Titus 2:11–15—The Grace of God Has Appeared

Tit. 2:11. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.

Having read everything the Apostle has said up to this point, one person might have asked: why take so much care about slaves, when few people give them any thought? And another might have wondered: why do you command us to teach all people only about how to live—as if there were no other subjects? The Apostle answers: I care about slaves because the saving grace of God has appeared to all men, not excluding even slaves; and I command us to teach above all about how to live because this saving grace, which embraces all, has appeared for this very purpose—to make us zealous for good works, by teaching us to live soberly, righteously, and godly. The first answer is contained in the present verse, and the second in the verses that follow.

Holy Chrysostom places the present verse in direct connection with the preceding instruction to slaves: “Having commanded slaves to possess great virtue—for it is truly a great virtue to adorn in all things the teaching of God and our Saviour, giving masters no occasion for displeasure even in small matters—the Apostle also gives a fitting reason why slaves ought to be such. What reason? ‘For there has appeared,’ he says, ‘the grace of God that brings salvation to all men.’ — ‘The grace of God’ is the economy of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ—that the Son of God was incarnate, suffered, died, rose again, ascended into heaven, and sent down the Holy Spirit, Who through the Apostles established the Church of God on earth, into which entry is open to all: come, receive the teaching by faith, be sanctified by the sacraments, and thereafter live holily under the guidance of pastors—whether you are a slave or free.” “For this very purpose was the Only-begotten Son of God incarnate,” writes blessed Theodoret, “so that He might grant salvation to all people—both masters and servants—having prepared them to abandon together with impiety also a lawless life.” “With us there is no distinction of slave and free, Greek and barbarian, circumcised and uncircumcised, female and male; but we are all one in Christ, all called to one Kingdom, reconciled to God the Father not by our own merits but by the grace of our Saviour Christ the Lord, Who is the ever-living grace, ever interceding for us before the face of the Father” (blessed Jerome).

But it is possible, withdrawing attention from slaves, to see in these words of the Apostle a general incentive for all Christians to adorn the teaching of our Saviour God zealously by an excellent manner of life. This is what holy Chrysostom does, who, having cited the preceding words, added: “Indeed, those who have God as their Teacher and have received the remission of countless sins—how can they fail to be as I have now described them (referring to the preceding commandments of the Apostle to the various persons)? You know that among other things not a little that shames and admonishes the soul is this very fact: that it, being guilty of countless sins, was not subjected to punishment, but received forgiveness and countless blessings. If someone, having a slave who had offended many times over, had not punished him with stripes, but granted him forgiveness and honored him with great gifts, requiring of him only good conduct in the future and bidding him to beware of the same offenses; then tell me, would not one who received such mercy try to be of good conduct? However, do not suppose that grace consists only in the forgiveness of past sins and makes us safe from punishment even in the future—though this too depends on grace. If it were to spare those who do evil from punishment forever, it would not be grace, but a certain occasion for corruption and destruction.” — The knowledge of the great grace in Christ Jesus does not slacken but rather strains the moral powers of believers; for the essence of grace is to make us morally upright in everything—as the words that follow also declare.

Tit. 2:12. Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age.

Here begins the answer to the second question: why teach all things about the life one ought to lead? Precisely because the entire economy of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ, called here the saving grace, exists for the sake of such a life. This grace does not impart bore knowledge—it remakes life. How so? “Teaching us,” παιδευουσα. Children are not given lectures in theory; instead, they are told directly: you are not standing right, you went the wrong way, you are doing the wrong thing—and they are immediately taken by the hand and corrected as everything should be; so that word and deed proceed together at once. The saving grace acts in the same way. It calls; but the very first step taken at the call is already a step of life. Namely: deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and begin a new life, contrary to the former one. “Deny”—not merely recognize the insufficiency of the former ways, but turn away from them with feeling, hold them as vile, hate them, and cast them off. The Saviour said earlier: “let him who wishes to follow Me deny himself” (Mt. 16:24, 10:38). And still earlier the Prophet had foretold: “depart from their midst and touch not their uncleanness” (Is. 52:11). This is the foundation of active Christianity! Why are Christians weak? Because they do not have this denial and have not come out of the wrong environment. Holy Chrysostom says at this point: “Here is the foundation of all virtue! He did not say: that we should avoid, but: ‘that we should deny’; denial signifies complete separation, full hatred, resolute aversion.”

What exactly does the Apostle require us to deny? “Ungodliness and worldly lusts.” By ungodliness is encompassed every false conception of God and every manner of worship incompatible with a true conception of God—all false religions. “By ungodliness the Apostle means impious teaching” (holy Chrysostom), “impious dogmas” (Oecumenius), “idolatry” (blessed Theophylact). By worldly lusts is meant the self-indulgent life in the desires of the heart and passions, toward the satisfaction of which all the customs of the world are directed and to which all the laws of righteousness and love are sacrificed. “By worldly lusts the Apostle has named a vicious life; or (more broadly) worldly lusts are all that profit us only for the present life without reference to the life to come; all that perishes together with the present life is a worldly lust” (holy Chrysostom); “love of money, sensual pleasure, pride, and the like” (blessed Theophylact). All of this holy Peter signified when he wrote: “For the time past suffices to have done the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in licentiousness, lusts, drunkenness, reveling, debauchery, and abominable idolatries” (1 Pet. 4:3). Enough; we have been satiated and more than satiated. All this must be cast off and left behind. Such is the teaching, the attraction, the disposition wrought by grace, so that from now on we should live “no longer in the lusts of men, but in the will of God” (1 Pet. 4:2) in the flesh for the remaining time—namely: “soberly, and righteously, and godly.”

“Soberly”—by keeping away from sins of the flesh and striving for purity. But here one may also understand purity from all passions, both bodily and spiritual, which defile the soul and render it impure before God and unfaithful to Him. Thus holy Chrysostom: “Sobriety, as I always say, consists not only in abstaining from adultery, but also in abstaining from the other passions. Therefore the covetous man too is intemperate; as the adulterer is attached to bodily pleasure, so the covetous man is attached to wealth; and the latter is more intemperate than the former, the more so as a less powerful motive acts upon him. In the one case the desire is so natural that even if a man does not approach a woman, nature acts and produces its effect; but in the other case this does not happen.” What is said here of covetousness applies equally to the other passions: pride, vainglory, hatred, envy, anger, self-will, insubordination, and the rest. All who act according to these passions act intemperately—unsoundly, not as one gifted with a higher power, mind, or spirit ought to live.

“Righteously”—as befits a human being who is a Christian. A Christian, however, is required not merely to refrain from transgressing the boundaries of righteousness toward others, but also to do every good to them. The law of Christian righteousness is love, which demands that one lay down one’s life for one’s “friends” if need be. As sobriety in its broadest sense demands a life of self-denial, with the all-round trampling of every form of self-indulgence that draws all things to itself, so righteousness demands beneficent action that directs all things from oneself toward one’s neighbors.

“Godly”—with fear and reverence before God, who is omnipresent, all-seeing, and all-sustaining; dedicating all things to Him as one’s Master—both great and small, both of soul and body, both visible and invisible—and striving in every way that His most holy name may be glorified not only in us but also through us. Godliness encompasses the whole-sided relation of our mind and heart to God, and above all the standing always before Him in prayer and the doing of all things to His glory.

Sobriety, righteousness, and godliness encompass all holy life and comprise all the commandments and all the will of God, to walk in which is the obligation assumed by those who draw near to God in true faith. Christians who are conscious of this strive to live thus throughout all the time they dwell in this present age, in this present life, so as worthily to prepare themselves for the blessed life in the age to come. What is a Christian? He believes sincerely and, being sanctified by the sacraments, strives with all his soul to please God by a holy life, in undoubting expectation of a blessed eternity. On earth he is only in his hands and feet, while in consciousness, mind, and heart—he is wholly in heaven.

Tit. 2:13. Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.

“The blessed hope” is the hope of blessedness in the Kingdom of Heaven. It is implanted in the heart of a truly believing person by God’s grace at the very moment of his calling and new birth in the font of baptism. One born here of the Spirit is a child of God and recognizes and feels himself as such in the depths of his heart. And feeling himself to be such, he feels that he belongs to God, that all that is God’s is his own, and that he is a direct heir of God. “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” (Rom. 8:16–17). Thus the blessed hope—the hope of eternal blessedness—is an inseparable feature of the inner disposition of true Christians, and they remain on earth “looking” for it—not as for something indefinite and not with any wavering: perhaps it will come, perhaps it will not—but as one who awaits the arrival of a beloved person who is already on the way, drawing near, whose very footsteps are already audible. Therefore a Christian who does not carry such expectation in his heart ought to consider without delay why this is so, and hasten to restore this essential feature of his inner constitution. Man cannot live without hope; but there are two hopes: one in this present age, the other in the age to come. Of the first the Apostle said: “if in this life only we have hope, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor. 15:19). And of the second: “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20). Consequently, the first ought to have no place in us; the second alone must reign in us, so that our “life may be hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). For there are no words to describe what awaits in heaven those who truly believe and are faithful to the faith. “All understanding surpasses the blessings to come” (holy Chrysostom).

The appearing of the glory of our great God Jesus Christ is His second coming, when He will appear in glory and, after the judgment, will open His eternal Kingdom in all its ineffable majesty and radiance. Immediately upon death the faithful enter the forecourt of that Kingdom, which itself fills them with ineffable blessedness. But their full beatification will follow at the resurrection. Yet if this is so blessed, how blessed must that last—the ultimate—blessedness be? The blessed know it, and they wait longingly for the appearing in glory of Christ the Lord, tempering this longing only with a benevolent wish toward those still living on earth, that all who are foreordained may have time to complete the preparatory course appointed for them.

The Apostle called our Saviour Jesus Christ God, and a great God. “Where are those,” cries holy Chrysostom, “who say that the Son is less than the Father? ‘Great’, he says, ‘God and our Saviour Jesus Christ’. When he calls Him the great God, he calls Him great not in relation to anything, but absolutely great—such that after Him no one is great, because every other is great only relatively; and if relatively, then great by comparison, not by nature; whereas He is great without comparison.” Blessed Jerome also writes: “Where is the serpent Arius? Where is the viper Eunomius? Jesus Christ the Saviour is called the great God, the Firstborn ‘of all creation’—not the Word of God and Wisdom in abstraction, but Jesus Christ; which words together comprehend also the human nature He assumed. For we do not say, as the new heresy blasphemes, that Jesus Christ is one being and the Word another; but one and the same, who is both before all ages and after the ages, both before the world and after Mary—or rather, from Mary—we call the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.”

Tit. 2:14. Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all lawlessness and cleanse for Himself a chosen people, zealous for good works.

“For this reason Christ accepted death on behalf of us all—to put an end to the tyranny of death, to deliver us from that bitter bondage, and to make us His own people, lovers and zealots of praiseworthy deeds” (blessed Theodoret). He has already shown what saving grace requires of us and what it produces in us. Now he reveals the foundation of all this, affirming that the whole economy of the Incarnation exists precisely to make us strangers to sin and rich in every virtue. For “who gave Himself” means: He was pleased to take upon Himself and to accomplish the incarnate economy of salvation, the centre of which is the death upon the cross of the God-man. “That He might redeem”, λυτρωσηται — that He might ransom, that He might pay a price for us. How? By satisfying the justice of God through His death for all our sins, so that not one of them should remain upon us for which we ourselves would be required to render account. But this is not all: from a ransomed slave the bonds of slavery are removed, and he receives freedom to act by his own will. We are in the bonds of slavery to sin. Having redeemed us, the Saviour breaks those bonds, “that we should no longer be enslaved to sin” (Rom. 6:6), and we receive freedom to act by ourselves in accordance with our nature, created in the image of God, and not under the compulsion of sin—that uninvited tyrant. And this is full redemption, or deliverance. “Not so as to deliver from one lawlessness but not another; rather from all lawlessness. Let us therefore honour our redemption (being ashamed to darken it by any sin)” (blessed Theophylact).

“And cleanse for Himself a chosen people. — Cleanse”, καθαριση — as one clears debts by paying them. Or, applying it to the condition of ransomed slaves, who are received unkempt, dirty, covered in wounds and rags—“cleanse” means: He will wash away every uncleanness of sin, heal every wound of the passions, and clothe them in the fair garments of the virtues.

“A chosen people”, λαον περιουσιον. — Περιουσιος — exceptional, distinguished, set apart from others and having nothing in common with them (holy Chrysostom, blessed Theophylact). Or—His own, made His own possession by virtue of redemption and appointed to works conformed to His Spirit. “The metaphor is drawn from servants who move about the estate, περι την ουσιαν,—around the possessions of their master” (blessed Theophylact). Thus the Saviour gave Himself in order to redeem us, to cleanse us from every defilement and wound, and, having made us exceptional, to set us to works according to His Spirit. How? “Through the font of divine baptism and the practice of His divine and purifying commandments” (blessed Theophylact). “Christ Jesus, our great God and Saviour, having redeemed us with His own blood, has made of us for Himself a distinctive Christian people—which can only be distinctive when it is zealous for good works” (blessed Jerome).

“Zealous for good works”—that is, “pressing toward virtue with ardour and showing zeal for all good works and fervent imitation (of the Saviour Himself)” (blessed Theophylact). “He does not simply demand deeds, but that they be zealots—that is, that they perform good works with great zeal and with fitting earnestness. To deliver those burdened by a multitude of evils and to heal the incurably sick—that was the work of His love for mankind; but what follows is the work both of ours and of His” (holy Chrysostom).

Tit. 2:15. Declare these things, exhort, and reprove with all authority: let no one disregard you (despise you).

The Apostle conducted the entire foregoing introductory discourse for the purpose of showing that just as the chief task for believers is to flee every evil and to do every good, so for pastors the chief task must be to teach them this—to teach insistently, so that they are without fail such persons—using every method of persuasion to that end. “Declare”—speak plainly, that life must be conducted in such and such a way. There are dispositions for which nothing more is needed: simply point the way and it is done. For those to whom a simple indication is not enough, he says, “exhort”—that is, persuade and convince with words of love and goodwill. Persuasion is accomplished by indicating those aspects of the commanded deed that draw the heart to it, move it toward it, and kindle the energy to perform it. Every good deed has such aspects; but they are not clear to everyone. And one must bring them to light… and thereby entreat the person to do it. For those for whom even this is not enough, there remains only to act upon them by force of reproof, shaming, rebuke, and authority: such a one, he says, “reprove with all authority.” “First ‘declare and exhort’—that is, teach with gentler speech, and then ‘reprove’—and not simply, ‘but with all authority’—that is, insistently and with power” (blessed Theophylact). — “He used three verbs: ‘declare, exhort, reprove. Declare’—it seems should be referred to plain teaching. As for ‘exhort’—it means the same as in the words ‘we implore in Christ’s stead’ (2 Cor. 5:20), when the teacher humbles and abases himself, like a petitioner, if only to win over the one he is trying to persuade. And the third: ‘reprove’—is appropriate only after persuasion. Those who scorn entreaty deserve reproof and deserve to hear: ‘you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons’ (Heb. 12:5). Writing to Timothy, the Apostle placed reproof before exhortation: ‘reprove… exhort’ (2 Tim. 4:2). But here he desires that the pupils first be exhorted, and only then reproved when exhortation proves fruitless—and reproved ‘with all authority.’ This ‘with all authority’ applies only to reproof and not to the first two (that is: ‘teach, exhort’). For one cannot say: ‘exhort’ with all authority, or ‘declare’ with all authority, but only ‘reprove’ with all authority” (blessed Jerome). Holy Chrysostom explains the difference in character between the forms of pastoral speech by reference to the variety of subjects. “There are sins from which one needs to turn people away by injunctions; specifically, in urging them to despise wealth, to be obedient, and such things, one must exhort, while in correcting an adulterer, a fornicator, and a covetous man one must act ‘with authority’; whereas with a sorcerer, a magician, and such people one must act not simply with authority but ‘with all authority.’ Do you see with what force and with what great power he commands Titus to act?”

Here one may see a charge to the pastor: do not sleep, but act—using every possible means to lead those entrusted to you to live as they ought.

“Let no one disregard you” (despise you). If you do not teach, exhort, and reprove with authority, then the unruly will in the end act before your very eyes in every improper way, thinking and saying: why pay attention to this one? He will say nothing. — Even if you yourself are upright in your way of life, yet if you are negligent toward your flock, everyone will despise you and count you as nothing. The point is not that by your own life you should give no occasion for contempt of yourself, but that by negligence in your pastoral duty you should not give your flock the liberty to regard you as nothing. This is precisely why the verb used is μηδεις σου περιφρονειτω: that no one should despise you—not on account of what is in you, in your character, but on account of what is around you and upon you, that is, on account of your negligence in teaching, exhorting, and reproving those in your care.