The passage begins 1For the grace of God has appeared. It suggests the triumph of grace.[1] We see a similar theme in I Timothy 2:4 and 6, where God desires the salvation of all people, and that Christ gave himself a ransom for all people. In addition, I Timothy 4:10 refers to God as the savior of all people. The emphasis is like Romans 11:32, where God has mercy on all persons. In Romans 5:18-21, Paul emphasizes that the righteousness of Christ leads to justification for all people, and therefore making “the many” righteous, grace has abounded in such a way as to lead to eternal life through Christ.
I would like to invite the reader to pause and reflect upon grace.
Such grace claims us for God apart from our worthiness or unworthiness. The reality of such grace can reassure us and transform us. In business and society, we are replaceable. If we were to die tonight, someone else would take our place in the many roles we fill. However, with the grace of God, none of us is replaceable. Each of us is precious to God. When we know we are God’s beloved, irreplaceable children, we are able not only to survive a world that is relentlessly measuring our worth, but we can also work to change this world into one that more clearly manifests the kingdom of God. We can, more and more, come to see others also as irreplaceable, treating them accordingly, living differently together as members of the beloved community.[2] We can realize that we are not failure-free children of God, but we are forgivable children of God.
If we think of grace as an idea that needs explanation, we will have difficulty. However, grace may be such an experienced moment of a human life that stories are the best way to communicate how grace affects the way human beings live. In fact, short aphorisms and stories are the primary ways in which Jesus sought to make grace alive for people. I would rather show grace in my life or see it in the lives of others than try to explain it. Philip Yancy tells the following story.
I remember once getting stuck in Los Angeles traffic and arriving 58 minutes late at the Hertz rental desk. I walked up in kind of a bad mood, put the keys down and said, ‘How much do I owe?' "The woman says, ‘Nothing. You're all clear.' "I said I was late and she smiled, ‘Yes, but there's a one-hour grace period.' "So I asked, ‘Oh really, what is grace?' "And she said, ‘I don't know.' (They must not cover that in Hertz training classes.) "I guess what it means is that even though you're supposed to pay, you don't have to." That's a good start to a definition.[3]
We can think of such grace as free and as a gift because God has borne the cost and paid the price. If we have the eyes to see, grace is everywhere. Because this grace has already appeared in Christ, we steadily grow in our ability to see life through the lenses of grace. We look through the lens of our glasses or contacts, rather than take note of the lens itself. In a comparable way, grace will go unnoticed precisely because they are the lens through which we see life.
Since this passage connects theology to ethics, I would offer a caution. The opponents of Jesus accused him of keeping company with sinners, understood as those who did not treat Torah seriously. Persons who did take Law seriously often had fabricated lives. Their presentation of themselves was different from who they were. They judged Jesus with the motive of catching him in a moral trap. In the end, those who took Torah seriously were the ones who had Jesus arrested and collaborated in his crucifixion.[4]
The appearing of this grace is in Jesus Christ. We can easily think of God above us, as Wholly Other than us, and that God is God and we are not. Many philosophers and theologians find it easy to develop such a notion of God as transcendent and powerful. The notion of God within us is also reasonably popular. Many mystics, devotional writers, philosophers, and so on, are comfortable thinking of God as that inner force that develops conscience. God is intimate and personal for such persons. Some have begun to think of God as between us, that force that enables relationships between human beings. Emmanuel, God with us, suggests one whom we can trust, even in our times of despair and defeat. God with us gives us real and sustained hope.[5]
To say that such grace has appeared in Jesus Christ is to say that God is immanent in our lowliness, suffering, and temptation. This means God, who is active, unbreakable, and transcendent, has embraced our suffering, breakability, and temporality. In contrast to this Christian notion, Aristophanes (446-386 BC) has an interesting scene in his comedy, The Frogs. Dionysius the god and Xanthias the slave, at one point in their trip through Hades, both claim to be gods. They devise an empirical test: Both will receive a flogging, and “Whichever of us squeals first or even bats an eyelid isn’t a god at all.”[6] Many theologians have developed such an idea of the divine as free of suffering and untouched by human suffering. For grace to appear in a person is to move strongly against such a notion of the divine.
The appearance of this grace is bringing salvation to all. Obviously, not everyone has heard of the grace offered through Christ, so the task of the church is to bring such the good news of this grace to all. This author refers to God as Savior (1:3), and to Christ as Savior (1:4, 2:10), or both (2:13). This sets the stage for the instructions about the grace of God that saves. We need to note the identification of grace and salvation here. Later, in 3:7, the author will connect grace with justification, as well as Christ as our Savior.
The effect of the grace offered in Christ that brings salvation is 12training (teaching or education that trains the intellect, of course, but more importantly trains us in character formation) us to renounce impiety (ἀσέβειαν also translated as “ungodliness” but see II Timothy 2:15 and Romans 1:18, referring to irreverence and wickedness) and worldly passions (ἐπιθυμίας, passionate longing for, desire, eagerness for, inordinate desire, lust). Such terms evoke language common to Hellenistic philosophy, both in what they reject and affirm. We might think of this as the holiness of grace. We need such training because we, as recipients of grace, also experience opposition from God due to our impiety and worldly passions.[7]
Thus, it takes more courage than we know to sing:
O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray.
Cast out our sin, and enter in.
Be born in us today.
Such training will lead us to live a specific type of life in the present age (I Timothy 6:17). Grace is for the age between the appearance of grace in Christ and the redemptive destiny of humanity and creation mentioned in this passage and in 1:2, 3:7. This life is at least self-controlled (σωφρόνως, with sound mind, soberly, with moderation, prudently), upright (δικαίως, righteously or justly), and godly (εὐσεβῶς, piously, religiously, also in I Timothy 2:2, 3:16, 4:7, 8, II Timothy 3:5, Titus 1:1). These words echo three classical virtues of moderation, justice, and piety. We need to remember that, for all the emphasis upon the new person Christ wants to make of us, it has its basis in commonly recognized virtues in the best philosophy from around the world. Just as we participate in the sins of this world, we also participate in its virtues. The grace and salvation offered to humanity brings us to the oppressive power of sin that imprisons us and exhibits itself in our lives. Troubles and challenges will continue to be part of our lives. Grace gives us the daily opportunity to transform them.[8] Grace is the kind of gift that causes followers of Christ to lay aside the useless and temporal gifts the world offers as shiny inducements to happiness and instead reorder their lives after the pattern of the Gift. The appearance of Christ as the world’s ultimate gift was not just for salvation at some future time or at one’s death, but for full salvation now — a life that finds its happiness and security in being patterned after the image of God, the image of Christ in which we were created. Yet, if we think of ourselves as virtuous, we miss the point and open ourselves to great spiritual danger.
It is the worst kind of vice and the most demonic kind of pride for us to commend ourselves and pat ourselves on the back if we see or feel some special gift in ourselves. We do not thank God for it, but we become so proud and contemptuous of others and so preoccupied with it that we do not pay attention to whatever else we are doing, and imagine that we are in fine shape. We rob God of his glory this way, and we make ourselves an idol. ...
But when you go on to use your gift as a mirror in which to admire yourself, you spoil it completely and make this sublime ornament filthier than everybody else's faults. The richer your gifts, the more abominable the perversion if you make them an idol. Thus you replace God with yourself in your own heart. ... God did not give you your gifts for you to tickle yourself with them, but for you to help your neighbor with them when he needs it.[9]
Such training occurs during the present age, which is one in which 13 while we wait (with eager expectation) for (a final momentous event) the blessed hope (which shall become reality) and manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. The author focuses our attention on what the future entails.[10] In other words, the life of self-control, uprightness, and godliness consists in the life of expectation, a strained looking forward and upward, with this person, Jesus Christ, as the object.[11] A striking emphasis of this passage is the confession of Christ as God (in line with John 1:1, 18, 20:28, Hebrews 1:8). Such a clear affirmation of the deity of Christ is rare.
14He (Christ) it is who gave himself for us. By identifying Christ as Savior, he focuses on Christ giving up himself for others, a theme we find in Philippians 2:7-8 as well. Such a notion of the death of Christ easily links to the theme of expiation, especially when a passage connects it with the notion of ransom or “redeem.”[12] Christ stepped into our place. His obedience to his Father consisted in suffering in our place the death of the godless, who have surrendered to worldly desires. He died the death of Adam. In his resurrection, he also took our place, receiving the clothes of wisdom, righteousness, and holiness that God intended for us at creation.[13] Christ did this so that he might redeem (λυτρώσηται) us. Redemption echoes the action of God in the Old Testament, where it could refer to redemption from slavery (Exodus 6:6, II Samuel 7:23) and to redemption of individuals and communities from their sin (Psalm 130:7-8). In this case, the redemption Christ is from all iniquity (ἀνομίας, lawlessness, “sin” in Matthew 1:21, but I John 3:4 says sin is lawlessness, the terms connected as well as in Romans 6:19 and II Thessalonians 2:3). The redemption Christ offers is so that he might purify (καθαρίσῃ, life apart from sin as in I John 1:7, 9, Hebrews 9:14, with cleansing necessary before a sinful people become the people of God in Ezekiel 37:23). This gift is not given simply to be enjoyed, shelved, or set aside for some later time. It is a conditioning gift. Such purification could refer to baptism or to sanctification. In 3:4-6, the author will point to the work of the Spirit in this rebirth and renewal, already working with a Trinitarian form for the Christian life. The point of this life apart is that Christ would have for himself a people of his own (Titus 2:14 refers to the people as a treasured possession, as in Exodus 19:5 and Deuteronomy 7:6) who are zealous for good deeds (3:8, 14). A life of virtuous deeds contrasts the people of God with those consumed with worldly passion, iniquity, and impiety. It seems that the appearing of grace in Christ and of the act of Christ giving himself for us is the basis for our obedience in a life of honorable deeds, which at least partially results in a self-controlled, upright, and godly life. Sin is the oppressor that holds us captive and from which we need liberation. Our morality, ethics, or character is our offering of gratitude to what Christ has done in offering his life for us.
People often overlook Titus in the New Testament, due its specific focus on concerns of church polity. However, this neglect does not do justice to the significant theological foundations that the author has given his exhortations. The author expresses the importance of God’s grace for the salvation of all people (2:11) and explains how this grace teaches them to live godly lives (2:12). The community knows that this life is not forever and waits in hope for the return of Christ, who is God and Savior of all (2:11, 13). Christ saves us through redemption, purifying people to be his own (2:14), his treasured possession. In this role as those who are in Christ, we are to wait in hope and by grace for the coming of Christ, unceasingly living in ways that honor him.
[1] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [69.3] 173. Barth considers the possibility that instead of the title for one of his sections in Church Dogmatics, “Jesus is Victor,” wonders if a passage like this might not lead him toward another title, suggested by G. C. Berkouwer, “The Triumph of Grace.”
[2] Inspired by Cynthia Rigby, “Grace, mystery, beauty and freedom: Four takeaways of Reformed theology,” The Presbyterian Outlook, January 7, 2019.
[3] --"Grace," philipyancey.com. Retrieved June 5. 2016.
[4] Modified thoughts from Philip Yancy, What's So Amazing About Grace?
[5] Inspired by Jürgen Moltmann, “Hope and History,” Theology Today, October 1968, p. 376
[6] – Quoted in William C. Placher’s Narratives of a Vulnerable God: Christ, Theology, and Scripture, Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, p. 86
[7] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1 [30.1] 361.
[8] Inspired by Simone Weil.
[9] --Martin Luther, Commentary on "The Sermon on the Mount" (1532). LW 21, 216, 18.
[10] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 209.
[11] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2 [37.3] 607.
[12] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 418.
[13] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2 [37.3] 607.
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