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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - Titus 3:4 - 3:4
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Ver. 4. But when the kindness and the love toward man of our Saviour God was manifested: it might almost be put kindness and philanthropy, for our philanthropy is but the English form of the original, and bears much the same sense. The Vulg. has humanitas. In New Testament Scripture it occurs again only in Act_28:2, where it is employed to characterize the humane and kindly behaviour of the people of Malta. In reply to De Wette’s remark on the word, that “it is an unusual mode of expressing the idea of ÷Üñéò ,” Huther properly states that “the reason why Paul here uses this word is given in Tit_3:2, where he exhorts believers to show meekness ( ðñáàôçôò ) toward all men; ÷ñçóôüôçò corresponds [nearly at least] to meekness, and with reference to the ‘all men’ öéëáíèñùðßá is added by the apostle. The goodness and man-ward love of God, in which our salvation is grounded, should impel us to the exercise of meekness and gentleness toward all men.” In Joh_3:16, the pregnant expression, “God so loved the world,” corresponds to the öéëáíèñùðßá here; and m this passage as well as in the other, the love to man which is celebrated as appearing in the procedure of God is strictly associated with redemption; it is the love of our Saviour God (see at Tit_2:11, 1Ti_1:1). That it must here also be understood of God the Father, seems plain from the mention afterwards of Christ as the instrumental agent—“through Jesus Christ.”