined. The manger not alone, but in connection with all God’s works. The manger a centre, and around it, like circle around circle ever widening, is grace ever becoming more full and complete. Especially worthy of consultation, and deserving, with its entire context, to be read again and again, is the beautiful sermon of Luther on this passage, in the Erlangen edition of his Works, 1827, Th. 7, S. 127–154.
Footnotes:
[5]Tit_2:11.—With Lachmann, we drop the ἡ of the Recepta, on the testimony of A. C. D. [both] Syr., &c. [Tischendorf and Ellicott retain it, apparently on mere grammatical grounds, since the authority of C.3 D.2 E. K. L. is quite inferior, and the suggestion of Alford, that the article was a correction designed to fill out the text, has all probability in its favor. Another form, apparently, of correction, is τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν, found in several versions and fathers, and also in Cod. Sin.—D.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain the grace of God--God's gratuitous favor in the scheme…
the grace of God--God's gratuitous favor in the scheme of redemption.
hath appeared--Greek, "hath been made to appear," or "shine forth" (Isa 9:2; Luk 1:79). "hath been manifested" (Tit 3:4), after having been long hidden in the loving counsels of God (Col 1:26; Ti2 1:9-10). The image is illustrated in Act 27:20. The grace of God hath now been embodied in Jesus, the brightness of the Father's glory," manifested as the "Sun of righteousness," "the Word made flesh." The Gospel dispensation is hence termed "the day" (Th1 5:5, Th1 5:8; there is a double "appearing," that of "grace" here, that of "glory," Tit 2:13; compare Rom 13:12). Connect it not as English Version, but, "The grace . . . that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared," or "been manifested" (Ti1 2:4; Ti1 4:10). Hence God is called "our Saviour" (Tit 2:10). The very name Jesus means the same.
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to all--of whom he enumerated the different classes (Tit 2:2-9): even to servants; to us Gentiles, once aliens from God. Hence arises our obligation to all men (Tit 3:2).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 11. For—Over these precepts of severe Christian morality for…
11. For—Over these precepts of severe Christian morality for the various classes mentioned, St. Paul now (Tit_2:11-14) throws a sudden warming and glowing flash of illumination drawn from the glorious motives with which the advent of the Gospel inspires the Christian soul. A literal and truer rendering is, For hath appeared the grace of God, saving (or salvatory) for all men, teaching us; for the purpose that, denying, etc., we should live, etc.
Hath appeared—Same Greek root, επιφανεια, epiphany, as is used in 2Th_2:8 to describe the resplendence of Christ’s own person at the second advent; here it is the resplendent coming of his grace at the first advent. To all men depends not upon appeared, but salvation.
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All men—Whether servants (Tit_2:9-10) or lords. The grace is in its nature saving to all men.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 11. For the grace of God] ‘Grace’ is well…
11. For the grace of God] ‘Grace’ is well defined as ‘Love imparting itself and producing its own image and likeness.’ Hence the fitness of the three words in the Apostolic Valediction which is also a Benediction: ‘The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God, and the Communion of the Holy Ghost,’ 2Co_13:14. The stress, from the order of the words, is on ‘appeared’ and ‘to all men’; and the article before ‘bringing salvation’ should now (owing to the additional authority of Cod. Sin. against it) be omitted, making the adjective into a predicate. For the grace of God was truly manifested, bringing salvation to all men. The verb occurs Tit_3:4 and Luk_1:79, the dayspring from on high shall visit us, to shine upon them that sit in darkness,’ from which hymn the word may well have been taken. ‘The hymn of prophecy became the fact of history.’ The light of God’s Grace dawned on the world at the birth of Christ. The aorist marks the certainty of the event itself, that it took its place in history.
11–15. The sphere of the Apostolate—to claim all Life for God, through His Grace, and for His Glory
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11–14. The first of the two Evangelical outbursts of that ‘spring of living water’ in St Paul’s own heart which kepd his life and teaching always green and fresh. It corresponds with the passage in 1Ti_1:2; 1Ti_1:12, where see note, but is (as we should expect from St Paul’s less close and tender relation to Titus) more general. Coming to the end of the plain practical counsels for men and women, old and young, whether free or slaves, he ‘goes off at a phrase,’ one which he has used several times, but the full significance of which he now allows himself to dwell on—‘our Saviour God.’
Upon this he enlarges fervently, bringing out of it at the same time the true springs of holy living for all alike; these are, as the General Thanksgiving of the Prayer Book puts it, (1) the grateful appropriation of the ‘inestimable Love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ,’ (2) the thankful realisation ‘of the means of grace,’ and (3) the joyful anticipation ‘of the hope of glory’; all three being really but one—Christ Jesus, for us, and in us.
Thus (1) Tit_2:11. The grace of God appeared in Christ, ‘who for us men came down from heaven’ bringing salvation to all. (2) Tit_2:12. It guides us daily—to ‘true repentance and His Holy Spirit’—that we may ‘live a godly, righteous and sober life.’ (3) Tit_2:13. So living we look for the appearing again with power and great glory, ‘when we shall be made like unto Him.’ In other words, Tit_2:14—He gave Himself for us, ‘that we may dwell in Him and He in us,’ a people for His own possession now and evermore.
‘Live your creed,’ says St Paul, ‘adorn your doctrine, as indeed you well can. Work from Life; let doctrine inspire duty. This is the doctrine of our Saviour God; God the Father Almighty, who made all men and hateth nothing that He made, really did, as a past fact of history, manifest His love by sending His only Son to redeem all men; that love really does as a present fact of experience give us the life of His Son through His Spirit; that love really will as an equally certain fact in the future manifest the glory of His Son as God, and give us the fulness of Divine Life, the fruition of His glorious Godhead. And the Father’s love is the Son’s; He gave Himself to redeem us, He gives Himself to purify us, to possess us, that we may be zealots for the ideal, the Divine, life, whose glory is “my Father worketh hitherto and I work.” Claim, then, all life for Him.’
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (11) For the grace of God that bringeth salvation…
(11) For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.—More accurately translated, For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men. “For” gives the ground, the base upon which the practical exhortations to freemen as well as to bond-servants, contained in Tit_2:1-10, rest. These words might be paraphrased thus: “Yes, exhort all classes and orders, every age of life, each sex, bond as well as free, to struggle after pure, good, righteous lives, for I tell you, in very truth, like a sun on a darkened world has the grace of God arisen with salvation in its beams.” Compare the grand Isaiah passage, “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee” (Isa_60:1); and also the words of Malachi (4:2), “Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.” (See, too, Isa_9:2.) The thought of these passages was not improbably in St. Paul’s view while he wrote the words to Titus telling him to exhort his flock, for God’s grace had appeared to all men. The Greek word translated “appeared” occurs in Luk_1:79 and Act_27:20—both writings closely connected with St. Paul, if not in great part written by him—and in each of these passages it is used to express the shining of the sun. The “grace of God” here spoken of is that divine favour to and love for men upon which the whole work of redemption was based, the object of which redemption was the ultimate restoration of man. The epiphany, or manifestation of this grace to the world, commenced with the incarnation of our Lord; but the reference here must not be limited to that or to any one event in the blessed Life. The expression “bringing salvation to all men” is another of those hard sayings which have been pressed into the service of that kindly but erring school of expositors which shuts its eyes to the contemplation of the many unmistakable sayings which warn the impenitent and hardened sinner of the sad doom of eternal death. The “grace” alone brings salvation to all men—in other words, it is that grace of God whereby alone it is possible for mankind to be saved. The expression by no means asserts that all men will be saved by it, but that it is the only means by which salvation is possible.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men, for that…
Hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men, for that bringeth salvation, hath appeared to all men, A.V and T.R. Bringing salvation to all men (swthriov). The R.T. omits the article h before swthriov , which necessitates construing pasin anyrwpoiv with swthriov , "saving to all men" bringing salvation to all men." With the article h as in the T.R., it may be taken either way, but it is rather more natural to construe pasin ayrwpoiv with epefanh , "hath appeared to all men." The meaning of the phrase, "hath appeared to all men," is the same as the saying in the song of Simeon, "Mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people". (Luk_2:30, Luk_2:31; comp. Col_1:6) The gospel is not a hidden mystery, but is proclaimed to the whole world. Swthriov as an adjective is found only here in the New Testament, in RAPC Wis 1:14 and RAPC 3Ma 7:18, and frequently in classical Greek.
Vers. 11-13. The grace of God the true ground of all sanctification.
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The apostle now sets forth the real foundation on which this exhortation to practical duty on the part of servants, and, indeed, of people of every age and sex, is based.
I THE GRACE OF GOD. "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared.
1. This grace is from God, as its eternal Fountain, from which it flows to men.
(1) He was not made gracious by the work of the Son, for he was the God of grace from the beginning. The work of the Son only manifested it. (Joh_3:16)
(2) The grace is from the Son as well as the Father. Grace is in every conceivable way connected with the Person of the Mediator in Scripture. (1Co_16:23 Gal_1:6 1Th_5:28) The Father and the Son are one in the freeness of their love to mankind.
(3) Grace is also connected with the Holy Ghost, who is called "the Spirit of grace", (Heb_10:29) because he applies it and seals us to the day of redemption. Thus grace has its origin in the Father, its manifestation in the Son, its end in the Holy Ghost.
2. The nature of this grace.
(1) It is the free gift of God to mankind in the gospel of Christ. It is thus opposed to the idea of merit in man. Works, therefore, do not procure our salvation.
(2) The grace must necessarily be worthy of the character of God.
(a) The gift is worthy, for it is his own Son.
(b) The end is worthy, for it is his own glory and man"s salvation.
(c) The instrumental condition is worthy, for it is faith.
3. The scope of this grace. "That bringeth salvation to all men.
(1) It is the only thing that can bring salvation to man. He cannot be saved by works, nor by philosophy, nor by man.
(2) It has a wide scope. It "bringeth salvation to all men.
(a) This does not imply that all men will eventually be saved, for Scripture expressly asserts the very contrary.
(b) The connection of the passage explains the universality of the reference: "Servants, be obedient to your masters, that you may adorn the doctrine of God your Savior; for his grace is for slave and master alike." There is no respect of persons with him.
(c) It signifies that grace is the only means by which salvation is possible for the race of man.
4. The manifestation of grace.
(1) In the Incarnation.
(2) In the work of Christ.
(3) In the energy of the Holy Spirit. "The darkness is past; the true light now shineth". (1Jn_2:8)
II THE EFFECTS OF THE GRACE OF GOD. "Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.
1. This grace first manifests itself by teaching, just as the first thing in creation was light. It must begin with teaching, and the Spirit of God is given "to teach us all things". (Joh_14:26) The original word implies the idea of a disciplining process, effected by the grace of God to correct the inherent naughtiness of the heart.
2. The grace of God works toward the rejection of evil, for it teaches us "to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts.
(1) The denial is in heart and deed. It involves the denial of self. (Luk_9:23)
(2) It is the repudiation of ungodliness in heart and life.
(a) Ungodliness includes impiety, blasphemy, and infidelity.
(b) It includes all living without relation to God, whether we are blasphemers or not. Thus a man may be ungodly who seeks his own pleasure, or distinction, or happiness in the world.
(c) It implies the deeper enmity of the heart to God. (Rom_8:7)
(3) It is the denial of worldly lusts; including the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and vain glory of life that is in the world which embody the enmity to God. Thus it denies
(a) sensual lusts; (2Ti_2:22)
(b) the inordinate desire of worldly things, which may be lawful in themselves.
3. The grace of God produces certain positive effects. "We should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.
(1) It secures the due regulation of individual life. "Soberly." This refers to the duties we owe to ourselves.
(a) In keeping a fair balance of judgment intellectually;
(b) in keeping a due mastery over our passions sobriety in speech, in behavior, in apparel, in eating and drinking, in recreations, and in the enjoyment of lawful satisfactions.
(2) It secures the faithful discharge of all duties to our fellow-men. "Righteously." Justice is an exact virtue, which can be easily measured, and is therefore the basis of commercial and civil life. A single failure in justice makes a man unjust. Therefore it is most necessary we should give our neighbor his due, and not compromise ourselves by conduct redounding to the injury of the gospel.
(3) It secures godliness. "Godly;" that is, with God, in God, for God. This godly life is a life dedicated to God and spent in his fear.
III THE SPHERE IN WHICH THIS GRACE OF GOD PRODUCES ITS EXTENSIVE AND INTENSIVE EFFECTS. "In this present world.
1. True piety does not disregard or despise the duties of common life.
2. It is in a hostile world this grace is to operate with such purifying results. It is called "this wicked world"; (Gal_1:4) for the devil is its god, and sin is its prevailing character.
3. It is a world that cannot be overcome but by faith. (1Jn_4:4, 1Jn_4:5)
4. It is a transitory world, in contrast with the world to come, of which the apostle immediately speaks.
IV THE ATTITUDE OF THE BELIEVER IN RELATION TO THE FUTURE GLORY. "Looking for the blessed hope and manifestation of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." This attitude of blessed expectation tells powerfully upon the life of grace. The believer"s position is that of waiting for and looking unto the coming of the Lord. The patriarchs waited for his first coming; we wait for his second coming.
1. The believes waiting attitude is lit up by a blessed hope.
(1) This is "the hope of glory" laid up for us in heaven, which is associated with the Son of God, when we shall see him as he is.
(2) It is a blessed hope, because of all the blessings it brings to the believer.
2. The believers waiting attitude has respect to the manifestation of the Lords glory. This is connected with his second coming. It is the glory of "our great God and Savior Jesus Christ," and not of the Father, because:
(1) In all the five places in which the manifestation is spoken of, it is Christ, not the Father, who is referred to. The term "Epiphany" is never, indeed, applied to the Father.
(2) This is the grammatical interpretation of the sentence, and is accepted by the Greek fathers generally.
(3) The immediate context applies only to the Son.
(4) The term "great God" would seem to be called for as applied to the Father, but stands in Scripture the perpetual and emphatic witness of the Deity of Christ. T.C.
Christ for every man.
The gospel is universal. It knows nothing of race, or country, or clime. It is the grace of the Father to every child, it reveals the nature of God himself, which is love.
I HERE IS A QUESTION TO BE CONSIDERED. It is said by the apostle that it "has appeared unto all men." Is this so? Are there not multitudes ignorant of the gospel multitudes who have never heard the joyful sound? Unquestionably. But for all that, it has appeared for all men, and this is the true meaning of the expression. Its invitation is to all. Its provisions are for all, and it rests with us to go into all the world and preach a gospel which has room yet for the world at its banquet-table of grace.
II HERE IS A SALVATION TO BE BROUGHT. This explains everything. It brings salvation. Some will not accept it. Some will only use it as a miraculous charm, without applying it to the conscience and the character. What is it, then, to be saved? To be delivered from the condemnation of the Law is not all. We are to be saved from ourselves, from every tyrannous yoke of habit, every corrupting cancer of evil, every relic of selfishness and sin; and this is illustrated and explained in the succeeding verses. So that salvation is as broad in its application as it is beautiful in its results. W.M.S.
Vers. 11-15. The soul-culture of the world.
"For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men," etc. "Taking occasion from what he had just said of the connection between the conduct of Christians and the doctrine they professed to have received, and the connection of both with the glory of God, the apostle proceeds in these verses to ground the whole of his exhortations respecting the behavior of Christians in the essentially moral nature and design of the grace of God, as now manifested in the gospel" (Dr. Fairbairn). As if the apostle had said, "You must exhort all orders, those of every age and condition, of each sex, bond as well as free, to struggle after spiritual goodness because the "grace of God," or the gospel, has come to you." Our subject is the soul-culture of the world. Man requires training. He needs physical training, intellectual training, and, above all, spiritual training, the training of the soul into a higher life. We have here the instrument, the process, and the end of true soul-culture.
I THE INSTRUMENT OF TRUE SOUL-CULTURE. What is it? Not science, legislation, philosophy, poetry, or any of the arts. What, then? "The grace of God." What is that? Undoubtedly God"s merciful plan and ministries to restore the fallen world. The Epiphany, or manifestation cf this redemptive love of God for the world, we have in the advent and ministry of Christ to this earth. "The grace of God" stands for the gospel. Concerning this instrument, observe:
1. It is the love of God. Divine love is the cause, the essence, and the effective energy of all God"s redemptive ministries.
2. It is the love of God to save. "That bringeth bringing salvation." Salvation, that is, the restoration of man to the knowledge, the image, and the friendship of God. This is the aim and the work of the "grace of God." Without this grace there would be no salvation.
3. It is the love of God revealed to all. "Hath appeared to all men." The gospel is not for a tribe or a class, but for man as man. Like the concave heavens, it embraces the wide world; it is for all men.
II THE PROCESS OF TRUE SOUL-CULTURE. This process involves three things.
1. The renunciation of a wrong course. "Denying ungodliness and worldly lusts." These expressions are an epitome of all that is sinful and wrong in human life. Are they not all-prevalent and all-potent? "Ungodliness," or practical atheism, where is it not? "Worldly lusts," the impulses of sensuality, selfishness, pride, and ambition, they are the springs of worldly action the world over. Now, these are not only to be renounced, repudiated, but they are to be defied, resisted, and renounced; they must be given up. "Ungodliness" must give way to true piety, "worldly lusts" must be renounced for impulses spiritual and Divine.
2. The adoption of a right course. "We should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." It is not enough to renounce the evil; the good must be adopted. Negative excellence is not holiness. Strip the soul of all evil, and if it has not goodness in it, it "lacks the one thing" without which, Paul says, "I am nothing." We must live "soberly," holding a mastery over our own passions and impulses; "righteously," rendering to all men their due; "godly," practically realizing the presence, the claims, and the love of God in our every-day life. All this "in this present world," or in the present course of things. This "present world" urgently requires such a course of life, for it is dangerous and transitory withal.
3. The fixing of the heart upon a glorious future. "Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearance of the appearing of the glory of our great God and our Savior Jesus Christ." Are there two personalities here, or one? One, I think. "The great God our Savior," or our great God and Savior. The object of hope is, then, the future epiphany of the Divine, all glorious to behold. To see the redemptive God as we have never yet seen him in this morally hazy scene, this is the "blessed hope." Such a hope implies:
(1) A vital interest in the epiphany. We never hope for that for which we have not a strong desire.
(2) An assurance that such an epiphany will take place. Desire, of itself, is not hope. We desire many things we cannot hope for. It becomes hope when it is combined with expectation, and expectation implies the existence of grounds or reasons. That there will be such a manifestation, there are abundant reasons found in the apparent irregularities of Divine Providence in its operations here, in the instinctive longings of the human soul throughout all lands and ages, as well as in the clear and frequent declarations of the written Word.
III THE END OF TRUE SOUL-CULTURE. "Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Observe:
1. The end is moral redemption. "Redeem us from all iniquity." Redemption is not something that takes place outside of a man; its achievement is within. It is a raising of the soul from ignorance to knowledge, from vice to virtue, from selfishness to disinterestedness, from materialism to spirituality, from the mastery of the devil to the reign of God.
2. The end is spiritual restoration to Christ. "Purify unto himself a peculiar people a people for his own possession." Restoration to his likeness, his friendship, his service.
3. The end is complete devotedness to holy labor. "Zealous of good works." What are good works? Not any particular class of works. All works are good that spring from a good motive; and the good motive is supreme love for the Supremely Good. Works springing from this motive, whether manual or mental, social or personal, civil or ecclesiastic, public or private, all are good.
4. The end involves the self-sacrifice of Christ. "Who gave himself." Here is the grandest sacrifice ever made in the universe. Nothing grander could be.
(1) The greatest possession a man has is himself. What are millions of acres, or the rule of kingdoms, in the estimation of the owner as compared to himself? "Skin for skin," etc.
(2) The greatest self in the whole creation is Christ. He was, in some special sense impenetrable to us, the only begotten Son of God, and he gave himself. If he had given a universe, his gift would not have been equal to this, His gift teaches the enormity of moral evil. D.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain The grace of God that bringeth salvation
Tit_2:11-14
The grace of God that bringeth salvation
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The gospel
I.
What is here said of its nature.
1. The name. The grace of God.
2. The subject Bringing salvation.
3. The manifestation. Hath appeared.
(1) None are excluded from its benefits.
(2) None are exempt from its appointments.
II. Its influence.
1. How the gospel teaches.
(1) Precept.
(2) Example.
(3) Motive.
(4) Real and spiritual operation and efficiency.
2. What the gospel teaches.
(1) What it teaches us to deny? Ungodliness and worldly lusts.
(2) What it teaches us to do? To live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present world.
(3) What it teaches us to expect? Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.
(4) What it teaches us to acknowledge? Who gave Himself, etc. (W. Jay.)
The gospel of the grace of God
I. Its distisguishing characteristics. The grace of God.
1. The gift.
2. Its objects.
3. Its purpose.
II. The universality of its appearance.
1. Adapted for all.
2. Revealed for all.
3. To be proclaimed to all.
III. The inestimable boon which it bestows. Salvation.
1. From the condemning power of sin.
2. From the defilement of sin.
3. From the love of sin.
4. From the power of sin.
5. From the punishment of sin.
IV. Its practical influence. Teaching us, etc. The way of salvation is the highway of holiness and of purity; the unclean may not pass over it; and within the gates of the celestial City there shall enter nothing that defileth, that worketh abomination, or that maketh a lie. Wherever this gospel hath come, in demonstration of the Spirit and with power, it hath swept away the obscure and execrable rites, the foul abominations, the detestable practices of paganism. Wherever this gospel hath come in demonstration of the Spirit and with power, it hath purified the polluted, it hath made the dishonest honest, the intemperate sober, the licentious chaste. It has converted the monster of depravity into the humble, correct, consistent, temperate disciple of Christ. The abandoned woman it has purified and refined; and he who was at once the disgrace, the dishonour, of his family, of society, and of his country, renewed, reformed, sanctified, made holy, it has placed at the feet of the Redeemer, like the recovered maniac, clothed and in his right mind. (T. Raffles, D. D.)
The extensiveness of the gospel offers
That the message which Jesus was anointed to deliver emanated from the sovereign goodness and everlasting mercy of Jehovah, whereby before all worlds He had devised a plan for the restoration of ruined man, and contains a revelation of His will, is a truth at once most animating and important. It is a firm conviction of this momentous truth which induces the believer to set a proper value on the gospel as the message of glad tidings of great joy.
I. Our thoughts are directed, first, to the source of the gospel, and that source is the grace of God. The proper signification of the word grace is favour--unmerited goodness and mercy in a superior conferring benefit upon others. The grace spoken of in the text is the revelation of the Divine will set forth in the gospel, which, in the strictest sense, may be termed the grace of God; it being a revelation to which man had no title, setting forth promises of which man was utterly unworthy, unfolding a plan of redemption which man had no reason to expect. This grace bringeth salvation. Herein consists its importance. What shall I do to be saved? What good thing shall I do to inherit eternal life? Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? These are vitally important questions--questions which will frequently present themselves even to the most careless, and they can be satisfactorily answered in the gospel alone. The gospel bringeth salvation, for it points out to man the means of his recovery from guilt and degradation. This salvation is complete and infinite, including all the blessings of the everlasting covenant--that covenant which displays to us the mercy and love of God the Father; the benefits of the incarnation, life, crucifixion, ascension, and intercession of God the Son; and all the enlightening, enlivening, and sanctifying influences of God the Holy Ghost. In the possession of these consists our salvation. The gospel directs man to a Saviour who has promised, and is able and willing, to bestow any blessing upon those who believe in Him: it promises pardon, reconciliation, peace; it unfolds the glories of the eternal world; and it invites and stimulates the sinner to strive, through grace, to become meet for the heavenly inheritance.
II. Now consider the persons for whose benefit this grace of God hath appeared. The apostle says, The grace of God, that bringeth salvation hath appeared unto all men; or, according to the translation in the margin of our Bibles, The grace of God, which bringeth salvation to all men, hath appeared; and this rendering I conceive to be the more correct. The gospel, then, is described as bringing salvation to all men; that is, as offering to all who accept it free and full remission of sin, through the blood of the Lord Jesus; as opening to all believers the gate of the kingdom of heaven. The gospel is precisely suited for all the wants of a fallen sinner; it meets him in the hour of difficulty; and, consequently, its offers of mercy are addressed to every sinner. In the manifestation of Jesus to the wise men, who came from the east to worship Him; in the prophetic declaration of the aged Simeon, that the Child whom he took up in his arms should be a light to lighten the Gentiles; in the rending of the veil of the temple, when Jesus had given up the ghost; in the unlimited commission Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature; and in their qualification for this important work, by the miraculous gift of tongues, we discover that the new dispensation was designed for the spiritual and eternal benefit of the whole human race. The rich dispensation of mercy revealed in the gospel beautifully illustrates the gracious character of our heavenly Father. It is calculated to remove all erroneous views of His attributes, His mercy, His compassion, His tenderness towards the works of His hands. Why that gospel should not have been clearly manifested for so many ages after the fall of man--why eighteen centuries should have elapsed, and millions of our fellow creatures should still be immersed in the gross darkness of heathen superstition--is one of those secret things which belong to the Lord our God. It is not our province to sit in judgment on the wisdom of Jehovahs plans to weigh the wisdom of Jehovahs counsels; neither are we to seek to pry into the mysterious dealings of His providence. We are, rather, thankfully to acknowledge the blessings bestowed upon ourselves, and earnestly seek to improve them to the uttermost; recollecting that responsibility is commensurate with privilege. (T. Bissland, M. A.)
The grace of God
I. The original first moving cause of all the blessings we have from God is orate.
1. Survey all the blessings of the covenant, and from first to last you will see grace doth all. Election, vocation, justification, sanctification, glorification, all is from grace.
2. To limit the point. Though it is of grace, yet not to exclude Christ, not to exclude the means of salvation.
3. My next work shall be to give you some reasons why it must be so that grace is the original cause of all the blessings we receive from God; because it is most for the glory of God, and most for the comfort of the creature.
(1) It is most convenient for the glory of God to keep up the respects of the creature to Him in a way suitable to His majesty.
(2) It is most for the comfort of the creature. Grace is the original cause of all the good we expect and receive from God, that we may seek the favour of God with hope and retain it with certainty.
II. Grace in the discoveries of the gospel hath shined out in a greater brightness than ever it did before.
1. What a darkness there was before the eternal gospel was brought out of the bosom of God. There was a darkness both among Jews and Gentiles. In the greatest part of the world there was utter darkness as to the knowledge of grace, and in the Church nothing but shadows and figures.
2. What and how much of grace is now discovered? I answer
(1) The wisdom of grace. The gospel is a mere riddle to carnal reason, a great mystery (1Ti_3:16).
(2) The freeness of grace both in giving and accepting.
(3) The efficacy and power of grace.
(4) The largeness and bounty of grace.
(5) The sureness of grace.
III. The grace of God revealed in the gospel is the great means of salvation, or a grace that tends to salvation.
1. It hath a moral tendency that way; for there is the history of salvation what God hath done on His part; there are the counsels of salvation what we must do on our part; and there are excellent enforcements to encourage us to embrace this salvation.
2. Because it hath the promise of the Spirits assistance (Rom_1:16). The gospel is said to be the power of God unto salvation, not only because it is a powerful instrument which God hath appropriated to this work, but this is the honour God puts upon the gospel that He will join and associate the operation of His Spirit with no other doctrine but this.
IV. This salvation which the grace of God bringeth is free for all that will accept it. God excludes none but those that exclude themselves. It is said to appear to all men
1. Because it is published to all sorts of men; they all have a like favour in the general offer (Joh_6:37).
2. All that accept have a like privilege; therefore this grace is said to appear to all men. There is no difference of nations, nor of conditions of life, nor of lesser opinions in religion, nor of degrees of grace. See all summed up by the apostle (Col_3:11). (T. Manton, D. D.)
The Epiphany and mission of grace
To this important statement the apostle is led up by the consideration of certain very homely and practical duties which fall to the lot of Christians in various walks of life, and these matters he refers to as the things pertaining to sound doctrine. He has a word of practical counsel for several distinct classes of persons; for he knows the wisdom of being definite. In the connection indicated by that little word for we have both an introduction to, and a striking illustration of, the great truth that the passage is designed to set forth. It is the gospel with its wondrous revelation of grace that is to provide us with new and high incentives boa life of practical virtue and holiness. It is because we are not under the law, but under grace, that the righteousness of the law is to be fulfilled in us. To destroy the works of the devil, and to restore and perfect the grandest work of God on earth, was indeed an undertaking worthy of such conditions as the Incarnation and the atonement. The apostle speaks of grace itself before he proceeds to indicate the effects of grace, and of the first grand object and work of grace before he proceeds to enlarge upon its ulterior effects. He begins with the assertion that the grace of God which bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared. In these opening words, first our attention is invited to this central object, the grace of God, then to the fact of its epiphany or manifestation, and then to its first most necessary purpose and mission--the bringing of salvation within the reach of all men.
I. All true and evangelical religion must have its commencement in the apprehension of divine grace, and therefore it is of no small importance that we should endeavour clearly to understand what is denoted by the word. Divine grace, we may say, is the child of love and the parent of mercy. The essential love of the great Fathers heart takes definite form, and accommodates itself to our need; reveals itself in facts, and presents itself for our acceptance; and then we call it grace. That grace received rescues from the disastrous effects of sin; heals our inward diseases, and comforts our sorrows; and then we call it mercy. But grace does not exhaust itself in the production of mercy any more than love exhausts itself in the production of grace. The child leads us back to the parent; the experience of mercy leads us back to that grace wherein we stand; and the enjoyment of grace prepares us for the life of love, and for that wondrous reciprocity of affection in which the heavenly Bridegroom and His Bride are to be bound together forever. Thus of the three mercy ever reaches the heart first; and it is through accepted mercy that we apprehend revealed grace; similarly it is through the revelations of grace that we learn the secret of eternal love. And as with the individual so with mankind at large. Mercy, swift-winged mercy, was the first celestial messenger that reached a sin-stricken world; and in former dispensations it was with mercy that men had most to do. But if former dispensations were dispensations of mercy, the present is preeminently the dispensation of grace, in which it is our privilege not only to receive mercy, but to apprehend the attitude of God towards us from which the mercy flows. But let us remember that though specially revealed to us now, the grace of God towards humanity has existed from the very first. The Lamb was slain in the Divine foreknowledge before the foundation of the world. But the grace of God has in it a further and higher object than the mere provision of a remedy for human sin--than what is merely remedial. God has purposed in His own free favour towards mankind to raise man to a position of moral exaltation and glory, the very highest, so far as we know, that can be occupied or aspired to by a created intelligence. Such is the destiny of humanity. This is the singular favour which God designs for the sons of men. Gods favour flows forth to other intelligences also, but not to the same degree, and it is not manifested after the same fashion. This eternal purpose of God, however, which has run through the long ages, was not fully revealed to the sons of men until the fulness of time arrived. It was revealed only in parts and in fragments, so to speak. From Adam to John the Baptist every man that ever went to heaven went there by the grace of God. The grace of God has constantly been in operation, but it was operating in a concealed fashion. Even those who were the subjects of Divine grace seem scarcely to have known how it reached them, or in what manner they were to be affected by any provision that it might make to meet their human sins. Before the full favour of God could be revealed to mankind it would seem to have been necessary first of all that man should be put under a disciplinary training, which should induce within him a conviction of the necessity for the intervention of that favour, and dispose him to value it when it came. Grace, we have already said, is the child of love and the parent of mercy. We discover now that the love of God is not a passive, inert possibility, but a living power that takes to itself definite form, and hastens to meet and overcome the forces of evil to which we owe our ruin.
II. But further, the apostle not only calls our attention to Divine grace, but he proceeds to state with great emphasis that it has appeared or been made manifest. We are no longer left in doubt as to its existence, or permitted to enjoy its benefits without knowing whence they flow. In order to be manifested, the grace of God needed not only to be affirmed, but to be illustrated, I may say demonstrated, and then only was man called upon to believe in it. It might have been written large enough for all the world to see, that God was love. It might have been blazoned upon the starry heavens so that every eye might have read the wondrous sentence, and yet I apprehend we should have been slow to grasp the truth which the words contain, had they not been brought within reach of our finite apprehension in concrete form in the personal history, in the life, in the action, in the sorrow, in the death of Gods own Son. When I turn my gaze towards the person of Christ I am at liberty to doubt Gods favour towards me no longer. I read it in every action, I discover it in every word. Here is the first thought that brings rest to the heart of man. It has been demonstrated by the Incarnation and by the Atonement, that Gods attitude on His side towards us is already one of free favour--favour toward all, however far we may have fallen, and however undeserving we may be in ourselves. You often hear people talking about making their peace with God. Well, the phrase may be used to indicate what is perfectly correct, but the expression in itself is most incorrect, for peace with God is already made. Gods attitude towards us is already an assured thing. We have no occasion to go about to ask ourselves, How shall we win Gods favour? It is possible for a person to be full of friendly intentions to me, and yet for me to retain an attitude of animosity and enmity towards him. That does not alter his character towards me, or his attitude towards me; but it does prevent me from reaping any benefit from that attitude. And so, I repeat, the only point of uncertainty lies in our attitude towards God, not in His attitude towards us.
III. Thus the apostle affirms that this grace of God bringeth salvation to every man. Yes, Gods free favour, manifested in the person of His own blessed Son, is designed to produce saving effects upon all. God makes no exception, excludes none. All are not saved. But why not? Not because the grace of God does not bring salvation to every man, but because all men do not receive the gift which the grace of God has brought to them. There are necessarily two parties to such a transaction. Before any benefit can accrue from a gift there must be a willingness on the one side to give, and a willingness on the other side to receive, and unless there be both of these conditions realised no satisfactory result can ensue. Here then is a question for us all: What has the grace of God, which is designed to have a saving effect upon all men, done for us? Has it saved us, or only enhanced our condemnation? Now we maintain that the enjoyment of the knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins is needed before our experience can assume a definitely Christian form. The first thing that grace does is to bring salvation to me; and until I accept this I am not in a position to accept her other gifts. Grace cannot teach until I am in a position to learn, and I am not in a position to learn until I am relieved from anxiety and fear as to my spiritual condition. Go into yonder prison, and set that wretched felon in the condemned cell to undertake some literary work, if he is a literary man. Put the pen into his hand, place the ink and the paper before him. He flings down the pen in disgust. How can he set to work to write a history or to compose a romance, however talented or gifted he may be by nature, so long as the hangmans rope is over his head and the prospect of a coming execution staring him in the face? Obviously the mans thoughts are all in another direction--the question of his own personal safety preoccupies his mind. Give him that pen and paper to write letters which he thinks may influence persons in high quarters with a view to obtaining a reprieve, and his pen will move quickly enough. I can understand his filling up reams of paper on that subject, but not on any other. Is it likely that a God who has shown His favour towards us by the gift of His own Son should desire to keep us in uncertainty as to the effects of that grace upon our own case? Does not the very fact, that it is grace that has brought salvation to us, render it certain that it must be in the mind of God that we should have the full enjoyment of it? Let us rather ask, how can we obtain this knowledge of salvation, this inward conviction that all is well? The answer is a very simple one. Grace brings salvation within our reach as something designed for us. Not to tantalize us by exciting desires destined never to be realised, but in order that we may have the full benefit of it--the free favour of God has brought salvation within our reach to the very doors of our hearts. Surely we dishonour God when we for a moment suppose that He does not intend us to enjoy the blessing which His grace brings to us. All the deep and precious lessons that grace has to teach are, we may say, simply so many deductions from the first great object lesson--Calvary. It is through the Cross of Christ that the grace of God hath reached a sinful world; it is on the Cross that grace is revealed and by that Cross that its reality is demonstrated. But we may also add that it is in the Cross that grace lies hidden. Yes, it is all there; but faith has to search the storehouse and examine the hidden treasure, and find out more and more of the completeness of that great salvation which the grace of God has brought within our reach; nor shall we ever know fully all that has thus been brought within our reach until we find ourselves saved at last with an everlasting salvation--saved from all approach of evil or danger into that kingdom of glory which grace has opened to all believers. (W. H. M. H. Aitken, M. A.)
The grace of God in bringing salvation to all men
I. The origin of salvation.
1. Man did not deserve it.
2. It was unsolicited.
3. It was entirely the result of Divine grace.
The grace of God
(1) Made all the arrangements necessary for salvation. Devised the astounding plan. Fixed upon the means, time, etc. The grace of God
(2) Brought the author of salvation. Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, etc. (2Co_8:9).
(3) It brought the message of salvation. Gospel is emphatically the gospel of the grace of God (Act_20:24).
(4) It brings the application of salvation to the soul. We are called by His grace--justified freely by His grace--sanctified by His grace--kept and preserved by tits grace--and the topstone is brought on amid ascriptions of Grace, grace unto it.
II. The extent of salvation. The grace of God bringeth salvation
1. To all classes and degrees of men. To the rich and the poor; noble and ignoble; monarch and the peasant; the ruler and the slave.
2. To men of all grades of moral guilt. It includes the moralist, and excludes not the profane.
3. To men of all ages.
III. The influence of salvation on the moral character of man. It teaches and enforces the necessity of
1. The abandonment of ungodliness and worldly lusts.
2. Sobriety of conduct.
3. Righteousness of life.
4. Godliness of heart.
Application:
1. How we should rejoice in the riches and fulness of Divine grace.
2. How necessary that we cordially receive the invaluable boon it presents.
3. And how important that we practically exemplify the moral lessons it communicates. (J. Burns, D. D.)
The gospel described
1. A choice and excellent description of the gospel; it is the grace of God, that is the doctrine of Gods free grace and gratuitous favour declared in Christ to poor sinners.
2. The joyful message which the gospel brings, and that is salvation; the gospel makes a gracious tender of salvation, and that universally to lost and undone sinners.
3. The clear light and evidence that it does hold forth this message in and by; it has appeared or shined forth like the day star or the rising sun.
4. The extent of its glorious beams, how far they reach. It is tendered to all without restriction or limitation.
(1) As to nations, Jew or Gentile.
(2) As to persons, rich or poor, bond or free.
(3) Without restriction in reference to the degree of their graces.
5. The great lesson which the gospel teaches, negative and positive.
(a) Negative, to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts; where, by ungodliness, understand all sins committed against the first table; by worldly lusts, all sins committed against the second table; called worldly lusts because the object of them is worldly things, and because they are the lusts of worldly men.
(b) Positive, to live:
(1) Soberly: he begins with our duty to ourselves, then to our neighbour, and last of all to God, and so proceeds from the easier to the harder duties: and observe the connection, soberly and righteously and godly, not disjunctively; as if to live soberly, righteously, or in pretence godly, were sufficient. A sobriety in speech, in behaviour, in apparel, in eating and drinking, in recreations, and in the enjoyment of lawful satisfactions.
(2) Righteously, exercising justice and charity towards our neighbour; he that is uncharitable is unjust and unrighteous, and the unrighteous shall no more enter into the kingdom of God than the unholy; and all a persons pretences to godliness are but hypocrisy without righteousness toward our neighbour.
(3) Godly, godliness has an internal and external part; the internal and inward part of godliness consists in a right knowledge of Him, in a fervent love unto Him, in an entire trust and confidence in Him, in an holy fear to offend Him, in subjecting our wills entirely to Him, in holy longings for the fruition and enjoyment of Him. The external and outward part of godliness consists in adoration and bodily worship; this is due to God from us; He was the Creator of the body as well as of the soul, and will glorify the body as well as the soul; therefore we are to glorify God with our bodies, and with our spirits, which are the Lords.
6. The time when and the place where this lesson is to be learned, in this present world. Here is the place, and now is the time when this duty of living soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world is to be performed by us. Learn, that a sober, righteous, and godly life in this present world is absolutely necessary in order to our obtaining the happiness and glory of the world to come. (W. Burkitt, M. A.)
The grace of God
Although the doctrine of the Churches of the Old and New Testament be the very selfsame in regard
1. Of the author, who is God;
2. Substance and matter, which is perfect righteousness required in both;
3. Scope and end to the justification of a sinner before God; yet are there diverse accidental differences between them which, that we may the better understand both the offices and the benefits by Christ, are meet to be known.
Some of them we shall note out of these words as we shall come unto them.
(1) The first difference is in that the gospel is called grace, which word the law acknowledgeth not; nay, these two are opposed, to be under the law and to be under grace. To be under the law is not to be under it as a rule of life, for so all believers on earth, yea the saints and angels in heaven, are under it; but to be under the yoke of it, which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear. For to omit the least part of the yoke, standing in the observation of
1. Many,
2. Costly,
3. Laborious,
4. Burdensome ceremonies,
what a killing letter is the law which commandeth inward and perfect righteousness, for nature and actions, and that in our own persons? which promiseth life upon no other condition but of works, Do this, and live; and these must be such as must be framed according to that perfect light and holiness of nature in which we are created, which wrappeth us under the curse of sin. Now to be under grace is to be freed from all this bondage; not only from those elements and rudiments of the world, but especially
1. When the yoke of personal obedience to justification is by grace translated from believers to the person of Christ our surety, so that He doing the law we might live by it.
2. When duties are not urged according to our perfect estate of creation, but according to the present measure of grace received; not according to full and perfect righteousness, but according to the sincerity and truth of the heart, although from weak and imperfect faith and love: not as meriting anything, but only as testifying the truth of our conversion, in all which the Lord of His grace accepteth the will for the deed done.
3. When the most heavy curse of the law is removed from our weak shoulders and laid upon the back of Jesus Christ, even as His obedience is translated unto us, and thus there is no condemnation to those that are in Him.
4. When the strength of the law is abated so as believers may send it to Christ for performance, for it cannot vex us as before the ministry of grace it could; which is another law, namely of faith, to which we are bound, the which not only can command us as the former, but also give grace and power to obey and perform in some acceptable sort the commandment. And this is the doctrine of grace which we are made partakers of. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
Genuine Christianity
I. A true and graphic outline of doctrine essential to salvation.
1. How ancient the purpose of this grace.
2. How great and glorious its nature.
3. How benignant its design.
4. How unrestricted its manifestation.
II. A view of those works which accompany salvation.
1. Vigilant self-denial.
2. The right governance of the moral relations of life.
III. Motives by which combined faith and obedience may be sustained and enforced.
1. The temporary nature of the discipline.
2. The self-sacrifice of Christ.
3. The future manifestation of Christ. (Jas. Foster, B. A.)
The soul culture of the world
I. The instrument of true soul culture. The grace of God, i.e., the gospel.
1. It is the love of God.
2. The love of God to save.
3. The love of God revealed to all.
II. The process of true soul culture.
1. The renunciation of a wrong course.
2. The adoption of a right course.
3. The fixing of the heart upon a glorious future.
III. The end of true soul culture.
1. Moral redemption.
2. Spiritual restoration to Christ.
3. Complete devotedness to holy labour.
4. The self-sacrifice of Christ. His gift teaches the enormity of moral evil. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The souls rest
When the illustrious, learned, and wealthy John Selden was dying, he said to Archbishop Usher, I have surveyed most of the learning that is among the sons of men, and my study is filled with books and manuscripts (he had 8,000 volumes in his library) on various subjects; but at present I cannot recollect any passage out of all my books and papers whereon I can rest my soul, save this from the sacred Scriptures: The grace of God that bringeth salvation, etc.
Hath appeared to all men
Love made visible
I. The apostle sets forth, as the foundation of all, the appearance of the grace of God. Grace, the theological term which, to many of us, sounds so cold and unreal and remote, is all throbbing with tenderness and warm with life if we understand what it means. It means the pulsation of the heart of God pouring a tide of gracious love on sinful men, who do not deserve one drop of it to fall upon them, and who dwell so far beneath His loftiness that the love is made still more wonderful by the condescension which makes it possible. The lofty loves the low, and the love is grace. The righteous loves the sinful, and the love is grace. Then, says my text, there is something which has made this Divine love of God, so wonderful in its loftiness, and equally wonderful in its passing by mens sinfulness, visible to men. The grace, has appeared. Scientists can make sounds visible by the symmetrical lines into which heaps of sand upon a bit of paper are cast by the vibration of a string. God has made invisible love plain to the sight of all men, because He has sent us His Son.
II. Notice the universal sweep of this grace. The words should be read, The grace of God, that bringeth salvation to all men, hath appeared. It brings salvation to all men. It does not follow from that, that all men take the salvation which it brings. Notice the underlying theory of a universal need that lies in these words. The grace brings salvation to all men, because all men need that more than any thing else. In the notion of salvation there lies the two ideas of danger and of disease. It is healing and it is safety; therefore, if it be offered to all, it is because all men are sick of a sore disease, and stand in imminent and deadly peril. That is the only theory of mens deepest need which is true to the facts of human existence.
III. Notice the great work of this grace made visible. It seems to be a wonderful descent from the grace of God which bringeth salvation to all hath appeared to teaching us. Is that all? Is that worth much? If by teaching we mean merely a reiteration in words, addressed to the understanding or the heart, of the great principles of morality and conduct, it is a very poor thing, and a tremendous come down from the apostles previous words. Such an office is not what the world wants. To try to cure the worlds evils by teaching, in that narrow sense of the expression, is something like trying to put a fire out by reading the Riot Act to the flames. You want fire engines, and not paper proclamations, in order to stay their devouring course. But it is to be noticed that the expression here, in the original, means a great deal more than that kind of teaching. It means correcting, or chastening. Our Physician has in His great medicine chest balm and bandages for all wounds. But He has also a terrible array of gleaming blades with sharp edges, and of materials for cauterising and burning away proud flesh. And if ever we are to be made good and pure, as God wants to make us, it must be through a discipline that will often be agony, and will often be pain, and against the grain. For the one thing that God wants to do with men is to bring their wills into entire harmony with His. And we cannot have that done without much treatment which will inflict in love beneficent pain. No man can live beside that Lord without being rebuked moment by moment, and put to wholesome shame day by day, when he contrasts himself with that serene and radiant pattern and embodiment of all perfection. And no man can receive into his heart the powers of the world to come, the might of an indwelling Spirit, without that Spirit exercising as its first function that which Christ Himself told us it would perform (Joh_16:8). (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The universal offer of salvation
Salvation is offered to all men
I. Irrespective of their varying moral conditions. Though all have sinned, yet all are not sinners in the same degree, or after the same fashion. Sinners are of many kinds--young, old, beginners in offences, hardened in crime, sinners through ignorance, against light, etc.
II. Because all men need it. God recognises degrees of guilt and punishes according to transgression. There are few stripes and many stripes; yet all need salvation, and all men may have it.
III. Because God loves all. He is no respecter of persons, and has no delight in the death of him that dieth. God so loved the world, etc.
IV. Because Christ died for all. (F. Wagstaff.)
The gospel for all sorts of men
It bringeth salvation to all men, that is, all kinds and conditions of men, not to every particular or singular of the kinds, but to all the sorts and kinds of men, to servants as well as masters, to Gentile as well as Jew, to poor as well as rich. Thus is it said that God would have all men saved, that is, of all sorts of men some. So Christ healed all diseases, that is, all kinds of diseases; and the Pharisees tithed all herbs, that is, all kinds; for they took not every particular herb for tithe, but took the tenth of every kind, and not the tenth of every herb. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
The grace of salvation appearing to all men
The grace of God is the prime mover in the work of salvation. It bringeth salvation. Man had nothing to pay for it, and man could not merit it.
I. But in what respects does the grace of God bring salvation? Here we remark generally, that it brought it forward in the decree from everlasting. Again, the grace of God brought salvation forward another stage, by publishing the promise of it to man after his ruinous fall. This promise was to be the ground of mans faith and hope in God; and these graces were necessary for giving sinners an interest in the Divine salvation. The grace of God advanced salvation work still further when it brought the First-begotten into the world. It was on this occasion that it was purchased. To gain it, Christ had to sustain the rejections of men, the malice and wrath of evil spirits, and the wrath of His heavenly Father. No less conspicuous is the grace of God in applying to the soul the benefits of purchased redemption. It is not when persons have ceased from the love and commission of sin, that the Holy Spirit comes with power to call them effectually, and to unite them to the Lord Jesus Christ. No; He addresses Himself to His work when sinners are dead in trespasses and in sins--alienated from the life of God--without God and without hope in the world. But there is still another stage of the grace of God that bringeth salvation, and it is the time when Christ will raise His people from the dead, and make them sit visibly as they now sit representatively in heavenly places with Himself.
II. We shall now turn your attention to the nature of the salvation which the grace of God thus brings to sinners. And here you will notice in general that the term salvation implies a state of danger, or of actual immersion in suffering; and denotes the averting of the danger, or the deliverance from the suffering. We say of a man who has been delivered from a house on fire, that he has been saved. We also assert of him who has been drawn from a shipwreck and brought in life to land, that he has been saved, And in like manner, we affirm in regard to the man who has been set free from transgression and its train of consequences, that he has obtained salvation. More particularly, you will observe
1. That it is a salvation from the guilt of sin.
2. It includes deliverance from the defilement of sin.
3. Deliverance from the power of sin.
4. Deliverance from the very being of sin.
5. Liberation from the curse of God.
6. Freedom from the wrath of God.
III. We have thus given you an outline of the salvation spoken of in the text, we shall now inquire in what respects it appears to all men. There is one class of persons to whom salvation does more than appear; for they shall enjoy it in all its length and breadth. The chosen of God shall be set free from the guilt, the power, and being of sin, and redeemed from the wrath and curse of God. But there are some respects in which the salvation which they enjoy, presents itself to the view of others, who trover come to the actual enjoyment of its precious blessings.
1. The grace that bringeth salvation appears to all, because time and space are given them for seeking and obtaining it.
2. The grace of salvation appears to all in the inspired Word and appointed ordinances.
3. The grace of salvation appears to all, inasmuch as mercy is offered to them with out distinction.
4. The grace that bringeth salvation appears to all, in the common operations of the Holy Spirit. From our subject see
(1) Ground for accepting the salvation of the gospel.
(2) Learn reason to fear lest we should not enter the heavenly rest through unbelief.
(3) Ground of gratitude on the part of the people of God. They are distinguished above the rest of mankind. While salvation appears to others, it is possessed and enjoyed by them. We now propose
IV. To inquire into what is meant by the terms all men. As to the import of the terms all men, you will observe
1. That they cannot mean every individual of our race. It is matter of fact that many, both in the days of the apostles were, and in our own time are, wholly unenlightened by the good news of salvation.
2. The grace of God appears to men of all countries. This is no contradiction of what we formerly said; for although salvation has not yet been shown to all the individuals of our race, yet some of almost every kingdom under heaven have been made acquainted with the gospel of Gods Son; and it is matter of promise that all the ends of the earth shall yet see the salvation of our God.
3. The grace of God appears to all kinds of men. None are excluded from it who do not exclude them selves. It is presented to persons of all ages and all ranks, to men of every kind of culture and attainment. Nor does the gospel inquire into a mans character, in order to discover whether he is entitled to salvation. Grace is offered to the moral and immoral--to the virtuous and the vicious.
V. We are now to investigate the respects in which the grace of God appears to men in general. Our text does not assert that the grace of God is enjoyed by all, but only that it appears to them. They behold in somewhat the same manner as Balaam said he would see the star that was to arise out of Judah: I shall see Him, but not now; I shall behold Him, but not nigh. It is but a distant sight that the unregenerate obtain of the grace of salvation. It appears to them as a beauteous and glowing star in the remote horizon, which they may admire, but do not reach.
1. Time and space are given them for accepting salvation.
2. The grace of God appears to men in general in their enjoyment of Divine ordinances. Ordinances are the appointed means of salvation. They are not effectual of themselves to the communication of saving benefit; but they are the medium through which spiritual blessings are im parted.
3. The grace of God appears to all in the offer of salvation to every individual.
4. The grace of God appears to men in general in the common operations of the Spirit.
5. The grace of God appears to men in general in the impressions of Divine truth upon the heart.
(1) What a great privilege is possessed by the hearers of the gospel.
(2) Reason for great anxiety. Look after the evidences of your real Christianity. (A. Ross, M. A.)
All men must come to the grace of salvation
The American officer who was appointed to measure the boundaries of Mexico and the United States tells us touchingly that the springs which occur at intervals of sixty or a hundred miles apart in the desert are perforce the meeting places of life. All living creatures must gather there or die in an agony of thirst. There comes the American panther, and laps luxuriously the stream beside the timid hare--the one tamed by thirst, the other made brave by thirst; and there come the traveller and the trader and light the campfire beside the wigwam of the scalp-clothed warrior of the prairie, civilised by thirst; they quaff the waters together. So the waters of life should be resorted to by all mankind. Teaching us that denying ungodliness
Grace our teacher
The apostle proceeds to state that grace not only saves but undertakes our training; and this, of course, is a life-long work, a work that will only be concluded when grace ends in glory. Now, obviously, if this work is to be done as it should be done, the soul must, first of all, be in a position to receive teaching. If grace is really to undertake our training, and to teach us such lessons as only grace can teach, surely she must first of all calm the tumultuous misgivings which fill our hearts; and until grace has done this for us, how can she instruct us? If I am learning my lesson with a view to obtain grace, it cannot be grace that is acting the part of the teacher, for she can only teach where she has been already obtained. Grace cannot at one and the same moment be my teacher, and also that to obtain which I am being taught, for this, of course, involves a contradiction in terms. Hence, as we have said, unless this first point be settled, and we know that we are in the enjoyment of Gods salvation, we are not in a position to learn from grace, whoever else it be that we may learn from. And thus it comes to pass, as a matter of simple fact, that a large number of nominal Christians are taught, indeed, after a certain fashion, but they are not taught by grace. They seek to learn of Christ in order that they may obtain the grace of Christ; they endeavour to become conformed to Christ in order that their resemblance to Christ may dispose the heart of God to regard them with the same favourable consideration which He bestowed on Him whom they seek to resemble. Such persons are under the law. Grace, then, is to be our instructress, and she has plenty of work before her in the training and preparation of the human subject for the glorious destiny which lies before him. Then only is it possible, after the adoption has taken place, for the education to begin. With these thoughts in our mind we will proceed to consider grace as our teacher, and first we will point out the contrast between the training of grace and the operation of law. Before the grace of God appeared men were under another teacher, and his name was Law. Grace is our teacher, and she teaches us far more powerfully, far more efficiently, and far more perfectly than law can ever teach us. But observe, she will not share her office of teacher with law. The Christian is not to be a kind of spiritual mongrel, nor is his experience to be of a mongrel type--part legal, part spiritual, part savouring of bondage, part savouring of liberty: but the design of God is that we should stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and never allow ourselves, even for a moment, to be entangled in a yoke of bondage. How many Christians are there who never seem to have perceived that we are no more to be saved by grace and then trained by law, than we are to be saved by law and then trained by grace? How many who need to learn that as we are to be saved by grace at first, so we are to be trained by grace afterwards, until at last the cornerstone is raised upon the wondrous structure which only grace has reared, amidst shouts of Grace, grace unto it! All is of grace from first to last. Now in order that we may very clearly apprehend what the teaching of Gods word is on this subject, let us just put side by side the teaching of law and the teaching of grace, contrasting them one with the other, and then we shall see how much to the advantage of grace the contrast is. Grace teaches better than law.
1. She teaches better than law, first, because she delivers to us a fuller and more distinct exhibition of the mind and will of God as regards human conduct, based upon a more complete manifestation of the Divine character. Grace, as she takes possession of our heart, makes us acquainted with the mind and will of God in a manner in which we should never have become acquainted with these by the mere influence and teaching of law. If you reflect for a moment, you will see that the object of law is not to reveal the mind and the will of the Lawgiver, but to lay down certain positive precepts for the direction of those to whom the legislation is given, or for whom the legislation is designed. If an Act of Parliament is passed by the British Legislature, by both Houses of Parliament, and a person were to ask, What is the object of this Act? nobody would reply, To reveal to the British public what is the mind and will of the members of our Legislature. Nothing of the kind. The object of the Act is to meet some specific political need, or to give some specific political direction to those who are subject to its authority. Even so the law delivered from Sinai was not primarily designed to reveal the mind and will of God. The law contained only a very partial revelation of the mind and will of God. The law consisted of certain positive precepts, which were given in the infancy of the human race for the direction and guidance of mankind. The rules and precepts which are laid down in the nursery are not designed to exhibit the mind and will of the parent, although they are in accordance with that mind and will. They are laid down for the convenience and for the benefit of those for whom the rules were made. A child knows something of the mind and will of the parent from personal contact with that parent, but not from the rules, or only to a very slender degree from the rules, which are laid down for its guidance. But when we turn from law to grace, then we see at once that we now are dealing with a revelation of the mind and the will of Him from whom the grace proceeds. Each act of favour which a parent bestows upon his child, or which a sovereign bestows upon his subject, is a revelation, so far as it goes, of the mind and will of the parent towards that particular child, or of the sovereign towards that particular subject, as the case may be. And even so every act of grace which we receive from God is a revelation, as far as it goes, of the mind and will of God towards us who are affected by the act.
2. Not only is the teaching of grace in itself fuller and more complete, but we are still more impressed by the superiority of the mode in which the teaching is given--the form in which this new doctrine is communicated. In the decalogue you are met with, Thou shalt, or, Thou shalt not--and you observe at once that the command addresses itself directly to your will. Children are not appealed to so far as their understandings are concerned. They are told to act in a certain particular way, or not to act in a certain particular way; and if a child stops to reason with its parents, an appeal is at once made to parental authority. Your duty, my child, is to obey, not to understand. Or, once again, the decalogue makes no appeal to the affections of those to whom it was delivered; it deals not with our moral states, or with the motives from which actions proceed; it simply concerns itself with those actions, and speaks to the will which is responsible for them. But when we turn from the decalogue to the sermon on the mount we find that all is changed. It does not begin with a direct appeal to the will, and yet the will is touched by a stronger influence, and moved to action by a more mighty force, than ever operated upon the will of the Israelites at Sinai. Grace is our teacher; and we observe that the first word that she utters in this lesson is a blessing. The law had summed up its all of teaching with a curse Cursed is he that continueth not in all things that are written in this book to do them.
2. She does not say, Ye shall be blessed if ye will become poor in spirit. Grace drives no bargains; but she explains to us that a state of experience from which most of us would naturally shrink is a state of actual blessedness. Here you will observe that she appeals to our enlightened understanding, indicating to us a new and a higher view of self-interest, showing that Gods will, so far from being opposed to our truest well-being, is in complete and full harmony with it; for He is our Father, and He loves us, and therefore desires to see us supremely happy like Himself. Does she not teach better than law? Once again. Not only does she teach by giving us a fuller and a deeper revelation of the mind and will of God, and exhibiting these to us in such a way as that she appeals not merely to our own will, demanding action, but to our understanding, and, through our understanding, to our feelings, kindling holy desires, and so setting the will at work almost before it is aware that it is working; but she does more than all this.
3. Grace teaches us by setting before our eyes the noblest and the most striking of all exemplars. Grace speaks to us through human lips; grace reveals herself to us in a human life. Now we all know how much more we learn from a personal teacher than from mere abstract directions. To watch a painter, and to see how he uses his brush, and carefully and minutely notice the little touches that give so much character and power to the product of his genius, does far more for us in the way of making us painters than any amount of mere abstract study of the art itself. This in itself may suffice to show the superiority of grace as a teacher. While the thunder sounded from Sinai and the fiery law was given, God still remained concealed. When the yell was taken away, and God was made flesh in the person of Christ, human eyes were allowed to look at Him, and human ears heard the sound of His voice. Perfection stood before us at last in concrete form. When grace teaches us, she always teaches us by leading up to Christ--by exhibiting fresh views of His perfection, drawing out our heart in admiration towards Him. Happy they who thus set themselves to learn Christ as their life lesson, not as a mere duty--that is legality--but because they have fallen in love with Christ! Happy they who learn Christ just as the astronomer learns astronomy! Why does he study astronomy? Would a Newton tell you that he has spent all those hours in the careful examination of the phenomena of nature, or absorbed in profound mathematical calculations, because he thought it his duty to do it? And even so those who are under the teaching of grace learn Christ, not because they are under a legal obligation to learn Him, but because they are mastered by an enthusiastic admiration for the Divine object. There is a beauty in Christ which wins the heart. But grace does more than even this.
4. She not only sets before us the highest of all exemplars, but she establishes the closest possible relationship between that Exemplar and ourselves. Grace is not content with merely setting an example before us; she takes us by the hand and introduces us to the Exemplar, tells us not only that this Exemplar is content to be our friend, but, more wonderful still, that He is content to be one with us, uniting Himself to us, that His strength may be made perfect in our weakness. Know ye not, says grace, that Christ is in you? In you; not merely outside you as a source of power, not merely beside you as a faithful companion on lifes journey, but in you. Christ is your life, says grace. Do you prefer to be under the law? Do you really elect to be bondslaves? You say your prayers in the morning; it is your duty to do it. You do not feel comfortable if you do not say them. You go to church; but it is not because you love to go and cannot stay away, or because you want to know more and more of God, or delight in His worship. I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord. You go because it is your habit. May God save us from such bondage as this! Let us remember that all the while that we are thus trifling there is within our reach, if we would but have it, the glorious liberty of the children of God. (W. H. M. H. Aitken, M. A.)
Our teachers mode of teaching
You will observe that inasmuch as grace proposes to form Christ in our nature, she proceeds upon an altogether different method from that which is followed by law. Grace purposes to make the tree good, and then concludes, reasonably enough, that the fruit will be good; whereas law aims, so to speak, rather at improving the fruit than at regenerating the tree. Grace deals with the springs of action, and not primarily with action itself. She deals with actions, but deals with them only indirectly. She begins her beneficent operations by setting right that part of our nature from which actions proceed, and so, from first to last, grace is chiefly concerned with our motives, checking the sordid and the unworthy, and developing the noble and the godlike. Now, the contrast here lies between an outward objective law exhibited to the human understanding, claiming the homage of the will, and an inward and subjective law which becames part and parcel, so to speak, of the nature of him who receives it. Now it is by the teaching of grace that this new state of things is introduced; it is by the operation of grace that the Fathers Law is to be written upon the hearts of His once rebellious children. She effects this blessed result, first by opening up to us through His Son a revelation of the Fathers heart, and by showing us how deep and strong is His love towards us; in the second place, by sweeping away all obstacles between the Fathers love and our experience of it; and thus in the third place, by bringing our humanity under the mighty operation of the Holy Spirit of God, whose work it is to form within us the nature of Christ; and once again, in the fourth place, grace indelibly inscribes Gods law upon our hearts in the very terms of her own manifestation. For it is from the Cross that Grace is manifested and it is involved in the terms of its acceptance, that to the cross the eye of him who accepts it should be turned. We have just said that the first effect of grace is to reveal the Fathers love to us, and to sweep away all the barriers which interfere with our enjoyment of that love; by this first act of grace we are introduced into what may be described as the life of love--a life in which we are no longer influenced by mere considerations of moral or legal obligation. The love of God shed abroad in the heart, like the genial rays of the sun, produces a responsive love within us which is simply the refraction, so to speak, of those rays; and this love, the gospel teaches us, is the fulfilling of the law.
1. But love fulfils the law, not by a conscious effort to fulfil it, but because it is the voluntary response of the soul to the Person from whom the law has emanated. Love fulfils the law, not by commanding me to conform my conduct to a certain outward and objective standard, but by awakening within me a spiritual passion of devotion for the Person of Him whose will is law to those who love Him. Love knows nothing about mere restriction and repression--love seeks to please, not to abstain from displeasing; and so love fulfils, not merely abstains from breaking, the law. Thus we see that love takes us up to an altogether higher level than law. I cannot illustrate this point better than by referring for a moment to our earthly relationships to each other. There are certain laws which are applicable to these relationships. For instance, there are certain laws of our land, and there are certain laws contained in the Bible, which apply to the natural relationships of the father and of the husband. It is obviously the duty of the father and the husband to care for his wife and his children, to protect them, to provide for them, to endeavour to secure their well-being so far as in him lies. A man who occupies that relationship is bound to do not less than this. But does a really affectionate husband and father perform those various offices because the law constrains him to do so, because it is his legal duty to do them? Does he perform acts of tenderness towards his wife and towards his child because the law demands them of him? Even so the man whom grace has taught finds a new law within his nature, the law of love, in surrendering himself to which he fulfils indeed the outward and objective law, not because he makes an effort to fulfil it, but because he is true to his new nature. So that I may say, to put the thing concisely, grace is not opposed to law, but is superior to law; and the man who lives in grace lives not under the law, because he is above the law. We imprison the wife beater. Why? Because he has fallen from the level of love altogether, and thus he has come down to the level of the law, and is within the reach of the law. Even so here the only persons who are not under law are the persons who are above law. Is the law written within our hearts, or is it only revealed from without? In our attempt to do what is right, do we simply do, or endeavour to do, what is right because we have recognised a certain external standard of duty, and are endeavouring to conform our conduct to it? Or do we do what is right because we are living in happy, holy intercourse with an indwelling God in whose love we find our law, and in surrendering ourselves to the influence of whose love, our highest enjoyment? Herein lies the test of the difference between legal experience and evangelical experience.
2. But here let me point out that grace, whilst she teaches us gently and tenderly, and in a very different way from law, has nevertheless sanctions of her own. They are the rewards and punishments which are congruous to the life of love, whereas the rewards and punishments of legal experience are such as are congruous to the life of legal servitude. We shall detect in a moment what these sanctions are if we reflect upon the nature of our relation to Him who has now become to us our law of life. It is the glory of the life of love that we have something to love. Our love is not merely an empty abstraction, nor is it merely a wasted energy that wanders in infinity; it is attracted towards a living Person. In the enjoyment of His society, which to the real Christian is not a matter of sentiment, but a matter of practical experience, the soul finds its highest privilege. Ah! grace disciplines as well as teaches. She does not spoil her children. She is not like some fond and indulgent mother, who fancies that she is benefiting her children when she is really injuring them more cruelly than in any other way she possibly could, by always giving them their own way. Grace does not teach us to be negligent, thoughtless, heedless, careless. Grace does not whisper in our ears, Now that you are saved once you are saved forever. Go on, and never mind what happens to you. But grace teaches us very delicately. I will guide thee, says grace, with my eye. Grace teaches us. She brings out the scales of the sanctuary, and into the one she puts our worldly idol--our love of popularity, our self-seeking, our slothfulness, our self-indulgence, our pride of heart, all those little and great things which we are so apt to set against the society of Jesus, or rather which we are so apt to allow to come in between us and the society of Jesus. Yes, grace has her sanctions. And I am afraid that there are only too many Christians who have often to feel the force of those dread sanctions. Their whole life has come to be a clouded, unsatisfactory, melancholy, woebegone life. How many Christians are there of whom it cannot be said that the joy of the Lord is their strength! And why? They are under the discipline of grace. Yes, God does not forsake them altogether. He has not left them to their own waywardness, but He has visited their offences with the rod and their sin with scourges. They cannot be happy in the world since they have tasted something better in Christ. Nor can they be happy in Christ while they cast longing looks towards the world. But grace has also her rewards, and I love to think of them. What are they? The eye, perhaps, wanders on towards the future, and we think of the glories that are to be revealed. In this present world, amidst all the trials to which the Christian may be exposed, the school of grace has its prizes. Grace has her prizes. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace. Grace teaches indeed, but she teaches by first of all correcting, nay, by regenerating, the secret springs of our actions. Unless these are set right, how can our actions be right? How can you love God unless the love of God has conquered your heart? (W. H. M. H. Aitken, M. A.)
The negative teaching of grace; the denial of ungodliness
Two things, it will be observed, exist in every physical organism--a mysterious inward energy or life power, and an inherent law of being, or condition of existence. Between these there can be no kind of contrariety or antagonism. We do not see life exerting its energies in defiance of the subjective laws of the organisms that it inhabits, nor do we see those laws fulfilled save by the inward energies of life. Even so the new creature in Christ Jesus has a certain law of being or condition of existence which properly belongs to him, and it is this that the Holy Spirit proceeds to fulfil, working out and forming in us a new nature in the image of Jesus Christ Himself. On the Cross our new life is purchased; but not the less on the Cross our old man is crucified. In the very act of extending mercy grace teaches her first great lesson. We are saved because we have died and risen again with Christ; but if so, we have already denied ungodliness and worldly lust. Let us observe, then, that this first lesson taught by grace is a negative lesson. Before teaching us what to do, she teaches us what we are to have done with; before introducing us into the positive blessedness of the new life, she first of all separates our connection with the old. This negation of the old must always come before the possession of the new; and unless our experience follow this order, we shall find that what we mistake for the new is not Gods new at all, but simply Satans travesty of Gods new creation. Let us not fail to observe that the apostle here speaks of our denying ungodliness. He does not speak of our combating ungodliness, or of our gradually progressing from a state of ungodliness into a state of godliness. If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature: old things are, passed away, and all things are become new. And all things are of God. It is a strong word, this word denial. Now it is upon this primary fact that grace bases her teaching. She may save, but does not undertake to train, the graceless. The only improvement of the old man that grace recognises is his legal execution; but this she teaches us has already taken place in the case of those who are in Christ Jesus. Let us ask ourselves, Are we in the habit of denying, or only of opposing? But before pursuing our consideration of the mode of denial, let us pause to contemplate the objects here spoken of as being denied, and we shall then be in a position to return to this point of denial and treat of it more fully. The first thing we are represented as denying is ungodliness. This sounds a very strong word, and I dare say at first most people would be disposed to affirm that they cannot be charged with this, whatever else they may be guilty of. They may not have been as good as they might, but ungodly they certainly have not been. We must endeavour to find out what ungodliness is. This is certainly important, because unless we understand what it is, it is impossible to deny it. Let me then begin by saying that ungodliness is the cardinal and root sin of the world. It was the first sin committed in the history of the world; and it was the parent of all other sins, and it is usually the first sin in the life of each individual, and equally the parent of all the sins that follow. In the happy early days of human history when man, created in Gods own image, was living in fellowship with his Creator, the characteristic of that pristine experience was doubtless godliness. But there came a change, a blight, a cloud, a darkness, a horror. What was it? The entrance of ungodliness. Here was mans first temptation; and here came mans first sin. It consisted in ungodliness or impiety, exhibited in a determination to put self in the place of God. So was it with the first sin, and so it has been with all its successors. Ungodliness, in one form or another, has been at the root of them all, and the deadly growth from this evil root has cast its baleful shadow over universal history. Now we are in a position to form some idea of what ungodliness really means.
1. Ungodliness consists, first of all, in the repudiation of God as the final cause of our being; that is to say, the end for which we live. A man is ungodly when he lives not for God. I do not care what outward complexion it wears. It may be the life of a zealous ritualist devoted to his party, or of an earnest churchman, or of a staunch protestant, or of a decided evangelical, or of a stout nonconformist; it makes no difference. Whatever complexion our outward life may wear, the man that is not consciously living for the glory of God is leading an ungodly life. He has fallen from the original position which belongs to man in relation to God.
2. The second characteristic of ungodliness will be exhibited in an indisposition on mans part to take God as the efficient cause of all that he is or wishes to be. Ungodliness begins when we decline to live for God; ungodliness is developed in an incapacity or an indisposition to live by God. The apostle was describing a godly experience when he said, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me. Man shall not live by bread alone. He needs that. As the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until that He have mercy upon us. Is that the kind of life of dependence that we are leading, drawing all our strength for action from Him, receiving all our guidance in action through Him? Happy they who live thus.
3. The next characteristic of the life of ungodliness is that as, in the first place, man does not live for God; and as, in the second place, he does not live by God, so, in the third place, he does not live with God. He knows not what it is to enjoy the Divine society. The man that knows what it is to be godly--to live godly in Christ Jesus--finds that he cannot do without God at home any more than he can do without God at church; he cannot do without God in the place of business any more than he can do without God in his closet. He needs God. God has become a kind of necessity to him. Jesus always near, always dear, is more than life to those of us who really know Him. The godly live with God.
4. Once more, the ungodly life will not only be a life which is not lived for God, and not only a life which is not lived with God; but it will also be a life which is not lived in God, and a life in which God lives not in us. There is something more blessed even than living in the company of Jesus; and that is to know by faith that we live in Him, and to realise in our inmost experience the still more wonderful fact that He lives in us. But how does grace provide for this complete separation between us and this root sin, which seems to have become hereditary in the family of man? how does the denial of ungodliness take place? We seek an answer by referring to two remarkable expressions which fell from our blessed Masters lips, shortly before His own passion. On that memorable occasion on which a supernatural voice responded to His prayer, Father, glorify Thy name, He proceeds to state, Now is the judgment of this world; now is the prince of this world cast out, Elsewhere He supplements these words by another similar statement. When the Holy Ghost is come, He says, He will convict the world concerning judgment, because the prince of this world is judged. Most mysterious though these utterances may seem they will be found to throw a good deal of light upon this particular subject. How is ungodliness to be denied? It is to be denied by recognising Gods judgment against it. The prince of this world is the very representative, as he is the author, of the worlds ungodliness. Satan succeeds in obtaining the worship of humanity in a thousand different forms. But, however we may serve him, he is judged. If we ask how and when, only one reply seems possible. Strange and paradoxical though it may seem, he is judged and condemned on Calvary, in the Person of Him who exhibited more than any other filial piety and true godliness. The ungodliness of the world, the revolt of human independence against Divine authority, is represented by the world victim upon the cross of Calvary, and meets in Christ with its proper doom. Against that world sin, against that ungodliness which is the root and source of every kind of iniquity, all the wrath of God has been already revealed. I discover it as I witness the dying agonies of Emmanuel. A godless world will not have God; by and by it shall not have Him. It turns its back upon God; God must needs turn His back upon it. My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Surely this is the true explanation of that bitter cry that was wrung from the breaking heart of Emmanuel. There we see the judgment of the world passed upon the representative of the worlds sin, and it is because that judgment has expended itself on Him that there is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Him. But, observe, it is only as our faith sees our ungodliness crucified there that we are in a position to enjoy this immunity from condemnation. We thus judge that He died for all, that we who live should not henceforth live to ourselves, but to Him who died for us and rose again. (W. H. M. H. Aitken, M. A.)
Grace and its lessons
The saving grace of God which has appeared to all men is described by the apostle as teaching us, or rather educating, training us in such a way as to secure the precious fruits that follow. It is a characteristic feature of the gospel that it does men good by putting them to school, by making them disciples, not simply for the purpose of communicating knowledge, but for that of forming and maturing character; for education in the highest, largest, and most emphatic sense. This pedagogical design of true religion is stamped upon all its institutions, and legible even in its phraseology. It is not by an unmeaning figure of speech that Christians are continually called disciples, that is, learners, pupils, and that the ministers of Christ are spoken of as teachers. The church is Christs school; he who enters it must enter as a learner, a disciple, with as real and sincere a deference to his great teacher as the little child feels, when it trembles for the first time in the presence of a master. Such submission is the more imperative in this case, because more truly than in any other case the process of instruction is moral as well as intellectual; it is not mere teaching, it is training, education; not the mere acquisition of knowledge, although that does lie at the foundation, but the cultivation of the powers and affections, as a preparation for the joys and services of heaven, as well as for the duties and the trials of this present state. The design and the legitimate effect of this disciplinary process are distinctly stated in the text, with reference both to the present and the future; both in a negative and positive form. The negative design of all this training is that we deny, repudiate, or abjure allegiance to the sinful dispositions and affections which are paramount in fallen nature, but the objects of which perish in the using, being limited to this world, so that they may be described as worldly lusts or desires, and may be said, so far as they predominate, to put man on a level with the brutes, whose highest good is present enjoyment of the lowest kind. By all who would be saved, these worldly, temporal, and short-lived lusts must be denied, renounced; and this is never done without a simultaneous or previous denial of ungodliness, of all indifference and enmity to God, which is indeed the source of the other, for when human hearts are right towards God, the paramount control of worldly lusts becomes impossible. This, however, is only the negative part of the effect produced by the spiritual discipline to which we are subjected in the school of Christ. It has a positive side also. It teaches us how we are to live. In reference to himself, the true disciple in this school is educated to be sober or sound minded; the original expression denotes sanity as opposed to madness, not in its extreme forms merely, but in all its more familiar and less violent gradations--all those numberless and nameless aberrations of the judgment which give character to human conduct, even in the absence of gross crime or absolute insanity. In opposition to this madness, the saving grace of God trains its subjects to be rational or sober, and thus in the highest sense and measure to be faithful to themselves. But at the same time it trains them to be faithful to others, to be just, in the wide sense of the term; including all that one can owe another--including, therefore, charity and mercy, no less than honesty and rigorous exactness in the discharge of legal obligations. Justice or rectitude, in this enlarged and noble sense, as opposed to every form of selfishness, is no less really a dictate and a consequence of spiritual training, than sanity or soundness of mind, as opposed to the chimeras and hallucinations of our state by nature. But soberness and justice, in the wide sense which has just been put upon the terms, have never yet been found divorced from godliness. As we have seen already, in considering the negative effects of training by Divine grace, it is mans relations to his God, that must adjust and determine his relations to his fellow creatures. The symmetrical position of the points in the circumference arises from their common relation to a common centre. Such are the objects and effects of Christian training, that is, of the method by which Christ trains His disciples, with respect to the present state or stage of mans existence, as distinguished from those future states or stages to which he cannot but look forward. For although the sobriety of mind produced by the discipline of Gods grace, causes men of a morbid, penurious disposition to lose sight of present duties and enjoyments in a vague anticipation of the future, it is so far from excluding expectation altogether, that our very salvation is prospective. We are saved in hope, and that hope is a blessed one; a hope of blessedness to be revealed and realised hereafter; a hope, that is, an object of hope, not yet fully enjoyed, but only looked for, and to look for which is one of the effects and marks of thorough training in the school of Christ. This hope is neither selfish nor indefinite. It does not terminate upon ourselves, our own deliverance from suffering, and our own reception into heaven; nor does it lose itself in vague anticipations of a nameless good to be experienced hereafter. The Christians hope is in the highest degree generous and well defined. It is generous, because it rises beyond personal interests, even the highest, even personal salvation, to the glory of the Saviour as the ultimate end to be desired and accomplished. It is well defined, because, instead of looking at this glory in the abstract, it gives it a concrete and personal embodiment; it is glory, not in the sense of the metaphysician or of the poet, but in that of the prophets, saints, and angels; it is manifested and apparent excellence, a glorious epiphany, analogous to that which marked Jehovahs presence in the Holy of holies, but unspeakably transcending it in permanence and brightness; the glorious appearance, not of any mere creature, even the most noble, but of God Himself, and yet not of God in His essence, which is inaccessible to sense, nor even in some special and distinct manifestation of the Father, or the Godhead, under an assumed or borrowed form of which the senses may take cognisance, but in the well known person of His Son, who is the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily; and therefore it is not the untempered brightness of the Divine majesty, and holiness, and justice, which to us is, and must be, a consuming fire; and yet it is the manifested glory of God, of the great God--great in all conceivable perfections, but, as the object of this hope, emphatically great in mercy--great in the power, not to punish and destroy, but to forgive and save, to save the sinner, to save us;--the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Let it not be overlooked, however, that the gospel, while it sets Christ before us as an object of believing expectation, sets Him also before us as an object of believing recollection, and thus brings into a delightful harmony the hope of favours yet to be experienced with gratitude for those experienced already. It is not simply as glorious person, human or Divine, that we look for His appearing; it is not simply as a Saviour or Deliverer from evil in the general; it is not simply as a potential Saviour or Deliverer, one who can save us if He will, and will if we should need it at some future time; not merely a Saviour whose ability and willingness to save are yet to be displayed and proved, but as an actual deliverer, as one who has already done His saving work, by giving Himself for us, the highest gift, it may in a certain sense be said, of which even He was capable, for us, His creatures, His rebellious subjects, His despisers, and His enemies! What, then, was His object? To redeem us, to buy us back from bondage, to save us by the payment of a ransom price, not only from the punishment of sin, but from its power, from its love, from its pollution, from its foul and hideous embrace, no less than from its sword and from its chains. It was to set us free from sin itself that Christ redeemed us; not from some sin, but from all sin; not that we should still remain, or afterwards fall back under the dominion of the very tyrant from whose power He redeemed us; not that we should merely exchange one hard master for another, or for many;--no, He gave Himself for us, He laid down His life for us, He died upon the cross for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity. Nor was this deliverance from sin as well as punishment intended merely for our advantage, but for His. He had an end to accomplish for Himself. He died to purify us, not merely that we might be pure and therefore happy, but also to purify a people for Himself; a peculium, a possession of His own, a Church, a body of which He should be the Head, a kingdom of which he should be the Sovereign. (J. A. Alexander, D. D.)
The lessons that grace teaches
Observe
1. Grace teacheth us holiness.
(1) It teaches by way of direction what duties we ought to perform, and so it makes use of the moral law as a rule of life. Obedience respects the command, as love doth the kindness and merit of the lawgiver.
(2) It teacheth by way of argument; it argueth and reasoneth from the love of God (Gal_2:20). The law and the prophets do not beseech, but only command and threaten; but the grace of God useth a different method in the New Testament.
(3) It teacheth by way of encouragement, as manifesting both help and reward. Uses.
1. Of information. It showeth us
(1) What is true holiness, such as cometh from the teachings of grace, obliging conscience to the duty of the law, inclining the heart to obey out of the sense of Gods love, and encouraging us by faith, drawing strength from Christ, and looking to God for an acceptance from Him.
(2) That grace and corruption draw several inferences and conclusions from the same premises. A bee gathereth honey from whence a spider sucketh poison.
(3) That it is the greatest wrong one can do to grace to slacken any part of our duty for graces sake (Jud_1:14).
2. Of trial. Whether we are made partakers of the grace of God in the gospel? Have we these teachings and arguings? Many can endure to hear that grace bringeth salvation, but that it teacheth us to deny ungodliness, there they flinch. Men would have us offer salvation and preach promises; but when we press duty, they cry out, This is a hard saying. The cities of refuge under the law were all cities of the Levites and schools of instruction, to note that whoever taketh sanctuary at grace meeteth instruction; it is no benefit to thee else. In the general, doth it persuade you to make a willing resignation of yourselves to God? (Rom_12:1.)
(1) Doth it press you to deny lusts? (Ezr_9:13-14.)
(2) Doth it press you to good? (1Jn_5:3.)
2. Grace teacheth us both to depart from evil and also to do good (Psa_34:15), Depart from evil, and do good; Isa_1:16-17, Cease to do evil, learn to do well. We must do both, because God hates evil and delights in good; we must hate what God hates, and love what God loves. That is true friendship--eadem velle et nolle--to will and hill the same thing. I durst not sin, God hates it; I durst not omit this duty, God loves it. Let it press us not to rest in abstaining from sin merely. Many are not vicious, but they are not sanctified; they have no feeling of the power of the new life.
3. We must first begin with renouncing evil; that is the first thing grace teacheth. Since the fall, the method is analytical, to unravel and undo that which hath been done in the soul. So it is said of Christ (1Jn_3:8). Dagon must down, ere the ark be set up. It cannot be otherwise, it must not be otherwise; there must be mortifying and subduing of sin by acts of humiliation and godly sorrow before there will be experience of grace.
4. It is not enough to renounce one sin, but we must renounce all; for when the apostle speaks of denying ungodliness, he intends all ungodliness. Compare this with 1Pe_2:1; Jam_1:21. I might give you several reasons. One sin is contrary to God as well as another. There is the same aversion from an eternal good in all things, though the manner of conversion to the creature be different. Again, one sin is contrary to the law of God as well as another; there is a contempt of the same authority in all sins. Gods command binds, and it is of force in lesser sins as well as greater; and therefore they that bear any respect to the law of God must hate all sin--I hate vain thoughts, but Thy law do I love (Psa_119:113). God hath given a law to the thoughts, to the sudden workings of the spirit, as well as to actions that are more deliberate; and therefore, if we love the law, we should hate every lesser contrariety to it, even a vain thought. And all sin proceedeth from the same corruption; therefore, if we would subdue and mortify it, we must renounce all sin.
Use
1. Direction what to do in the business of mortification. We must deny all ungodliness; not a hoof must be left in Egypt. Grace will not stand with any allowed sin; and in demolishing the old building, not one stone must be left upon another.
(1) In your purpose and resolution you must make Satan no allowance; he standeth hucking, as Pharaoh did with Moses and Aaron; first he would let them go three days into the wilderness; then he permitted them to take their little ones with them; but they would not go without their cattle, their flocks, and their herds also; they would not leave anything--no, not a hoof--behind them. So the devil would have a part left as a pledge, that in time the whole man may fall to his share (2Ki_5:18).
(2) We should often examine our hearts, lest there lurk some vice whereof we think ourselves free (Lam_3:40).
(3) Desire God to show you if there be anything left that is grievous to His Spirit (Job_34:32).
(4) When any sins break out, set upon the mortification of them. Do not neglect the least sins; they are of dangerous consequence; but renew thy peace with God, judging thyself for them, and mourning for them, avoiding temptations, cutting off the provision for the flesh (1Co_9:27). Use
2. Of trial. Do we renounce all sin? But you will say, Who can say I have made my heart clean, I am pure from sin? (Pro_20:9.) I answer
(1) It must be done in purpose and resolution. In conversion there is an entire surrender of the soul to God.
(2) There must be a serious inclination of the will against it. Carnal men wilt profess a purpose and faint resolution, but there is no principle of grace to bear it, no bent of the will against it--I hate every false way (Psa_119:104). A child of God doth not escape every false way; but he hateth it, the inclination of the new nature is against it, and therefore sin is not committed without resistance.
3. There must be endeavours against it. The case of obedience must be universal, though the success be not answerable--Then shall I not be ashamed when I have respect unto all Thy commandments (Psa_119:6); not when I have kept them, but when I have a respect to them all. We should never be able to look God in the face if our: acceptance lay upon keeping all His commandments; but we must respect them all, and endeavour to keep them all, and dispense with ourselves in no known failing, and still the work of denying all sin must be carried on by degrees. (T. Manton, D. D.)
The effects of the grace of God
1. What does this grace teach us to deny? and the answer is Ungodliness and worldly lusts.
(1) Ungodliness means impiety, blasphemy, and all forms of public infidelity; and most certainly all such evils are condemned in the passage: but surely the mere negative form is intended to include far more than these. Ungodly means not godly, and points to the condition of the soul in which God is simply shut out. A godly man is a man in whom God dwells--a man who thinks, speaks, and acts for God. Even so an ungodly man is a man who simply thinks, speaks, and acts without any reference to God--he seeks his own pleasure or interest, and guides his conduct according to the maxims of sagacity and worldly prudence. He thus becomes rich, or learned, or eloquent, or victorious in battle; but seeing God was neither consulted nor cared for in the whole of it, he remains an ungodly man.
(2) But what are these worldly lusts, these cosmical desires? All that relates merely to the kosmos, or great material visible world--all that the men of the world hunt so eagerly after, and long to possess. Your quiet retreat in the bosom of green fields and enchanting scenery delights and satisfies you, and that is worldly lust; you make your calculation in the counting house, and look forward with contentment to the success of your mercantile speculations, and that is worldly lust; you set your heart upon excelling your fellow men, be it in science, or in wisdom, or in warfare, and that too is worldly lust. Everything whose end is in this fallen state of things is worldly lust; everything, however honest and noble and praiseworthy among men, which has not God for its motive and its end, is worldly lust.
2. But how are we to live?
(1) Soberly. This refers to our own character, and implies many of the duties that we owe to ourselves. It denotes soundness of mind, as well as temperance regarding the indulgence of the appetites.
(2) Righteously. This means justly, and sums up the duties which we owe to our fellow men. Justice is one of the exact virtues, which can be easily recognised and definitely measured; and hence it is the great palladium of the nations, the very basis of social intercourse and mercantile prosperity. Justice is a noble, but not one of the highest virtues, and therefore it is well fitted to be the common medium or life of a community. An act of injustice is recognisable and punishable; not so avarice, ambition, or forbidden pleasure; and here, too, we see its fitness for moulding and strengthening the natural character.
(3) This is the idea of natural justice, and forms the staple commodity with publicists and jurists; but righteousness, as defined in the person of Christ and in the Scriptures, is a much higher and nobler principle. Justice is based upon rights; and the Christian, as such, has none, save to love all men, and be put to death for this love, as his Master was. Right says, Smite the smiter till he gets his due; but the gospel says, Turn the other cheek.
(4) Lastly, we should live godly--viz., with God, in God, and for God. This is the glorious end, so far as this world is concerned, which the saving grace of God is intended and calculated to accomplish in the believing Church of Christ. Like their Divine Master, they are not of the world, though in it; and though in the midst of defilement, they remain undefiled. This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
3. But what does this grace teach us to look for? I answer, in the first place, the apostle directs the believers eye here, as elsewhere, to the glorious Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, as the centre and home of the longing heart.
(1) What is our position? It is that of waiting for, and looking for, the coming of the Lord--not waiting upon the Lord merely, which is also a duty, but waiting for the Lord from heaven, who shall change our vile bodies, and make them like unto His glorious body. He is the centre in which the ages, ceremonies, and dispensations all meet and have their stability--the unity which harmonises time and eternity, creation and Creator--the living fountain which sends forth the benediction of God over the ages, dispensations, and nations in a thousand streams. As the Jews hoped and waited, so we hope and wait. Our position is the same, and the Person whom we wait for is the same; they waited for His coming in the flesh, and we for His coming in glory.
(2) Is this hope an important doctrine of the New Testament? I answer, very important; for our text calls it the blessed hope, so that it is full of real blessing to the believer. What can be more blessed to the soul than the person of the adorable Redeemer, whom even unseen we love so ardently? All our hopes are about to be realised in His glorious appearing, when we shall be with Him and like Him forever. (W. Graham, D. D.)
The practical effects of the grace of God
I. The foundation of all true religion. Not our own reason or wisdom, which cannot give us light and knowledge; not our own righteousness, which can never merit salvation or recommend us to God; not our own strength or ability, which is insufficient to help us to do or suffer the will of God, to be pious or virtuous (Joh_15:4-5; 2Co_3:5); but the grace of God in these different senses--viz., Divine Light from the Word and Spirit of God; this instructs (παιδευουσα), teaching us, as a master his pupils, as we are able to receive it, the free favour and unmerited love of God; this, by justifying and adopting, encourages and inclines, adds correction and discipline to instruction, and gives us the will to be the Lords: the influence of the Spirit; this gives resolution, fortitude, and power. We may infer from this that they who are not acquainted with, nor possessed of, the grace of God, can have no true religion; or their religion is a superstructure without a foundation; that is, it is only imaginary, illusive, unreal.
II. The superstructure to be raised on this foundation. Religion itself is the superstructure that must be raised on this foundation, the stream that must flow from this fountain. It consists of two parts.
1. It is negative; denying ungodliness and worldly lusts. In this way true religion first appears, and manifests its reality: it makes us cease to do evil before we can learn to do well; it strips us of the old man before it clothes us with the new. Without this there can be no religion; there is not even repentance if there be not its fruits (Mat_3:8; Luk_3:8).
2. But it has a positive part, which is to live soberly, righteously, and godly. Man is here considered as an individual on earth, as a member of society connected with his fellow creatures, and as a creature--a redeemed creature--a subject and servant and child of his Creator, Preserver, King, and Lord.
III. The happiness that awaits all that do this, and the blessed prospect opened before them. Looking for that blessed hope, etc. Hope here is put for the object of hope, a state of future and eternal blessedness, perfection, and felicity, both in soul and body. The grace of God begets us again to a well-grounded and lively hope of it; the gospel enlightens us as to this hope, and reveals it; the free, unmerited mercy and love of God justifies, adopts, and entitles us to it; the Spirit of Grace renews and fits us for it. In the way of godliness, righteousness, and sobriety, we wait for it, and are brought to it. The glorious appearing of the great God, or, of our great God and Saviour, shall raise our bodies, and after the process of the final judgment, shall put us in the possession of it. (J. Benson.)
The purpose of the discipline of grace
I. The fair picture of what our lives should be.
1. Because we are to a large extent made up of blind desires which take no account of anything except their appropriate food, the commandment comes from the deepest recesses of each nature, as well as from the great throne in the heavens--Live soberly. The engines will work on all the same, though the bows of the ship be turned to the rocks, and driving straight on the reef. It is the engineers business to start them and keep them going; it is their business to turn the screw; it is somebody elses business to look after the navigation. We have our humours under lock and key, in order that we may control them. And if we do not, we shall go all to rack and ruin. So live soberly says Paul.
2. The next requirement is righteously. We stand in certain relations to a whole universe of things and of people, and there does rise before every man, however it may be accounted for, or explained away, or tampered with, or neglected, a standard of right and wrong. And what Paul here means by live righteously is, Do as you know you ought to do, and, in shaping your character, have reference not merely to its constitution, but to its relations to all this universe of outside facts. So far as the word may include our duty to others, I may just remind you that righteousness in reference to our fellows demands mercy. The common antithesis which is drawn between a just man, who will give everybody what they deserve, and not one scrap more nor less if he can help it, and a kindly man is erroneous, because every man has a claim upon every other man for lenient judgment and undeserved help. He may not deserve it, being such a man as he is; but he has a right to it, being a man at all.
3. The last of the phases under which the perfect life is represented here takes us up at once into another region. If there were nobody but myself in the world, it must be my duty to live controlling myself, since I stand in relations manifold to creatures manifold, and to the whole order of things, it is my duty to conform to the standard, and to do what is right. And just as plainly as the obligations to sobriety and righteousness press on every man, so plainly is godliness necessary to his perfection. For I am not only bound by ties which knit me to my fellows, or to this visible order, but the closest of all bonds, the most real of all relations, is that which binds us each to God. And if mans chief end be to glorify God, and then, and thus, to enjoy Him forever, then that end, in its very nature, must be all-pervasive, and diffuse its sweetness into the other two. For you cannot sliver up the unity of a life into little sections and say, this deed has to be done soberly, and that one righteously, and this one godly; but godliness must cover the whole life, and be the power of self-control and of righteousness. All in all or not at all. Godliness must be uniform and universal.
II. Notice what a hard task the man has who will live so. The apostle, very remarkably, puts first, in my text, a negative clause. The things that he says we are to deny are the exact opposites of the characteristics that he says we are to aim after. Now, says Paul, there is no good to be done in the matter of acquiring these positive graces, without which a life is contemptible and poor unless, side by side with the continual effort at the acquisition of the one, there be the continual and resolute effort at the excision and casting out of the other. Why? Because they are in possession. A man cannot be godly unless he casts out the ungodliness that cleaves to his nature; nor can he rule himself and seek after righteousness unless he ejects the desires that are in possession of his heart. You have to get rid of the bad tenant if you would bring in the good one. You have to turn the current, which is running in the wrong direction. And so it comes to be a very hard, painful thing for a man to acquire these graces of which my text speaks. If it were only advancing in practice, or knowledge, or sentiment, or feeling, that would not be so difficult to do; but you have to reverse the action of the machine; and that is hard. Can it be done? Who is to keep the keepers? It is difficult for the same self to be sacrifice and priest. It is a hard matter for a man to crucify himself, and we may well say, if there can be no progress in goodness without this violent and thorough mutilation and massacre of the evil that is in us, alas! for us all.
III. What God gives us to make such life possible. Christ and His love; Christ and His life; Christ and His death; Christ and His spirit; in these are new hopes, motives, powers, which avail to do the thing which no man can do. An infants fingers cannot reverse the motion of some great engine. But the hand that made it can touch some little tap or lever, and the mighty masses of polished iron begin to move the other way. Jesus, who comes to us to mould our hearts into hitherto unfelt love, by reason of His own great love, and who gives to us His own Spirit to be the life of our lives, gives us by these gifts new motives, new powers, new tastes, new affections. He puts the reins into our hands, and enables us to control and master our unruly tempers and inclinations. If you want to clear out a tube of any sort, the way to do it is to insert some solid substance, and push, and that drives out the clogging matter. Christs love coming into the heart expels the evil, just as the sap rising in the trees pushes off the old leaves that have hung there withered all the winter. As Luther used to say, You cannot clean out the stable with barrows and shovels. Turn the Elbe into it. Let that great flood of life pour into our hearts, and it will not be hard to live soberly. He comes to help us to live righteously. He gives us His own life to dwell in our hearts, in no mere metaphor, but in simple fact. And they that trust in Jesus Christ are righteous by no mere fiction of a righteousness reckoned, but by the blessed reality of a righteousness imparted. He comes to make it possible for us to live godly. For He, and He alone, has the secret of drawing hearts to God; because He, and He alone, has opened the secret of Gods heart to us. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
And worldly lusts
The denial of worldly lust
All things in outward nature have their element, and our moral nature must have its element, in which to live, and move, and have its being. Beasts live on earth, birds fly in air, fishes swim in water; but each of these animal organisms requires its own element, and no amount of education will make a fish enjoy fresh air. Even so the ungodly man has this world for his element, even as the true believer has God for his element. The ungodly is of the earth earthy; he receives the worlds spirit; he enters into its mind; he forms his character in accordance with its genius; he submits to its dictates; he measures everything by its standard. He lives in the world, and is of the world, just as the true believer lives in God, and is of God. He is one with the world, and the world with him. He is represented by the world; for he is in the world, just as the Christian is in Christ, and the world lives in him, just as Christ lives in the heart of His own people, forming its own nature within him, and conforming him to its character. Yes, the child of the world will always be like the world that he makes his god. You remember what the Psalmist says about the gods of the heathen. Their idols are silver and gold, the works of mens hands. Then he goes on to add the startling assertion, They who make them are like unto them; so are all they that put their trust in them. And they that make them are like unto them--not only do we become the slaves of that which we have created, but we also become assimilated to the creation of our own perversity. I mean to say that those who live in the world and for the world become worldly; and if that sounds but a little thing to some ears, let me say that, if my observation have not failed me, worldly means hollow-hearted, empty-headed, frivolous, selfish, sordid, incapable of realising the true dignity of our own nature, insensible to higher motives, heedless of grave responsibilities, unreal, conventional, hypocritical, false, deceiving and deceived. Shall I give an example of what I mean? There are scores of mothers in our land who are at this moment quite prepared to sell their daughters to the highest bidder. The question with them is not What is the moral character?--far less What is the religious character of the man that shall marry my daughter?--but How many thousands a year has he? What will be his position in society? I only mention that as one of the many instances that could be given of the hollowness and heartlessness of the worldly life; because we see it here conquering and paralysing one of the very strongest and purest instincts of nature--a mothers love. So the world goes on, getting hollower and hollower. The very conversation of the worldling is suggestive of the havoc which the spirit and genius of worldliness have made in the mans true character. What is worldly conversation for the most part but an exhibition of littleness and frivolity? It never seems to get below the surface. Men of the world know nothing of the fellowship of heart with heart. Just think how impossible it would be for two such persons to discuss with each other their inner life and heart experiences. Oh, empty, hollow, world, is this mans best substitute for God! Now the apostle affirms that we have denied worldly lust as well as ungodliness. We have renounced and repudiated it forever. But here rises the question, How have the world and worldly lust been thus denied? or how are we to deny it? and how are we to be freed from it? Various answers to this inquiry meet us from different quarters. Turn your back upon the world, says the ascetic. Wander into the depths of the desert. Shut yourself up in an eremites cave, or hide yourself within a monastic enclosure. But even so, how shall I be sure that I may not carry a little world of my own along with me? How shall we get rid of the worlds bondage? or how shall we deny this worldly lust, and rise above it? Despise it, says the cynic. Be indifferent to all considerations of pain and pleasure. Never mind what the world thinks of you. Rejoice in being peculiar. May not our Diogenes be creating for himself a greater conqueror, or a greater tyrant, in his own inflated self-consciousness, than ever was an Alexander or a Xerxes? No; we want a better answer than this. Again I ask, How am I to deny worldly lust? It is all round me. God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world hath been crucified to me, and I unto the world. That is the answer. Grace had taught St. Paul that lesson. He did not learn it on Sinai, but at Calvary. There was a time when thou didst think well of the world, wast elated by her blandishments, wast alarmed at the thought of her frown. Thou didst value her good opinion, and didst shrink above everything else from forfeiting it; thou wast attracted by her glitter, and blinded by her display. But now, behold the world is revealed as a traitress and a usurper, a rebel against Infinite Benevolence, and a deceiver of all her deluded votaries; for in her judgment theirs is revealed. Child of God, the world is crucified to thee. There she hangs, represented in the great Victim of her malice under the ban of Gods wrath, blighted with a curse, blasted by the dread thunderbolt from the hand of Omnipotent Justice. Thou seest her now exposed to shame and everlasting contempt. Nor canst thou make a cunning compromise between thy God and her whom thou seest crucified yonder; for there can be no compromise between a condemned culprit and his judge, No: If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him; for the friendship of the world is enmity towards God. And even that is not all, Grace goes on to say. By that same Cross thou, too, art crucified unto the world. To the world He is a despised, rejected outcast, crucified outside the camp; and as He is, so art thou in this present world. Surely thou canst not refuse to bear His reproach, to whom thou owest thy all of dignity and honour. But even this is not all. Thou art crucified unto the world; for thou art dead, and thy life is hid with Christ in God. Thy old worldly life has been forfeited; but through death and resurrection thou hast been born again as a citizen of the New Jerusalem. Thou art raised up into the heavenly places in Christ Jesus; and now thou art not of the world, as He is not of the world. Art thou content to accept the privileges of the Atonement? Thou rejoicest to accept them. Then understand that one of the privileges of the Atonement is, that thou shouldst be separated, by the very terms of the Atonement, from thy old relationship to a God-resisting world--a world which has presented itself to the hearts of its children as a substitute for the Being to whom it owed its origin. Can we conceive it possible for a true believer to address his Saviour thus: O Lord, I desire to escape hell, and I understand that Thy Atonement has been made in order that I may escape it; but I understand also that Thy Atonement had in view several other objects, about which I have no concern. I gather that it was also designed to save me from sin; but about that I am indifferent, so long as I escape sins consequences. I will accept the immunity from condemnation. I will be very glad to know that the doors of hell are shut in my face, and that the doors of heaven are opened. But further than this I have no desire; indeed, were I to accept more, the consequences to myself might not be pleasant. It is, perhaps, impossible to conceive of such language in the lips of any true child of God; yet I fear that such words describe only too accurately the attitude assumed by too many who think themselves Christians indeed. They seek to retain sufficient religion to enable them to entertain the hope of heaven; but they cover this over so skilfully with a cloak of worldly conformity, that they are hardly suspected by their acquaintance and friends of possessing any religion at all. Such Christians attempt to lead a double life in religious society; they can talk as well as any one on religious subjects, and may pass with strangers for earnest and decided Christians; but amongst the citizens of the world they assume quite a different manner, and can be as flippant and frivolous and insincere as any with whom they associate. Yes; it must be one thing or the other--the world or God; we cannot choose both. If we decide to choose the world and seek a substitute for God, then let us get the very best substitute we possibly can find. Do you select money for your substitute? If it be pleasure you select, then live for pleasure. Our choice lies between the two; but ere we decide for the world, let us remember the solemn sentence uttered by inspired lips, but amply confirmed by daily observation, The world passeth away, and the lust thereof. If we make choice of it, we cannot keep it; if we decline to deny it, it will soon deny us. (W. H. M. H. Aitken.)
Live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world
Present day Christian life
Is this a good time for a sober, righteous, and godly life? Business standards, it is said, are relaxing; home habits, loose; self-seeking, the common rule; plain living and high thinking, not the custom of the time. in such a slate of mind two things seem possible. One is to yield to the pressure of the age. Accepting its inconsistency with the Christian life, one may adapt himself to standards which his conscience never can approve. That is the common worldliness of the present age, surrendering character to the social pressure of the time. The other thing to do is to run away from the age. That is what thousands of the choicest souls have done throughout Christian history. They have thought it impossible to live a sober life in the full current of their own time; and so they have fled from its influence, hiding themselves in monasteries and peopling the desert with their caves. No one can survey the story of these ascetics and hermits without a glow of admiration. It is a great thing that the enticements of each age which have overpowered so many souls have been powerless over a few. But none the less this whole story is not the story of a battle, but of a flight. And it was a fruitless flight. Fleeing from the world, they fled from all the chance they had to make it better. If, then, the sober, righteous, and godly man is not to yield himself to the present age, nor yet to flee from it, what is he to do? Why, he is to use it--to take it just as it is, as the God-given material out of which the Christian character fit for the present time is to be wrought. The saints of the past have been, for the most part, those who have fled from the world; but the Christian saint of today is the person who can use the world. Such a person may be all unconscious that he is doing anything heroic. He is simply the man in the business world who, amid looseness and dishonour, keeps himself true and clean; simply the woman who, amid luxury and affectation, keeps her simplicity and sympathy; simply the youth who, without the least retreat from the influences which beset him in a place like this, makes them contribute to his growth of character. That is a harder thing than to be a hermit, and quite as noble as to be a saint. It is the sober, righteous, and godly life lived in the midst of this present age. The man who hides himself behind the spirit of the age, and makes it the apology of his own folly or sin, is simply deceived. He is like many a man in that western country, who has thought himself standing in a hopeless desert when he really stood in what might be a garden of the world. He simply abandons it to barrenness, instead of turning upon it the stream of service which is at his command, and for which the desert longs. The man, who throws a sober and a godly life into the main movement of the present age, is but contributing the fertilising power to a receptive and responsive world; and the hills and valleys about him will shout for joy at their redemption by that pure and abundant stream. (F. G. Peabody, D. D.)
Everyday life
I. The ingredients of everyday life.
1. Conversation is a large element of everyday life. The power of speech is one of the grand distinctions of man and of his life upon the earth. It is thus he clothes invisible thought with form, and confers upon the subtle intangible reality an immortality of earthly recognition. Our daily conversation determines all the tone of our mind; it stamps and it stereotypes our temper. It reveals whether charity and virtue, manly or womanly grace, dignify our character; or whether we are frivolous, vain, heartless, and worldly.
2. Wish is an equally extended department of everyday life. It is in our nature to be conscious of desires after a great many things, and these desires are not in themselves sinful; they are even necessary to the maintenance of life, to the onward progress of mankind, to the subduing and replenishing of the earth which God has lent to us, and in which He has given us a life interest. These desires of all kinds are the spring of nearly all that we do in this life. Let us bring them up now, and see what is the revelation they will give us of ourselves. Perhaps we shall find a legion of devils, which must be cast out; a storm of passions, which must be hushed; a brood of revenges, vexations, bad resolves, unbrotherly triumphs, impure hankerings, which must be trampled out of us. Perhaps they are humble, virtuous, charitable, reasonable, modest, chaste, holy desires, fit for a brother or sister of Jesus. A moments thought will prove that these desires of ours, these genuine intentions, these self-born, or heaven-inspired, wishes, are our very self; and if we are to be religious men, religion must have sway over these.
3. Work is another main element in life. The business of life, the daily toil and drudgery of a man, these help to constitute his everyday life. It must be possible to bring all this under the empire of religion--to supply a set of motives that can dignify the commonest occupation, consecrate the humblest toil, and make daily drudgery divine--motives which can explode and deflagrate those wretched purposes and evil desires that have so often issued in violated laws and broken hearts; and motives which will hallow and purify all our service and every talent.
4. But there is another large department of everyday life to which it is necessary to refer--I mean Recreation. That which is recreation to one man would be a complete penance to another; that which some of you think a most enjoyable relaxation is to others an intolerable weariness. Some mode of spending the leisure hour is necessary to every man; and perhaps nothing more surely indicates his temper and spirit than the method in which he finds it most agreeable to while away his spare time and gather strength for further duty. As religion penetrates everyday life, the whole tone of recreation rises in character, until it becomes harmless, pleasant, virtuous, holy, religious, and useful. To promote this end is one great enterprise of the Church.
II. The requirements of the gospel as to everyday life.
1. Sobriety means the chastisement of all our passions, the resolute endeavour to gain and keep the control of all our desires, the determination to repress angry feelings as well as impure fancies, to subdue inordinate affection quite as much as depraved taste. Sobriety means resistance to every form of temptation. It has its realm in work quite as much as in recreation--in recreation quite as much as in work.
2. Righteousness is clearly something more than a refusal to commit an act of cruelty or dishonesty. Righteous living includes this; but it means very much more than this. We must respect every just claim upon us, not merely upon our money, but upon our affection, our reverence, and our good offices--and we must recognise and yield the right to every man who has one, to our good words, to our time, to our service, to our best efforts--or we are not acting justly.
3. The life here spoken of is to be a life of godliness; we must date and draw our motives from the highest source. The government of all our passions, the recognition of every just claim upon us, must spring from no mere vague notion that it is right to do this, but from the discovery of the ground of our nature, our relation to the living God, our obligation to the suffering Saviour, and our responsibility to the Spirit of grace. (H. R. Reynolds, D. D.)
The true value of morality
This passage is an admirable example of the manner of the apostle in mingling exhortation to present duties with the recognition and enforcement of that Divine power from which true obedience springs. In other words, we find blended here morality and spirituality. Both the one and the other are made to cohere, and to be in consistency with each other; and both of them spring from considerations of manhood in ourselves, and of gratitude and allegiance to God. It is difficult to give--nor is it necessary that we should give--a definition of morality. It is a phrase in every mans mouth. It does not mean the same with all, however. Men take their ideas of morality, not only from the communities in which they live, but from the circles in which they associate in any one community; and what would be considered as morality in a certain sort of neighbourhood in this city, would not be considered as continental morality. Morality in a neighbourhood may not be morality in a family of refinement and culture. There is something higher than morality in a cultured household. But yet men are regarded as moral who act in accordance with the laws of the land and with the customs of the community, and who avoid any outbreaking sins which shock the average conscience. It may be said, in the first place, that morality possesses the benefit of the most important negatives. A truly moral man, in the judgment of all, should be a man who does not get drunk, and does not steal, and does not commit burglary, and does not bear false witness. In other words, he is one who is rid of outbreaking vices and outrageous crimes. Well, that is creditable. You ought not to be guilty of such things. And if you have had a strong bias in your nature in any of these directions, and have arrested it, and that under circumstances where influences from without threatened to carry you away, it is no small thing. It is a great thing that you have avoided those pitfalls in which so many have been destroyed. Still, that is not the sum of all excellence. It is not enough for you to congratulate yourself upon, as I think we shall see. I not only recognise the import and excellence of morality in such sterling virtues as these, but I exhort men to them; and I say: If you cannot go any further, go as far as that. It is a great deal better to go so far than not to reach that point. It may be only a beginning, but it is a beginning. Secondly: Morality includes those simple virtues which are indispensable to a wholesome life in society. A man can scarcely be called moral who is destitute of worldly honour. Honour is a sort of secular and partial conscience. It is functional; but within its limits it serves a most important end, and keeps alive those fragmentary elements of a higher life, of a higher moral sense, to which all men should be brought. Truth is one of those elements which is regarded as indispensable to morality--that is to say, such ordinary truth as passes current in life. Therefore morality includes honour, and truth, and fidelity, as well as honesty and fairness. And men say, I am a moral man, meaning by that that they are possessed of these social and business-like virtues. The experiences of civil life and commercial life have found out many things which are very necessary for the easy conduct of affairs. For the regulation of society, for the living together of great masses of men, various things are inculcated, as essential to morality. Public sentiment demands certain things which are necessary to morality. The law prescribes certain things which are indespensable to morality. The customs prescribe certain negatives which enter into the popular idea of morality. And all of these are designed to take away the friction from the machinery of life, and to raise men above animal violence and above deceit, and put them upon a certain plane of moral sentiment. All that I complain of in reference to them is, that they are so low, that they are such uneducated and undeveloped forms of excellence, that they tend to dampen mens ambition, and to render them satisfied with the germs of things, instead of leading them to aspire after higher excellences of which these are but the basilar leaves. For--first; Morality in this grand sense founded upon external convenience, and not upon the requirements of things relating to mans whole nature. So it is a mere fragmentary thing; and it is a fragmentary thing in its lowest stages of development. Secondly: It restrains the outplay of evil; but it does not attempt to purify and to cure the sources of evil. Thirdly: It permits heinous faults which impoverish character, and waste the heart of man. Thus, a man may be a moral man who is peevish, morose, fretful. Fourthly: Morality aims to build up a man outwardly in his condition, but not inwardly in his character. It does not seek to develop one single spiritual grace. Lastly: It leaves out, wholly, the world to come, and all the obligations which we owe to God, and all the relations which are established between the soul and the Saviour Jesus Christ. It leaves out religion. That is to say, it leaves out the highest forms of aspiration and of duty, and all that which faith brings within the circuit of our knowledge and makes imperative. Here, then, are the deficiencies of morality. I have said that in conduct, in its lowest form, it has its value; but I think you will now perceive that it cannot be a substitute for religion. And yet, men who have only morality, say, What lack I yet? Now, if an Indian, with a fragmentary dress, should present himself as a full-dressed man before you, would you deride the idea that he was properly clad? Would you have him throw away the little he had before he got more? Complete dress is what one wants; but is nothing short of that of any value? I do not say to the young, These moralities are of no value to you. They are of great value to you. Truth speaking, fidelity, industry, cleanliness, punctuality, frugality, enterprise--these are real excellencies. Have these at least. Have these anyhow. But will you be content with these? Is there not something in every human soul which has the touch of inspiration in it, and which leads it to aspire to something more than these qualities, which belong to the undeveloped mass of mankind? Morality is not in any sense, then, a substitute for spiritual religion, any more than industry and frugality are substitutes for patriotism. Every man ought to be frugal and industrious; but many are frugal and industrious who have no patriotism. Well, then, you will say, what about those qualities when a man dies? A man has been industrious, and frugal, and honest, and moderately truth speaking all his life long; and when he dies, and goes to judgment, what is to be done with these qualities which you say are good? Well, they are of benefit to you now; they are of benefit to you in a thousand ways in this world; but they do not constitute that character which is to fit you for the world to come. They do not go to make the golden key which unlocks those mysteries of love which you have need of. These minor qualities are not a substitute for it. You go forth an ungrown spirit; you go forth with lower leaves without the bloom and the fruit; and the lower is no substitute for the higher. Moreover, out of every one of these lower states, if we did but know it, may be developed, by the Divine grace, that which shall bring forth the true spiritual life. If you know enough to take one step, take a second. If you know enough to recognise law and obligation, and that low sense of character which is required by society, you have that foundation on which moral government itself rests, and you know enough to go on from step to step, and from strength to strength, and develop out of your lower knowledges higher attainments. Spirituality is only the normal and legitimate development of men in their higher forms, Divinely inspired, Divinely led, and Divinely blessed. It is God that works in those who work out their own salvation. It is the Divine cooperation and guiding influence that works upon your mind; and out of this joint working come all the grace, all the hope, all the faith, all the sweet fruition of love, the sense of immortality, and the longing for it, which we experience. And whatever is just, and true, and pure, and sweet, and of good report, upon earth, and in the heavenly circle--all this comes, to be sure, by the grace of God; but it comes by the grace of God through the development of your own faculties, and through your own striving. (H. W. Beecher.)
Good works
This passage has been described as a concise epitome of the Christian system in its practical bearing on human experience and conduct. St. Pauls great theme was faith, but no one acquainted with his writings can charge him with indifference respecting works.
I. The workers. A careful study of the passage will show that these are
1. Redeemed ones, Might redeem us (Tit_2:14). The bond slaves of Satan cannot work for God. David said, O Lord, truly I am Thy servant; Thou hast loosed my bonds.
2. Saved ones, Bringeth salvation (Tit_2:11). The believer does not work for salvation, but from it. Like the newborn child, he does not move to get life, but because he has it.
3. Instructed ones, Teaching us (Tit_2:12). The Christian needs to be taught what to do (Act_9:6), and how to do it, His way, (Psa_25:9).
4. Hopeful ones, Looking for that blessed hope (Tit_2:13). The hope of the Lords coming is a great stimulus to holiness and activity (Heb_10:25).
II. The workshop. This present world (Tit_2:12). The believers first sphere of action is in the world. This is
1. A good sphere for the believer. It must be, for our Lord prayed not that His people should be taken out of the world (Joh_17:15). Conflict with evil is bracing (1Jn_2:14).
2. A sphere of much danger. This present world is an evil world, This present evil world (Gal_1:4). Demas was damaged by it (2Ti_4:10), and our Lord, remembering the presence of the evil, prayed that His disciples might be kept from it (Joh_17:15). A sphere of usefulness. Here Christ achieved His gracious and beneficent purposes, He was in the world (Joh_1:10). Here is the material which may be shaped into crowns to adorn the Redeemers brow. We may say, as Dr. Macleod said to Dr. Guthrie, in reference to the Cowgate in Edinburgh, A fine field of labour, sir.
III. The works. What have Gods workmen to do? Many things. Note
1. The rejection of bad models, Denying (Tit_2:12). A bad model will result in bad work. See this in the case of Nadab, Way of his father (1Ki_15:26). To deny (ἀρνέομαι) is to disown. The believer disowns ungodliness, that which is not in the likeness of God or after the mind of God. (See 2Pe_2:5-6.) Worldly lusts are those things which are the staple of the desires of worldly men (Joh_8:44; 1Jn_2:16).
2. The maintenance of a healthy moral sense, Live soberly. Sobriety, says Mr. Aitken, according to the Greek moralist, Aristotle, is that which preserves or protects and maintains in due activity our moral sense. Temptation often produces moral intoxication. It destroys the balance of mind, and reason is in a measure dethroned. Against this evil we must be constantly watching, or there will be discord and disorder in our lives.
3. The production of what is right, Righteously (Tit_2:12). The believer must do right in his relation to his family, his friends, society, and the whole world.
4. The imitation of the best model, Godly (Tit_2:12). The believer is to be God-like. He must aim at no lower standard. (Mat_5:48; 1Pe_2:21.)
IV. The workmanship. Zealous of good works (Tit_2:14). The best work can only be accomplished by the enthusiastic worker. This is true of works of art. Think of the enthusiasm of Michael Angelo, of Rubens, of Mozart, of Palissy. The best work is work for God, and for this the highest enthusiasm is required. What a stimulus to zeal we have in the example of our Lord, Who gave Himself (Tit_2:14). Well might Brainerd say, Oh that I were a flaming fire in the service of my God! (H. Thorpe.)
The Christians business
I. The Christians business, while an inhabitant of this present world.
1. What he must renounce.
(1) Ungodliness.
(2) Worldly lusts.
2. What he must cultivate.
(1) With regard to his personal character he is to live soberly. While in the world, he is not of the world. His heart is weaned from its honours, riches, and pleasures. He uses this world without abusing it.
(2) We now pass on to view the Christian in his social capacity. He is to live righteously as well as soberly. This term includes all his relative obligations.
(a) With regard to the relation in which he stands to his fellow creatures in general, he looks upon himself as a member of one great family, all of whom have suffered a common shipwreck. He sees himself rescued from the wreck by an act of infinite grace, and, therefore, he cannot exult over the rest of the crew as though by his own right hand, or by his own arm he had gotten himself the victory. Tender compassion towards the whole race fills his breast. He longs to tell the whole world of the grace of God which bringeth salvation; and he uses every means in his power to diffuse the knowledge of this unsearchable grace.
(b) In his relation also to the Church of Christ the Christian would live righteously. He must here, also, be influenced by the law of love. Consider the many ties which bind Christians to each other. Having a common Father, redeemed by the same precious blood, pervaded by the same Spirit, possessing one hope of their calling--what more can they need to cement the bond that unites them?
(3) In his religious duties he is to cultivate godliness.
(a) He seeks to please God.
(b) He loves to hold communion with God.
(c) He delights to think of God.
(d) He glorifies God in his body and in his spirit.
II. The Christians hope in prosecuting his business. What is it that urges on the worldling to labour and toil? What is it that keeps him in one unbroken course of regular and well sustained exertion? Or, again, what is it that excites the shipwrecked mariner to stem the foaming surge? What is it that keeps him clinging with invincible firmness to the friendly plank? Is it not hope? Now if the expectation of worldly gain, and of a temporal salvation can yield such support, oh! say, what should be the sustaining power of your hope--the hope of your Saviours second coming. Whether we consider the blessedness of your hope, a complete salvation; or whether we consider the time of its consummation, the glorious appearing of the Redeemer; or, whether, again, we look to the character of your expected Saviour--in whatever point of view we behold your blessed object of hope--we cannot but feel how mighty should be its influence in stirring you up to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. (H. Cadell, M. A.)
Right living
I. Soberly.
1. We must have control over all the base passions of our nature. The monarch of himself is king of men.
2. There is to be a proper restraint over the more refined, the aesthetic elements of our nature. If you can build a fine house and pay for it with your own money--not your neighbours, nor Gods--build it, adorn it with statuary, beautify it with paintings: but make art the handmaid of religion. See to it that the more you spend on yourself, the more you give to God.
3. There must also be a wise control over our professional pursuits. Remember, this world is not all. Let eternal verities dwarf earthly vanities.
II. Righteously, or rather justly--the word points to moral rectitude.
1. We are not needlessly to injure our neighbour. His property, person, and good name are sacred.
2. We are to render to every one his due. We must be just in all our dealings.
3. We are to strive to lead all to salvation through Christ. Our duty to man is not negative. Duty is duE-ty. The Christian is to be Christlike: thus he will draw men to God.
III. Godly. Regard to God runs through all our other duties; personal and relative duties must be done with an eye to His glory. But some duties refer at once to Him.
1. Repentance towards God--a heart broken for and from sin.
2. Faith in Jesus Christ. You cannot please God if you refuse to trust Him.
3. Obedience. This includes all duties. (R. S. MacArthur, D. D.)
The sober life
Hitherto we have been occupied in considering the negative teaching of Grace, by which her pupils are trained to deny ungodliness and worldly lust. Grace begins by separating us from connection with the old, that she may hasten to introduce us into connection with the new. She does not rest satisfied with inducing merely the denial of ungodliness and worldly lusts. Grace begins by communicating life, and along with it a new life power, which is to manifest its presence in the character and conduct of those who receive it. We must possess the new life before we can live it. It must be received before it can be manifested. You might just as well expect a piece of dead wood to grow into a tree the moment you planted it in the ground, and attached to it by some artificial process a few bunches of leaves, or clusters of fruit. Your own common sense tells you that you may plant your walking stick in your garden, and, with the utmost possible care, you may prune it, and water it, and perform all other possible horticultural operations upon it, but it remains a dead stick at the end of the process, and nothing but a dead stick; and you cannot make it grow into life. Let us desist from conceiving that we can ever grow into a state of spiritual vitality by our efforts to improve ourselves. Not only are we taught that Grace saves us from and separates us from the old, but that it introduces us into the new. Not only is the ransomed soul dead unto sin, but alive unto God. We rise into a state of vitality when first we begin to trust ourselves to Christ for life; then only can we receive the gift of life in Jesus Christ from the hand of God, and begin to be, in the full sense of the word, living souls. Are we trying to live soberly, righteously, and godly, because law claims it of us? or are we living thus because we claim it by faith of God, as the law of our new nature that we should do so? Let us proceed to consider the positive characteristics of our new life, to which the apostle here calls attention. We notice that of the three words that he employs--the first brings before us primarily that which we owe to ourselves; the seconds chiefly that which we owe to our fellow man; and the third, exclusively that which we owe to God. The first suggests to our minds the thought of the relations of the various parts of our complex nature to each other; the second, of our relations to society; and the third, of our relations to God. Let us begin by considering the first of these three words as suggesting an important, we may say an essential, lesson of Grace. It is the privilege of the true child of God to lead a sober life. The ancient Greek moralist, Aristotle, in speaking of this word, suggests an etymological derivation of the term, which, though not perhaps philologically correct, may yet serve to indicate the true character of the idea conveyed by the expression to his own mind and the minds of his contemporaries. He speaks of the word here used as formed of two words, signifying the preservation of the moral sense, and accordingly defines temperance or sobriety to be that which preserves or protects, and maintains in due activity our moral sense. This, at all events, gives us a good idea of what an intelligent Greek-speaking man would understand by the word sobriety. Let us reflect for a moment upon the idea thus suggested to our minds. It implies, we observe, the possibility of our moral sense being lost, or so interfered with as for the time being to be rendered inoperative. How different things appear when we contemplate them in the abstract and in cold blood, so to speak, from what they do when once they have become causes of actual temptation to us. How readily did the moral sense of David reprobate the pitiless injustice and rapacity of the wealthy despoiler! How often is this blinding influence exercised by passion! Or, again, with respect to worldly lust, which is a common form of moral insobriety, how easy is it for us, in our calmer moments, to deride the world, to look down contemptuously upon it--Well, after all, what an idle show it is--what a poor painted pageant! And then we come down from the mount of contemplation, we find ourselves sucked into the stream before we know what is happening; and there we are, just as worldly as other people. What has happened? We have lost our moral sense. We are blinded by the force of the temptations to which we have been exposed, and the influences by which we are surrounded. Now, let us endeavour to get an idea into our minds of some of the various forms which this insobriety may assume (Rom_12:3). A man who thinks more highly of himself than he ought to think, might not at first sight appear to us to be one who is leading a life wanting in sobriety; and yet that is just the description that St. Paul gives of such a person. In 1Pe_4:7, we have a solemn warning given to us upon this subject: The end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober. Keep your heads clear, the apostle seems to say. You are only down here for a few short days. The end of all things is at hand. Now observe, that where this intoxicating influence prevails, man becomes a prey to inward discords and disorders. The higher elements in his nature are no longer able to master the lower and keep them in their proper place. Now Grace proposes to introduce and maintain moral harmony within our nature; so that, instead of element being arrayed against element, and part against part, the whole may live, and continue to live, under the perfect law of liberty. Grace undertakes so to train us that passion shall not be able to tyrannise over the understanding, or desire ride roughshod over conscience; but that those elements in our nature which are necessarily highest shall occupy their own proper position, and those elements which are necessarily lower shall be subordinated to the superior and commanding faculties which God has set over them. Such in general terms is the character of the sober life. But how are we to establish this inward harmony? How is this most anarchical world one day to be set in perfect order? When and how will the true cosmos be realised? We, basing our hope upon a most sure word of prophecy, look forward to that glorious period of the future, of which I read, Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall execute judgment in the earth, There is a time coming when Messiahs sceptre shall sway the hearts of men, and the kingdoms of this world shalt become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. Meanwhile, until that glorious day come, it is possible for us, each one of us, in our own souls to realise a millennium, where the wolf and the lamb shall lie down together, and the hen shall eat straw like the ox. The millennium begins within each human heart when Jesus Christ is King. We have all read of the horrors of the first French Revolution. We recall with a shudder the ghastly tale of that reign of terror, when the guillotine was the prominent object in Parisian history, and the noblest and the best blood of France was flowing in the gutters. Yes, it was a terrible time; but in what occurred then you have a picture of what occurs in every human heart where insobriety is rampant. What is to be done to remedy this terrible moral disorder? How is sobriety to be established? Thus we see that this virtue of sobriety is something more than a mere negation. It consists not merely in escaping from the tyranny of lust, but in possessing such a sound judgment, such a calm recollectedness, such an administrative capacity, so to speak, as shall enable us to hold the reins of government under Divine authority in the commonwealth of our being, as a king against whom there is no rising up (Pro_30:31)--our renewed will becoming Gods own vicegerent within our redeemed and consecrated nature. Sobriety regulates, but does not exterminate--modifies, but does not ignore--our natural propensities, which in themselves become only good or bad as they are kept in their proper place, or allowed to depart from it. Nor, again, is sobriety to be confused with phlegmatic dulness and insensibility; on the contrary, it is perfectly compatible with the loftiest euthusiasm, and is often the guide and supporter of burning zeal. Nor, once more, must we fail to distinguish between sobriety and moroseness. There is nothing gloomy, nothing misanthropic, nothing affected or unnatural, though much that is supernatural, in the sober life. The sober Christian sees things, not so much by the dry light of the ancient philosopher as in the warm light of Divine love that pervades everything. Are we living a sober life? Do we know what it is thus in Gods name and by Gods power to possess our souls? How common a thing, for example, is it to meet with Christian people who are the victims, not the masters, of an evil and irritable temper, which is ready to be excited on even the slenderest provocation, and to suggest the stormy word, the bitter thought, the hasty and unjustifiable action! Such a habit of soul is simply one form of that moral insobriety, that incapacity of self-control, which erases from our minds, so to speak, for the moment, the sober conclusions of reason, silences our moral sentiment, or so bewilders and confuses it, that it is no longer able to form a just estimate of conduct, to condemn the wrong and maintain the right. But are you living by Grace? Can Christ in you exhibit a bad temper? The truth is, we come down from the level of Grace and walk as men, and then we need scarcely wonder that the old tree brings forth the old evil fruit. Or, to take another illustration, how many professing Christians are hampered and marred by some form of worldliness, by vanity, love of money, or by the ambitious dreams of youth? This is but another form of insobriety; our spiritual apprehension has been confused by the insurrection of lower desires unworthy of our Christian character. How many Christians have to complain of their bondage to their own sensual propensities? Let me point out that as Grace provides us with the power, so in the very first great lesson that she gives us she teaches how the power is to be applied. It is through faith that we receive the first great blessing that Divine Grace communicates; it is through faith that we receive all others. Our will has indeed to be exercised, but it has to be exercised rather in admitting its own inability, and in surrendering to Another the task for which it feels incompetent, than in endeavouring to perform the task itself. (W. H. M. H. Aitken.)
The righteous life
The word righteousness sometimes signifies, or at any rate includes, what is here spoken of as temperance or sobriety, and sometimes what is here spoken of as godliness. But inasmuch as it here stands side by side with these two other terms, we believe it to be used in a narrower sense, and to have special reference to our relations with our fellow man. The true meaning of the word righteousness is suggested to us by a reference to the root word right, from which it is derived, just as analogously in the Greek language the word δικαιοσύνη draws its essential import from its connection with its root word δίκη. The idea of righteousness springs from the recognition of right. There are certain rights which have their origin in the nature of our relations with others, which they are justified in claiming that we should respect, and from which we cannot escape, and the recognition of these rights and the fulfilment of these claims is that which we understand by righteousness. We are under certain obligations in the first instance to God, and God has certain rights in us which He cannot for a moment ignore or decline to assert and enforce. In recognising these rights, and in responding to these claims, we fulfil the law of righteousness, so far as God is concerned. Further, there are certain rights which our fellow men have in us, which we are not less bound to respect; and inasmuch as we are at present using the term righteousness in the somewhat restricted sense that I have indicated, it will be desirable to give this second class of rights our special consideration. Yes, our fellow men have certain rights in us from which we cannot free ourselves. We owe to society a great debt. Perhaps we do not sufficiently let our minds dwell upon the thought of our debt to society, yet everything around might well remind us of it. The very food that we eat is the product of social labour. We are dependent upon society, and hence are constantly indebted to it. The very money which we offer in return for these benefits is but the symbol of the accumulated labour of mankind; and those who are born in the possession of most of it are therefore the greatest debtors of all. It is true that some of us endeavour to contribute to the wealth of society by our labour, thus making some return for what we have received; but if we reflect how very different our condition is from what it would have been had we been cut off from society from our early years we shall be able to see how much our debt exceeds our capacities of repayment. The Christian feels that he owes an even heavier debt than this to his fellow man. He cannot forget that it was through the devotion of human messengers, who jeoparded their lives in the task, that the glad tidings of the gospel ever became so widely known as to reach his ear. He cannot forget his debt to the Church of Christ all through the ages, nor his obligations to those who have represented her beneficent influences towards him. Who shall say how much we may have been influenced for God and for good, by comparatively trivial circumstances, which have not even left their impress upon our memory, or perhaps of which we have never known at all? All souls are Mine, says the great Father of spirits; and because they are His, therefore they possess a certain definite claim upon our consideration, indifference to which must needs argue indifference to Him. There are certain things which society has a right to claim that we should not do, and there are others which society has a right to claim that we should do. Now, as a rule, human laws only recognise the negative claims of right. They provide means for checking men from performing unlawful deeds. When we turn from laws, Divine and human, to conventional morality, here also we find ourselves mainly dealing with the negative side of moral obligation. The idea of righteousness most generally entertained by society is negative rather than positive. Men flatter themselves that if they have done no very definite harm to any one they have pretty well fulfilled the law of righteousness. How often are we told by those whom we seek to convict of sin, and of their need of a Saviour, that they have always endeavoured to do their duty by God and man; and when we come to examine what their idea of duty is, we discover that they simply mean that they are not criminals or open offenders against public decency! But let us observe, in spite of the common sentiment, that the positive claims of the law of righteousness are just as strong and just as incapable of being defeated as are its negative claims. In plain language, we are just as much bound to live for the good of our fellow men as to abstain from injuring them; and even if we can satisfy ourselves that we have abstained from injuring our fellow men, unless we can also show that, according to the measure of our opportunity, we have actually benefited them, we are not in a position to claim that we have even made an attempt to fulfil the law of righteousness. But have men as a rule as much right as they think they have, to conclude that they have fulfilled even the negative claims of the Divine law? We may wrong our neighbour without any overt action, and perhaps more grievously than if we had injured his body with our hand. The scandalous story, even the uncharitable thought, which may be the parent of so many cruel actions, who shall say how much of base injustice there may be in these, and yet the world thinks lightly of them. How much of selfish grasping and pushing may strain the relations of man with man, and yet no such act of dishonesty or violence be committed as could be taken cognisance of by law. All this may pass for justice amongst men, but does it appear so in the eyes of God? So what does it matter how little we pay our commercial clerks, or our half-starved sempstresses; or what does it matter if we deny a Sabbath to our cab and omnibus drivers, and keep them slaving, some fourteen hours a day, all the year round. Justice, after all, is not such a very common virtue amongst mankind. But it is possible for us to injure our neighbour in other ways than these, and thus equally to offend against the negative demands of the law of righteousness. How many are ready enough to affirm that they have never done any harm to anybody, who have never even reflected upon the injury that may have been caused even to their nearest friends by the unholy effect of their influence or example. How many a once pure minded and innocent girl is wrecked and ruined for life, by learning only too well the lessons of vanity and levity taught by companions and acquaintances, who never seemed to themselves to be vicious. But even when it can be shown that we are blameless in this respect, we have yet to face its positive claims. The same authority that claims that we should do justly tells us also that God requires that we should love mercy. This is as much a matter of obligation, arising out of our relations with our fellow man, as is the other; and the man that does not love mercy, although he may flatter himself that he does justly, has not fulfilled the law of righteousness. But while under the Old Dispensation the legal obligation was distinctly recognised, we shall see here also how much better and more effectually grace teaches than law. Grace is not content with laying down the positive precept; she presses this lesson upon our mind more forcibly than any commandment could, by setting before us this as the most prominent and striking characteristic of the life of Him whom she has already taught us to trust and love. His was no cold negative morality, no mere abstinence from sin in every form; His morality was the fulfilment of the law, because it was the continuous exhibition of love to the sons of men. His career is thus epitomised by one who was an eyewitness of it. He went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him. More than this; Grace not only exhibits to us this perfect ideal, and sets before us a personal example of pure unselfish benevolence in His life and history, but she offers to us all her best benefits as the result of His having possessed and exercised towards us those qualities which she desires us to imitate. The love of Christ constraineth us, exclaims the apostle; that is to say, not our love for Christ, but the consciousness of His love to us because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then all died: and that He died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them, and rose again. Who that has been a recipient of Divine favour can be insensible to such an argument as that? How can we avail ourselves of the self-sacrificing love of Christ for our own salvation, and yet be unmindful of the obligation under which this lays us? We owe our salvation, our immunity from condemnation, and our justification before God, to the fact that, as representing our unrighteousness, Christ died, while, representing the righteousness that God expects of us, He lived. But if this be so, how can we claim the benefits of His life and death without repudiating that which in Him was crucified, and accepting that which in Him won the smile of the Divine Fathers approval? To sum up then, Grace teaches us to live righteously, first by showing in a human life what righteousness, both negative and positive, is, next by loading us with all the spiritual benefits that we enjoy in virtue of the righteousness of this our Great Exemplar; so that gratitude to Him binds us to a life of righteousness, and further by the illustration of Gods judgment against all unrighteousness and sin, and by the fulfilment of that judgment upon the person of the sinners Representative on the Cross of Calvary, and as the necessary sequel to this legal condemnation by the introduction of the Divine Spirit as a power of righteousness into our hearts. Surely there is no lack of means towards the end in the school of grace. She is well supplied, not only with lessons, but with all that is needed to bring the lessons home. But further, our idea of righteousness must ever be relative to our subjective condition. That which does not offend my sense of righteousness today, I may distinctly condemn and repudiate a twelvemonth hence. We can speak with assurance of extreme forms, either of evil on the one hand, or of good on the other; but our judgment begins to waver and assurance to forsake us as we approach the border line, and it is only as we become through Grace possessed more and more of God, and more and more taken possession of by God, that our vision becomes clear enough to enable us to discern the dividing line, or even anything that closely approaches to it. But the learners in the school of Grace have one great advantage. They are not students of ethics, but children of God; and therefore it is less their habit to inquire whether a thing is right or wrong, than to endeavour to discover whether or not it be in accordance with the mind of God concerning them. They have no desire to discover the minimum of obligation, but a great ambition to reach the maximum of devotion. As the knowledge of the Divine will opens more and more clearly upon their apprehension, they yield their members more and more fully servants of righteousness unto holiness; for this is how Grace teaches us to live righteously. The just or righteous man lives by his faith. He is not only quickened by it at first, but lives by it when he is quickened, and herein lies his power for righteousness. But such an one cannot be satisfied with mere negative morality; for love glows within his heart, kindled by the breath of God; and love is the fulfilling of the law. He owes it to his God, he owes it to his new life, he owes it to society, to live not for himself. (W. H. M. H. Aitken.)
The godly life
We proceed now to consider the crowning characteristic of the new life and grandest lesson that Grace essays to teach. All her other lessons, however important in themselves, are designed to lead up to godliness; and unless this lesson is learnt, all others must remain incomplete; for this word brings before us the true end of man. The true end of man is to be attained in his own personality; it is in the proper development and education of the highest and most spiritual faculties of his nature, and in the concentration of these upon their proper object, that man rises to his true destiny and fulfils the great purpose of his being. That object is God; and in the development of those faculties which have God for their proper object, and in their concentration upon Him, consists the state or habit of godliness, while the education and training of these faculties is the work of grace, as she teaches us to lead a godly life. Christianity is a religion, not a mere ethical system, and designed to produce spirituality rather than morality--to teach man to realise and take advantage of his proper relations with God, not to show him how he can improve himself independently of any such relations. God is the centre around which all the moral teaching of the New Testament revolves, or from which it radiates. In the Christian system the revelation of the attributes of God in the person of His Son is the standard of moral truth, and relation of our conduct to Gods will thus revealed the criterion of its moral character. The word conversion, with which modern evangelising preaching has made us all familiar, and more particularly the word in the original Greek which we thus translate, is very well chosen as being suggestive of the only possible commencement of the life of godliness. It signifies not only a turning, but a turning towards God. When first His Divine influences begin to move us, He finds us with our hearts averted from Him, and our lives setting in an opposite direction. Then comes the first great change: the godless heart is brought by the influences of the Holy Spirit to feel its need of God, and in yielding to this sense of need, and in the endeavour to satisfy it, the godly life finds its commencement. Jesus Christ died for our sins, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. When that great change has taken place, which we usually call conversion, its most salient feature is always the complete alteration and, we may say, reversal of all our previous relations with God. Instead of flying from Him, we have now boldness to approach Him; instead of looking upon His service as a yoke of bondage, we find it the only freedom. It is doubtless with a view to this end that faith has been Divinely appointed as the subjective condition of justification. He has appointed simple faith in Himself; for this reason, amongst others, that faith brings us into the closest and most personal relations with God Himself. No man who accepts the Christian revelation at all can fail to recognise the justice of the Divine claims. Created at Gods pleasure, and for His glory; redeemed by the life of His Son, and consecrated by the gift of the Divine Spirit; the believer must, as a matter of theory at any rate, admit that he is under an obligation to his God, from the force of which it is impossible to escape. Two thoughts, however, about these rights of God in His creature we may call attention to in passing. The first is, that these claims of God upon us are not arbitrary in their character, or despotic in their operation; they are perfectly consistent with, and indeed they are the expression of, Divine love towards man, and therefore they are most strictly in accordance with our true interests. The apparent opposition that sometimes seems to exist between mans interest and Gods will arises from the fact that man does not clearly apprehend his own interests, and confuses between his real good and his temporary gratification; while, on the other hand, he misunderstands the nature of the Divine will. If we could only obtain a firm and practical grasp of this great truth, that our interests and Gods will must coincide, what different lives we should lead! The second thought to which I desire to refer flows from this, an ever-necessary sequel. Since Gods claims cannot be opposed to our truest well-being, therefore they can never be withdrawn or even modified. Were God to ask less than He does He would be doing us an injury, not a benefit; for He would be teaching us to be satisfied with something less than our highest good. These claims of God upon us are like the claims of the law of righteousness, both negative and positive. From certain forms of conduct the law of godliness demands that we should abstain; while, on the other hand, there are certain things which it enjoins. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. This first negative claim of God upon His creature man is represented in the Decalogue as being attributable to a certain attribute of the Divine character, which is denoted by the word jealousy. Such being the nature of the first claim of the law of godliness, and such the attribute to which it is due, let us proceed to consider the second, and then to observe how Grace teaches us to comply with these claims. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might (Deu_6:5). This claim includes all others; for here also Love is the fulfilling of the law. But how shall we respond to these claims? The Law might say to the Israelites, Thou shalt have none other gods but Jehovah. But none the less Israel proceeded to copy the idolatries of Egypt and Canaan. And the law may repeat its solemn prohibition to men in our own day, but will that keep them from worshipping at the shrine of Mammon, or Pleasure, or Fashion? The Law might tell the Israelites to love the Lord their God with all their heart; but that did not prevent them from turning their backs upon Him altogether. My people have forgotten Me days without number. Grace presents to us the claims of God in the light of privileges, ever pointing to the Cross for an argument to move our wills, and appealing to the true character of the Divine purpose for a justification of her claims. Here is a specimen of the way in which she urges Gods claims, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and perfect, and acceptable, will of God. So long as our hearts resent or even demur to the claims of God upon us we cannot enjoy the fellowship of God. We are not agreed. But as soon as we have joyfully accepted these claims, even though we may have only begun very inadequately to fulfil them, the cause of disagreement is removed, and there is nothing to prevent the soul from enjoying the life of fellowship with God. It is not difficult to see the connection between this habit of fellowship with God and the next feature of the life of godliness to which we will refer, and the development of which constitutes frequently the next forward step in Christian experience. Reconciliation is necessary to fellowship, fellowship is necessary to personal love. This affection is the result of personal knowledge, and increases with it. They must perforce love Him most who know Him best, and they must know Him best who are most in His society, who live in the secret of His presence. Nor is this love of the soul for God a mere enthusiasm of admiration, though admiration must ever be one of its most prominent elements. Nor is this love of the soul for God a mere sentiment, a sickly enthusiasm. Men have been prompt to turn their backs upon the dearest earthly affection, the tenderest ties, because the love of God led them on. But the love of God must needs produce very definite subjective effects upon him who knows its blessedness. Even amongst us men, where persons are bound together by close and mutual affection, it has often been observed that a certain assimilation takes place between them, even though they may have originally been very unlike each other--an assimilation that affects not only character, but outward manners and habits, sometimes even extending to the expression of the countenances and the tones of the voice. It is not surprising, then, that they who walk with God, and thus come completely under the influence of the love of God; should be conformed unto the Divine image. Beholding His glory, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord, The characteristics of the godly life are of the most practical kind, for true godliness influences everything, elevating and purifying all, and he who lives it will offer such a contrast in his life and conversation to those who live it not, that men shall still be constrained to marvel at such, and to take knowledge of them that they have been and still are with Jesus. Are we living godly in Christ Jesus? It often happens that present salvation, in virtue of the atoning work of Christ, has been accepted without any very definite apprehension of what I may describe as the moral and actual benefits ensured to us by that work, and of the claims that God makes upon us in consequence of it. Where this has been the case, a change so marked and definite that it is sometimes described as a second conversion often takes place, when first the eyes are fully opened to see what the fulness of Gods provision actually is. My next word of counsel would be, that the soul that wishes to grow in godliness should cultivate a habit of delicate sensibility to the Divine influences. This is chiefly to be done by making prompt and unquestioning response to the Divine motions. Yield to those heavenly desires, those Godward aspirations, which suddenly interrupt the ordinary occupations of the mind. Next I would say, Be very jealous of idols. The object may be in itself an innocent one; it becomes most guilty when it takes in any degree the place of God. And lastly, do not be satisfied with anything that seems to be beneficial until you find God in it. The Bible will be a well of salvation, just in so far as God speaks to us from its pages through the Incarnate Word, and by the Divine Spirit. (W. H. M. H. Aitken.)
Sobriety and righteousness
1. The doctrine of grace teacheth not only to abstain from evil, but also to do good, and is the mistress of true sanctification in both parts of it, both the mortification of sin, as also quickening in righteousness. For as it is in the lighting of a dark house, first darkness must give place, and light must succeed, so is it in the shining of this light of grace, the night must pass, and then the day must come; the old man must be cast off with his lusts, and then the new man put on.
2. Note that where the gospel bringeth to any person salvation, there it looketh for return of some recompense; and namely this, that it be entertained with sobriety, righteousness, and godliness, which are the three graces which go hand in hand, and every one looking at another. Sobriety keepeth the house, and moderateth the mind at home; righteousness looketh forth, and giveth every man his due abroad; piety looketh up unto God, and giveth Him His right. Sobriety preserveth, and is content with its own estate and portion; righteousness preserveth, and is content that other men enjoy their estate and portion; piety preserveth, and is willing that Gods part be reserved unto Him. Again, sobriety must go before as a nurse of the other two, for he that dealeth not soberly, cannot deal justly, but depriveth the Church, the commonwealth, and family of their due. Righteousness without godliness is but atheism, and a beautiful abomination; and piety without righteousness is but hypocrisy; for how absurd it is to be precise with man and careless how wickedly we deal with God? Now as sobriety, the first, is the nurse of the two latter, so piety, the last, is the mother of the two former, which, where it is wanting, neither of the former, nor both of them, can commend a man unto God. Therefore, none of these three adverbs of Paul (as a learned writer speaketh) must be forgotten, which jointly contain all the rules of Christian life. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
In this present world
1. Note that godliness must not so lie hid in the heart, but it must appear in the eyes of the world, neither must it be neglected till death, but exercised in this present world: a point the more needful to be propounded, in that every man naturally wisheth with Balaam to die well and godly; but forgetting the practice of piety in their life time, we see the most men would be put in mind of God at their death, and send for the minister when the physician hath left them hopeless of life, yea, albeit they have forgotten the Almighty, and neglected acquaintance with Him all their days, yet at the finishing of them they would seem to seek unto Him. But it is most righteous with God that an ungodly life be finished with a proportional death, whatsoever it seemeth to be: and, therefore, it is a safe rule worthy our remembrance, that whatsoever we would be found doing on our dying day, to be doing it every day while we live.
2. Note hence that it is a most deceitful and desperate argument thus to conclude--If I be ordained to salvation let me never pray, never serve God, and do what I will I shall be saved, and on the contrary; and hence to cast off all the care of godliness; for this openly proclaimeth want of grace, which directeth men to the means, and leadeth them the way of salvation in this present world. God in wisdom hath combined to every end His means in all His ordinary courses; as to natural life, bread, sleep, physic; so to the spiritual, the word, sacraments, prayer, sobriety, righteousness, piety; and therefore the argument will be found in the contrary thus: If God have appointed me to die the death of the righteous, He hath ordained me to the means, namely, to live the life of the righteous; if to glory, then to grace; if to the full revelation of glory hereafter, then to the firstfruits of it here in grace; if to the city of the great King hereafter, then to the suburbs here; there is no jumping to heaven, no more than a man can leap from one city to another upon earth,
3. Note hence what is the proper end of every mans life in this present world, namely, that in the way of a sober, righteous and religious life, he may attain everlasting happiness hereafter. Alas, how do many pervert the end of their lives, some to get wealth, honour, and great estates; others to sit down to eat and drink, and rise up to play; others to trade in some one or other special sin and lust, but let us that will be wise to salvation, seeing it is called today, and our acceptable time and day of salvation is come upon us, beware of hardening our hearts. Let us not dare to strive against the Holy Ghost in the ministry, for contemners of grace in this present world shall never partake of the glory of the just hereafter. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
Godliness must calculate the resisting element
Power is calculable by the results it yields, but if we are attempting to estimate the force of a projectile, we shall take account not only of the velocity at which it moves, but also of the quality and tenacity of the resisting material which it shows itself competent to penetrate. One evidence of the vital energy of Christianity is shown in this, that in all its movements and demands and prohibitions, it runs steadily counter to the whole grain of natural desire. Whatever Christianity has done or may yet be doing in the world, it is doing it all in the teeth of spontaneous impulse. It is a system that requires us to love our neighbour as we do ourselves. It enjoins upon us to crucify our affections and lusts. It is a religion that is contented with nothing less than sacrifice. It meets the soul at the level of its higher needs, to be sure; but that is not the level at which we find it our first impulse to live. Christianity prohibits our doing a host of things that we would like to do, and requires us to do another host of things that we have no disposition to do. Every inch that Christianity has gained, or may still be gaining, it has gained by a square fight. All advance that it has made has been so much conquest on the one side, over against so much reluctant and contested surrender on the other. In estimating the draught power of a locomotive, we must consider not only the rate at which it moves and the tons of freight it drags, but the grade at which it is pulling. If I can row eight miles an hour, it is important to know whether I can do it with the wind, or in the teeth of it. There is nothing evangelical in a mans first impulses. So in estimating the inherent vigour of Christianity, it must be studiously considered that in all its advances it has steadily trained upon it the charged and primed artillery of mans natural lust and congenital ambition. All the way from the last man that became a Christian, back to Peter who forsook his fishing tackle at the Lords call, the process of becoming a Christian has been a process of surrender. Count that carefully in calculating the spiritual dynamics of the doctrine of the Nazarene. (C. H. Parkhurst, D. D.)
Duty to our Father in heaven must be united with duty to our brother on earth
You have a son, I will suppose, in a distant land. He has been prosperous, he has become honoured, influential, and beloved. He has won golden opinions from all for his abilities, his charities, his devotion to the interests of the community. He is known as a tender father; he is reputed a munificent benefactor and large-hearted philanthropist. The colony rings with his praises. Does not your paternal heart throb with a pardonable pride as you hear of the goodness and the greatness to which he has attained? Alas! you say, what might be my pride is my pain. My boy has been absent for twenty years, and took a fathers fond blessing with him, but during that long period he has sent no tidings to his parents. His commercial correspondence has been carried on with most commendable regularity, but never a solitary line has he written home. All the news we get of him comes at second hand. We hear of his bounties to others, but we are getting poor in our old age and no token has come to us. He has not shown in any way that he is even aware of our existence. Now what are your ideas of such sonship as that? Are not the benefactions of such a man an abomination, and his fascinations an offence? Here, then, is a picture of the behaviour of the man who, just in all earthly dealings, and tender in all human relations, yet lives, with regard to his highest obligations, simply as though God were not. (J. Halsey.)
Looking for that blessed hope
The hope of the resurrection
I believe in the resurrection of the body. And what does this imply? Does it merely mean that we assent to there being such a thing, as a bare truth in the abstract? Does it mean, I believe that mens bodies shall rise? And when we continue, And in the life everlasting, do we merely intend by this, I believe that some shall live forever? Oh, surely not: we cannot have such a cold unworthy idea of the articles of the Christian faith as this. When I utter these words in church, when I profess them as my belief, I must surely mean that I regard them as facts in my own life and course. I take the words as they stand in the Nicene Creed, where the very same expression is used as in our text: I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. That is, I expect in my own case, I look forward to witnessing, and sharing in, the things thus spoken of. If you ask me what reason have I in my own case to look for such blessed participation in the resurrection to life eternal, my answer is plain and decisive. I look for the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting, because God has assured these blessings to me in my covenant relation with Him in Christ as a member of Christs body. Now, many of you are aware that in saying this I am touching on a question much debated among religious writers of a certain stamp: I mean the question as to what is called personal assurance: the question as to whether it is, or is not, an essential portion of the Christians faith to be assured of his own part in Christ, and his own ultimate share in Christs salvation. Now, this is a question which no Christian Churchman can be at any loss how to answer. He will answer it as we have done above; and tell the inquirer that his own personal part in Gods covenant and Gods promises is not a matter which can be left to uncertain and easily mistaken feelings and experiences of his own, but is, as we said before, at the foundation of his whole spiritual life, which is built up upon it, as it is built on the fact of Gods mercies to him in Christ. And this being so, important effects are produced, or ought to be produced, on our views of several things, either present or in prospect.
1. The first of which I shall speak is our view of death. If a blessed resurrection in an incorruptible body is to be ours, any one can easily see that the act and state of death, so terrible where this hope is not, at once loses its formidable character, and shrinks up into utter insignificance. Doubtless it will and must be a conflict when it comes, that solemn moment of parting from the body: but what is a conflict where victory is assured to us? What soldier ever dwells long and gloomily on the fearful incidents of battle, by way of bracing his courage to meet it? Is it not ever the rule, and should it not ever be our rule, to dwell on the triumph beyond, and so to forget the struggle by which it is to be reached?
2. And as this confidence of hope will alter our view of death, so will it also of life. What is life to the man of this world--to the poor creature who does not know whether it is not to be cut short forever at the day of death? Life to him is simply a snatching time: to get as much as he can out of it, to eat and drink, and amass gain, and earn repute, and win importance, and fill as large a space as he can with what credit he may: and there is an end of it. Thousands on thousands are leading just this life and nothing more: often varnished over with pure and bright colours--decent charities, expected attendance on religion, and the like: but none can deny that, judging by the practice of most men, such is the general view of life; that as to eternity and so on, it is an uncertainty after all, and it is better to take the present good in hand, than to lay up for such an uncertainty. Now then, does a man, in his heart, in his deepest thoughts and views of the future, look for the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting? And can he any longer think thus of life? Why, to the other man, this life is all: he knows of nothing beyond it; but to this man, what is beyond it is almost all, and this life is as compared to it almost as nothing. But how? Even as the seed time, which though in a certain field it may be but one morning in a year, yet on that one morning depends all the use and produce of that field for that year--so is it with the Christian believers estimate of this life. It is, as compared with that beyond the grave, but as a moment--but as a point hardly to be appreciated: yet in the use of this moment, in the complexion of this little point, is involved the whole character and degree of blessedness of that immeasurable eternity. Life is now not a snatching time, but a laying-up time: a time of treasuring up things which may be of account there.
3. There is another thing concerning which, if we look in our own persons for the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting, our views will necessarily undergo a change, and that is, the body. It may not be very easy to say what the mere worldly man thinks of the body in which he finds himself dwelling. But I am afraid we should not be far wrong in believing that the very last thing which he expects is, that it will rise from the grave, and be his dwelling forever. This doctrine, at which the wise Athenians scoffed, is still despised by those who think themselves wise after this worlds measure. They have some vague notion of a probability of the immortality of the soul and a future judgment, without ever reflecting that we shall be judged in the body for the deeds done in the body. And the consequence is that in their view the man is not one, but two persons, soul and body: the soul is meant to be saved by religion, but the body has little or nothing to do with religion. And then those who are not only worldly, but irreligious, go further than this; and pretend to tell us, from the speculations of misused science, that the life which is so mysteriously placed in the body is necessarily and inseparably united to it, and therefore perishes when the body decays. How different an aspect do the things of the body present to him who regards it as his companion through a blessed eternity--to him who reads and feels what the apostle tells us, that Christ is the Saviour of the body; that we are now waiting for the adoption, that is, the redemption of the body. How careful will he be to train this his future servant for its blessed ministrations there;--to put it entirely under the power of Gods purifying Spirit of grace:--to subdue in it all impure and unholy desires, all inordinate indulgences of lawful appetite, and render it a habitation if it may be worthy of Him whose temple it ought to be.
4. Yet another change will be wrought by looking for the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting: and that will be in our views of and affections towards others around us. If the painter who painted for posterity needed more care in every touch than the other, who painted merely for the day, will not he who loves for eternity love more wisely, more tenderly, more cautiously and self-denyingly than he who merely gratifies a present predilection? A fellow member of the body of Christ--one with whom I hope to hold converse which shall never know parting nor end in the presence of Him who is Love--if I remember this, and act on this, can I wantonly wound the feelings of such an one? Can I hinder such an one in the path to glory? Can I to such an one act a part, and put on guile, to serve any worldly purpose? They take the sun out of heaven, who take away friendship out of life: thus wrote the heathen philosopher; but we may say a worthier thing--they take away the sun out of heaven, who take the hope of the resurrection out of friendship.
5. Once more, he who looks for the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting, will, in proportion as this blessed hope is present to him, find his thoughts of Christ evermore changed and exalted, and made more precious to him. From a distant historical character to a present Saviour--this is the first great change in a mans thoughts of Christ. From a present Saviour to be the desire of his soul--one whose likeness, and nothing else, will satisfy him; this is the next change, and it is no less an one than the former: it is, after all, that which constrains a man, that which leads him on, that which will transform him into Christs image from glory to glory. And I see not how this latter change can take place, without a mans looking for this blessed hope of the resurrection. (Dean Alford.)
The happy hope
There are two appearances spoken of in this context--the appearance of the grace of God that bringeth salvation; and parallel with that, though at the same time contrasted with it, as being in very important senses, one in nature and principle, though diverse in purpose and diverse in manner, is what the apostle here calls the glorious appearing of the great God.
I. The appearance of the grace leads to the appearance of the glory. The identity of the form of expression in the two clauses is intended to suggest the likeness of and the connection between the two appearances. In both there is a visible manifestation of God, and the latter rests upon the former, and completes and crowns it. But the difference between the two is as strongly marked as the analogy; and it is not difficult to grasp distinctly the difference which the apostle intends. While both are manifestations of the Divine character in exercise, the specific phase (so to speak) of that character which appears is in one case grace, and in the other glory. If one might venture on any illustration in regard to such a subject, it is as when the pure white light is sent through glass of different colours, and at one moment beams mild through refreshing green, and at the next flames in fiery red that warns of danger. The grace has appeared when Divine love is incarnate among us. The long-suffering gentleness we have seen. And in it we have seen, in a very real sense, the glory, for we beheld His glory--full of grace. But beyond that lies ready to be revealed in the last time the glory, the lustrous light, the majestic splendour, the flaming fire of manifest Divinity. Again, the two verses thus bracketed together, and brought into sharp contrast, also suggest how like, as well as how unlike, these manifestations are to be. In both cases there is an appearance, in the strictest sense of the word, that is to say, a thing visible to mens senses. Can we see the grace of God? We can see the love in exercise, cannot we? How? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? The appearance of Christ was the making visible in human form of the love of God. My brother! The appearance of the glory will be the same--the making visible in human form of the light of throned and sovereign Deity. What we look for is an actual bodily manifestation in a human form, on the solid earth, of the glory of God! And then I would notice how emphatically this idea of the glory being all sphered and embodied in the living person of Jesus Christ proclaims His Divine nature. It is the appearance of the glory--then mark the next words--of the great God, and our Saviour. The human possesses the Divine glory in such reality and fulness as it would be insanity if it were not blasphemy, and blasphemy if it were not absurdity, to predicate of any simple man. The words coincide with His own saying, The Son of Man shall come in His glory and of the Father, and point us necessarily and inevitably to the wonderful thought that the glory of God is capable of being fully imparted to, possessed by, and revealed through Jesus Christ; that the glory of God is Christs glory, and the glory of Christ is Gods. And then I must touch very briefly another remarkable and plain contrast indicated in our text between these two appearings. They are not only unlike in the subject (so to speak) or substance of the manifestation, but also in the purpose. The grace comes, patient, gentle, sedulous, labouring for our training and discipline. The glory comes--there is no word of training there! What does the glory come for? The one rises upon a benighted world--lambent and lustrous and gentle, like the slow, silent, climbing of the silvery moon through the darkling sky. But the other blazes out with a leap upon a stormy heaven, as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, writing its fierce message across all the black page of the sky in one instant, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.
II. The appearing of the glory is a blessed hope. The hope is blessed; or the word happy may, perhaps, be substituted with advantage. Because it will be full of blessedness when it is a reality, therefore it is full of joy while it is but a hope. The characteristics of that future manifestation of glory are not such that its coming is wholly and universally a joy. There is something terrible in the beauty, something menacing in the brightness. But it is worth noticing that, notwithstanding all that gathers about it of terror, all that gathers about it of awful splendour, all that is solemn and heart shaking in the thought of judgment and retribution for the past, the irreversible and irrevocable pest, yet to Paul it was the very crown of all his expectations of, and the very shining summit of all his desires for, the future--that Christ should appear. The hope is a happy one. If we know the grace we shall not be afraid of the glory. If the grace has disciplined in any measure we may be sure that we shall partake in its perfection. They that have seen the face of Christ looking down, as it were, upon them from the midst of the great darkness of the cross, and beneath the crown of thorns, need not be afraid to see the same face looking down upon them from amidst all the blaze of the light, and from beneath the many crowns of the kingdoms of the world, and the royalties of the heavens. Whosoever hath learnt to love and believe in the manifestation of the grace, he, and he only, can believe and hope for the manifestation of the glory.
III. The grace disciplines us to hope for the glory. The very idea of discipline involves the notion that it is a preparatory stage, a transient process for a permanent result. It carries with it the idea of immaturity, of apprenticeship, so to speak. If it is discipline, it is discipline for some condition which is not yet reached. And so, if the grace of God comes disciplining, then there must be something beyond the epoch and era within which the disciple is confined. Here is a perfect instrument for making men perfect, and what does it do? It makes men so good and leaves them so bad that unless they are to be made still better and perfected, Gods work on the soul is at once an unparalleled success and a confounding failure--a puzzle, in that having done so much it does not do more; in that having done so little it has done so much. The achievements of Christianity upon single souls, and its failures upon those for whom it has done most, when measured against, and compared with, its manifest adaptation to a loftier issue than it has ever reached here on earth, all coincide to say--the grace--because its purpose is discipline, and because its purpose is but partially achieved here on earth--demands a glory, when they whose darkness has been partially made light in the Lord, by the discipline of grace, shall blaze forth as the sun in the Heavenly Fathers kingdom of glory. Yield to the discipline, and the hope will be strengthened. You will never entertain in any vigour and operative power upon your lives the expectation of that coming of the glory unless you live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. That discipline submitted to is, if I may so say, like that great apparatus which you find by the side of an astronomers biggest telescope, to wheel it upon its centre and to point its tube to the star on which he would look. So our anticipation and desire, the faculty of expectation which we have, is wont to be directed along the low level of earth, and it needs the pinions and levers of that gracious discipline, making us sober, righteous, godly, in order to heave it upwards, full front against the sky, that the stars may shine into it. The speculum, the object glass, must be polished and cut by many a stroke and much friction ere it will reflect the image of the heavenly; so, grace disciplines us, patiently, slowly, by repeated strokes, by much rubbing, by much pain--disciplines us to live in self-restraint, in righteousness and godliness, and then the cleared eye beholds the heavens, and the purged heart grows towards the coming as its hope and its life. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The blessed hope
I. The great object of the Christian hope. The true rendering is not the glorious appearing, but the appearing of the glory. There are two appearings--that of the grace of God, and that of the glory. These two manifestations are paralleled in many respects, as is shown by the very fact that the same word is employed in reference to both, but they differ substantially in this, the aspect of the Divine character manifested, by each. The one is like the silver moon flooding all things with silvery and gentle light; the other is like the flash of the lightning from one side of the heavens to the other. Both the manifestation of the grace and that of the glory are given through the same medium. Jesus Christ is the means of making the grace visible; and Jesus Christ will be the means of making the glory visible. And these two appearances are connected in such a manner that the former is evidently incomplete without the latter. As certainly as the cradle at Bethlehem required the open grave and the ascension from Olivet, so certainly does the ascension from Olivet require the return to judgment. The past has in it one great fact, to which the world must turn for light, for leading, for life. And that past fact, like an eastern sky that flings its colouring into the furthest west, irradiates the future and points onwards to His return again. So that past fact and its companion yet to be are like two great towers on opposite sides of some fathomless abyss, from which stretch the slender rods which are sufficient to bear the firm structure on which we may tread across the gulf, defiant of the darkness, and find our way into the presence of God.
II. The Christian anticipation of the appearing. Looking, says the apostle, for that blessed hope. How comes he to call it blessed? If it be a flashing forth of the Divine glory, and if it be, as it distinctly is, a coming to judge the earth, there must be much about it which will touch into activity not unreasonable fears, and may make the boldest and the truest shrink and ask themselves the old question, Who shall stand when He appeareth? But Paul here stretches out the hands of his faith, and the yearnings of his desire to it. Whence conies this confidence? It comes from the power of love. How beautiful it is, how merciful, and how strange that the very same yearning after bodily presence, the same restlessness in separation, and the same fulness of satisfaction in companionship, which mark the lower loves of earth, can be transferred wholly to that higher love! This hope is blessed because of the power of the assurance which we all may have that that coming can bring no harm to us. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness before Him at the day of judgment. It is blessed because the manhood which is thus lifted to participate in and to be the medium of manifesting to a world the Divine glory, is our manhood; and we shall share in the glory that we behold, if here we have trusted in the grace that He revealed. He shall change the body of our humiliation that it may be fashioned after the likeness of the body of His glory. And the hope is blessed because, in contradistinction to all earthly objects of hope, it is certain--certain as history, certain as memory. It is as secure as treasures that we keep in the cedar presses of our remembrances. It is also blessed because, being thus certain, it is far enough in advance never to be outgrown, never to be fulfilled and done with here. So it outlasts all others, and may be laid in a dying hand, like a rosebud clasped in cold palms, crossed on each other, in the coffin; for not until we have passed the veil shall we receive the hope. He will come to the world; you and I will go to Him; either way, we shall be forever with the Lord. And that is a hope that will outlast life and death.
III. The teaching or correction which strengthens the hope. The fact that the first manifestation is of an educational and corrective kind is in itself an evidence that there is another one to follow. For the very idea of training implies that there is something for which we are being trained; and the very word correction or discipline involves the thought of an end towards which the process is directed. That end can be no less than the future perfecting of its subjects in that better world. God does not take the rough bar of iron and turn it into steel and polish it and shape it and sharpen it to so fine an edge, in order that He may then break it and cast it as rubbish to the void. You will find in prehistoric tombs broken swords and blunted spears which were laid there with the corpses; but God does not so break His weapons, nor is death the end of our activity. If there be discipline there is something for which the discipline is meant. If there be an apprenticeship there is somewhere work for the journeyman to do when he has served his articles and is out of his time. There will be a field in which we shall use the powers we have acquired here; and nothing can bereave us of the force we made our own, being here. Grace disciplines, therefore there is glory. Again, our yielding to the grace is the best way of strengthening our hope of the glory. The more we keep ourselves under the influences of that mighty salvation that is in Jesus Christ, and let them chasten and correct us, and submit our inflamed eyes to their healing pains, the more clearly will they be able to see the land that is afar off. Telescope glasses are polished in order that they may enable the astronomer to pierce the depths of the heavens. Diamonds depend for their brightness on the way in which they are cut, and it is poor economy to leave some of the precious stones on the mass, if thereby its reflecting power and its radiance be diminished. God cuts deep and rubs hard, in order that He may brighten the surface and the depth of our souls, that they may receive in all its purity the celestial ray, and flash it back in varied colours. So, if we would live in the buoyant hope of the manifestation of the glory, let us docilely, prayerfully, penitently, patiently, submit ourselves to the discipline of the grace. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
The Christians blessed hope
I. The force and fitness of the argument drawn from the hope of a Christian. The ground of our hope lies not in our merit, but in Gods mercy; the reward for which we are encouraged to look is not of debt, but of grace. And supposing it a very small and inconsiderable thing, yet, upon all the principles of reason, it is encouragement to do what otherwise we are indifferently bound and obliged to do. But the abundant grace of our God in Christ Jesus hath invited us to expect an abundant reward; and whatever force there is in hope to move men to action, is all bent to push them on to well-doing, by a just view of that reward which God hath promised. If hope can stimulate men to vigour and vigilence in any case, it wants not something to look for in the course of well-doing and on a better foundation than can be attained respecting any comfort in life.
II. The time when this blessed reward shall be conferred. That is the great day when our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ shall appear. And if we consider the design and manner of this appearance we shall see abundant reason to live soberly, righteously, and godly in expectation of it.
1. The design of it is to judge the world in righteousness, to call every man to account for his conduct in life, and render to every one according to his works. Then the godly shall receive the glorious reward of eternal life with glorious advantages, as we shall see more particularly if we consider
2. The manner of that appearance which is here expressed by a peculiar epithet, serving to distinguish it from all other appearances, particularly from His first appearance in our nature.
III. The temper and turn of mind fit and necessary to give these arguments their proper influence upon us. Looking is in Scripture common style to express the principles and disposition of the mind with respect to things Divine and heavenly. And with regard to the blessed hope and glorious appearing here mentioned, it means
1. A firm persuasion of the truth and reality of those things. No wonder if they are ungodly and slaves to worldly lusts who look not for a future reckoning.
2. Looking for the blessed reward signifies a lively hope of obtaining it, which, on that very account, is called the blessed hope.
3. Looking here denotes an earnest longing, an ardency of desire to obtain the blessed hope, and see the blessed day when Christ shall appear.
4. Looking for the blessed hope means a constant and habitual attention to this as the chief end and object we ought to have in view. (Wm. Best.)
The glorious expectation
I. The life of the believer now is one of expectation. We are looking for.
1. Our condition is one of continual expansion--growth in grace. The child is never satisfied. Clothes become too small, toys loose their charm, sympathies are enlarging, and he is constantly looking for something else. The child of God is in that position--the heart is enlarging, and expectation is the natural result.
2. The resources of the gospel are unfolding, The love of God swells, the Cross of Jesus is higher, and communion with the Saviour is closer. Travellers continued their search until they found the great lakes in Central Africa which form the watershed of the Nile. So the streams of grace lead us on to the fountain. Our course is God-ward.
II. The life of the believer hereafter will be one of realisation. So we interpret the words of the apostle--looking for the object or fulfilment of our blessed hope.
1. Jesus is to come to take the government of the Church, and assert His sway over mankind. This is a glorious thought, especially when we remember how little we are able to do in extending His kingdom.
2. Jesus will appear in the last day as the judge of all. He will be accompanied by myriads of saints and angels, not as a root out of the dry ground, without form or comeliness, but in the glory of His Father.
3. Jesus will appear to take home His disciples as they pass through physical death. (Weekly Pulpit.)
The hope of the Church under the gospel dispensation
I. What this hope is.
II. Who are entitled to look foe the glorious appearing as a blessed hope to them.
III. The influence which this blessed hope must have on all who are really possessed of it. (F. Hewson, M. A.)
The blessed hope of grace
Grace teaches us, not only by referring us to the great facts of the past, but also by setting before our awakened hope the sublime and crowning event of the future, and in this respect also she exhibits the superiority of her teaching to that which law could offer. Under the law the future could hardly be contemplated without terror; for who could feel so secure of his legal righteousness as to be able to look forward to that day without a misgiving? We cannot entertain such happy anticipations with respect to the future unless we are quite sure of our own relations to God in the present. Let us put a case. If our Queen were about to make a progress through this realm, and if it was understood that, as soon as she reached the city of York, of one dozen felons confined in the prison yonder, six were to be taken out and promptly executed at the moment of her arrival, while six should be liberated; and if of those twelve felons no single one knew for certain whether he were one of the six that were to be set free, or of the six that were to be executed, is it conceivable under such circumstances that any of those felons would long for and entreat Her Majestys speedy advent? Would it not be far more conceivable that they would all, if they were permitted, petition her to defer her visit, and, if possible, to abandon it? Not otherwise must it be with us, as we look forward to this dread event of the future, unless we know that by the saving grace of God we are prepared for it. But while our attitude towards this great event of the future may serve as a test of the reality or unreality of our religion, it may also be employed by the true Christian as a gauge of his spiritual condition. Do we really love His appearing? Is it a subject much in our thoughts? Does it cheer us, or does it make us uncomfortable to think of it? How apt are even those who have known something of the grace of God to take root, as it were, here upon earth, instead of living as strangers and pilgrims! But the love of Christs appearing is not only a test of our spiritual health and progress, it may also largely contribute to the promotion of these. The truth is the life and the hope act and react upon each other. Personal godliness must ever strengthen and intensify our hope; but then again our rejoicing in hope will ever stimulate our desires after growth in grace. What the effect of Advent light upon our daily lives must needs be is indicated by numerous passages of Scripture. We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope in Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure. It is not difficult to understand in how many ways we may be favourably affected in our present personal experience by the thought of this blessed hope. Surely much of the gloomy despondency or depression that frequently paralyses our spiritual activities might be more easily mastered if we only lived more in the Advent light, cheering our hearts with the anticipations of coming glory. But the thought of this blessed hope does more than cheer us amidst the vicissitudes of life; it also tends to strengthen our faith, and thus to invigorate our whole spiritual experience; for while we dwell upon the thought of the complete victory that Christ is one day to win, the thought will naturally suggest itself to our minds, as we return to the consciousness of the present from the hopes of the future, Cannot He who will one day conquer the world conquer even now our old nature? Thus the very contemplation of these glorious prospects in the future proves a source of strength as well as of cheer in the present. But most of all, the thought of this blessed hope is specially designed to induce watchfulness. Therefore be ye also ready, cries our blessed Lord; for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh. One other benefit likely to arise from the thought of the glorious appearance of our Saviour, and affecting our conduct and character, suggests itself here. Surely we cannot fail to find in this prospect a mighty stimulus to our zeal. The time is short. Soon the Master will come to take account of His servants. Fain would we be able to say when He appears, as He was able to say to His Father, I have finished the work that Thou gavest Me to do. But if this habit of looking for that blessed hope is likely to be productive of so many advantages in our present experience, it may be asked, How is such a habit to be formed? Strangers passing through a hostile land cannot but look forward to a change in their position. Grace teaches us then to love the Lords appearing, by reminding us that we are already citizens of the heavenly kingdom, in the revelation of which we are to find a full satisfaction, which cannot be ours amidst the hostile influences of the house of our pilgrimage. We long for the moment when the power of the usurper shall be overthrown, and our King receive the homage which is His due from all, just as a Hushai or Ittai must have longed for the restoration of David, and the downfall of the odious traitor Absalom. Nor does the expectation of the true Christian end even here. He cannot forget that human history is to be crowned by the marriage of the Lamb. In that mysterious event of the future the destiny of the creature is to be attained, and the pleasure of the Creator in His own work is to be fulfilled. But it is Grace, and Grace alone, that bids us cherish such hopes as this. Law might train a servant, but could not prepare a bride. To sum up, we may say that Grace teaches us to love Christs appearing by revealing to us the mystery of our spiritual union with Him, from which there arises a certain identity of interests, and consequently of desires. As He is, so are we in this present world, despised and rejected of men; where He is, there in Him we are in the world of glory--seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, accepted of the Father in the Beloved. As He shall be, such shall we be by and by, when He appears in His kingdom. We know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. Surely it is indeed a blessed hope, and every one that hath it must needs purify himself, even as He is pure. We see then that while our hope becomes bright and real just in so far as we walk soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, so the cultivation of this blessed hope helps us and stimulates us thus to live. (W. H. M. H. Aitken.)
The tonic of hopeful life
These words of Goethe, repeated by Carlyle in the happiest and most auspicious moment of his life, ought to be in the heart and on the lips of every earnest man and woman. Half the energy of the world is wasted in vain regrets or in paralysing despair. The world needs, more than anything else, a continual reinforcement of its faith in the noblest things and in its own future. Its mistakes are of small account so long as it is true to high aims and firm in the conviction that they can be realised. The moment of waning faith and fading hope is also, and preeminently, the moment of despair. A glance beneath the surface of any decaying civilisation in the past always discovers an expiring belief in progress; a glance beneath the surface of any advancing and triumphant civilisation always discerns a high, aspiring hope which believes that all things are possible to those that strive. Pessimism, the religion of despair, once generally accepted would paralyse the race. Half the world is weary, faint-hearted, overborne by calamity and sorrow; it needs, most of all, courage, cheer, and the contagious hope that goes from strong men like an atmosphere. There is a surplusage of truth in the world; men know what they ought to do well enough, but they lack the power to do it. What they need above all things is impulse; instruction is to be found on all sides, but power is not so common. Christ started with the conception of a sick and weary world, and He lived and taught that men might be comforted and healed. Strong, buoyant natures forget too often the hourly need of a world that is still sick and weary; the cry of the children does not shadow often enough the sunshine in which they live. The first, the most imperative, duty of every earnest man and women is to be strong, in order that strength may go from them through every channel of expression and activity. Make yourselves rich in hope, in order that you may have the supreme happiness of giving to the poor. There are men and women in every community who have a tonic quality in them, whose very presence inspires hope and reinforces faith. They carry in their faces a revelation of the strength which comes with a strong healthy grasp upon life, and a clear, far-sighted outlook upon its experiences and vicissitudes. They say, with the force of personal example and influence, We bid you hope. Is this your message to the men about you?
Waiting the coming of Christ
When I was a boy, just after the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales, it was announced that they were to visit the town in which I lived. On the appointed day a rumour spread amongst the expectant crowd that their route was changed for some reason, so that it was probable they would not come. I shall never forget the appearance of the streets and houses. The streets were thronged with working men, shopkeepers, merchants along with their wives and daughters; the windows and the roofs of the houses were filled with anxious people. They wondered whether the royal pair would come or not, but very few went away. Many had stood there for six hours when the word came, They are coming in two hours. Did the crowd disperse? No; they waited long and patiently to see a face bowing from a carriage window. The Prince never did anything for them, nor did they expect him to do anything for them, but still they waited, and when he passed, rent the air with cheer after cheer to show their loyalty. How many Christians are waiting longingly for the coming of their Prince and King? (D. McEwan.)
The glorious appearing of the great God
The two appearings, and the discipline of grace
I. Our position.
1. The people of God stand between two appearances (Tit_2:11; Tit_2:13). We live in an age which is an interval between two appearings of the Lord from heaven. Believers in Jesus are shut off from the old economy by the first coming of our Lord. The times of mans ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. We are divided from the past by a wall of light, upon whose forefront we read the words Bethlehem, Gethsemane, Calvary. We date from the birth of the Virgins son: we begin with Anno Domini. All the rest of time is before Christ, and is marked off from the Christian era. The dense darkness of the heathen ages begins to be broken when we reach the first appearing, and the dawn of a glorious day begins. We look forward to a second appearing. Our outlook for the close of this present era is another appearing--an appearing of glory rather than of grace. This is the terminus of the present age. We look from Anno Domini, in which He came the first time, to that greater Anno Domini, or year of our Lord, in which He shall come a second time, in all the splendour of His power, to reign in righteousness, and break the evil powers as with a rod of iron. See, then, where we are: we are compassed about, behind and before, with the appearings of our Lord. Behind us is our trust; before us is our hope.
2. Our position is further described as being in this present world, or age. We are living in the age which lies between the two blazing beacons of the Divine appearings; and we are called to hasten from one to the other. It is but a little time, and He that will come shall come, and will not tarry. Now it is this present world: oh, how present it is! How sadly it surrounds us! Yet by faith we count these present things to be unsubstantial as a dream; and we look to the things which are not seen, and not present, as being real and eternal. We hurry through this Vanity Fair: before us lies the Celestial City and the coming of the Lord who is the King thereof.
II. I have to call your attention to the instruction which is given to us by the grace of God which has appeared unto all men. A better translation would be, The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, disciplining us in order that we may deny ungodliness and worldly lusts.
1. Grace has a discipline. We generally think of law when we talk about schoolmasters and discipline; but grace itself has a discipline and a wonderful training power too. The manifestation of grace is preparing us for the manifestation of glory. What the law could not do, grace is doing. As soon as we come under the conscious enjoyment of the free grace of God, we find it to be a holy rule, a fatherly government, a heavenly training. We find, not self-indulgence, much less licentiousness; but on the contrary, the grace of God both restrains and constrains us; it makes us free to holiness, and delivers us from the law of sin and death by the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
2. Grace has its chosen disciples, for you cannot help noticing that while the eleventh verse says that the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, yet it is clear that this grace of God has not exercised its holy discipline upon all men, and therefore the text changes its all men into us.
3. The discipline of grace, according to the apostle, has three results--denying, living, looking.
(1) When a young man comes to college he usually has much to unlearn. If his education has been neglected, a sort of instinctive ignorance covers his mind with briars and brambles. If he has gone to some faulty school where the teaching is flimsy, his tutor has first of all to fetch out of him what he has been badly taught. The most difficult part of the training of young men is not to put the right thing into them, but to get the wrong thing out of them. We have learned lessons of worldly wisdom and carnal policy, and these we need to unlearn and deny. The Holy Spirit works this denying in us by the discipline of grace.
(2) But then you cannot be complete with a merely negative religion; you must have something positive; and so the next word is living--that we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world. Observe, that the Holy Ghost expects us to live in this present world, and therefore we are not to exclude ourselves from it. This age is the battle field in which the soldier of Christ is to fight. Society is the place in which Christianity is to exhibit the graces of Christ. You are to shine in the darkness like a light. This life is described in a threefold way
(a) You are, first, to live soberly--that is, for yourself. Soberly in all your eating and your drinking, and in the indulgence of all bodily appetites--that goes without saying. You are to live soberly in all your thinking, all your speaking, all your acting. There is to be sobriety in all your worldly pursuits. You are to have yourself well in hand: you are to be self-restrained.
(b) As to his fellow men the believer lives righteously. I cannot understand that Christian who can do a dirty thing in business. Craft, cunning, over-reaching, misrepresentation, and deceit are no instruments for the hand of godly men. Dishonesty and falsehood are the opposites of godliness. A Christian man may be poor, but he must live righteously: he may lack sharpness, but he must not lack integrity. A Christian profession without uprightness is a lie. Grace must discipline us to righteous living.
(c) Towards God we are told in the text we are to be godly. Every man who has the grace of God in him indeed and of a truth, will think much of God. God will enter into all his calculations, Gods presence will be his joy, Gods strength will be his confidence, Gods providence will be his inheritance, Gods glory will be the chief end of his being, Gods law the guide of his conversation. Now, if the grace of God, which has appeared so plainly to all men, has really come with its sacred discipline upon us, it is teaching us to live in this threefold manner.
(3) Once more, there is looking as well as living. One work of the grace of God is to cause us to be looking for that blessed hope of the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. What is that blessed hope? Why, first, that when He comes we shall rise from the dead, if we have fallen asleep; and that, if we are alive and remain, we shall be changed at His appearing. Our hope is that we shall be approved of Him, and shall hear Him say, Well done, good and faithful servant. This hope is not of debt, but of grace: though our Lord will give us a reward, it will not be according to the law of works. We expect to be like Jesus when we shall see Him as He is.
III. The text sets forth certain of our encouragements.
1. In this great battle for right, and truth, and holiness, what could we do if we were left alone? But our first encouragement is that grace has come to our rescue; for in the day when the Lord Jesus Christ appeared among men, He brought for us the grace of God to help us to overcome all iniquity. He that struggleth now against inbred sin has the Holy Spirit within him to help him. He that goes forth to fight against evil in other men by preaching the gospel has the same Holy Ghost going with the truth to make it like a fire and like a hammer.
2. A second encouragement is that another appearing is coming. He who bowed His head in weakness, and died in the moment of victory, is coming in all the glory of His endless life. When the hour shall strike He shall appear in the majesty of God to put an end to the dominion of sin, and bring in endless peace. Satan shall be bruised under our feet shortly; wherefore comfort one another with these words, and then prepare for further battle. Grind your swords, and be ready for close fighting! Trust in God, and keep your powder dry.
3. Another encouragement is that we are serving a glorious Master. The Christ whom we follow is not a dead prophet like Mahomet. Truly we preach Christ crucified; but we also believe in Christ risen from the dead, in Christ gone up on high, in Christ soon to come a second time. He lives, and He lives as the great God and our Saviour.
4. Then come the tender thoughts with which I finish, the memories of what the Lord has done for us to make us holy: Who gave Himself for us. Special redemption, redemption with a wondrous price--who gave Himself for us. He died--forget not that--died that your sins might die, died that every lust might be dragged into captivity at His chariot wheels. He gave Himself for you that you might give yourselves for Him. Again, He died that He might purify us--purify us unto Himself. How clean we must be if we are to be clean unto Him! The apostle finishes up by saying that we are to be a people zealous of good works. Would to God that all Christian men and women were disciplined by Divine grace till they became zealous for good works! In holiness zeal is sobriety. We are not only to approve of good works, and speak for good works, but we are to be red hot for them. We are to be on fire for everything that is right and true. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Expectation of Christs coming
I. True believers in Jesus Christ look and wish that He may come, as he will be then glorified in a world where he has been set at nought and despised. If the sun, after a whole days dark and uninterrupted gloom of clouds, sets in an evening of thick mists and impenetrable darkness, who is there that rejoices not when the next morning opens in a clear and radiant sky, and a full and unclouded effulgence of his splendour? And if Jesus, the Sun of Righteousness, thus leaves our world in darkness and reproach, all those who have a sincere and cordial value for Him will hail Him when He returns the second time in His own and His Fathers glories, and will often wish, during the night of His absence, that the hour was come when He shall appear in that might and majesty, in that honour and glory which belong to Him, and by which He will dissipate all the misconstructions concerning Him, as the bright beams of the rising sun scatter the shades of thickest darkness, and pour glory and heat, peace and pleasure, over the face of gladdened nations.
II. True believers look and wish for the coming of Jesus Christ, in order to put an end to their pain and sorrow. The wound that was inflicted upon our nature at the first grand apostasy has been kept open and bleeding on through all generations; and when we take a view of mankind, what misery and wretchedness from all quarters meet our eyes, and affect our hearts! Not to mention those great capital calamities which with an enormous scythe lay waste whole cities and kingdoms at once, i.e., earthquakes, famines, pestilence, and war. There are many smaller mischiefs that harass and afflict us; I mean the dreadful train of common diseases, from which no city or town, it may be, is ever entirely free, and which often bring us to an untimely grave, even in the very bloom and strength of our constitutions. Add to all this, that pain and sorrow have still a wider spread in our world, from the ten thousand vexations and disappointments of the present state. Such and so various are the pains and sorrows of the present state, but they shall all be ended at the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. When this wished for period shall arrive, God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes, from what causes soever they have flowed, and there shall be no sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.
III. Another reason why true believers look and wish for the second coming of Christ is, because He will at His second coming finish the reign of death. How dismal and distressing is the reign of death at present! What havoc does he make, in a few years, in our world! How many of our dear relatives, the brethren of our flesh, and of our friends, the brethren of our souls, have fallen victims to the power of this great and general destroyer? And we ourselves must soon expect to feel the stroke of this king of terrors. We may literally say that we are dying daily. In the midst of life we are in death. Death has sent us the heralds of his approach, and we hear the sound of his feet and the sharpening of his dart in every disease and pain, in every infirmity and decay that we feel. But when Christ comes, death shall be no more. His prison, the grave, shall be broken up, and his chains, powerful as they may be, shall all be burst asunder. Because Christ lives, His people shall live also.
IV. Another reason why true believers look and wish for Christs second coming, is taken from the great glory and the consummation of their felicity which they shall then obtain. They are then acknowledged, approved, and welcomed as the children of God, and the brethren and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. And as their positive felicity, their joy without measure and without end, in the presence and fruition of God and the Lamb, lies before them, and ages appear rolling on after ages in the immense eternity, all bright in glory and rich in blessing, so neither is there any possible fear that their bliss shall ever fail, or that the possessors shall ever be removed away from their enjoyments. Lessons:
1. Let our thoughts dwell upon this great and glorious subject. Even the very make of our bodies themselves, though our inferior part, shows us that we are not to grovel upon earth, but to view and contemplate our kindred skies; and shall not our souls mount up from this low world, and its vain scenes, and look forward to the things which are not seen? As risen wish Christ seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God; set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth (Col_3:1-4). Oh for the telescope of faith to be often lifted up to explore not only the land that is afar off, but the coming of the Prince of it in all His glory! Let us see the heavens opening to give Him a passage unto our earth, the solemn state of His majestic Person, the bright armies of the skies in attendance upon Him, to augment the glory of His coming, and to perform His will.
2. What a miserable portion have those souls who have no interest in the blessedness and glories of this day! To be excluded from a lot and portion in the honours and happiness conferred on the children of God and the redeemed of the Lamb at His second coming, and to be consigned over to the miseries of endless perdition with the devil and his angels; to dwell with devouring flames and everlasting burnings; what a fearful end is here I And if this be the end of sinners, then what avail all their present worldly possessions, pleasures, and honours?
3. Let us give all diligence that we may be prepared for the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us keep this solemn day in our continual view, and let none of the vanities of this life be ever suffered to intercept its prospect, or darken its glories. And whilst we contemplate it, let us be getting ready for it. Let us be concerned that our corruptions may be more and more subdued, and that our graces may be more and more exercised and strengthened. (J. King, B. A.)
Our state of expectation and the reasons for it
I. It is clear that the nature of our expectation depends upon the nature of the promises which excite it; it will be more or less strong and definite as they are more or less so. Now when we examine these promises, we find in them a remarkable mixture of certainty and of uncertainty; certainty as to the event--uncertainty as to the time of its occurrence. History, as well as prophecy, viewed as a whole, gives the Christian student the same result--certainty, and yet uncertainty; assuring us of His coming, and yet leaving the time of that coming a mystery. And the nature of our expectation must, as we have said, correspond to the nature of the revelation which excites it: it, too, must be thus certain, and yet uncertain. We are fully persuaded as to the event; doubtful, and in anxious suspense, as to the time of it;--now lifting up our heads because our redemption draweth nigh, now saying, Why tarry the wheels of His chariot? Now full of joy at some sign accomplished--now filled with sadness at finding that it is yet to be fulfilled: fear mingling with our hope, and yet hope brightening our despondency; but, through all, sustained by the assured certainty of the event which so perplexes us by the uncertainty of its arrival.
II. But we have now to inquire why we are thus kept in this state of uncertainty. The answer to this question is to be found in that fact which explains so much that is difficult in Scripture, namely, that this present dispensation is merely preparatory to another. The whole life of each Christian, and, therefore, the whole life of the Church, is the time given for the acquisition of that character which we shall need in heaven. To this, every event in our life, every arrangement in our dispensation, was designed to be conducive; and, if you bear this in mind, you will see how it was necessary that there should be this mixture of assured certainty and anxious suspense in our expectation of the Lords second coming. In the first place, the fact that Christ shall come must be clear and indubitable, in order to fix, steadily, the hope of the Church, in all ages, upon Christ, her future King. Beyond time, and the things of time--above its mists and its storms, we must see, and see clearly, Jesus Christ our King. It is for this reason that the coming of Christ is assured to us by every possible assurance that can be given, so that doubt concerning it is, to him who believes the Bible, impossible. This much, then, of our present state is clearly intelligible: we can see why the fact of the second advent should be certain; but why should the time be uncertain?--why are we in this state of anxious suspense as to when our Lord is to appear? We understand this when we remember that besides the general purpose of giving us a love for, and a dependence upon, Christ, by setting His coming before us as the one thing to be looked for, the promise of His coming is to have certain special effects upon us; it is to produce in us certain particular tempers and feelings--two especially: it was designed to comfort us under trial, and also to be a strong motive to watchfulness. Had the time of our Lords second coming been known from the first it would have utterly frustrated the design of making this life a state of probation and of gradual sanctification. The early Church would have been languidly indifferent; the later Church intensely and absorbingly expectant: the one would have been tried above measure, the other have had no trials at all. The one would have been patient, but not watchful; the other would be watchful, but not patient; neither, in the true sense of the word, could have been said to wait for the coming of Christ. But if, on the contrary, the date of this event is concealed, and the prophecies and signs of it so contrived that at any given moment there may be reason for thinking it to be near at hand, and reasons, also, for pronouncing it to be far off; if now it needs the straining gaze of ardent faith to catch a glimpse of it, and now it seems advancing full upon our view; if now it seems to approach, and now to recede, so that the earlier Church might sometimes deem it nigh, and the latest generation sometimes think it far off, then at all times, and in all ages, would this event have its full practical effect upon the Church.
III. But this is not the only reason why the time of his coming should be thus uncertain. So far we have been viewing it with reference only to the saints; it may, and should, be viewed with reference to the ungodly. To those who love Him not, as well as to those who do, it is said, Behold, I come quickly. And what is the promise of the second advent meant to be to such? A solemn warning; and a fearful snare if they neglect that warning. (Abp. Magee.)
The second advent of Christ
I. An important character.
1. His Divine character--the great God. Great in majesty, wisdom, knowledge, power, love. Crowned with all perfections peculiar to Deity.
2. His relative character--our Saviour.
3. In this combined and glorious character He will make His second appearance.
II. An important event.
1. Sudden.
2. Glorious.
3. A contrast to His first appearance in humiliation.
III. An important exercise. Looking for, etc. (Homilist.)
The coming of Christ
I. Christ comes to the penitent soul in conversion.
II. Christ comes to the tried and afflicted Christian to help and comfort.
III. Christ comes to the diligent servant to encourage and aid him.
IV. Christ comes to the dying Christian to receive his spirit. (F. Wagstaff.)
The appearing of Christ
I. An exalted character.
1. God.
2. Saviour.
II. An interesting event.
1. His own appearing will be glorious. His countenance will be as the sun shineth in his strength.
2. The manner of His appearing will be glorious. He will take the clouds for His chariot; He will come in the clouds with power and great glory.
3. The attendants at His appearing will be glorious. An innumerable multitude of celestial spirits will grace His train and perform His will.
4. The circumstances of His appearing will be glorious. The heavens will pass away with a great noise; the dead shall be raised; the Son of Man shall ascend His great tribunal, and before Him shall be gathered all nations; the final sentence will be pronounced and executed.
III. A joyful expectation.
1. The hope of a blessed resurrection.
2. The hope of a blessed mansion.
3. The hope of a blessed society.
4. The hope of obtaining the most blessed enjoyments.
5. The hope of being employed in the most blessed services.
IV. The believers conduct in the prospect of this blessedness. Looking for that blessed hope, etc. What is meant by this expression?
1. It includes a full conviction of the certainty of Christs appearing. The ground of our persuasion is the Word of God. Our faith is built on the Divine testimony.
2. To look for the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ is to love and desire His appearing.
3. To look for the appearing of Jesus Christ is to wait patiently for it.
4. In looking for the appearing of Christ the believer makes it His constant study to be always ready for His appearing, so to have his lamps trimmed that he may be prepared, at a moments warning, to meet the bridegroom. (The Pulpit.)
The future state
The present state is not permanent, neither do its circumstances render it desirable that it should be so. Its perishing hopes, groundless fears, profitless pursuits, faithless friendships, its toils, stripes, afflictions, make it far from happy. The Christian, then, looks for something better. The future state
1. Is necessary to solve the mysteries of Providence.
2. Is requisite to complete human happiness.
3. Is the end of the Christian faith.
4. Is the declared purpose of God.
5. Is advisable as a development. (Homilist.)
The glorious appearing of Christ
I. In view of such an experience, made sure to us in the near future, our religion should be a source of perpetual comfort and joyous expectation.
II. Present ills and seeming losses and self-denials should be borne with resignation and composure, in view of the imminence of the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, to finish His appointed work and reward His faithful ones.
III. There is no influence so potent on the faith, heart, and life of the Christian, as the near and daily contemplation of this revelation of Jesus Christ in the power and glory of heaven to consummate His work of grace and His reign of love. (J. M. Sherwood, D. D.)
The revisers rendering of this passage
The appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Among the foolish charges which have been brought against the revisers is that of favouring Arian tendencies by blurring those texts which teach the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The present passage would be a sufficient answer to such a charge. In the A.V. we have the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Saviour Jesus Christ, where both the Wording and the comma make it clear that the great God means the Father and not our Saviour. The revisers, by omitting the comma, for which there is no authority in the original, and by placing the our before both substantives, have given their authority to the view that St. Paul means both great God and Saviour to apply to Jesus Christ. It is not any Epiphany of the Father which is in his mind, but the Epiphany of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ. The wording of the Greek is such that absolute certainty is not attainable; but the context, the collocation of the words, the use of the word Epiphany, and the omission of the article before Saviour, all seem to favour the revisers rendering. And, if it be adopted, we have here one of the plainest and most direct statements of the Divinity of Christ to be found in Scripture. As such it was employed in the Arian controversy, although Ambrose seems to have understood the passage as referring to the Father and Christ, and not to Christ alone. The force of what follows is enhanced if the revisers rendering, which is the strictly grammatical rendering, is maintained. It is as being our great God that He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity; and it was because He was God as well as man, that what was uttered as a bitter taunt was really a glorious truth;--He saved others; Himself He cannot save. (A. Plummer, D. D.)
Who gave Himself for us
Christs gift to us, and ours to Him
I. The unspeakable and all-powerful gift. Christ began to give Himself when from the depths of eternity He passed within the limitations of men, and, drawn by our need, and impelled by filial obedience and fraternal love, entered within the conditions of our existence, and, forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, Himself likewise took part of the same. It was much that Christ should stretch out His hand to bless, should give His back to the smiter and His cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, and bear His cross on His own shoulders, and should be fastened to it on Calvary. Did you ever think that it was perhaps more that He should have a hand with which to bless, and a back to be bared to the scourge, a cheek that did not flush with one angry spot when rude spittings were shot upon it and traitorous kisses touched it; shoulders to bear His cross, and a body to be nailed upon it. Why had He these but because, ere He had them, He gave Himself for us? And so, having its roots in eternity, that gift included all His wonderful self-oblivious and world-blessing life and culminated in the death upon the cross. But then, mark still further, that the apostle here gives us another thought which deepens the wonderfulness and the preciousness of this gift; for, speaking to a man who had never come near Jesus Christ in the flesh, and including in his words the whole race of mankind to the last syllable of recorded time, he declares that He gave Himself for us. How did He give Himself for us unless in the giving He had the knowledge of us and His heart turned to us; unless when He yielded Himself to life and to death, the thoughts of all the men in the world, and that should thereafter be in it, were the motives that impelled Him? And how did He give Himself for us unless He gave Himself for me and for thee?
II. The redeeming power of the gift. It is noteworthy, that here, in the apostles summing up of the great purpose of the life and death of Jesus Christ, he isolates from all other consequences of that mighty fact, blessed as those are, and selects as the sole object to he considered this power to deliver men from the bondage of evil. Jesus Christ died for--not only that He might redeem you from the penalties of sin, nor from its guilt, but that He might redeem you from doing it. You want more than culture, more than the morality of prudence, more than education of conscience, in order to weaken passion and to strengthen will, so that a man may shake off the bondage of the evil which he has done, and may begin to walk in newness of life. I know of no power that enables a poor man, beset and burdened by torturing tyrants of his own passions, and feeble against the strong seductions of outward temptation, to stand fast and overcome them all, shaking their fetters from his emancipated limbs, but the realisation of that infinite sacrifice, that changeless Divine human love, that mighty pure Brothers life, from which there flow into mens hearts motives and powers and impulses which, and which alone, are strong enough to make them free.
III. The answering gift that corresponds to, and is evoked by, Christs gift of himself. The only way by which we can win another for ourselves is by giving ourselves to that other. Hearts are only bought by hearts; loves flame can only be kindled by loves flame. The only way by which one spiritual being can possess another is when the possessed loves and yields to the love of the possessor. And thus Jesus Christ makes us His own by giving Himself to us for our own. There is no power known in humanity that can, I was going to say, decentralise a human life and lift it clean off its pivot of self except the power of the unspeakable love of Jesus Christ on the cross. We revolve round our own centres, self is our centre; but that great Sun of Righteousness has mass enough to draw hearts and lives from their little orbit, and to turn them into satellites of its own. And then they move in music and in light around the Sun of their souls.
IV. The enthusiasm for good which that great gift will kindle. Zealous of good works. The apostle means substantially the same thing as he and the others mean by righteousness--the deeds of all kinds which correspond to mens place and power--whatsoever things are lovely and of good report. He thinks that if a man has rightly pondered and yielded himself to the influence of that serene and supreme example of a beautiful work, Christs giving of Himself for us, he will not only do such works, but be passionately desirous of opportunities for doing them. It is a deal easier to be zealous for the Church, for a society, for a political or religious party or school, for a movement or a cause, than to be zealous for good works. And all that zeal is froth unless the other be with it. All Christs flock are earmarked thus. They are zealous for good. They like and they seek for good works. (A. Mclaren, D. D.)
The great redemption
How great a theme--how glorious a work is this! To redeem a few bodies from slavery, what has it cost! To effect but a partial alleviation of their suffering, a prospective and future freedom, what efforts, what sacrifices, what a hard and protracted struggle have been necessary! But we are not redeemed with silver and gold from our vain conversation (that is, our life of iniquity), but with the precious blood of Christ.
I. We notice what was the implied condition of mankind that induced jesus Christ to undertake this arduous work on their behalf. We were under the influence of moral evil.
1. We were held under the sentence of the supreme law--a law undeniably just and pure, calculated to maintain the prerogatives of the sovereign Lord, and worthy of being feared as the expression of His righteous will.
2. The human soul, created at first in Gods image, was polluted and degraded. As a temple now in ruins, desecrated, and perverted from its original purpose, no longer fit for him to inhabit.
3. The condemnation and pollution of the soul involved its ultimate, if not its present misery--the loss of all pure felicity and pure immortality. Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death--a privation of all happiness, a subjection to all suffering.
II. We observe what it is here said Christ did for us--He gave Himself for us--This, under any view, was an act of stupendous goodness and compassion. But its peculiar features must be distinctly traced.
1. The Person who gave Himself. The Fathers co-equal and co-eternal Son, whom angels worship and devils dread, whom the universe acknowledges as its author. He gave Himself for us, a ransom price of ineffable excellence and worth!
2. What was the deed? The most entire self-sacrifice. He gave Himself, net only to teach us, comfort us, labour for us, but to die for us.
3. The unparalleled magnanimity of the act. Who so great as He? who so mean as we? What being so glorious as He? who so worthless as we?
III. Let us distinctly appreciate his purpose, or the end of his wondrous self-devotement. To redeem us from all iniquity.
1. To rescue us from the sentence pronounced upon all iniquity by the Divine law; and this by being made a curse for us. The law has no more power over you.
2. To redeem us from the dominion of sin in our hearts and minds. He designed that we should not continue slaves of iniquity, vassals of Satan, and victims of guilt. What a noble purpose, to regenerate that which was so degenerate, and restore that which was in ruins, and purify that which was so polluted!
3. His design included the recovery of our immortal life; for to redeem from all iniquity must signify to redeem from all the effects, all the consequences, all the privations and inflictions which iniquity in all its possible relations can incur.
IV. We notice how this deed of his effects the purpose he proposed.
1. His death is the moral substitute for ours; or that great moral consideration on account of which God is pleased to pardon sin, to accept the repenting sinner, and justify the ungodly who believes in Jesus. Here we can perceive that there is a reasonable foundation for the practical display of the Divine love to lost souls. It is a conception of the Divine and infinite mind, and evidently worthy of that mind, since it is glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, goodwill towards men.
2. We may perceive, also, that the sacrifice of Christ becomes the basis on which Divine influences are granted to renovate fallen man. The Holy Spirit becomes our sanctifier, because Christ has restored us to Divine favour, satisfied the law, and removed every barrier to our adoption.
3. The discovery of this grand fact of Christs sacrifice is found the most efficient, indeed the only successful, means of recovering us to a sincere obedience and a lively hope of glory. This works the great moral miracle of transforming a heart of stone to one of flesh, a heart of sin to one of virtue, a heart of enmity to one of love. Application:
1. Can we say, He hath loved me, and given Himself for me? Then let us prove our vital union by all the fruits of godliness.
2. Can we find no evidence that we are redeemed from our iniquity? then let us fear the impending issue, and flee for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us. (The Evangelist.)
Christ
s gift of Himself for our redemption
I. The person here spoken of The great God, etc.
II. The gift.
1. The dignity of the person bestowing it.
2. The sacrifice at which it is made.
3. Its value.
4. The motive which impelled the donor to bestow it--love.
5. The benefit which accompanies it. (A. Alexander, D. D.)
Christs gift of Himself
In that Christ gave Himself
1. We learn that there can be neither other priest nor other sacrifice than Christ Himself: both which our apostle accurately noteth in a diverse phrase, which at the first seem to sound the self-same; neither doth our English so distinguish them as the Greek doth. The former is in our text, which more properly betokeneth that Christ offered no other oblation or sacrifice than Himself: hence is it said that for this end God gave Christ a body, that in the same He might perform this part of His Fathers will. The latter is in 1Ti_2:6, which implieth more directly that Christ Himself gave Himself, and that there can be no other priest in this oblation than He that is the sacrifice: neither, indeed, can He be offered of any other save Himself, who for this purpose sanctified Himself, as the altar sanctifieth the gift and the temple the gold.
2. In that it is said that Christ gave Himself we may note that He gave Himself wholly, both His body and soul, in sacrifice, and spared neither: for we had deserved a double death which it was meet that Christ by a double death should destroy; by His bodily death pull out the sting of the death of our bodies, and utterly abolish the death of our souls by the death of His soul; and to this purpose, that our consolation might be full, the Scripture showeth how that His soul was heavy unto the death, and that a little before His suffering His soul was sore troubled. And Isaiah expressly affirmeth that His soul travailed in His death, and that He made His soul an offering for sin and poured out His soul unto death, and that He made His grave with the rich in His death: where note, that he speaketh in the plural number to note this double death of Christ; and what other thing did Himself proclaim with such a loud voice upon the cross when He cried, My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? For what other is the death of the soul but to be separated from God, the fountain of life? which point helpeth us to understand such places of the Scripture as affirm that Christ suffered and died according to the flesh (Joh_6:51), and that Christ offered His body (Heb_10:10), and all those which ascribe all our salvation to the blood of Christ. All which must be synecdochically understood, under one kind comprehending all His suffering and never excluding any part of it, every one of them being equivalent to this speech of the apostle, who gave Himself: that is, both His body and soul, or wholly unto the death; neither can the death of the cross be other, which is joined with the malediction of God from which we by it were wholly delivered.
3. Where it is said that Christ gave Himself it may be further noted that His whole passion and death was voluntary; for what is more free than gift? and this appeareth in that He was wont to say beforehand that He must go away unto His Father, that He must leave the world and His disciples, that He had power to lay down His life and take it up again and that no man could take it from Him; for who could take that life from Him, whose sinless nature of itself was not obnoxious to death, it being the stipend of sin? (T. Taylor, D. D.)
Christ must be received
1. If Christ gave Himself for us, then suffered He not for His own sins, for He knew no sin, being most holy in His conception, without original sin; according to the word of the angel That holy thing that shall be born of thee (Luk_1:35); as also most innocent in all His life, for no guile was found in His mouth; and who could accuse Him of sin, of which innocency, not only His friends, the prophets and apostles, but His greatest foes also, by Gods providence, became witnesses? Pilates wife wished her husband to have nothing to do with that just man. Pilate himself confessed he found no fault in Him. The centurion said, surely this man was the Son of God. Caiaphas said, that one man must die, not for Himself, but for the people; the thief on the cross, this man hath done nothing amiss. Nay, Judas himself cried out that he had betrayed innocent blood; not to speak anything of the many confessions of the devils themselves, that He was the Son of the Most High.
2. If Christ have given Himself for us, we must receive this gift and the benefit of it, seeing a gift not received is to no purpose or profit. And the means to receive Christ and apply Him with all His benefits is
(1) To know Him, for darkness comprehendeth Him not; and He came to His own, but they not knowing Him received Him not, but crucified Him, whom had they known, they would never have crucified the Lord of Glory.
(2) By prizing the gift above gold, silver, pearls; esteeming the precious blood of the immaculate Lamb above every corruptible thing under the sun, all which cannot redeem our soul.
(3) By opening the door of the heart, purified by faith, to entertain Him, while He offereth Himself with all His merits in the Word and sacraments, and this not as a stranger, by giving a nights lodging, but as our husband and head, never to be departed.
3. It Christ has given Himself so willingly to such a cursed death for us, we must also in way of thankfulness give ourselves unto Him. He gave His body, His soul, His glory, and all for us; we must not think much to part with body, goods, name, liberty, or life itself, for His sake, when He calleth us unto Him. The law of thankfulness requireth that we should part with such things as in comparison are but trifles for Him, who thinketh not His dearest things too good for us; and the rather, because when we have done all we can, we can never be sufficiently thankful for this greatest gift that ever was given to the sons of men; we can never speak sufficiently of it, nor ever wade deep enough into the ocean of that love that presenteth us with such a gift as this is. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
Christs gift of Himself for us
I. The person refeered to. Show
1. His Divinity.
2. His humanity.
3. Union of both.
4. Superiority to angels and all other existences.
II. What this person did. Gave Himself for us.
1. Voluntarily.
2. Personally.
3. Sacrificially.
III. The purpose for which he gave himself for us.
1. To redeem or deliver us; not from poverty, or affliction, or death, but from iniquity--all iniquity--its guilt, condemnation, power, inbeing, consequences.
2. To purify us; to separate us unto Himself from the world and sin; a peculiar people--in nature, names, possessions.
3. Zealous of good works--not passive, but active.
Lessons: Our redemption is
1. Wrought out by love and blood.
2. Entire and perfect.
3. Into blessed experience and useful living. (Local Preachers Treasury.)
The duty of using ones life for others
Who gave Himself for us. We are familiar with the expression that Jesus Christ gave His life for man. I would not take anything away from the meaning and magnitude of the act of dying; but I should be glad to give more emphasis and power to the fact that Christ gave His life as much while He was living as while He was dying, and that to give life may mean either to use it or to lay it down. All Christs was a giving. Although comprehensively viewed, it was a single gift, yet it was a continuous gift, developing in every direction. It was a multiple force, ever varying. It was one prolonged giving of Himself away to others. For He lived not for Himself. He sought not His own. He did not employ His reason, nor His moral sentiments, nor His active forces, nor His time, nor His power, for Himself. He honoured His Father, and sought the welfare of men. And the three years, or nearly three, that preceded His death, were in some respects a far more remarkable gift than was the death itself. And in the case of our Divine Lord, He gave Himself both while living and while dying. So the lesson to be derived, it seems to me, from many of the descriptions of Christs gift of Himself, is a lesson to be pondered in regard to the use of our lives, rather than in regard to their termination. We give our life best, not when we die, but while yet we are living. It is true that men often give their lives in some sense as Christ did; but the more obvious and the more common and attainable imitation of the Lord Jesus Christ is that which seeks to imitate His life, rather than His death. No man can give his life for the world as Christ did. Though a man may give his life for the world, no man can stand sinless; but He did. No man is related to God as was the Saviour. From no man reaches out those threads which connect him with the spiritual and invisible realm as Christ was connected with it. What the other side influence was I have said we do not know; but that there was one we are told. And this we cannot have. Here is a grand official difference. There is a universal character belonging to the influence of the death of Christ which does not and cannot belong to that of any man. Yet, in so far as moral influence is exerted by ones death on his fellow men, it is possible, though in a far lower sphere, and in a far less degree, that we should follow and imitate our Lord by giving our life for one another. Every patriot who is sacrificed, on account of the heroic fidelity of his life, to the public weal; every martyr whose blood is shed as a seal and witness of that holy faith by which he would illumine and bless the world; every prisoner lingering in dungeons, and, with long dying, suffering unseen and forgotten by the multitude for whose welfare his life is spent; every man who goes forth to lands of fever and malaria, and to early death, knowing that he carries religion, civilisation, and liberty to the ignorant at the price of his own life, and cheerfully dies in the harness there, where men, being most degraded and thankless, are on that very account more needful of this very sacrifice of some one--all these, and all others whose death is brought about by persistent adhesion to the welfare of men, follow their Lord not less really because the sphere is lower and narrower. They follow their Lord in death and, through death. While, then, it is possible, literally, to give our life for others, and while we may sometimes be called in the performance of our duty to do it, so that we shall not say that dying for others is antiquated; yet, in the main, if we are to follow our Lord, and to give our lives for others, it must be by the use which we make of those lives. Now, he who devotes the active hours of his life to those spheres to which Providence calls men, is really giving himself for others. When a man stands upon the deck, and at the bench, and by the forge, and in the furrow, and in the colliery--then, if ever, if he has a life to live of true piety, is the time; and there, at the post of duty, is the place. For all the humblest avocations and employments are so arranged that, while they serve to support the actor, they do a hundred times as much for the community as they do for him that follows them. Why, that old smith, rugged himself, almost, as the storms he prepares to combat, hammers morning and night upon the links that form the chain which clasps the cable. It may be, as in the olden time, yet more ponderously, that he in the smithy works on the huge shank of the anchor, and when his summers work or winters toil is done, and it is sold for the ship, men ask him, What got you for your labour? Nobody ever thinks of saying to him, You have worked a whole winter to make a gift; what have you given to the community? What has he given? It may not be known for a long time. On voyage after voyage the ship goes, and there lies his gift useless and unsuspected. Some day the ship bears back a thousand precious souls, among them mothers whose flowers lie at home waiting for them to return; fathers, who cannot be spared from the neighbourhood; public men of signal service--the very salt of the times in which they live; heroes and patriots many. Then it is that the storm beats clown and seeks to whelm them all in the sea, and to whelm the community in mourning. Then it is that, when every other effort has been made in vain, the anchor is thrown out. And now the storm rages with increased violence, as if it were yet more angry because it is thwarted. But the good blacksmiths work holds. Sinking far out of sight, and grappling the foundations of the earth, it will not let go. And we, for the first time, see the value of his gift. Every link has been properly welded; and, though the wind howls, and the sea wages a fierce and desperate battle, and the strain is tremendous, the storm passes by, and there rides the gallant ship safe! There is what he gave. He gave a chain, an anchor, to the community, and salvation to the hundreds on board the ship, and joy and peace where the tidings came of souls saved from the remorseless deep. And yet, how many men think simply that he made an anchor, and got so many hundred dollars for it! He made an anchor and saved a hundred lives. So men that fill our houses with conveniences, with comforts, with various instruments by which our time is redeemed to higher and nobler uses; men that make implements--they give my brain a gift. He that makes a machine emancipates me. For if matter cannot be made to toil upon matter, then men must toil upon it. And just in proportion as you make slaves--the only slaves that are fit for this world--machine slaves--just in that proportion you redeem the mind to greater leisure, and to a larger sphere for the moral functions of manhood. And all men that labour thus productively and skilfully are real benefactors of the community. Let every man, then, follow the occupation that God has given him, and understand that in following it he is rendering a service to his fellow men; and let him feel, I am honoured in these appointed channels of Gods providence, that I am permitted to give my life for my fellow men--that is, to live it for them. Now, in proportion as you are noble, in proportion as God has made you wise and stronger than anybody else, in proportion as study and opportunity have refined you and cultured you--in that proportion God requires that you should give the benefit of your gifts and attainments to the whole community. You cannot follow Christ except you do it. Lastly, consider the wickedness of what seldom passes for a wicked life. I am not speaking of a life of vice and of crime, which is the diseased form of all wickedness--wickedness carried to its most morbid condition, But see how, all through life, men of repute, men of standing, men of influence, men that are praised while they live and are eulogised when they die, are men that are given to the lust of pride and vanity. They live inordinately for themselves. They do not actually do harm, it may be; but they are men who are full of ambition all for themselves. They are like the oak which stands in the night to gather dew for itself, and then, if the wind in the morning shakes it, is willing to part with the few drops that it really cannot hold on to; and they call themselves benevolent! There are men that spread abroad gigantic arms, and gather the wealth of heaven--whatever Gods bounty can give them--meaning it all for themselves; and a few accidental drops of kindness here and there give them some claim to generosity and benevolence. But where are the channels into which their life flows? Where are the uses that these great forces, concentrating in them, subserve? They live for pride, for vanity--the meanest of all feelings when it is in excess--and for self. They live for everything but others. You need not be a criminal, you need not be a very wicked man, you may neither riot or debauch, you may neither steal nor gamble; and yet, you may live stained, leprous, spotted, and hideous before God, before all holy angels, and before right-thinking men. Your life may be a vast activity; and yet may be a huge vortex where everything tends to that centre--self. And that is to be wicked enough. You do not need to be any wickeder. And yet, you may be as wicked as that, and still be very respectable in the eyes of men. This question comes home very nearly to us. What we are doing for others is to measure our following the Lord Jesus Christ; and not what we are doing of necessity, but what we are doing on purpose, what we are doing consciously, what we are striving to do, what we put our heart and soul into. If there be any of you, then, that desire to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, and to give yourselves for others, as He gave Himself for our comfort, living or dying ye are the Lords--lying or dying, and the one as much as the other. (H. W. Beecher.)
That He might redeem us from all iniquity
The redemption from lawlessness
When we hear that we are not under the law, there is a danger of our allowing ourselves to feel a vague impression that the requirements of the gospel cannot be quite so strict, and that we are now a good deal more free to take our own way than if we were under the old bond of legal restraint. A general laxity of moral tone has too often been disguised under a title of Christian liberty; and a reference to the consolations of the gospel and the provisions of grace has too frequently prevented any serious distress and contrition at the consciousness of the inconsistencies and shortcomings of an unholy, self-indulgent life. In making the Christian revelation, God has been careful to guard against such an abuse of gospel truth by exhibiting side by side, as correlative and mutually dependent truths, the proclamation of pardon, and the provision for holiness. If we fall into the Antinomian snare, it will be not only in spite of the plain teaching of Christ, but also in defiance of the great moral lesson exhibited in the Atonement. Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, that is the negative object of the teaching of grace; and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works, that is the eternal and positive purpose of God towards the elect bride of His Divine Son. The word translated in our version of this passage--iniquity--might literally be rendered lawlessness, and suggests the moral attitude and condition of him who is altogether ignorant of, or indifferent to, the claims of the Divine law, or who wantonly sets them at defiance. From such a state of soul and habit of life Christ is here represented by St. Paul as dying to redeem us, and we may add, from all that in any way savours of or leads up to these; for it is from all lawlessness that we are redeemed, whatever specific form it may assume. Let us consider a little more closely how our natural disposition towards lawlessness is affected by the influences of true Christian experience; in other words, how grace guards against or triumphs over lawlessness. This life of lawlessness is quite compatible with knowledge of the law; indeed it only assumes its worst moral type when the sinner is familiar with the laws claims and sanctions, just as the worst criminals are those who know that the State has enacted laws against the crimes they are committing, and who yet continue to commit them; but, whether ignorant of it or familiar with it, the lawless will resent or endeavour to evade legal restraint, and to a greater or less extent act as though no law existed. The great attraction of the life of lawlessness is the liberty which it seems to promise. The lawless soul recognises no superior authority, and is ready to ask defiantly, Who is Lord over us? For while the life of lawlessness appears to be a life of liberty, when we come to examine it a little more closely, we make the startling discovery that it is really a life of skilfully concealed bondage. The truth is, that lawlessness itself becomes a law, and operates with inexorable force upon those who have sought their liberty in it--the apostle calls it the law of sin and death. We may illustrate this by referring to the analogies of social life. We know well that in human society lawlessness must mean tyranny. Any one member of society who acts out of law will be sure to infringe the rights of some other which the law was designed to protect. The thief leads a life of lawlessness, but it is at the expense of others on whom he preys. Lawlessness must ever mean the subjection of the weaker to the stronger, and from this we may judge what must inevitably be the condition of the lawless man. If in such an one the higher elements were really the stronger, no worse consequences perhaps might happen than the production of a morbid asceticism or a stoical insensibility; but unhappily with such this is not the case. The lawless man, by his very lawlessness, is cut off from God, and therefore from all those holier influences which might have stimulated these higher elements of his nature, and enabled them to hold their own, while by the same lawlessness he is exposed to the influence of the great author of lawlessness, with whose spirit in this respect he is in perfect sympathy. Hence the lower elements in the mans nature, in one form or another, are sure to carry all before them, and to exercise a certain tyrannous supremacy by virtue of the right of the stronger. Thus we see that there comes into existence a certain law of lawlessness, which is the most execrable of all forms of slavery, and which binds, as with an iron yoke of bondage, those who, to realise their foolish dream of independence, have turned their back on the law of God. Lawlessness becomes law, and when, wearied with the tyranny of lawless forces, the lawless heart would fain return to a state of allegiance to law, it finds itself precluded from doing so by that anarchical force, that other law in the members, which will not submit to the dictates of the will, any more than to the commands of God. Herein lies the most startling illustration perhaps that can be found of that dread law of Nemesis in which the ancients believed so firmly, and not without good cause. By and by voluntary yielding becomes compulsory submission, and he is the slave to a greater or less extent of that habit of lawlessness to which he has surrendered himself. But there is more than this to be said. When we consider the position of God as the moral Governor of the universe, it is easy to see that it is a just and righteous thing that they who reject His authority should be allowed to find their punishment in their own miserable experiences, that He should ordain the self-imposed tyranny of lawlessness to be the scourge of lawlessness. But if this be so, this cursed bondage comes upon the lawless not merely as a natural sequel attributable to the force of habit, but as a part of the effect o! that Divine law of retribution which backs with terrible sanctions the revealed law of God, the complete effects of which will be exhibited in the doom of the lost. Now if a man turn his back upon his allegiance to the law, it will follow a s a matter of right as well as of necessity that he shall fall under the supremacy of the great lawbreaker, and become the slave of that spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Hence, although Satans authority over us is a usurpation, yet there is a certain sense in which his sway is backed by right. We have given him a claim over our desecrated nature by our wilful apostasy from God. Sin and death form as much the subjective law of the sinners experience as life and holiness constitute the law of the experience of the saint. Just as this outward world itself has laws of its own laid down by infinite wisdom, which regulate its motion and form its character; as every flower of the field is possessed of a law of its own, in obedience to which it assumes a certain form, and passes through a definite process of development; even so the experience of the lawless has a certain subjective character, and is governed by laws which belong to it. As nature has fixed laws of its own, so fallen nature has fixed laws of its own; and this law of fallen nature, the law of sin and death, springs into existence, as I have been endeavouring to show, as the direct Nemesis of sin. With these thoughts present to our mind, clearly discerning that lawlessness works out its own Nemesis and prepares its own retribution, we proceed to ask how can man he saved from penalties so justly incurred, and delivered from those legal provisions which render him the victim of his own lawlessness? St. Pauls words in the passage supply us with the only satisfactory answer, revealing to us an undertaking that was indeed worthy of a God. In one way only could a means be provided to enable those who had become the lawful captives of the anarchical powers of darkness to pass from that condition into lawful liberty. Whatever God does must be in accordance with law. Gods dealings with humanity must be consistent with His dealings with other intelligences. God cannot, and will not, arbitrarily exercise towards man, however favoured man may be, an unjust and unholy partiality. So we read in this passage that Christ gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all lawlessness. It was only by redemption that alike the claims of law and the force of lawlessness, as against the sinner, could be met; and the only redemption price that the great Judge of all could either propose or accept is that which is indicated in our text--Christ gave Himself for us. Now it is evident that if the redemption of humanity is to be effected by the sufferings of Christ as the voluntary victim of the broken law, His sufferings should bear some close resemblance to those which sin has incurred; otherwise the great lesson suggested by His sufferings must be lost, and one supreme object of them be defeated. The passion of man for self leads man to submit to the tyranny of sin, even though he hates and despises it while he yields to it. The passion of Christ for human souls led Him to submit to be made sin for us, though He knew no sin, and intensely loathed it, even while He represented it. But the similarity extends even further. We have seen that it is part of the Nemesis of lawlessness that the lawless sinner comes under the power of him who is emphatically the lawless one, and that, having renounced all allegiance to Divine law, he should experience the results of the negation of law amidst the representatives of lawlessness beneath. Even so our blessed Lord was content to be given over, not only into the hands of wicked men, but in some mysterious sense to the cruel animosity of the lawless spirits of evil. This, He exclaims, is your hour, and the power of darkness. Perhaps, without intruding into mysteries that are too profound for our limited knowledge, we may even go a step further, and suggest that as it is doubtless part of the just retribution on lawlessness that the lawless should be left to himself, and cut off from all connection with Him who is the eternal source of law, even so Christ, representing our lawlessness, was cut off from all conscious connection with His Divine Father in those terrible moments spent upon the Cross, when the confession of inward and agonising desolation was wrung from His breaking heart. I picture to myself the dying Son of Man as in some sense outlawed, denied all recognition and protection from above, and victimised by violence and cruelty below. In this voluntary submission of the Son of God to penalties such as are due to the lawlessness of man, we have presented to our minds the most solemn and striking tribute that ever was paid to the majesty of Law. And now that the ransom has been paid, it is our blessed privilege to claim the full benefits of this redemption from all lawlessness, and to return in our own actual experience to the happy liberty of the law. From henceforth ours is to be a life of law, but not such a life of law as we vainly tried to lead before we accepted His redemption. Christ has not redeemed us from one form of bondage only to place us under another. He has redeemed us from lawlessness not to place us under law, but to place us in law, and law in us. Thus St. Paul speaks of himself as being, not without law, or lawless towards God, but lawbound to Christ. It suggests the thought that devotion to Christ had become a law of life to St. Paul, in the fulfilment of which he found his perfect law of liberty. We are redeemed from lawlessness that we may enjoy the liberty and not feel the constraint of law, and this end is attained when law coincides with inclination, which it will when its seat is within the heart. Law is liberty when we live from law, not by law. The Christian carries the law of his being within him, just in the same way as the objects of the natural world carry the law of their own motion or development in themselves. He has but to be true to his new nature, to recognise its instincts, to yield to its impulses, to respond to its claims, to gratify its desires, and he will find himself fulfilling the law without any thought of fulfilling it, indeed without a thought of its being law. Christ has redeemed us from lawlessness that He may Himself become our life law, because He is our new nature. Two things surely are manifest in New Testament Scripture; first, that in redemption all has been done for us that is necessary to render it possible for us to attain the prize of our high calling; second, that we shall only attain the prize of our calling as we by faith appropriate to ourselves what has thus been made ours. It is most instructive, with these two thoughts in our minds, to notice how throughout the New Testament the work is represented as done, and yet to be done; the blessing as bestowed, and yet to be appropriated. A few instances out of many must suffice; but they might be multiplied almost indefinitely. We are spoken of as already saved, and as being saved, and yet are directed to work out our own salvation (Act_2:47; Php_2:12). We are dead with Christ, and our old man is crucified with Him, and yet we are to mortify our members that are on the earth (Rom_6:6; Rom_6:8; Col_3:5). We have put off the old man, and yet we are taught to put him off (Col_3:9-10; Eph_4:22). Do you believe really that Christ has redeemed you from all lawlessness, whether in little things or in great? and do you claim the practical effect of the deliverance in the same way in which you once claimed the practical effect of His expiation for your justification? How many of us can believe readily enough that His redeeming grace may raise us above flagrant forms of iniquity, and yet doubt His ability to save us from the more common, and therefore less startling, forms of infirmity and sin. From all He has already redeemed us. For sin shall not have dominion over you; for Christ gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all lawlessness; and He gives Himself to us, that He may become Himself our law. Yes, let us believe it, from all lawlessness. That embraces the little things as well as the great things. It embraces the little tempers, which are so lawless, the rattle of the tongue, which is a very lawless member. Be no lodger satisfied with hoping and longing, and desiring, and wishing for better things; but bring your strong faith to bear upon Gods fact. Christ died to ransom you from all lawlessness, and He has not died in vain. Believe that you are redeemed, and claim it of the Redeemer that He shall apply His own redemption. (W. H. M. H. Aitken.)
Redemption and its obligations
I. Christs work of redemption.
1. This redemption is presented to us in the Word of God in a threefold aspect. In one place--Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. In our text--Christ hath redeemed us from all iniquity--that is, from the power of indwelling sin. And in other passages the day of Christs second advent is spoken of as the day of redemption, because it is at His return that the glorification of His redeemed people will be consummated by the redemption of our bodies. The price at which this redemption was effected is declared by St. Peter not to have been a corruptible price, as silver and gold, but the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. Thus, then, you will perceive that the basis of Christs redemption is this--His self-surrender is a sacrifice for the sins of man, His death in its design was an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of the world.
2. The fountain has its source from the throne of Deity, and the rise of the stream of mercy is lost amid the depth of the eternal counsels. The work of Christ was not the cause but the fruit of the Fathers love. Christ Himself, the provision of Christ, the surrender of Christ, is the manifestation of the love of God.
II. The design of redemption, and the consequent obligation of the redeemed. The redemption which is in Christ Jesus involves this great and mighty principle--that if I have been bought by the precious blood of Christ I am not my own; that hence forth the love of Christ is to constrain me, that henceforth I am not to live to myself, but to Him that died for me and rose again, and that I am to glorify God in my body and in my spirit, which are Gods. (J. C. Miller, M. A.)
A perfect redemption
1. If Christ hath freed and redeemed us from all iniquity, then hath He made no partial redemption; He satisfieth not for the fault, and leaveth us to satisfy for the punishment; neither redeemeth us from the eternal punishment, but giveth us leave to satisfy for the temporal. But if Christ have redeemed us from all iniquity, if He said on the Cross, It is finished, that is, the whole work of mans redemption is consummate and perfect; if at one time He made one perfect expiation, and thereby brought in an everlasting redemption, here is artillery and gunshot against all popery; down go all other satisfactions for sin in this life, down go all satisfactions after this life in purgatory, down goeth their doctrine of all other merits save this of Christ.
2. This consideration must stir us up to a love of our Lord Jesus, who hath discharged us of such a debt, and ransomed us from such an unutterable thraldom.
3. It must work in us a detestation and watchfulness against all sin, which bringeth such vassalage upon us; for shall Christ take upon Him our debts, that we, like desperate prodigals, should do nothing but augment them? Shall He ransom us, and give us perfect freedom that we, with the unthankful Israelites, should run back again to our former bondage? Shall we, with Solomons fools, make but a mock of sin, which cost Christ so dear to expiate?
4. Hence also is ministered no small consolation to the faithful; for if Christ have redeemed us from all iniquity, who can lay anything to our charge? Seeing that Christ hath justified, who can condemn? (T. Taylor, D. D.)
A threefold description of Christians
I. Redeemed from all iniquity. We have been brought out of the dominion and thraldom of sin with the hearts blood of the Son of God. What have we, then, to do any more with the works of darkness? What has the emancipated slave to do any longer with his old bondage and his old toil? He is a free man now. The owners lash is no longer for his shoulders to bear. He and slavery have parted company forever, and he never experiences a single moments desire to return to it.
II. A peculiar people. We are Gods own purchased possession; we are His sole property, and belong to Him alone. The remembrance of this truth cannot fail to produce in us a life that will appear eccentric to the world, but there is no warrant in it for practising eccentricities.
III. Zealous of good works. Not merely practising good works, but boiling in their desire to do them. (G. A. Sowter, M. A.)
Christ the promoter of the right
The supreme mission of Christ to this earth was not so much to give correct creeds as correct conduct. Iniquity is the want of equity, the negation of rectitude.
I. He reveals the standard of rectitude. The will of God.
II. He supplies the motive to rectitude. Supreme love to God.
III. He presents the model of rectitude. He Himself is a perfect example of what all men should be. (Homilist.)
The consecrating Saviour and the consecrated people
I. The consecrating saviour.
1. He gave Himself (Joh_10:18).
2. He gave Himself a ransom.
3. The object of this was to purify men; to save from sin.
Note the distinction between being saved from the penalties of sin, and from sin itself.
II. The consecrated people.
1. Freed from the power of sin.
2. Brought under the Divine rule. From all iniquity; literally, from all lawlessness.
3. Specially devoted to good; peculiar,
4. Ardent; zealous.
5. Diligent, devoted to good works. (F. Wagstaff.)
Purify unto Himself a peculiar people
Cleansing through Christs death
1. In that the death of Christ serveth for our continual cleansing while we live in this world; we are to take notice and acknowledgment of much filthiness and uncleanness even in the best, it is no slight soil or stain that hath fouled our natures, which will easily be blown or brushed off, for it sticketh nearer us than our skins, that the very power of Christs death itself doth not wholly destroy it while we live; but we have cause to cry out with the leper in the law, I am unclean, I am unclean: nay, the godly see what blackamoors they are, and how hardly they change their skins and what leopards they are, hardly parting with their spots. And this made the apostle take such pains that he might attain this fruit of Christs death and resurrection after he had been long able to maintain his justification against all challenges, and say who shall lay anything to the charge of Gods elect, and what shall separate us from the love of God? Well knew he how fast this uncleanness cleaveth unto our natures (Heb_12:1).
2. Hence may be noted that wheresoever sin is pardoned it is also purged (Rom_8:2). That is not only from the curse of the law, but even that law and the power of sin itself which would still hold us in the service of it. He shall die in his sin that dieth not unto his sin, not that sin can be so dead as not remain; but if it lie not bleeding by virtue of that stroke which Christ in His death hath given it if the force of it be not abated, and thou escaped from the rule of it Christs blood doth thee no good.
3. Let both these considerations move us to be ever washing and cleansing ourselves from our uncleanness, and never to be at rest till we find ourselves, although not free from blackness, yet comely, as the Church confesseth of herself. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
Why believers are called a peculiar people
1. Because they are the most precious of men, even the most noble persons of the earth, descended of the blood of Christ.
2. In regard of God they are a peculiar people, distinct from others by His grace of election by which they are chosen out of the world and set high in His favour above all others. For they lie before Him in the righteousness of Christ in whom the Father is well pleased; they are bought from the earth and stand before Him in the work of His own fingers, namely, their new birth and second creation in which He also delighteth to behold. Hence are they called a holy nation, the spouse of Christ, the daughter of God, the choice of God, and Gods delight.
3. They are a peculiar people in regard of their whole manner and condition of life, which made Balaam say of Israel that it was a people dwelling alone and numbered not himself among other nations, that is, altogether different in laws, customs, manner, and condition of life. But let us see this truth in some instances.
(1) Their original are not some few families coming out of some corner of the earth; but they sprung of Christ, of whom all the families in heaven and earth are called.
(2) Their country is no part of earth, for they are here but strangers and pilgrims, but heaven, to which they tend and from whence they look for a Saviour.
(3) Their King is neither born nor created, but the everlasting King of glory who ruleth not some one country but from sea to sea, yea, to the worlds end, and not for an age, but as He is a King forever and His kingdom an everlasting kingdom, so He ruleth forever and ever, and of His kingdom there is no end.
(4) Their laws are spiritual, to govern the conscience as well as the outward man, most perfect, never changed, never abrogated as mens be.
(5) Their war and weapons are not carnal, but spiritual, as their chiefest enemies; their Captain was never foiled nor can be, and therefore before they strike a blow they are sure of victory, and for their external enemies they conquer them, not by smiting (as others), but by suffering.
(6) Their language is the language of Canaan, their speech bewrayeth them to be citizens of heaven, hence are they called people of a pure language, no filthy, unsavoury, or corrupt communication cometh out of their mouths, but such as is holy, tending to edification, and ministering grace to the hearers.
(7) Their apparel is devised and put on by God Himself, even garments of innocency, long white robes died red in the blood of the Lamb.
(8) Their diet not rising out of the earth, but descending from heaven; Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life, and that manna that came down from heaven, and that water which gusheth out of the rock, of whom whosoever feedeth and drinketh he hath tasted of the tree of life and of the water of life, he cannot but live everlastingly. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
Peculiar but not eccentric
The phrase employed in our version, peculiar people, has no doubt tended to suggest and foster exceedingly erroneous ideas of what God expects His people to be. It certainly does not mean a people who affect all kinds of peculiarities. Not only is this phrase associated with some of the most extraordinary exhibitions of fanaticism that have been witnessed in modern times, but I apprehend that there are not a few earnest and even devoted Christians whose minds have been more or less warped and their lives distorted by a misapprehension of the true significance of the phrase here used. There are some good people whose religion, to the casual observer at any rate, seems mainly to consist in making themselves very extraordinary, and they are disposed to claim that others should copy their peculiarities if they desire to follow the Lord fully. Such persons need to be reminded that God does not seek for an eccentric people, but for a people whose essential singularity lies in the fact that they are His. Be true to your calling as espoused to Christ, and this will save you from having to attempt the solution of many otherwise perplexing questions. You will not then have to ask, as too many Christians do, How far may I go in the direction of worldly conformity without actually forfeiting my religion? Can you conceive a loyal and devoted bride making any such inquiry, How far may I go in the way of associating with those who are the enemies and detractors of my affianced husband, who have done all that they could to wrong him, and rob him, and injure him? How far shall I be justified in choosing such persons for my friends and companions, and in sharing in their pursuits and pleasures where his name is never mentioned except in scorn? What length may I go in this direction without altogether forfeiting his affections, and bringing my relations with him to an abrupt termination? Pity the bridegroom who has such a bride in prospect! But such a bride the Lords will never be. We need not court peculiarity; without going out of our way to make ourselves ridiculous or absurd, those of us who live right out for Christ will make themselves peculiar enough in a world that does not live for Christ at all. The man who counts all things dung and dross that he may win Christ, will be a very peculiar person in a world that counts Christ dung and dross so that it may win its own pleasures and gratifications. (W. H. M. H. Aitken.)
Zealous of good works
The practical result of the teaching of grace
Zealous of good works. Such is the practical fruit of the training of Grace; such its effect upon the outward lives of those who learn in her school. Herein Grace as a teacher returns a triumphant answer to her traducers, who would fain represent her as robbing man of his energies and paralysing his activities by withdrawing the legal motives for action. Who are at this moment foremost in every good work of charity and benevolence throughout our land, but the very persons to whom the doctrines of Grace are dear as their own lives, and who have learnt most assiduously at her school? Nor is it difficult to see how, even on psychical grounds, apart from any reference to the introduction of supernatural power, such results should follow from the acceptance of the gospel revelation. For, first, he who receives the salvation that Grace brings finds himself a new creature, dead to his old life, and cut off from all connection with its baleful associations. He is therefore in a position to make a really new start in life without being paralysed in the future by the fatal influence of the past. Next, he is under the influence of feelings of the liveliest gratitude to Him to whom he owes his present happiness and his hopes for the future; to Him he feels under the deepest obligation; and his appreciation of the heroism that has purchased his redemption awakens within him a genuine and ardent enthusiasm for the person of his Benefactor; his feeling is that it is impossible to do too much for One who has done so much for him. Once again, he is at ease in his mind as to his own personal salvation, and therefore has a mind sufficiently at leisure from itself to feel for the miseries of those around him. And further, he has vividly before his mind the contrast between his own byegone misery and his present happiness; and the contrast speaks to all of humanity that there is in his nature, urging him to lay himself out for the salvation of those whose condition is as wretched as his own once was, and may become as blessed as his is now. Undoubtedly the enthusiastic benevolence of the true believer may thus to a great extent be accounted for by the character of the belief he entertains; but whence came that creed that reaches and moves so wondrously the subtle mechanism of our nature? Would any profound philosopher, whether ancient or modern, have thought of framing a scheme that seems at first sight so little likely to produce the desired results? But when we have spoken of these natural effects of the acceptance of Christian truth, we have by no means exhausted our list of the real forces which generate this lofty enthusiasm. The believer feels the mighty energies of a new life throbbing within his soul. He is now in a position to draw from the Divine Storehouse all that he needs to equip him for his lifes work. So it is that, in spite of the cavil of unbelief and the a priori conclusions of unfriendly criticism, Grace proves herself the most practical of all teachers; and the greatest benefactors of mankind are to be found amongst her most faithful scholars. She does not allow those who learn of her to think only of their own spiritual advantage, or to be indifferent to everything except their own personal growth in holiness. Our lifes work is twofold; it lies without us and within us; and we cannot neglect either branch of our work without injuring both. We cannot hope to grow in grace while we are leading lives of selfish indolence and uselessness; nor can we expect to be really and extensively useful unless we are fully consecrated to the Lord. Grace trains us then to be enthusiasts or, to use St. Pauls word in this passage, to be zealots, and this is evidently quite in accordance with her genius and customary mode of procedure. Such enthusiasm, if we surrender ourselves to it, will almost always lead to self-denial and even self-sacrifice; but these will rather increase than damp its ardour. There are some expansive forces in the natural world that seem to acquire their intensity by opposition; steam, for example, is only a power when it is compressed. Even so the mighty moral force which eighteen centuries ago shook the heathen world becomes all the mightier when obstacles have to be faced, opposition encountered, sacrifices endured. Some this holy enthusiasm will lead to turn their backs on home and country and expose themselves to the hardships and risks of a missionary life. Others the same enthusiasm will lead to find their work at home amidst our perishing thousands. Nor do we need less but rather more enthusiasm if the same inward call summon us to find our field of toil amidst scenes of fashion and luxury, rather than amidst the hovels of the poor. Self-denial preach Christ crucified in a drawing room than in a cellar; where sin is glossed over with a varnish of respectability and refinement, than where it flaunts its naked hideousness before the eyes of all beholders. But for this most difficult of all tasks, which only Christian religion would think of as a possible task at all, and only Christians would dream of undertaking, Grace can supply her disciples with a sufficient motive power in the enthusiasm which she inspires. But while Grace provides us with a sufficient motive power in the form of a holy enthusiasm, she is also careful to train us to spend that zeal in the production of really good works. There seems to be a prevalent notion in our day that so long as a man is in earnest it matters little what form his earnestness takes; but Grace teaches us to be particular about the quality as well as the quantity of our work. Our object is not to do much work, but to do good work--so good that it will not need to be done over again. We fear that this is hardly the character of much of the work that is being done in our own busy day. I am painting for eternity, exclaimed the illustrious Italian, when asked why he spent such pains over his canvas. How many Christian labourers work with a similar feeling? Are we working for eternity, or only for the passing hour? A work, to be a good work, should certainly be, according to the apostles phrase, for necessary uses. We are to work for some definite good purpose, and not merely for the sake of keeping ourselves employed. It is needful, therefore, as far as possible, to avoid unnecessary labour, to use the best, and not necessarily the most laborious, means towards the attainment of the end in view, in order that we may have the more time and strength for that which needs to be done. Again, a work to be good needs to be done thoroughly, not in a superficial perfunctory manner. This will naturally be the besetting sin of all mere legal service. Once again, a work to be good needs to be done in the power of the Holy Ghost. Apart from Me, our blessed Lord has taught us ye can do nothing. Once again, a work to be really good needs to be done in the spirit of faith, with the full assurance that the Lord who sends us will use us and work out His own blessed purposes through us. He who does not expect God to use him need express no surprise at not being used; but rather the marvel would be if he were used at all. Yet once again, if our work is to be as good as it should be, it must needs be a labour of love. This point is amply illustrated by the career of Him whom grace sets before us as our Exemplar. His career was one long exhibition of that hidden love of God which the world was so slow to believe in. If our work is to be really good it must be characterised by the patience of hope. Much work that once promised fairly is marred and spoilt for lack of perseverance. Christians are not steadfast, immovable, and therefore always abounding in the work of the Lord. Good work is not to be produced by a series of extraordinary and spasmodic efforts. We need that patient continuance in well-doing which shows that we seek honour, glory, and immortality. But here again the teaching of Grace comes to our aid. Not only does she set before us an example in One who was no stranger to apparent failure in His own ministry, but she also reminds us of His great forbearance towards us. Such are some of the characteristics of good work in which we are to be zealots, and in which we are to find our outward occupation while God leaves us here. Our day cannot at most be very long; its twelve hours, how rapidly they slip away! and the night cometh when no man can work. Yes, the workers life is after all the only happy life, even though it may entail toil, hardship, and privation. The true labourer has Christ Himself for his companion in toil, and the smile of His approval for his dearest reward. (W. H. M. H. Aitken.)
Gods family, a school of good works
A Christian, by Gods ordinance, is no longer allowed to consider himself as standing alone in the world, but as one among many in a holy family. And this puts all his duties in a peculiar point of view, not always regarded as it ought to be, even by serious and well-meaning men. This piece of instruction is conveyed in the text by the words peculiar people. The title was at first applied to the holy seed, the Children of Israel, when God had redeemed them to Himself by bringing them out of the land of Egypt. The natural condition of all mankind is no better, you see, than a slavery, out of which we needed to be bought and redeemed, before we could be capable of the mighty blessings which God in His mercy had prepared for us: just as the Jews needed deliverance from Egypt, before they could be brought into Canaan. This slavery the whole world, both Jew and Gentile, were continually making worse, by the bad habits in which they indulged, and the power which they allowed evil spirits to gain over them. Christ died to redeem the sinner from those chains of evil custom, which have wound themselves so round him by length of time, that he feels as if shaking them off would be losing a part of himself. Christ died to redeem the drunkard from his drunkenness, the impure from his debauchery, the unkind from his malice, the godless and careless man from his love of this present world. Observe now to what purpose the Son thus made us free. Not to leave us in such a condition as many seem to delight in imagining, the moment they hear of freedom and liberty--not to turn us out into the world, loose and independent of all restraint--but to make us more dependent on Him, more closely confined within His laws, for every day and hour that we live as Christians. In a word, the peculiar, chosen people, whom Christ vouchsafed to redeem to Himself, were meant, above all things in the world, to be always zealous of good works; not only rather good than evil, such as might pass well enough in the world, but zealous, eager, earnest in good; every man striving and trying to be every day better than he was yesterday. And in order that each particular Christian might answer the better this intention of our gracious Redeemer, He has not left us to stand, as it were, separate and apart from one another, but has appointed that all who believe in Him should make up one people, one household, one body; should feel a deep interest one in another, as if their welfare were bound up together: so that whether one member suffer, all the members should suffer with it; or whether one member be honoured, all the members should rejoice with it. The whole plan of the Christian Church is, in short, as entirely opposite to the natural pride and self-sufficiency of man as anything can well be imagined. It will not let you for a moment dream that you can stand alone and be independent. If any be tempted to the irreligious fancy of saying, they never made the promise; others made it in their name, and they cannot be bound by it; certainly it is in their power, if they will, to disavow and break their word given to God: but let them remember that at the same time they cast away all the privileges of their Christian calling. By the very act of coming to the Holy Communion, you renounce, before God and man, that proud unchristian notion of standing alone, being independent. You yourself profess to stand in continual need of all the means and instruments of grace; the prayers, the intercession, the good example, of your brethren; all the helps which the Son of God has so graciously provided in His Church and household. And surely, as to zeal in good works, every one who thinks at all on the subject knows that one chief purpose of the Holy Communion was to encourage and strengthen men in that. (Plain Sermons by Contributors to Tracts for the Times.)
The zeal of Gods people for good works
They are zealous because
1. The spirit of the work is in them. A disposition, a bias, a zeal, consonant with the nature of the work, whose relation to God makes it a good work, is implanted in them, and they have naturally a pleasure in its performance.
2. Christs command is that they should so act that they should bring forth fruit unto His glory. His commands are precious to them because they love Him.
3. In the performance of good works the Christian finds his daily support. The way of good works is the way of salvation, and there abound its consolations.
4. In the way of good works the people of God obtain fellowship with God. Here are the shinings of His face. It is here that darkness turns into light before them. It is here the Lord speaks to His people, and where He strengthens their hearts against folly. It is in the ways of holy exercise that the God of peace is with them. These are the galleries in which the King is held. Truly here our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. (D. Charles.)
Zeal in works and worship
1. Zeal is an intense earnestness for the accomplishment of an object--not a great excitement of feeling, not mere demonstrative warmth of expression, but something far more deep and enduring. It is a working, practical energy; it is a power which may be directed to things indifferent, things good, or things bad; and accordingly the word is sometimes used in the New Testament in a good sense, and sometimes in a bad one. Thus in a good sense, Your zeal hath provoked very many; I am jealous over you with a godly jealousy. And in a bad sense where the apostle enumerates among the works of the flesh envyings and emulations. What zeal is we know by experience. For instance, what zeal is shown by men of science when they explore the remotest bounds of the earth, from torrid zones to the everlasting snows of the far North, or when they leave their bones to whiten in Australian wildernesses, to settle a question of geography. What zeal is shown by them in a nobler cause when they sacrifice their own lives--in some cases consciously--in the study of disease and the result of the battle with death. So in things bad, what zeal is shown by infidels in the propagation of their opinions on all occasions and in every place. What in the sacrifices of violent revolutionists, etc. When I turn from such illustrations I blush for the apathetic condition of our Church.
2. Now, such a zeal can only spring out of a great motive, just as the rush of the limpid stream at the mountain side shows the abundance of the water that feeds it. Zeal is force; it is the great working force of our world; and force can only arise from an adequate motive, just as the great river is not fed by the scanty summer shower, but gathers its strength from rains that fall upon a thousand hills. Now, the motives furnished in this passage are common to all Christian men, just as the grace they must produce must be common to Christian men likewise. The ultimate spring is love--love, purest, holiest, sweetest, most abiding of all motives--the very essence of true religion, the Alpha and the Omega of its strength, the one thing which of all earthly things approaches most to Omnipotence, because it is the reflection of God and His peculiar prerogative. It is love for Christ awakened by His love for us--the deep echo of a converted human soul to the suffering cries and agonising tears of a dying Saviour; love quickened by the grateful experience of the peace which fills the heart when leaning its weary guilt upon the Sin Bearer, and which feels itself redeemed from all iniquity; love deepened by profound obligation as it remembers that the very purpose of that love was to purify us unto Himself; love strengthened by adoring admiration, which has called us to be His peculiar people and filled our breasts with a world of wealth, of which the unconverted man has no knowledge.
3. There is one thing more by which a habitual zeal must necessarily be characterised. If it be the common grace of all Christians; if it springs from motives which are abiding as the life of a redeemed soul; if it is taught by the power of the Almighty Spirit of God then it must be a steady, permanent force--not transient, not occasional, not flickering up into a vehement flame now and then and dying away again, but like the sun in the midst of the heavens, or like the laws of nature which hold sun and moon and stars revolving ever in their courses round their central orb. (E. Garbett, M. A.)
Good works
I. What are good works?
1. No work can be good unless it is commanded of God.
2. Nothing is a good work unless it is done with a good motive; and there is no motive which can be said to be good but the glory of God.
3. Furthermore, when we have faith in God and perform all our works with the best of motives, even then we have not so much as a solitary good work until the blood of Christ is sprinkled thereon.
II. Where do good works come from?
1. From a real conversion brought about by the Spirit of God.
2. From union with Christ.
III. What is the use of good works?
1. They are useful as evidences of grace. The Antinomian says--But I do not require evidences; I can live without them. This is unreasonable. Do you see yonder clock? That is the evidence of the time of day. The hour would be precisely the same if we had not that evidence. Still we find the clock of great use. So we say good works are the best evidence of spiritual life in the soul. Is it not written, We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren? Loving the brethren is a good work. Again, If any man abide in Me, he shall bring forth fruit. Fruits of righteousness are good works, and they are evidences that we abide in Christ. If I am living in sin day by day what right have I to conclude I am a child of God?
2. They are the witnesses or testimony to other people of the truth of what we believe. A sermon is not what a man says, but what he does. You who practise are preaching; it is not preaching and practising, but practising is preaching. The sermon that is preached by the mouth is soon forgotten, but what we preach by our lives is never forgotten.
3. They are of use to a Christian as an ornament. The adornment of good works, the adornment in which we hope to enter heaven, is the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ; but the adornment of a Christian here below is his holiness, his piety, his consistency. If some people had a little more piety, they would not require such a showy dress; if they had a little more godliness, to set them off, they would have no need whatever to be always decorating themselves. The best earrings that a woman can wear are the earrings of hearing the Word with attention. The very best ring that we can have upon our finger is the ring which the father puts upon the finger of the prodigal son when he is brought back; and the very best dress we can ever wear is a garment wrought by the Holy Spirit--the garment of a consistent conduct. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
An acquaintance with Christ the foundation of experimental and practical religion
I. It lays the foundation of Christianity in a proper acquaintance with and faith in the kindness and bounty of our great redeemer.
II. The experimental religion to be built on this foundation.
III. This doctrine inculcates the importance of Christian practice. (J. Benson)
Zeal in good works
I. Note that before the apostle speaks of good works we hear of redemption, and purging, and washing, and of a peculiar people that must do them, for, indeed, the best works are so far from justifying and purging that none can be good before the party be justified and purged.
II. Note that whosoever are justified and sanctified they must needs bring forth good works, for else Christ should be frustrate of His end in those for whom He gave Himself (Eph_2:10).
III. Note that the thing that God requireth in a professor is zeal, forwardness, and earnestness in well-doing, and that his whole course should be a studious prosecuting of good works. The effects of zeal for good are,
1. It preserveth in the heart a fitness and preparedness to every good work required of every believer (2Ti_3:17).
2. It exciteth to diligence and haste in the things we do; it abandoneth idleness, slothfulness, and delays, by which occasions of well-doing are often cut off: the zeal of David made him prepare diligently for the temple; zeal in the magistrate causeth in him diligence throughout his government; zeal in the minister maketh him like Apollo, of whom we read that being fervent in spirit he taught diligently the way of God; zeal and fervency in private men causeth them to shake off slothfulness in their duties, and removeth in all conditions the curse which is denounced against the man that doeth the work of the Lord negligently: most fitly, therefore, doth the apostle combine those precepts: Not slothful to do service, fervent in the spirit, serving the Lord (Rom_12:11).
3. Zeal causeth continuance in well-doing, which is also required in every good action as well as in prayer; it contenteth not itself with one or two good actions, but is plentiful in them, and bringeth the party professing it to be rich in good works and to shine lightsomely therein; yea, it maketh a man hold out, and keep a constant tenor in good courses, and that as well in adversity as prosperity, so as he is neither choked by preferments, as very many, nor discouraged by distresses, as not a few. 4.
Zeal setteth such a high price unto the glory of God and performance of conscionable duties, that it causeth the party to attempt and go through, though with never so much difficulty, whatsoever he seemeth himself bound unto; it hardeneth the face like brass against dangers and losses, the loss of the world in his judgment gain, yea, all things are loss and dung so as he may win Christ; this alone yieldeth joy in the spoiling of goods, by this can a man hate father and mother in comparison of his obedience, and be contented to be hated of all men for well-doing, in which case the loss of friends is but light. This zeal for God maketh a mans liberty small in his eye; nay, in standing out in a good cause his life will not be so dear unto him as the finishing of his course with joy; yea, he can rejoice to be offered up upon the sacrifice and service of the Churchs faith, as Paul. And which is yet much more, the zeal of Gods glory will so burn in the heart as it can carry a man so far beyond himself as that he shall neglect his own salvation and wish to be accursed, yea, and blotted out of the book of life, if God may be more honoured by the one than by the other. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
The necessity of positive duty or actual goodness
I. Positive duty, or the actual exercise or goodness, is indispensably required at our hands.
1. This will appear in a general way, if we do but turn a thought to the state and order of created beings and the designs of their Creator. For though no virtue or vice can be ascribed to those beings which have no understanding, yet remiss and negligent man may form a just and useful reproof to himself upon this observation, that whilst he, who is the glory of visible creatures, fails of exercising his powers and abilities, and of answering the ends of his creations, all the other parts, even of the natural world, do exert themselves to their utmost capacity in promoting and fulfilling the great ends and purposes of nature.
2. This will further appear from that more particular consideration of this point, which is now to be added to the general one already offered. Where I shall represent an obligation to good works, or, to the actual exercise of goodness, as such good works may be considered
(1) In respect of God, as we are created and redeemed by Him, and subject to Him, and, therefore, obliged to contribute our utmost to His honour. (See 1Co_6:20; Mat_5:16; Joh_15:8.)
(2) In respect of our neighbour. It is not our keeping to the letter of the Sixth Commandment that fills up the measure of duty to our neighbour in regard to his life; for, as we must not destroy it, we stand further obliged to protect it and to crown it with comforts, by proper acts of our own, to the utmost of our power.
(3) Necessary to prove our fidelity in the service of God.
(4) An engaging recommendation and endearment of religion to others.
(5) Necessary to that perfection which the gospel requires.
II. Zeal is the necessary qualification of positive duty, or acts of goodness. When good works are done with a negligence and unconcern, as if it were perfectly indifferent to the man, whether they be undertaken or let alone, whether they succeed or miscarry, they then sit upon him with a very ill grace, and he may easily expect that what is performed with so much coldness will meet with a cold reception. It is the life and spirit, the sprightliness and fervour of religious enterprises, that must recommend them to God, the discerner of spirits. (W. Lupton, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain Chapter 23
Chapter 23
HOPE AS A MOTIVE POWER-THE PRESENT HOPES OF CHRISTIANS. - Tit_2:11-15
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THERE are not many passages in the Pastoral Epistles which treat so plainly as this does of doctrine. As a rule St. Paul assumes that his delegates, Timothy and Titus, are well instructed (as he knew they were) in the details of the Christian faith, and he does not stay even to remind them of what he had frequently taught to them and to others in their presence. The purpose of the Epistles is to give practical rather than doctrinal instruction; to teach Timothy and Titus how to shape their own conduct, and what kind of conduct they are chiefly to insist upon in the different classes of Christians committed to their charge. Here, however, and in the next chapter, we have marked exceptions to this method. Yet even here the exception is more apparent than real; for the doctrinal statements are introduced, not as truths to be recognized and believed (it is taken for granted that they are recognized and believed), but as the basis of the practical exhortations which have just been given. It is because these great truths have been revealed, because life is so real and so important, and because eternity is so certain, that Titus is to exert all his influence to produce the best kind of conduct in his flock, whether men or women, old or young, bond or free.
The passage before us might almost serve as a summary of St. Pauls teaching. In it he once more insists upon the inseparable connection between creed and character, doctrine and life, and intimates the close relations between the past, the present, and the future, in the Christian scheme of salvation. There are certain facts in the past, which must be believed; and there is a kind of life in the present which must be lived; and there are things in store for us in the future, which must be looked for. Thus the three great virtues of faith, charity, and hope are inculcated. Two Epiphanies or appearances of Jesus Christ in this world are stated as the two great limits of the Christian dispensation. There is the Epiphany of grace, when the Christ appeared in humility, bringing salvation and instruction to all men; and there is the Epiphany of glory, when He will appear again in power, that He may claim as His own possession the people whom He has redeemed. And between these two there is the Christian life with its "blessed hope," the hope of the Lords return in glory to complete the kingdom which His first Advent began.
Most of us make far too little of this "blessed hope." It is of incalculable value; first, as a test of our own sincerity and reality; and, secondly, as a source of strength to carry us over the difficulties and disappointments which beset our daily course.
There is perhaps no more certain test of a Christians earnestness than the question whether he does, or does not, look forward with hope and longing for Christs return. Some men have seriously persuaded themselves that there is no such thing either to hope for or to dread. Others prefer not to think about it; they know that doubts have been entertained on the subject, and as the topic is not a pleasant one to them, they dismiss it as much as possible from their minds, with the wish that the doubts about there being any return of Christ to judgment may be well-founded; for their own lives are such that they have every reason to desire that there may be no judgment. Others again, who on the whole are trying to lead Christian lives, nevertheless so far share the feelings of the godless, in that the thought of Christs return (of the certainty of which they are fully persuaded) inspires them with fear rather than with joy. This is especially the case with those who are kept in the right way much more by the fear of hell than by the love of God, or even the hope of heaven. They believe and tremble. They believe in Gods truth and justice much more than in His love and mercy. He is to them a Master and Lord to be obeyed and feared, much more than a God and Father to be adored and loved. Consequently their work is half-hearted, and their life servile, as must always he the case with those whose chief motive is fear of punishment. Hence they share the terrors of the wicked, while they lose their share of the joys of the righteous. They are too much afraid to find any real pleasure either in sin or in good works. To have sinned fills them with terror at the thought of inevitable punishment; and to have done what is right fills them with no joy, because they have so little love and so little hope.
Those who find from experience that the thought of Christs return in glory is one on which they seldom dwell, even if it be not positively unwelcome, may be sure that there is something defective in their life. Either they are conscious of shortcomings which they make little or no attempt to correct, the recollection of which becomes intolerable when confronted with the thought of the day of judgment (and this shows that there is a great lack of earnestness in their religious life); or they are being content with low motives for avoiding iniquity and striving after righteousness, and thus are losing a real source of strength to help them in their efforts. No doubt there are persons over whom high motives have little influence, and can have but little influence, because they are as yet unable to appreciate them. But no one in watching over either his own soul or the souls of others can afford to be content with such a state of things. Childish things must be put away when they cease to be appropriate. As the character develops under the influence of lower motives, higher motives begin at times to make themselves felt; and these must gradually be substituted for the others. And when they do make themselves felt, high motives are much more powerful than low ones; which is a further reason for appealing to them rather than to the others. Not only is a man who is capable of being moved, both by the fear of hell and by the love of God, more influenced by the love than by the fear, but love has more power over his will than fear has over the will of one who cannot be influenced by love.
All this tends to show how much is lost by those who make no effort to cultivate in their minds a feeling of joy at the thought of "the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." They lose a great source of strength by neglecting to cultivate what would be a powerful motive to help them on the right way. Nor does the loss end here. With it they lose much of the interest which they would otherwise take in all that helps to "accomplish the number of Gods elect and to hasten His kingdom." Christians pray daily, and perhaps many times daily, "Thy kingdom come." But how few realize what they are praying for! How few really long that their prayer may be speedily granted. How few take a keen and untiring interest in all that promotes the coming of the kingdom! And thus again motive power is lost; for if we had but the eyes to see, and the heart to appreciate, all that is going on round about us, we should feel that we live, as compared with our forefathers, in very encouraging times.
We are often enough told that Christianity in general, and the Church of England in particular, is at the present time passing through a great crisis; that this is an age of peculiar dangers and difficulties; that we live in times of unblushing vice and uncompromising skepticism; and that the immensity of our social, commercial, and political corruption is only the natural outcome of the immensity of our irreligion and unbelief. These things may be true; and there is no earnest Christian who has not at times been perplexed and saddened by them. But, thank God, there are other things which are equally true, and which ought to be equally recognized and remembered. If the present is an age of peculiar dangers and boundless irreligion, it is also an age of peculiar encouragements and boundless hope.
There are Christians who love to look back to some period in the history of the Church, which they have come to regard as a sort of golden age; an age in which communities of saintly men and women were ministered to by a still more saintly clergy, and in which the Church went beautifully on its way, not altogether free from persecutions, which were perhaps necessary for its perfection, but untroubled by doubts, or dissensions, or heresies, and unstained by worldliness, apostasy, or sloth. So far as the experience of the present writer has carried him, no such golden age can be found in the actual history of the Church.
It is not to be found in the New Testament, either before or after Pentecost.
We do not find it where we might have expected to find it, in the period when Christ was still present in the flesh as the Ruler and Instructor of His Church. That period is marked by the ignorance and unbelief of the Apostles, by their quarrels, their ambition for the first places in an earthly kingdom, their intolerant spirit, by the flight of all of them in the hour of Christs danger, by the denials of St. Peter, by the treachery and suicide of Judas. Nor do we find it, where again we might have expected to find it, in the age immediately succeeding the completion of Christs work, when the Apostles, newly anointed with the Spirit, were still alive to direct and foster the Church which He had founded. That period also is marred by many disfiguring marks. Apostles can still be timeserving, can still quarrel among themselves; and they also experience what it is to be forsaken and opposed by their own disciples. Their converts, as soon as the Apostle who established them in the faith is withdrawn, and sometimes even while he is still with them, become guilty of the gravest errors in conduct and belief. Witness the monstrous disorders in the Church of Corinth, the fickleness of the Galatian converts, the unchristian asceticism of the Colossian heretics, the studied immorality of those of Ephesus. The Church which was presided over by St. Timothy was the Church of Alexander, Hymenaeus, and Philetus, who removed the very corner-stone of the faith by denying the Resurrection; and the Churches which were presided over by St. John contained the Nicolaitans, condemned as hateful by Jesus Christ, and Diotrephes, who repudiated the Apostle and excommunicated those who received the Apostles messengers. And there is much more of the same sort, as the Pastoral Epistles show us, proving that what comes to us first as a sad surprise is of still sadder frequency, and that the Apostolic age had defects and stains at least as serious as those which deface our own.
The failure to find any golden age in either of these two divisions of the period covered by the New Testament ought to put us on our guard against expecting to find it in any subsequent period. And it would not be difficult to take each of the epochs in the history of the Church which have been selected as specially bright and perfect, and show that in every case, directly, we pass through the hazy glow which the imagination of later writers has thrown around such periods, and get down to solid facts, then, either the brightness and perfection are found to be illusory, or they are counterbalanced by many dark spots and disorders. The age of the martyrs is the age of the lapsed; the ages of faith are the ages of fraud; and the ages of great success are the ages of great corruption. In the first centuries increase of numbers was marked by increase of heresies and schisms; in the Middle Ages, increase of power by increase of pride. A fair comparison of the period in which our own lot has been cast with any previous period in the history of the Church will never lead to any just feeling of discouragement. Indeed it may reasonably be contended that at no era since Christianity was first founded have its prospects been so bright as at the present time.
Let us look at the contest between the Gospel and heathenism, -that great contest which has been going on since "the grace of God appeared bringing salvation to all men," and which is to continue until "the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior." Was there ever a time when missions were more numerous or better organized, and when missionaries were as a rule better instructed, better equipped, or more devoted? And although it is impossible to form a correct estimate on such a subject, because some of the most important data are beyond our reach, yet it may. be doubted whether there ever was a time when missions achieved more solid success. The enormous growth of the colonial and missionary episcopate during the last hundred years is at any rate one great fact which represents and guarantees a great deal. Until 1787 there was not a single Episcopal see of the Anglican communion in any of the colonies or settlements of the British Empire; still less was there a single missionary bishop. And now, as the Lambeth Conferences remind us, these colonial and missionary bishops are not far short of a hundred, and are always increasing.
Or let us look at the relations between the great Churches into which Christendom is unhappily divided. Was there ever a period at which there was less bitterness, or more earnest and wide-spread desire for the restoration of unity? And the increased desire for reunion comes hand in hand with an increase of the conditions which would render reunion possible. Two things are absolutely indispensable for a successful attempt in this direction. First, a large measure of culture and learning, especially among the clergy of the divided Churches; and secondly, intelligent religious zeal. Ignorant controversialists cannot distinguish between important and unimportant differences, and thus aggravate rather than smooth difficulties. And without religious earnestness the attempt to heal differences ends in indifferentism. Both these indispensable elements are increasing, at any rate in the Anglican and in the Eastern Churches: and thus reunion, which "must be possible, because it is a duty," is becoming not only a desire, but a hope.
Let us look again at our own Church; at its abundant machinery for every kind of beneficent object; at the beautiful work which is being done in a quiet and simple way by numbers of Christian men and women in thousands of parishes; at the increase in services, in confirmations, in communions; at the princely offerings of many of the wealthy laity; at the humble offerings-equally princely in Gods sight-of many of the poor. Can we point to a time when party feeling (bad as it still is) was less rancorous, when parishes were better worked, when the clergy were better educated or more self-sacrificing, when the people were more responsive to what is being done for them?
The very possibility of seriously raising such questions as these is in itself a reason for taking courage, even if we cannot answer all of them in the way that would please us most. There are at any rate good grounds for hoping that much is being done for the advancement of Christs dominion, and that the prayer "Thy kingdom come" is being answered day by day. If we could but convince ourselves more thoroughly of the truth of all this, we should work more hopefully and more earnestly. More hopefully, because we should be working with a consciousness of being successful and making progress, with a conviction that we are on the winning side. And more earnestly, not merely because hope makes work more earnest and thorough, but also because we should have an increased sense of responsibility: we should fear lest through any sloth or negligence on our part such bright prospects should be marred. The expectation of defeat makes some men strive all the more heroically; but most men it paralyses.
In our Christian warfare we certainly need hope to carry us onward to victory.
"The appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." Among the foolish charges which have been brought against the Revisers is that of favoring Arian tendencies by blurring those texts which teach the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The present passage would be a sufficient answer to such a charge. In the A.V. we have "the glorious appearing of the great God, and our Savior Jesus Christ," where both the wording and the comma make it clear that "the great God" means the Father and not our Savior. The Revisers, by omitting the comma, for which there is no authority in the original, and by placing the "our" before both substantives, have given their authority to the view that St. Paul means both "great God" and "Savior" to apply to Jesus Christ. It is not any Epiphany of the Father which is in his mind, but the "Epiphany of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ." The wording of the Greek is such that absolute certainty is not attainable; but the context, the collocation of the words, the use of the word "Epiphany," and the omission of the article before "Savior" (επιφανειαν της δοξης του μεγαλου θεου και σωτηρος ημων I X), all seem to favor the Revisers rendering. And, if it be adopted, we have here one of the plainest and most direct statements of the Divinity of Christ to be found in Scripture. As such it was employed in the Arian controversy, although Ambrose seems to have understood the passage as referring to the Father and Christ, and not to Christ alone. The force of what follows is enhanced, if the Revisers rendering, which is the strictly grammatical rendering, is maintained. It is as being "our great God" that He gave Himself for us, that He might "redeem us from all iniquity"; and it was because He was God as well as man, that what was uttered as a bitter taunt was really a glorious truth; -"He saved others; Himself He cannot save." It was morally impossible that the Divine Son should turn back from making us "a people for His own possession." Let us strengthen ourselves in the hope that our efforts to fulfill this gracious purpose, are never thrown away.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 11–15. Hath appeared to all men. The divine favor…
11–15. Hath appeared to all men. The divine favor shown forth in the gospel of salvation is for all men, servants as well as masters.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain Tit_2:11. Hath appeared.—In an epiphany. The Sun of Righteousness…
CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
Tit_2:11. Hath appeared.—In an epiphany. The Sun of Righteousness with health in His beams had chased away the “hidden things of darkness.” Like the sun’s light, the blessings of grace were to all men.
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Tit_2:12. Denying ungodliness.—Repudiating any kind of connection with a life of irreligion. And worldly lusts.—Desires that, like carrion-vultures, fatten on the corrupting things of this world. Soberly, righteously, and godly.—The grace of God disciplines us in relation to ourselves, our fellow-men, and our God. If it had free scope, we should be self-respecting, respected, and Divinely blessed.
Tit_2:13. That blessed hope.—The object of hope. And the glorious appearing.—R.V. “the appearing of the glory.” The epiphany of grace was noticed in Tit_2:11; now the apostle comes to speak of another shining upon the world in glory. Of the great God and our Saviour.—The great question here is: “Are there two subjects, or one only?” For two subjects, the one being God, and the other our Lord Jesus Christ, it is argued: (a) that we never find the phrase “Jesus Christ our God”; (b) that we do find God and our Lord Jesus as two subjects; (c) that the addition “great” indicates God as an independent subject. For one, “the great God, even our Lord,” it is argued: (a) that epiphany is always applied to the Son; (b) that the immediate context refers to the Son; (c) that the following abasement explains the unusual term “great God”; (d) that “great,” if used of the Father, would be superfluous. The R.V. rendering would put the matter beyond question if we were shut up to it.
Tit_2:14. Who gave Himself.—“The forcible Himself, His whole self, the greatest gift ever given, must not be overlooked” (Ellicott). For us.—Not in our stead here, but on our behalf. From all iniquity.—Which is regarded as having had us in thrall. A peculiar people.—R.V. “a people for His own possession.” They were to be regarded as God’s property.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Tit_2:11-14
The Gospel of Grace—
I. Reveals salvation for all (Tit_2:11).—R.V. “The grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men.” The purpose of God to save the race was slowly unfolded to the world. The brightest and fullest manifestation of that purpose was the coming of Christ the Saviour; and yet the world has been slow to believe that He came to save all men. The revelation of the gospel has been a revelation of the character of God and of His boundless grace, embodied and illustrated in His incarnate Son.
II. Demands a life of self-denial and moral consistency (Tit_2:12).—The gospel insists upon the inseparable connection between creed and character, doctrine and life. It is a discipline, enforcing self-restraint in a world where sin is the normal state of things, and enabling us to live soberly, righteously, and godly, as a constant reproof to the world’s sin, and as an example and stimulus to all who are striving to conquer the world-spirit. The gospel of grace is a world-renewing power.
III. Furnishes the hope of unparalleled blessedness.—
1. A blessedness enhanced by the second advent of Christ in glory (Tit_2:13).—The hope created by the first advent grows in blessedness with the prospect of the glory of the second coming, when the great God and Saviour will be revealed in all the splendour of His mediatorial majesty. In that glory all who look and long for His appearing shall share, and their hope shall then have its fullest realisation.
2. A blessedness involved in the provisions of redemption (Tit_2:14). The aim of redemption was not only to release us from the bondage and penalty of sin, but from all its power and pollution. For this purpose Christ gave His whole self, the greatest gift ever bestowed by heaven or received by earth. The final result of redemption is to prepare, by the moral discipline of the gospel, a holy people who shall be zealous in doing and promoting all good works. These verses contain a suggestive summary of the apostle’s teaching, and an enlarged conception of the gospel of grace.
Lessons.—
1. The gospel is a manifestation of God’s grace to man.
2. The gospel gives power to live a holy and useful life.
3. The gospel reveals a future of glorious blessedness.
GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES
Tit_2:11-14. What God expects from us, and what He does for us.
I. What God expects from us.—
1. Aversion to ungodliness and worldly lusts.
2. The practice of sobriety, righteousness, and godliness.
3. To cherish the hope of the second advent of our Lord.
II. What God does for us.—“He gave Himself for us.” The object of Christ’s self-sacrifice was:
1. For our redemption—“from all iniquity.”
2. Possession of Christ in a state of separation and purity. “Purify unto Himself a peculiar [purchased] people.”
3. Fruitfulness. “Zealous of good works.”—J. C. Trotter.
Tit_2:11. The Universal Offer of Salvation—
I. Irrespective of our varying moral Conditions.
II. Because all men need it.
III. Because God loves all.
IV. Because Christ died for all.
Tit_2:14. The Consecrating Saviour and the Consecrated People.
I. The consecrating Saviour.—
1. He gave Himself.
2. He gave Himself a ransom.
3. The object of this was to purify men.
II. The consecrated people.—
1. Freed from the power of sin.
2. Brought under the Divine rule.
3. Specially devoted to good.
4. Ardent.
5. Diligent.—F. W.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF Tit_2:15
The Christian Teacher—
I. Should be master of all methods of effective instruction.—“These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke.” The minister’s task is a constant and endless one. He must know how to instruct, exhort, persuade, and reprove. All the resources of learning, eloquence, and spiritual power are needed to do our work efficiently. The great aim of all preaching is to bring sinners directly to Christ. On Egypt’s far-off soil, as the morning beams lit up the eastern sky, an officer lay dying. With gallant daring he had led his followers, guided alone by the pale starlight of the heavens, until at last they reached the enemy; and now the strife is over, but he is wounded mortally. As the general, his cheeks bedewed with tears, gazed down with sadness on his face, a sudden radiance illumined for a moment the youth’s countenance as, looking up to Wolseley, he exclaimed, “General, didn’t I lead them straight?” and then he died. O brothers, when o’er our eyes there steals the film of death, and when the soul flits solemnly from time into eternity, may it be ours to say in truthful earnestness to Christ concerning those committed to our care—We led our people straight!
II. Should speak with unhesitating confidence in the truth.—“With all authority.” The minister is an ambassador for Christ, and speaks not in his own name, but in the name and with the authority of the great King he represents. The truth inspires him with power; and the more he studies and realises its virtue in himself, the more he is convinced of its supreme claims and enforces those claims with overwhelming emphasis. To palter and hesitate in the declaration of the truth is to be unfaithful to his trust and to the best interests of his hearers.
III. Should command the respect of those he teaches and governs.—“Let no man despise thee.” He should speak with such vigour and assurance as to compel attention, and warn with such authority that no one may think himself above the need of admonition. Channing once said: “There is no office higher than that of a teacher of youth, for there is nothing on earth so precious as the mind, soul, and character of the child. No office should be regarded with greater respect.” How much more is this true of the Christian minister! He should so speak and act as to commend the dignity and power of his commission to the most indifferent.
Lessons.—
1. The Christian minister deals with themes of the highest importance.
2. The presentation of Christian truth should be a subject of earnest and constant study.
3. The more we are possessed with the truth the more effectively we teach it.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Tit 2:11-12.
Titus
THE SCHOOL OF GRACE
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Tit 2:11-12.
THE Apostle has been giving fatherly admonitions as to very elementary pieces of morality, addressed to both sexes, and to all ages. He winds up with inculcating on Christian slaves some obvious duties, such as obedience and honesty. In my text he bases all these on what was to him the motive and the power for all sorts of righteous living - viz., the fact of Christ’s mission. The ‘for’ with which my text begins carries with it the whole relation between Christian thinking and Christian action, and shows us that the loftiest truths are then most honoured when they are brought to bear on the lowliest duties. Slaves are not to pilfer nor wrangle, ‘for the grace that brings salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching.’
Now there are two remarks that I must make of an expository kind in order to come to the understanding of the words before us. One is that the collocation in our Authorised Version, ‘hath appeared to all men,’ is not what Paul means, but these last words, ‘to all men,’ should be connected with the previous ones, ‘that bringeth salvation.’ It is not part of his purpose to declare, what was not in fact true then, and is not true now, that the grace of God has appeared to all men, but it was part of his purpose to declare that that grace brings salvation to all men, howsoever the present range of its manifestation may historically be contracted. The other remark that I would make is that ‘teaching’ is by no means a sufficiently comprehensive expression to cover the Apostle’s thought, for the word which he employs, whilst it does mean the communication of instruction, carries with it inseparably the other ideas of correcting faults and of chastisement. It is the same which is used in the well-known words, ‘Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth.’ So that what the Apostle says here is that the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, schooling, or training, or disciplining.
I. Let us, then, first look at the appearance of the grace.
Now that word ‘grace’ played a much larger part in the thoughts of our fathers than it does in ours; and I am not sure that many things are more needed by the ordinary Christian of this generation than that he should rediscover the amplitude and the majesty of that old-fashioned and unfashionable word. For what does ‘grace’ mean? It means a self- originated love. Grace is love that has no motive but itself. Grace is a self-motived love that is in full energetic exercise. Grace is a self-motived, ever-acting love that delights to impart. Grace is a self-motived, ever-acting, communicating love which bends in tenderness over and floods with gifts those that stand far beneath itself. Grace is a self-motived, ever-acting, communicating, and stooping love which brings in its hands the gift of forgiveness, and deals with those on whom it lavishes this tenderness, not according to their merits, but according to the pulsations of its own heart. And thus grace is the shorthand word for the self-motived, ever-acting, communicating, stooping, and pardoning mercy which has its very home and throne in the heart of God Himself. It is this galaxy of stars blended into one diffused light, and yet capable of being resolved into so many suns, which the Apostle here says ‘hath appeared.’ He uses a most significant and picturesque word, for it is the expression which is proper to describe the raying out in the heavens of its great lights, and in the only place in Scripture in which it is applied to physical things is in reference to the sun and stars which, clouded by tempest, for many days did not ‘appear,’ nor could beam their sweet light on the darkened earth. In all other cases where the word is employed it has a definite and plain meaning. It always refers to the coming of Jesus Christ, either his first coming in the Incarnation, or his second coming to Judgment. That manifestation is the raying out, as it were, of a sun, which has been obscured by the mists of sin, rising from the undrained swamps of our own hearts, and it pours itself down upon the mists; and thins them away until its radiant light is spread over all the glittering and rejoicing earth.
So the Apostle has a definite meaning, and points to a definite historical fact, when he declares that, in the Person and life of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God, all this self-originated, active, communicating stooping, pardoning love finds its highest manifestation. The fire-mist, if I might so say, which was diffused through a chaotic universe, is gathered together into a sun, and it blazes down upon the world.
Now, of course, that conception of the life of Jesus Christ as the appearance of the grace of God rests upon the other belief that Jesus Christ has a special and unique relation to the God whose love He manifests. And this is the point of view from which the approaching Christmas festival has to be regarded by Christian people. Unless we can say, ‘the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,’ we cannot go on to say, ‘We beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.’ Christmas celebrates not merely the birth of a man: but the Incarnation of a God. The ‘grace that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared.’ Ay, there is the great peculiarity, there are the power and the blessedness of Christianity in its teaching, that now we no longer need to grope after God, searching painfully for traces of His footsteps in the maze of the world’s history, or consulting the ambiguous oracles of nature, or looking for Him in the intuitions of our own hearts, our hopes and fears, but that we can turn to historical facts and say, ‘Lo! this is our God. We have waited for Him, and He will save us.’ The day of peradventures is past, when we listen to his ‘Verily! verily! I say unto you... he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.’
And so the Word was flesh, and wrought With ,human hands the creed of creeds In loveliness of perfect deeds, Higher than all poetic thought.’
‘The grace of God hath appeared.’
II. Note the gift of the grace.
It ‘bringeth salvation to all men.’ Now I suppose one reason which recommended what I have already designated as an erroneous connection of words in our Authorised Version is the difficulty of believing in the face of facts that Christ, in His character of the embodied grace of God, did bring salvation to all men. But the explanation of the seeming difficulty is not to be found in twisting the words out of their proper order, but in understanding the words in the order in which they occur. For when the Apostle says that this grace brings salvation unto all, he does not say that all receive the salvation which is brought to them. There is a whole world of difference between the two expressions. And the word that he employs - for it is one word in the original which is rendered in our Version by the three ‘that bringeth salvation’ - does not describe an actuality, but a potentiality and a possibility. The aim and purpose, not the realised effect, is what is pointed out in this great word of our text.
For there is a condition necessary from the very nature of the case. If God could save all men, be sure that He would do it; the love that thus takes its rise in the councils of Eternity, and flows on for ever through the waste and barren ages of human history, and is ever waiting to bestow itself, in its tenderness and in its liberality upon all men, is not made leas universal, but it is conditioned by the nature of the gift that it brings. Salvation cannot be flung broadcast and indiscriminately upon all men of all sorts, whatever their relation to God. If it could, be sure that it would be. But just because it is a deep and inward thing, affecting men’s moral and religious state, and not only their position in regard to some future hell, it cannot be given thus broadcast, it must be sown in the fitting places. The one thing that is requisite, and it is indispensably requisite, is that I shall trust Him who brings salvation, and, trusting Him, shall take it out of His hand. If the medicine stands on the shelf, in the bottle with the stopper in, the sick man will not be cured. That is not the fault of the medicine; it is a panacea, but no remedy can work where it is not applied. This great ocean of the divine love goes, as it were, feeling along the black cliffs that front it, for some cranny into which it may pour itself, but the obstinate rock can fling it all back in impotent spray. Though the whole Atlantic surges against the cliff, it is dry an inch inwards. Thus the universality of the gift, the universal potency of the gift, is not in the slightest degree affected by the fact that, where it is not taken, its benefits are not realised. Have you shut your hearts to it, or have you opened them?
Paul recognised that this grace of God came with a gift that was meant for everybody, mainly because he knew that it had come with a gift that had done what it aimed at for him. Like every true Christian man, he felt, as you and I ought to feel, that if it were able to save me it is able to save anybody, and that if it can cast out my faults and sins, though I may not have fallen into gross sins, or what the world calls crimes, there is no man whose iniquities will foil it. ‘Of whom I am chief’ is not an exaggeration, but it is the verdict of an honest conscience that knows the inside of one man, at all events, and knows how much of his surface innocence is deceptive, and how much of it is due not to himself, but to circumstances.
‘The arms of love that compassed me
Would all mankind embrace.’
You know, some of you, that He has cleansed you. You know that He would have cleansed you more completely if you had let Him; and, knowing that, can you doubt that He would cleanse everybody?
The universality of the gift is manifest in the fact that it addresses itself only to needs which belong to every man, for the deepest of all needs is the need that our relations to God shall be set right, and that we shall be delivered from the bondage and the tyranny of our sins.
And that universal potentiality and universal aim are still further written in unmistakable characters upon the mission and work of Jesus Christ, inasmuch as it requires only, as its condition, that which all men can render. For if it had been meant for sections it would have called for qualifications which only classes can possess. If our understanding had been the organ for receiving the truth, it would have been a gospel for the wise men of the world, and the wayfaring man, the fool, would have been shut out. But now there is but the one condition of trust in the one omnipotent grace, and since all men, if they would, could put forth a believing hand, the very condition, instead of being a limitation, is a demonstration of the universality of the gift.
We have to look out over all the world, the outcasts, the slum-dwellers, the barbarian races, and as the main thought about them, to cherish the undying assurance that not one of them but is capable of being lifted by the grace of God from the depths into which they have fallen. That is not the way in which people look at ‘the dangerous classes’ of civilisation and at the savage races outside its pale. Some of us are looking now at the latter mainly as beasts of burden, and hoping to exploit their muscles in the search after wealth and glory. Jesus Christ looks at them, and you and I ought to look at them, as possible candidates for the elevating influences of His grace. There is no metal so hard but, cast into that furnace of love, it will melt and flow. There is no reed so broken and trampled into the mud but that His gracious hands, with His deft and loving gentleness of touch, can bind it up and make it whole, and make it blossom. And there is no foulness so black but that this detergent can wash it white. There is no man on the face of the earth, nor ever has been, so brutalised but that, by the grace of God, he may be deified, made ‘ partaker of a divine nature.’ Grace ‘brings salvation to all men.’
III. Lastly, let me point you to the discipline of the Grace.
As I have already said, ‘teaching’ here implies not only the communication of instruction, either outwardly or inwardly, but also a disciplinary process of correction that includes necessarily chastisement. Jesus Christ comes to us, and brings the external means of communicating instruction in the record of His life in this book. And He comes to us, also doing what no other teacher can do, for He passes into our spirits, and communicates not only instruction but the Spirit which teaches them in whom it abides, and guides them with gentle illumination into ‘all truth! concerning God, Christ, and themselves, which it is needful for them to know.
Nor does His work stop there, for He corrects and rebukes.
Nor does His work stop there, for as He Himself has said, ‘As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten’ He comes ‘with a rod’ sometimes, but always ‘in the spirit of meekness.’ He uses not only inward but also outward chastisements. The knife mercilessly cuts away the tender, pliant tendrils of the vine, and the sap bleeds out at the wound, but the life does not; and the result of the pruning is larger and mellower clusters, ruddy in the sunlight and full of generous juice. So be sure of two things, dear friends, that it is grace which chastens, that the knife is held by a loving hand, and that the purpose of our outward sorrows, as well as of our inward discipline, is ‘that we may be partakers of His holiness.’ That grace is not like some unskilful surgeon, who cuts so deep that, in the effort to remove the tumour, he kills the sufferer; but His surgery knows to a hairsbreadth where to stop, and when the incision has Served its purpose.
‘The grace of God hath appeared disciplining.’ Disciplining? What for? Is the discipline to be sedulously carried on for threescore years and ten, and there an end? If we will only think of life as Christ’s school, we shall understand it better than from any other point of view; and be certain that all these capacities, which are imparted and unfolded and trained by us, exercised here, will find a better field beyond. Jesus Christ, the embodied Grace, has appeared to us. He prays us with much entreaty to receive His gift. If we will enroll ourselves in His school, and learn His lessons, and accept His corrections, and submit to His chastisements as tokens of His love and of His desire that we shall bear better fruit, then, as schoolboys say, we shall ‘get our remove’ when we are ready for it, and go up into the top form. And there not only Grace but Glory will be our teacher, and we shall learn from the Glory more than ever on earth we learned from the Grace.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain Grace (in salvation). vs. Tit 3:7; Rom 3:24. (See…
grace
Grace (in salvation). vs. Tit 3:7; Rom 3:24. (See Scofield "Joh 1:17").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain The Grace of Salvation and Its Sanctifying Power.
The Grace of Salvation and Its Sanctifying Power.
v. 11. For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
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v. 12. teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world;
v. 13. looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ,
v. 14. who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
v. 15. These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.
It was a happy choice which made this passage, with the exception of the last verse, the Epistle lesson for the festival of Christmas; for although the Christmas miracle in itself is not discussed, yet the glory of the salvation which appeared in the Babe of Bethlehem with all its consequences is here presented in a manner which makes it valuable for the entire pear. The apostle writes: For there has appeared the grace of God, bringing salvation to all men. Thus does the apostle state the reason, the motive, which should actuate the Christians of all stations to live a life in conformity with the will of God. There appeared, there was manifested, there shone forth upon the world, like the morning-star after the greatest darkness of night, the grace of God. The heathen were covered with the darkness of their idolatry, and the Jews were blinded by the foolishness of their doctrine of works. But as the sun penetrates through mist and clouds and darkness, and fills the whole world with wonderful glory, thus the grace of God in Christ Jesus shone forth in the person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, born in Bethlehem. As bringing salvation to all men this grace, this free favor of God, was revealed. This grace brings healing in the sickness of sin; it brings deliverance in the danger of condemnation. No man is excluded from the grace as it exists in Christ Jesus; for it has appeared to all men, all of them, without a single exception, being included in God’s gracious will. Note: This thought of the universality of grace should incidentally inspire the Christians to be most indefatigable in spreading the glorious news which contains the wonderful salvation in and through Christ.
The apostle now shows what proof of faith is to follow the knowledge contained in the announcement of God’s grace: Educating us that, denying ungodliness and the worldly lusts, we should live sensibly and righteously and godly in this world. The apostle considers both sides of a Christian’s life in presenting the grace of God to us as an educator. Just as soon as the miracles which are proclaimed to us on the great festivals and throughout the year have filled our hearts with the joyful certainty of our salvation, with faith in Jesus: our Savior, the continued remembrance of these blessings will educate, or train us, will exercise discipline over us, making us eager to follow after sanctification in the fear of God. The grace of God coaxes, it stimulates, it inspires, it gives us the strength to deny and reject all godlessness, all the desires and lusts of this world. The Christian’s life consists, on the one hand, in a ceaseless renouncing and rejecting of all that which tends to hinder his development in the service of the grace of God. With faith in this grace living in the heart of the believer, the battle in his heart can have only one ending, namely, a complete victory for the Spirit of God. It is by His power that the Christians, on the other hand, are enabled to live a life of sensible self-mastery, of integrity, and of piety in this present World. With regard to his own person a Christian will live so as to keep in check every desire and temptation of his flesh; with regard to his neighbor he will lead a life of uprightness and righteousness that refrains from doing him any harm; with regard to God he will conduct himself so as to fear, love, and trust Him above all things, to honor Him and to be obedient to Him. In these fine and praiseworthy works the Christians will exercise themselves with all eagerness and patience, as long as the present life lasts.
The full and final perfection of holiness will be found and be given to the believers in the life to come: Awaiting the blessed hope and revelation of the glory of the great God and our Savior Christ Jesus, who gave Himself in our stead, in order to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify to Himself an acceptable people, zealous for good works. While the Christians are leading their lives here on earth in the continual remembrance of the grace of God and the wonderful blessings given them thereby, they are also living in firm hope, they are definitely expecting the revelation of the object of their hopes. It is a blessed hope of glory which they hold, it is a happy, glorious expectation which fills their hearts, because He, for whose second coming they are sighing, possesses heavenly glory in endless measure. At His coming this glory will be revealed before the astonished and astounded eyes of all men. It will be a glory of both the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. He who is God from eternity with the Father, He who, in the fullness of time, took upon Himself our own flesh and blood in order to gain salvation for us, He who has now, according to this human nature, been exalted to the right hand of God, will return in glory for the judgment of all mankind. Thus the expectation of the Christians looks forward to the time when they will see their Redeemer, who gained a complete salvation for ail men, in His divine glory. That the salvation is actually gained and prepared for all men, Paul definitely states: Who gave Himself for us, in our stead. Jesus Christ offered Himself, laid down His life, as our Substitute. In unspeakable and unreachable love and mercy He brought this sacrifice of His own body and life in our stead, in order to save us from certain death, and damnation, since we were by nature children of wrath. He paid the price of redemption, His blood, His life, whose divine preciousness was so great as to outweigh the sins of the whole world. Thus He has redeemed us from the lawlessness in which we were caught by nature, from the unrighteousness and transgression which characterized our entire life. By virtue, through the power of the redemption of Christ me are no longer in the power of sin and transgression. We are freed from its power, we are cleansed from its filth. We are now a peculiar people, we belong to our Savior by virtue of His vicarious work, me have been imbued with His power to withstand sin. Together with all other believers, with whom we form the communion of saints, the holy Christian Church, the people of God, we strive after sanctification and the renewal of the image of God in us. We are studious, diligent, zealous in good works; it is our constant endeavor to excel in such a life of love as will please our heavenly Father.
Concerning this wonderful summary of the Christian doctrine the apostle now charges Titus: These things tell and exhort and rebuke with all authority; let no one despise thee. The three chief parts of a minister’s work are here named. Titus should speak, proclaim, teach, expound the doctrine, be engaged in this work without growing weary. To this he must add earnest, urgent, stimulating exhortation, telling his hearers what the Word of God expects from every one of them in all situations and conditions of life. And if any one of them becomes guilty of some wrong or has gone on record as opposing the truth, he must be convinced of his error, that he may know the truth in all its parts. This threefold duty rests upon Titus even if a natural diffidence, possibly on account of his youth, should tend to hold him back. As a minister of the Lord he is clothed with authority from above and shall speak the Word with power. Lest, however, this consideration tend to interfere with the free exercise of his duties, the apostle adds: Let no one despise thee. See 1Ti 4:12. If a pastor does the work of his calling in teaching, exhorting, and rebuking properly, then the hearers should accept the Word with all meek obedience and not despise the message on account of the preacher’s age. A minister of Jesus Christ, so far as his office is concerned, is a representative of God, and must be treated as such as long as he preaches the truth of Scriptures without any admixture of human doctrines and opinions.
Summary.The apostle gives Titus directions as to the manner of dealing with aged men and women, as to the instructions to be given to young men and slaves, basing his exhortations upon the glorious revelation of the grace of God the vicarious redemption of Christ
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Paul encourages Titus to look for Jesus' coming and remember his authority through Jesus.
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the grace of God has appeared ... trains us
Paul speaks of the grace of God as if it were a person who goes to other people and trains them to live holy lives. (See: Personification)
trains us to reject godlessness
"teaches us not to dishonor God"
worldly passions
"strong desires for the things of this world" or "strong desires for sinful pleasures"
in this age
"while we live in this world" or "during this time"
we look forward to receiving
"we wait to welcome"
our blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ
Here "glory" represents Jesus himself who will appear gloriously. AT: "the good thing for which we hope, that is, the glorious appearance of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
grace
godly
righteous
godly
glory
Savior
Jesus
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 2:11-15 For: The commands of 2:1-10 are here grounded…
2:11-15 For: The commands of 2:1-10 are here grounded in the past and future coming of Christ. God’s grace is a model for the church’s own conduct, even as salvation by grace makes a good life possible and creates people devoted to good works (see also 3:3-7).
2:11 has been revealed (literally has appeared): See study note on 1 Tim 6:14. • salvation to all people: Paul intends that God’s grace will fully accomplish its ends among the Cretans and that, in doing so, it will enlist them into God’s saving work of evangelism (Titus 2:12; see 1 Tim 2:1-7; 4:10).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.