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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadEzekiel, Jonah, and Pastoral Epistles by Patrick Fairbairn - Titus 3:7 - 3:7
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Ver. 7. In this verse we have the important practical design of the salvation-work described in the three preceding verses: in order that, being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The expression by His grace ( ôῇ ÷Üñéôé ἐêåßíïõ ) must be connected with God the Father, since it is He always who is represented as conferring the grace which justifies the ungodly. Concurrently, however, with the Father’s procedure in respect to justification, there is an indispensable action of the Holy Spirit, uniting the sinner to Christ, and so establishing a vital bond between the guilty and the righteous. For, however gratuitous the act of justification is as bestowed on its objects, not only without any good deeds on their part, but in spite of many bad deeds, there is nothing arbitrary in it. It proceeds upon such a connection between the soul and Christ as secures for it a participation in His infinite worth and sufficiency, so that God is just even when He justifies the ungodly (Rom_3:26). When it is said, further, that this justification is effected that we might become êëçñïíüìïé ãåíçèῶìåí êáô ʼ ἐëðßäá æùῆò áἰùíßïõ , the explanation may run, either heirs in respect to hope of eternal life—heirs of that life, yet meanwhile having it only in hope; or heirs in conformity with the hope of eternal life—of all that such a hope entitles to. Grammatically, the one explanation is as admissible as the other. But I think, with Alford, against Huther and Ellicott, that considering the expression used by the apostle at the commencement of this epistle, å ̓ ð ʼ ἐëðßäá æùῆò áἰùíßïõ , it is more natural here to couple hope directly with eternal life, and regard the heirship spoken of as comprehending all that is conformable to, or is embraced in, the hope of eternal life. But the difference between the two modes of exposition is of a philological rather than a doctrinal kind: in substance the meaning is much the same either way; and to the popular apprehension, it will matter extremely little whether we say of the justified that he is heir of eternal life, as to hope, or that he is heir of whatever the hope of eternal life warrants him to look for. Niceties of this description in the interpretation of Scripture, if they may be noticed, should certainly not be dwelt upon.
A few practical advices to Titus now close the hortatory part of the epistle, followed up by some personal notices and salutations.