Titus 3

Having through his obedience unto death paid the costly ransom through which this happy change is accomplished, Christ is therefore said to have redeemed from iniquity those who share in his salvation, and purified them to himself as a peculiar people, a people over and above, occupying a position separate and peculiar, like one’s peculium or special treasure. P. F.

The purchaser was Christ; and the price paid was Christ. God the Son bought us, and he gave himself, the Son of God, for us. He gave himself for us, not that he might simply pay our debt to divine justice, nor that he might save us in our sins at all, but that he might redeem us from all iniquity. He gave himself, to purify unto himself a peculiar people; not only to obtain for them a pardon, but a new man, created after God’s image. Redemption from the curse, and from the love of sin, go together; where one is, the other is: both are united in the peculiar people. Purification is setting in on a soul, just when that soul sets its face Zionward; it increases with each step taken on the road, and becomes entire in heaven. Hence, whether Christ’s death is of any avail is to be known by our progress in holiness, or by our zeal in good works, as a good tree brings forth good fruit, a sweet fountain sweet streams. Therefore, of the teaching of our words, this is the sum: Christ gave himself for sinners, that they might be holy; a trea-

sure for himself; and the mark by which they are known as his is zeal in well-doing. One thing we need—that which an old Choctaw Indian prayed for—"a clean heart, a white heart, a true heart, and a big heart, large enough to fill the whole body." Yes, that is it. We need our bodies full of heart, and our hearts full of Christ; full of faith and the Holy Ghost; then shall we be zealous of good works. R. T.

The movement of the soul along the path of duty, under the influence of holy love to God, constitutes what are called good works. The external form of an action can not alone determine whether it be a good work or not. Its usefulness to others may be determined by its external form, but its moral worth depends on the moral spring from which it flows. Good works, then, are healthy works, or works of a healthy mind. Healthy bodily actions can only proceed from healthy bodily principles; and healthy spiritual actions can proceed only from healthy spiritual principles. Spiritual health is not acquired by good actions; it is followed by them and strengthened by them. They are also music, sweet music. Good works, then, are not undervalued by those who hold the doctrine of unconditional pardon in its highest sense. In their view, good works are the perfection and expression of holy principles, the very end and object of all religion, the very substance of happiness, the very element of heaven. T. Erskine.

1. Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be 2 ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing 3 all meekness unto all men. For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, de- ceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one 4 another. But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, 5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved 6 us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us 7 abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that being justified by his grace, we should 8 be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men. 9 But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; 10 for they are unprofitable and vain. A man that is an heretick after the first and second ad- 11 monition reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned 12 of himself. When I shall send Artemas unto thee, or Tychicus, be diligent to come unto 13 me to Nicopolis: for I have determined there to winter. Bring Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey diligently, that nothing be wanting unto them. 14 And let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they be not un- 15 fruitful. All that are with me salute thee. Greet them that love us in the faith. Grace be with you all. Amen.

God is clearly and delightfully seen to be everything, as he lifts up the faint, tearful culprit from the earth, where he feels his true position to be; and, as He whispers in the astonished ear words of amnesty, forgiveness, adoption, the pardoned penitent is in Christ; and that by the sovereign gift of the Law-giver and King. The prodigal is seen, and met, and kissed, and wept over, and clad, and decked, and feasted. “The kindness and love of God our Saviour” has now appeared; “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy.” And this gratuitousness of the reconciliation excludes not only acts, and words, and conformities to law, but quite as much all feelings, moods, purposes, exertions, endeavors, nay, even repentings and believings. All are made utterly worthless, and superseded, by the free grace of God, whereby he hath made us accepted in the Beloved. J. W. A.

1. Titus was also to exhort the Christians to beware of insubordination to the government. Magistracy is an ordinance of God; and his people, while fully at liberty, and even under obligation, to alter and reform in all constitutional ways whatever is amiss in the social and political state of the country in which they dwell, are bound by the highest considerations of religious duty to respect government, to love peace, to pay tribute, and show that honor for rulers and judges which is an essential element and safeguard of human civilization. D. F.—Of course the requirement has its limitations: the duties of rulers and ruled are reciprocal; and absolute unrestricted authority on the one side is no more to be contemplated than unqualified submission on the other, for neither is in accordance with the essential principles of truth and rectitude. Obedience to external authority can be due only in so far as that authority has a right to command; when it oversteps this, and issues injunctions which reach beyond its proper line of things, the higher principles of obligation come in: “We must obey God rather than men”; “Be not partaker in other men’s sins.” P. F.—Every good work. Indifference in any good cause is blamable. In the Christian religion, it is insupportable. It does violence to the first and fundamental principle of that religion, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.” Christianity is throughout an active religion; it consists not only in abstaining from evil, but in being “ready to every good work,” and, if we stop short at the first, we leave half of our business undone. P.

3-8. As a reason for the manifestation of this mild and benignant spirit toward others, even degraded and ignorant heathen, the apostle refers to their own similar state in the past, and the marvelously kind and compassionate treatment they had, notwithstanding, experienced from their heavenly Father. P. F.—“We ourselves,” I, Paul, thou, Titus, and other preachers like us, were once as unpromising subjects as these very “Cretans”: myself, especially, having been “the chief of sinners.” But see what the mighty gospel, which you are to preach to your “Cretans,” has by the power of the Holy Ghost effected even in us; for “he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” Thus, encouraged, then, by what has been wrought in ourselves, be not backward in calling your “Cretans” to the entire holiness which I have enjoined. What I have said “is a faithful saying”; my injunction is in full accord with the spirit of the gospel; “and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works.” J. S. S.

4. “Love of God our Saviour toward man appeared” would be better “love toward men of our Saviour God was manifested”; “love-toward-men” is one word, “philanthropy,” in the Greek, and so is best kept together. A.

5. Not of works—works in righteousness—which we did, but according to his mercy he saved us. The act of God, though expressed only at the close, covers the whole of the passage: he saved us, not on one ground, but on another. Not of works—that is, out of them as the formal or meritorious cause. P. F.—It is only the part which God performs in our salvation that is held up to view; and so it did not admit of that being mentioned which is required on the part of man, as the subjective instrument or condition of his entrance on salvation. Hence it is not said by faith (as in other passages); for the apostle’s aim here is not to describe the new state of the man, but to point to the act and saving agency of God in regard to the individual, by which the new state is brought about, and which shows, more than anything else, that this new state does not rest on man’s merit or his own doing. Wiesinger.

Washing of regeneration. Lover is the only ascertained sense of the word. It signifies not the act of washing, but the vessel in which the act was performed. P. F.—I readily admit that the passage is to be explained of baptism, not because salvation is included in the outward symbol of water, but because baptism seals to us the salvation procured by Christ. That man will rightly hold the proper use and virtue of the sacraments who shall thus connect the sign and the thing signified, so as neither to make the sign empty or inefficacious, nor yet, with the view of exhobbing it, detract from the Holy Spirit what is his own. Calv.—If the natural import of Paul’s words here obliges us to hold that he speaks of baptism, it is of baptism (to use the words of Ellicott), “on the supposition that it was no mere observance, but that it was a sacrament, in which all that was inward properly and completely accompanied all that was outward. He thus could say, in the fullest sense of the words, that it was a lover of regeneration, as he had also said (Gal. 3: 27) that as many as were baptized into Christ had put on Christ—entered into vital union with him.” The most exact parallel, however, is 1 Pet. 3: 21, where, with reference to the salvation wrought for Noah through the deluge and the ark, the apostle says that “baptism now also saves us”; but then baptism of what sort? Not that (he presently adds) which is simply outward, and which could avail only to the purifying of the flesh, but that which carries with it “the answer” (or interrogation) “of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” It was baptism of such a kind as involved an earnest and conscience-

tious dealing with God in respect to salvation, and an appropriation of the new life brought in for believers by the death and resurrection of Christ.